Wag the Dog

Imagine the Attorney General of Ontario sees some news stories about red cars involved in accidents.  Imagine that he notices that the news media seems to cover more stories about red cars being involved in accidents than any other car colour.   Now imagine that he speaks to a mechanic who says that red cars are involved in more accidents than any other colour.  The AG might decide to pass a law banning red cars. 

If you currently own a red car, you can keep it under the new law, but you will face restrictions.  You will have to specially license your red car with the Province and place a decal indicating this on the windshield.  You will have to put a limiter on it to prevent it from reaching a speed above 50 kmh.  You will only be allowed to drive it in approved areas and will have to put a special light on it so that at night when it isn’t obvious that your car is red, other drivers, pedestrians and police will be able to identify it as a red car.  You will have to pay a higher insurance premium, and you will have to wear a helmet at all times when driving it. 

Absolutely no new red cars will be allowed in the Province.  No exceptions will be granted for visitors, tourists, those travelling through the Province on their way somewhere else or new residents.  Anyone with an unregistered red car will be subject to fines and possible jail time, a criminal record, and the car will be crushed.  If your car is substantially similar to a red car – that is, it might not be candy apple red, but maybe your brown car has a red hue to it, is orange leaning toward red, or it might have red trim on it – it can be identified as a red car by a police officer and impounded and crushed if not registered.  It is up to you to prove your car is not red.

Now remember in this scenario, the only evidence the AG used to introduce this new law is that the media seemed to be reporting a number of accidents involving red cars, and he spoke to one person he considered an expert.  At the public hearings for this law, imagine there is opposition.  Insurance experts, other mechanics, experts in the collision industry inform the AG that the proposed law is flawed, because statistical evidence and expert opinion don’t support the hypothesis that red cars are involved in more accidents than any other colour.  Auto makers are there too, and they inform the lawmakers that their red cars have the same features as cars of other colour, and that banning red cars will not make Ontarians any safer, and that instead laws need to be in place to prevent aggressive and dangerous driving in any colour of car, and that those laws need to have harsh penalties and must be enforced.  There are also coroner’s inquest reports available at the hearings, with recommendations from previous auto accidents from all types of cars that recommend safe driving education programs as a key part of the solution to the problem of auto accidents.  Owners of red cars are there, testifying to how responsible they are as drivers of their red cars, explaining that the vast majority of red car drivers are working people with families and that are not all red car drivers are aggressive young drivers, street racers or people who drive under the influence.

Now imagine that the AG and the government push the law through anyway, stating that they believe that red cars are a colour apart, and that it is in the best interest of the safety of Ontarians to ban them.  They ban all red cars and don’t implement any safe driving education.  They ignore the multitude of experts who oppose their idea in favour of listening to one who supports it.

As ridiculous as this is, it is very similar to what happened in Ontario with DOLA.  Only dogs, unlike cars, are members of the family, with feelings.  They notice when forced to wear a muzzle or when they are taken from their owners and held in prisons while their fate is decided.  They miss the freedom they previously had to be a normal dog. They are living beings. 

Not only that, but the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that something as flimsy as media reports can be used as reasoned apprehension of harm. 

What this ruling has done has been to make the Ontario Government believe that they can ban anything they like.  What will be next?   My husband said today, only half joking, that we’d better hope the Ontario AG isn’t intimidated by three hundred pound men with more muscle than him, or he might ban those too even though they aren’t a threat to him. He was only half joking because how could the Ontario Government shock us any more than they have with how this boondoggle of an overly broad, overly vague, overly crazy law?  It’s 2008.  Appearance should not be a factor in lawmaking.  Ontario missed that memo I guess.

So with the stroke of a pen, three years ago, rights were taken from Ontario’s dog owners.  Now apparently Ontario’s government can take away more rights if it likes.  All it needs is a few media stories and a determination to do the wrong thing.