Screwed Up Government Priorities

There's too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can't you see
This is a land of confusion.

Land of Confusion, Genesis(1986)

It’s all a matter of priorities.

Some priorities are self-evident. Case in point, the roof on my workshop.

As Trish so eloquently pointed out in an earlier column, she saw me on the roof tearing things off and hammering things together. This was because whenever it rained outside, it also rained in my workshop. We had a choice, either turn it into an open-air patio or fix it. So, it became a priority.

Unfortunately, it should have been a priority sooner as the shape of the wood underneath indicated. And that is the thing with priorities; they constantly change. It was not a priority at 9:25 Sunday morning to unlock my car but at 9:30 when the car alarm suddenly went off, it became a priority. I won’t even go into the fact that we didn’t even know it had a car alarm, which now makes going to the dealership in London a priority.

Some priorities are less clear.

My wife has the opinion that putting up drywall in the living room is a priority. For some reason, she has the opinion walls are an integral part of the house and, without them, as she so delicately puts it, the house looks like Harlem. I, on the other hand, think it is a priority to download that song I want off the Internet (which, at the time of this writing is still legal in Canada). According to my wife, I have what is called “misplaced” priorities.

All this may explain why I do not understand our provincial government. I just cannot figure out the reason behind their priorities.

First they shove through the closing of the coal-fired generating plants. On the surface, this may seem like a good way of getting rid of some of the air pollution Ontario suffers through every summer. Unfortunately, with a 400 percent increase in coal generation in the United States over the last 20 years, the chances are it will make very little difference. Also, when you consider that coal generation produces 25 percent of our electricity at 50 percent of the cost of other sources, I kind of like having them running.

It is unclear to me why the government couldn’t just require the coal plants to put in scrubbers. Not only is there technology to remove the sulphur emissions but there are also new technologies for removal of carbon dioxide. It wouldn’t have done much to reduce the pollution from the US since Americans only require scrubbers on new plants so everyone is busy expanding the existing ones, but hey, it would have made us feel better. It may also have cost money but, even if it cost as much as a natural gas fired plant, it would still be cheaper than closing them down and building new plants.

Then, there is the Pit Bull ban.

This ban, put in place in the name of public safety, confuses me. One cannot argue that the attacks by these dogs are horrific but you have to wonder about the thought behind this ban. First, there is the vagueness of it. If you happen to own a dog that looks like it might be related to a Pit Bull, you fall under the new legislation. Did the government set this up so they could keep their lawyers employed? The vagueness of the definition of Pit Bull practically ensured it would be challenged, especially since Pit Bull isn’t even a real breed.

Perhaps, we should ban all breeds that are involved in fatal human attacks. This would, according to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, ban such dangerous breeds as West Highland Terriers and Cocker Spaniels. Typically, no group in Canada tracks this sort of thing.

Meanwhile, back in the Bat Cave, a store clerk was recently shot in the foot during a robbery attempt in London. A few weeks before, there was a spectacular smash and grab in London that ended with gunshots and two dead. Almost weekly, it seems, there is another gun death in Toronto. Gun violence is on the rise in this country and what is our government doing about it? Sweet diddly-squat.

The Premier of Ontario, when asked what his government’s plans were to deal with this wave of violence, responded they were putting 1000 new police on the streets. Only when you look closely, do you discover the government will only pay half of the cost of these additional police officers while the municipalities are expected to pony up the remainder. These would be the same municipalities that are struggling to get out of the red.

Of course, one cannot just blame the province for ignoring this problem. The federal government is just as guilty of this behaviour as the rest. With almost $1 billion dollars already sunk into the gun registry, their latest brain wave is to force the police and military to register their weapons. Yep, that will definitely make the streets safer.

Here’s an idea, how about doing something useful?

It is time we forced our politicians to actually take meaningful action and stop with the window dressing. If they want to have a useful registry, then it needs to be a birth to death registry. Any gun made needs to be registered before it even leaves the factory. Furthermore, to make it actually useful, there needs to be a ballistic fingerprint taken so the police have something they can actually use in an investigation.

We need to beef up our security at the borders and along the coasts so these weapons can be intercepted. According to the union representing border guards, only one in twenty illegal weapons are being caught. We need more people to search for these weapons. Of course, they could come across by boat and we can hope that one of the three Coast Guard ships that patrol ALL of the Great Lakes intercepts them.

In the meantime, we can all feel better knowing that in the future the smog we are breathing isn’t being produced by an Ontario coal-fired generator. We will also be able to walk down the street safe from a vicious dog attack, our only worry being those pesky bullets.

But, then again, perhaps my priorities are misplaced.