The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50842
opinion BACK PA G E BY EZRA LEVANT The nanny state goes too far who skateboard, snowboard, ice skate, or even toboggan. In other words, just about any activity except for watching TV. So far, Vaughan's city council has only approved an "educational and public awareness program," but a mandatory helmet law is the next step in the plan. "Presented properly, I believe we T can get Vaughan residents on board with this," cooed councillor Sandra Yeung Racco, adding boastfully, "we'd be the first in Canada to have a helmet by- law like this." But it's tough being so avant garde, people can be such fuddy-duddies about a bright, sterile future. So Yeung Racco wants taxpayers to fund a "series" of "awareness campaigns" to build support for her plans. "It would be too soon and too presumptuous to just pass a bylaw and ram it down people's throat," she con- cedes. "I want people to buy into this." But if people bought into Yeung Racco's view, there wouldn't be a need for a bylaw, would there? People would just put hel- mets on their own children without some busybody hectoring them about it. The fact that she and fellow councillor Ma- rio Ferri want a law is an admission they won't convince anyone a couple of public- ity-hungry politicians know how to raise kids better than their own parents do. We already know how extremist safety crusades like Yeung Racco's turn out. In 2000, Toronto's school board ripped out the equipment from 172 different play- grounds across the city, in the name of safety — though not a single death or serious accident had been recorded. Un- like Yeung Racco, Toronto didn't engage in an "awareness campaign." Parents and 54 APRIL 2008 www. C ANADIAN even school principals found out about it when the demolition crews showed up. In the anger that followed, the school board chairman had her own awareness raised, including about the lack of injuries. "I'm not interested in statistics. They are irrel- evant here," explained Shelley Laskin. She's right. This isn't about reason. It's about a puritan ideology, a mix of hyper- aversion to risk, over-lawyered decision- making, and an authoritarian impulse to control others, especially when they're having fun. It's the same ideology that wants to ban alcohol, tobacco, trans fats, SUVs, and other enjoyable but supposed- ly naughty things. And don't dare argue against it. As Laskin demanded: "Which child are you prepared to have fall?" With no slides or monkey bars to fall off, there won't be any falls. Some parents might argue that falling down — and learning to get back up — is an impor- tant part of being a kid. But such people just haven't had their awareness raised. Back to Vaughan. City hall actually set up a "toboggan task force" to study the matter. Sandy Wells, co-author of the toboggan task force's report, didn't quite give the answer the politicians were looking for. Tobogganing itself is safe. It's mag.com wo councillors from Vaughan, Ont. have proposed a law to make helmets man- datory for children other factors like a lack of adult supervi- sion, choosing dangerous hills, and tobogganing near roads that have caused any injuries. "It wasn't an inherent risk of to- bogganing; it was a reflection of the context in which they were doing it," she said. Neither councillor was daunted. "Twenty years ago, winter weather patterns were totally different," opined Ye- ung Racco, adding amateur cli- matology to her other specialty of pediatrics. So helmets are nec- essary because of extreme climate change. Ferri added there likely won't be cash for helmet police. "But the sheer logic of this will be reinforced by this process." It's that sheer logic that should terrify us. For their logic is that we are wards of the nanny state, and the government's opinions on private matters such as how a child plays ought to be governed by laws, not the customs and love of each family. There's not a crevice or crack of private life in which these politicians don't feel the right to insert themselves. The sheer logic of their ideology — that your body and your personal decisions are proper subjects for the government's attention — doesn't stop with their mod- est plans. If the government has a right to tell children to wear helmets, why not adults, too? And what will happen to families who believe in a more vigorous upbringing for their children than do the milquetoasts of Vaughan? Will children who are allowed to roam and ramble and get scratches and cuts, playing as children ought to be able to do, be removed from parents who allow such danger? Will Child and Family Services be dispatched? Or will their parents simply be required to attend government "awareness" semi- nars? Ezra Levant is a Calgary lawyer. His e-mail is ezra@ezralevant.com ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT PAGE