Ontario to ban the recession

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty tabled legislation earlier this week to keep the worldwide recession from the province. The Act to make Ontario Recession-free is expected to easily pass in the Liberal-dominated legislature. McGuinty stated that recessions are bad and we just cannot have them in Ontario, especially during a time when job losses are rising, manufacturing plants are closing and peoples’ savings are dwindling.

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The bill provides for fines up to $5,000 for anyone caught using the “R” word either verbally or in print. Other provisions include the power of police officers to seize a stock if it loses 10% of its value during any five day consecutive day period. The stock would be seized for a minimum of seven days or as long as the police feel that it should be removed from the market. There is no appeal from this seizure.           “Ontarians are losing jobs. Too many Ontario workers are getting pink slips and this is just unacceptable in the province”, said McGuinty. As a result, the bill provides that any business that employees five or more employees is subject to a search by police, without the necessity of obtaining a warrant, and to have any pink slips found on the premises seized. These pink slips will later be burned and used as alternative fuel. Any employer who actually gives an employee a pink slip will be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of up to $50,000, a year in jail, or both.           Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino stated, “After 40 years in policing, writing tickets and even arresting dangerous bad guys is extremely boring. I like seizing the private property of ordinary citizens. I like the looks on their faces when I take their cars, especially the rented ones. I especially enjoy seizing property when the TV cameras are rolling. This new legislation is a step in the right direction.”           Just kidding. But a law to prevent the recession isn’t any more ridiculous than some current legislation that has been passed that interferes with the private property rights of ordinary citizens. For example, last month it became illegal to smoke in a vehicle in the presence of children. Earlier this week a 20-year-old man was stopped in Eastern Ontario for smoking while he was carrying a 15-year-old passenger. When the police officer was in the process of writing a $155 ticket for the young man, the 15-year-old girl stepped out of the car. Obviously upset about the incident, she lit up a cigarette. While it is an offence to sell or give tobacco to a 15-year-old, it is perfectly legal for a person that age to smoke. The girl’s actions pointed out the absolute ridiculousness of much of the province’s legislation whose sole design is to trample on the rights of the law abiding.           One of the major mistakes that the 20-year-old man made was to smoke a cigarette rather than a joint. While possession of marijuana is still a criminal offence, it is not illegal to smoke dope in a vehicle in Ontario where children are present; only tobacco. So if a person has permission to smoke marijuana for medical purposes it is quite legal in the province to sit in an enclosed vehicle and blow marijuana smoke right in the face of an asthmatic toddler. Laws such as this are all about power; all about social engineering. While major criticisms are being leveled at the U.S. Congress for passing a bill that they didn’t read, in Ontario we apparently pass legislation that the lawmakers don’t even bother to think through.           With NDP leader Howard Hampton on his way out and Conservative leader John Tory never really having arrived in the first place, the province is without any effective opposition. After the big cigarette bust in eastern Ontario, it fell to Liberal backbencher Lou Rinaldi to suggest that perhaps there is a tad something wrong with a law that fined a 20-year-old smoker for lighting up in front of a 15-year-old smoker. The unintended consequences of such legislation, apart from making the legislators look foolish, makes it harder for the ordinary citizen to have any respect the law.           What is more troubling is the fact that so many Ontarians are apathetic to the creative ways that the province continually devises to deprive them of their rights. But then again, perhaps they are too worried about their jobs and their savings to take much notice. Better hurry up, Dalton. Ban that recession!

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