Daniel Keyes

What happens when two personal freedoms conflict? 

[Ted] Kindos owns Gator Ted’s Tap & Grill in Burlington. Four years ago, he asked a marijuana smoker to step away from his front door.

The medically licensed toker complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission of bias against a disabled person. He won.

Kindos was about to pay the fine and post obligatory signs saying, “We accommodate medicinal marijuana smokers,” when a different government agency told him he could lose his liquor licence. Serving anybody possessing a controlled substance – prescribed or not – is against the law.

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Medicinal marijuana smokers certainly have a right to access their medicine, free of discrimination (you can even argue that anyone should have a right to do anything to their own bodies as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights – but there are laws preventing that). But shouldn’t people also have a right to protect the well-being of their business? Would the toker be any worse off if he had simply moved a few meters away from the entrance, away from the families that regularly passed through? Apparently a compromise wasn’t good enough.

After spending $40,000 to fight the rights complaint – the government covered [the smoker, Steve] Gibson’s costs – Kindos announced last May he would settle. But on seeing the offer, he changed his mind. He was ordered to pay Gibson $2,000 for pain and suffering, train staff in the human rights code, educate the public about the code, and post the signs.

Discovering he could lose his licence proved the last straw.

Kindos must continue to fight the complaint or lose his business, he says. Legal bills could also bankrupt him but a lawyer has agreed to take the next stage without charge.

All this because the Ontario Human Rights Commission got involved in a situation that could have easily been worked out between two individuals.

Should a public university, funded by taxpayers, be able to censor controversial speech on campus? According to the University of Calgary, the answer to this question is a resounding “yes.” In spite of its stated mission to “seek truth and disseminate knowledge,” and in spite of advertising itself as “a place of education and scholarly inquiry,” the University of Calgary has charged some of its own students with “trespassing” because they set up a pro-life display on their own campus this past November.

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People have varying life perspectives – sharing those perspectives enables progress. It doesn’t matter if you agree with the message or not, cutting it off only contributes to ignorance. 

The fact the University of Calgary has allowed other controversial displays to go on raises questions about their motives in this particular case:

Moreover, the university has expressed no qualms about other controversial large colour displays, including ones showing the effects of torture on political dissidents in China, the cruelty of animal testing and the consequences of spousal abuse. It seems gory and disturbing displays on campus are fine–as long as they do not convey a politically incorrect view on abortion.

A publicly funded educational institution getting involved in a public debate is one thing – and that’s another question altogether that we can leave for another time. But, assuming it’s perfectly acceptable for them to participate in the debate, is there anything that can justify silencing the other side?

I’m new to this blogging thing, so lets see if I can figure it out.

I came across this article today.

City bureaucrats will be drafting Toronto’s first urban food production policy in the coming months as part of the green agenda, but to nurture the brainstorming process the parks and environment committee invited the local gardening community to plant some seeds of inspiration.
“All of the city of Toronto is a farm. All of the city of Toronto was a farm,” said Debbie Field, executive director of Food Share, a grassroots group that promotes everything from cultivation to healthy eating. “We literally have paved over paradise and put up a parking lot on the most important agricultural land in Canada.”
Ideas stemming from a panel discussion suggested everything from turning more parks into community plots, edible landscaping and markets to sell of produce raised in leased-out backyard gardens.

Until now, the message that city has been sending to would-be gardeners is “No, go away,” she said, with policies that frown on fruit trees for being messy and veto tomato vines in front yards. Ms. Field said she envisions a first policy that opens up more public space for growing food, neighbourhood compost heaps that can be used on gardens (unlike the green bin program which includes contaminants like diapers and tampons) and a few pilot entrepreneurial urban farms.
Untangling a nexus of zoning regulations that hamper plowing under parking lots and bylaws that complicate rooftop gardens are expected to be a major part of getting Toronto growing, said Richard Butts, the deputy city manager. Examining the sale of food is expected to be an even thornier question with its public health implications.

Walden, the book I’m currently reading, came to mind. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get all our food from our own back yard? If I gave up tea and beef and lived off the land like Henry David Thoreau, I’d have more time for blogging. But its funny how moving back to simpler ways of living requires so much bureaucracy.