Law, Legislation and Liberty - State Paternalism - Exemplified by Liquor Control
Excerpt from a letter sent to Attorney General & Minister of Justice Suzanne Anton
Attorney General and Minister of Justice Suzanne Anton
“When we announced B.C.’s minimum prices, along with the
introduction of happy hour, we were clear that we’d keep a close eye on how
these prices impacted consumers and businesses. Creating a new category for
draught beer in servings over 50 oz.
is a fair balance for consumers that still takes into account the views of
business owners and health and safety advocates.”
http://www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/2014/07/updated-prices-better-align-with-consumers-expectations.html
You have a large constituency who are offended by this
government’s departure from “liberal values”, “free market mentality” and, as
well, a seeming general unwillingness to let adults manage their own lives. I
have no interest in the government determining the price of liquor for any reason;
there is a market to take care of that; your comment is indicative of a growing
propensity for government to “protect us from ourselves”. No matter what the
form, state paternalism needs to be confronted.
State paternalism is ugly enough here, it has more dire
consequences in other areas of public endeavour such as in the medical system,
where people are impaired from caring for themselves due to regulation, or in
the fact that Veterinary medications are now restricted so people are unable to
attend to the animals of their own accord for a reasonable price.
British Columbia’s liquor laws are arcane and archaic –
like all legislation, liquor laws should be simple and pose as limited an
impact on individual choice as possible.
You reference fair balance, I assume this is in some way
related to the Fair Balance Test the courts apply to determine whether state
infringement Section 7 of the Charter is appropriate or not. One could argue
that the entire anti-drinking and driving complex, from the legislation to
enforcement is a charter breach; blood alcohol level is in no way an indication
of impairment against a broad societal standard, it is an arbitrary number and
nothing more. We should concern ourselves more with impairment relative to a
minimum standard of capacity, because it is a safe assertion, that 80-year-old
Mr. Jones having taken two anti-anxiety pills and some cold medicine is more
impaired than the average British Columbian at .05 or .08 blood alcohol level. I am afraid that “morality” has eclipsed
reason in the drawing of and in the execution of our liquor law, as it has in many
areas of government policy. For BC’s liquor laws to withstand the “fair
balance” test, there has to be evidence of a threat to society at large by an
individual’s actions – breathalyzers and blood alcohol levels offer no means to
identify risk to the public against a general standard – only competency
testing can.
Regards,
Neil E. Thomson
This minister’s comment from a web commentary sparked the
re-emergence of an old passion in me, a passion that finds its genius in having
been taught that in Canada we are allowed to manage our own lives, so long as
our actions pose no direct threat to others. There has been an insidious
increase in governments' further intrusion into our personal lives; it is
reaching epic proportions. Please, take a moment to do a dependent origination analysis
on your interface with society at large and then assess where the government is
involved – it seems every breath you take the government has a hand in it, or a
finger in the pie. This individual minister is a sincere person who has taken
to the government to “help” and she sees her role as having afforded the opportunity to
manage the consumption of alcohol on the part of British Columbians. The point
is, I can manage it on my own thank you, absent the government making a product
I like to enjoy more expensive.
The government takes about $.70 of every dollar you spend on
liquor, this is an outrageous levy, it is a levy founded on the belief that “sin”
taxes have moral grounding. The fact that the intervention in liquor is founded
on morality rather than rational thought, is substantiated by the fact there are
many products on the market in the way of foodstuffs that are more damaging
the remain unfettered.
The intrusion into the area of liquor consumption is emblematic
of a growing propensity of the government to manage our lives. I submit that the
whole liquor “control” complex is in breach of the Charter of Rights and
freedoms. The 70% tax, the price variation to deter consumption of certain
product over another and other government actions, are all an infringement on
my liberty, that is to say, the government has created distortions in the
liquor market that impact my choice by taxing that choice in a manner the supersedes
the norm. The government’s justification for this is to reduce liquor
consumption generally, in doing so, however, they require that I pay more for
the “fixed” amount of liquor I consume – this is patently unfair – I am being
punished for the actions of others. The government is using its authority – through
fining the use of a product - to reduce my choice when my choice poses no
threat or harm to society at large. This action fails to make muster against
the backdrop of the Fair Balance Test to determine appropriate infringements
of government on my section 7 rights.
It is a habit of government to take our money and then
return it to us should we conform to the government's view of the world, to effect
a change in behaviour by taxing an action or delivering a pecuniary reward to do
something is a clear an attempt by the government to effect a change in choice and
that translates to an infringement on liberty. For the government to manage the human
interface, corporate interface and other institutional interfaces to facilitate the
human endeavour, some intrusion is necessary. For the government to walk into the
living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms or the homes in general of the Canadian
pollution, is an affront to the individual to exercise themselves as a free agent.
The encroachment of government into the private lives of
people must be arrested and reversed in many cases. The government is systematizing
earlier and earlier intervention into the people’s lives, parents no longer get
to parent, and the government works every day to institutionalize early childhood
development. The application of state authority to “manage” the moral judgment
of the citizenry is an outrage; in this case, the government openly states it is
managing liquor consumption by changing the price of liquor. At what point does
this foray into personal choice end? There are people wanting to tax French fries, and fine – overconsumption and inactivity, which are deemed to be immoral in
some quarters – so now is the government going to make mandatory 1 hour of
daily exercise and tax calorie intake. Every time I have the government intrude
on choice, I am offended – we should all tell, all governments, we can run our
own lives – given governments' track record juxtaposed against how the vast
majority of Canadians run their lives, we will all be better off if we can make
our own choices.
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