Truthiness Strikes Justice Department
Truthiness seems to be a hallmark of conservative governments and that’s certainly also true up here in snowy Canada.
Canadian Conservative Justice Minister Rick Toews (pronounced “Taves” or similar) was on CBC Radio’s The House on Sunday, pushing his latest bill that calls for harsher penalties for impaired driving legislation, with a special focus on busting drug-impaired driving.
Sounds like a good idea right? Yeah, sorta. But, conveniently, Toews failed to mention how many accidents on Canadian roads are the result of recreational drug use. And do these suspiciously absent numbers justify the time, cost, energy and encroachment of Charter rights that would be required to enforce the new legislation? (Based on hunches and subjective tests, cops would be able to “demand […] bodily fluid”.)
Sure, it feels like a good idea to crack down on drug-impaired driving, but “from the gut” legislation results in laws that are more based on partisan optics than on genuine problem solving…
