Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan defended the board of the LCBO with words such as “competent” but at the same time he endorsed Auditor General Jim McCarter’s criticism that the LCBO doesn’t do enough to negotiate lower prices. I suspect that Mr. Duncan is thinking about the deficit and realizes that perhaps the LCBO cash [...]
Category Archives: Personal liberty
Randy Hillier pushing to end pit bull ban
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 1, 2011 Comments Off
Randy Hillier is leading the charge to repeal one of Dalton McGuinty’s many bans, the ban on pit bulls. He is being joined by MPPs from both the Liberal Party and the NDP. Considering the multiparty nature of this move and the minority parliament, I am pretty hopeful that it will get through. The pit [...]
Excercising is not a risk free investment
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 29, 2011 2 comments
In response to a survey that says Canadians don’t feel they have the time to work out, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada seems to want people to view exercise as an investment. If you spend time working out you will ultimately gain more time by living longer. Like any investment, however, this is [...]
One good crime reform
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on October 25, 2011 Comments Off
As bad as the Conservative government’s crime reform agenda is and has been, there is one bright spot that I think should be noted. The Conservatives are planning on altering the criminal code to allow greater discretion for the individual to defend himself or herself against an aggressor. As things stand now it is deeply [...]
Volunteers in the media: Libertarian islands edition
Posted by Peter Jaworski on August 17, 2011 2 comments
At around 5:25 p.m. EST tonight, I will be on Ezra Levant’s The Source to talk about, what else?, libertarian islands! You can watch the show live beginning at 5 p.m. here (or tune in to Sun TV if you get it). Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, has put over a million dollars into this [...]
Jerry Agnar on harm reduction and the drug war
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on August 3, 2011 2 comments
Jerry Agnar argues that the Canadian Harm Reduction Network cannot say that the drug war has failed and that harm reduction has worked. He claims that if you make the case that the drug war has failed due to the continued prevalence of drugs then the same reasoning must mean that harm reduction has also [...]
A conservative’s insanity
Posted by Terrence Watson on July 22, 2011 6 comments
Crime is down in Canada. Way down. As the Globe & Mail points out, the national crime rate has fallen to 1973 levels, continuing a 20-year decline. Homicides, attempted murders, serious assaults and robberies were all down last year from the year before. Young people were accused of committing fewer offences. Even property crime was [...]
The failure of the nanny state
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on June 14, 2011 2 comments
I write a lot about how the government shouldn’t try and control the choices of individuals, but often a better argument to make is that the government actually can’t control the choices of individuals. A recent study by Centre for Addiction and Mental Health shows that Ontarians are drinking more alcohol and smoking more marijuana. [...]
Wheat and light bulb freedom
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on May 20, 2011 3 comments
The Conservative government has recently announced two policy positions that deserve a pat on the back. One is the decision to push ahead and break up the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly, and the other is the decision to push back the deadline for banning incandescent light bulbs. It doesn’t take a brilliant economist or insightful [...]
No knock warrants
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on May 17, 2011 1 comment
A no knock warrant is basically when members of a SWAT team charge into your home without even bothering to ask for compliance. A no knock warrant is often treated like an attack upon a foreign enemy, in the same way that Navy Seals attacked Osama Bin Ladin. The difference of course is that these [...]
19-year-old Iowan kid makes the case for gay marriage
Posted by Peter Jaworski on April 4, 2011 2 comments
In Iowa, an effort to ban gay marriage by constitutionalizing a one man one woman requirement, has quietly died: A bill that would define a legal union as the marriage between one man and one woman has died in the Legislature. House Joint Resolution 6 would have proposed an amendment to the Iowa Constitution specifying [...]
In defense of ranking freedoms
Posted by Peter Jaworski on March 15, 2011 13 comments
Over the last week, I’ve been keen on trying to figure out how various countries stack up according to various freedom indices. It started with my claim that I’m a libertarian mostly for empirical reasons. In my Bleeding heart libertarians post, I wrote: While I share liberal value commitments, I have certain empirical beliefs that [...]
Comparing the world, in terms of freedom
Posted by Peter Jaworski on March 14, 2011 20 comments
I suggested we should put together a meta-index, and listed a bunch of possible indexes that already exist which we could use for our overall evaluation. There appear to be two such indexes already: The Free Existence meta-index, as well as the Institutional Quality Index (the actual report is in Spanish h/t Nico in the [...]
Conrad Black and the rights of the convicted
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 14, 2011 1 comment
Conrad Black has been a strong critic of the federal government’s criminal justice reforms. He makes several good points in this National Post op-ed, but the most important point is found in these two paragraphs: I believe in the exercise of liberty by apparently responsible people up to the limit that their exercise of liberty [...]
Canada is free, the U.S. is mostly free
Posted by Peter Jaworski on March 13, 2011 31 comments
UPDATE: There appears to be a reliable meta-index. The results, and more top-10 lists, are located here In my bleeding heart libertarians post, I made the claim that I’d like to, as an interim step, move towards a Scandinavian and Swiss-style state. It surprised me that more than one person responded by suggesting that those [...]
Flavoured cigarillos should not be banned
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 9, 2011 12 comments
MP Megan Leslie wants to ban all types of flavoured cigarillos. This is an expansion on an earlier law that banned some flavoured cigarillos but not all. I am not a closed minded sort of person. My bias lies firmly with allowing people to produce and purchase any product that they want, but if you [...]
Police chief wants people to stop filming police after beating video goes public
Posted by Mike Brock on February 18, 2011 3 comments
Four police are facing criminal charges for the beating of a 15-year-old burglary suspect in Houston, Texas. The charges stem from security camera footage, which clearly show the suspect surrendering to police, by lying on his stomach and placing his hands behind is head, only to be subjected to a brutal beating by four officers with [...]
Criminal investigation launched into G20 incident
Posted by Mike Brock on February 12, 2011 21 comments
The woman in question has launched a $1.6 million lawsuit against the Toronto Police. Yesterday, the Toronto Police finally opened a criminal investigation against officers into the use of rubber bullets on protesters at point-blank range. Here’s a video from the incident, clearing showing police advancing within several meters of a protester and unloading several [...]
Just human beings with a hard job
Posted by Mike Brock on February 8, 2011 3 comments
… treating other human beings like animals: At least one of Toronto’s armed bureaucrats describes his job as a “human garbage collector” for the City of Toronto. I guess it’s too much to ask, to expect things like human decency when it comes to dealing with “human garbage”. Update (afterthought): In the recent Supreme Court [...]
Whiny Canadians want cheap internet
Posted by Mike Brock on February 1, 2011 13 comments
I can’t take it anymore. Listen up, you whiny brats: you are not entitled to cheap internet service. Government regulation of pricing may have the effect of cheapening your bill, but you will always pay the price somewhere. It usually comes in the form of poor service quality, low re-investment, and a lack of future [...]