Quotulatiousness

February 17, 2012

America’s galloping regulation state

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Government, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:55

You know you’re becoming a regulation-for-the-sake-of-regulation state when even The Economist — whose current staff have never met an EU regulation they didn’t love to pieces — can correctly poke fun at you for your obsessive over-regulation of everything:

Americans love to laugh at ridiculous regulations. A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there. The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end is which. Bureaucratic busybodies in Bethesda, Maryland, have shut down children’s lemonade stands because the enterprising young moppets did not have trading licences. The list goes hilariously on.

But red tape in America is no laughing matter. The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd. It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively. America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire. Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse. Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal.

[. . .]

Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to believe that they can lay down rules to govern every eventuality. Examples range from the merely annoying (eg, a proposed code for nurseries in Colorado that specifies how many crayons each box must contain) to the delusional (eg, the conceit of Dodd-Frank that you can anticipate and ban every nasty trick financiers will dream up in the future). Far from preventing abuses, complexity creates loopholes that the shrewd can abuse with impunity.

The other force that makes American laws complex is lobbying. The government’s drive to micromanage so many activities creates a huge incentive for interest groups to push for special favours. When a bill is hundreds of pages long, it is not hard for congressmen to slip in clauses that benefit their chums and campaign donors. The health-care bill included tons of favours for the pushy. Congress’s last, failed attempt to regulate greenhouse gases was even worse.

February 16, 2012

How long will it take for McGuinty to “lose” the Drummond report?

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:24

Yesterday, the Drummond report was released, containing literally hundreds of recommendations for getting Ontario’s government back on the fiscal straight-and-narrow. Perhaps half a dozen of the recommendations will be welcomed by Dalton McGuinty and his ministers. The rest will be anywhere from mildly unwelcome to outright anathema. In the National Post, Linda Nguyen has an overview:

The Ontario government needs to “swiftly and boldly” implement all of the hundreds of recommendations in a massive report released Wednesday if it wants to eliminate a projected $30.2 billion deficit by 2017, warns economist Don Drummond.

“Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a harsh reality in identity here,” said Mr. Drummond, author of the 543-page report and former chief economist with TD Bank.

The audit, which could be an example to other jurisdictions struggling to control spending, offered 362 recommendations in various sectors including health care, education, social programs, justice and labour relations.

[. . .]

In its 2011 budget, the Ontario government had projected its deficit to climb to $16-billion, but Mr. Drummond says his projects peg it at more than double that if the province continues its current spending.

To reach the target, Ontario must decrease its total program spending to 0.8% for the next seven years.

It’s been an item of faith among Liberals and NDPers that former Premier Mike Harris carpet-bombed the provincial economy during his two terms in office. As Scott Stinson points out, however, “Ontario’s projected spending needs a 17% cut. Mike Harris only cut 3.9%”:

“Avoid across-the-board cuts. Such a blunt tool treats equally a valuable efficiently run program and one that is outdated and sloppily managed. This is dumb.”
Dumb? Such plain speaking! We are used to government reports that prefer to say a measure “fails to properly realize efficiencies by ensuring its actions are in line with forward-looking goals and objectives.”

“This is not a smorgasbord from which the government can choose only the tastiest morsels and ignore the less palatable.”
Eat your brussels sprouts, Dalton McGuinty! But despite the pleasant analogy — who doesn’t enjoy a good buffet? — this is one of the more stark lines in the whole report. Implement it all, or it won’t work, the Commission says. Yikes.

“In budget planning, do not count chickens before they are hatched.”
We’ll say this for Mr. Drummond: he’s not afraid to use the folksy language.

“Kicking the can down the road is no solution.”
See?

“Do not hang onto public assets or public service delivery when better options exist. Consider privatizing assets and moving to the private delivery of services wherever feasible.”
Also, when preparing discussions with public-service unions, bring a helmet.

[. . .]

“The province should, in future discussions with the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, reject further employer rate increases to [pension plans] beyond the current rate.”
Another one sure to be a hit with the unions. Did you know that on average a teacher retires at 59, having worked 26 years, and collects a pension for 30 years? Me neither.

“The government should work to discuss, in particular, the overproduction of teachers with Ontario’s 13 universities offering teacher education programs.”
The term “overproduction” of teachers makes them sound kind of like widgets.

“Reshape student financial assistance, including the newly announced 30% Off Ontario Tuition grant, to target more of the assistance to low-income students.”
Say, remember that key plank of your election platform? Yeah, you need to totally rethink that.

Getting rid of that messy, obstructive “democracy” thing in Europe

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Government, Greece, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:40

Bruno Waterfield on the destruction of democracy in Greece and what it will mean for the rest of the European Union:

What happens in Greece will mark the opening of a new era in European politics. It is important therefore to understand what is and isn’t going on. The crisis is not, as many believe, being driven by ‘neoliberal’ economic policies. It isn’t caused by any Greek cultural propensity to fecklessness either. And, despite the protest graffiti and the timeless appeal of Nazi references, the Greek tragedy is not a plot to restore an explicit German hegemony in Europe. Angela Merkel is no Adolf Hitler.

What is happening in Greece is a crisis of European proportions because it is the sharpest expression of a destructive trend common to all countries in the EU: the twenty-first-century elite mission to place institutions, policy and statecraft above society. The Greek catastrophe, then, is an indicator of what happens when the question of interest or politics becomes the sole preserve of bureaucratic or state structures decoupled from, and increasingly defined against, the public.

Measures imposed on Greece are explicitly declared, even celebrated, as being in opposition to Greek society. Any attempt by political parties to uphold the democratic representation of Greek interests is met with aggressive hostility. Moreover, the EU-IMF programme, or so-called Memorandum of Understanding, for Greece is utterly divorced from economic reality. As documented in the Daily Telegraph, the Eurozone’s policies are pushing Greece into a ‘death spiral’ that defies any economic logic.

Are you for Orwellian surveillance by government thugs or are you with the child pornographers?

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:23

Margaret Wente in the Globe & Mail:

Where do you stand on the new online surveillance bill? Are you with the government? Or are you with the child pornographers? According to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, you have to choose.

In case you fail to get the point, the new legislation is being subtly marketed as the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act. Of course, maybe you don’t really care about protecting children from Internet predators. Maybe you don’t care that without this law, filthy perverts will continue to roam free. Really, it’s your choice.

I am scarcely the first person to point out that Stephen Harper’s government likes to demonize its opponents, or that it has a nasty authoritarian streak. But in this case, the dissent is unusually widespread. Those with doubts about the bill include opposition politicians, civil libertarians, privacy commissioners and Internet experts — plus more than a few small-c conservatives who wonder why our government insists on whipping up unnecessary moral panic when it doesn’t have to.

[. . .]

So why do I stand with the child pornographers here? Because I’m not convinced the police need new powers to root out online child molesters. Judging by the recent highly publicized busts of child-porn rings, their existing powers seem to be working fine. Nor am I convinced that the police will never abuse their power. History shows they usually do. That’s why they need civilian oversight. That’s not liberal, in my view. That’s prudent.

The economics of the military-industrial complex

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Government, Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:57

Eisenhower was right: the military-industrial complex has the US government tight within its grip, and there’s no easy fix. Strategy Page has a useful overview:

For decades the U.S. Armed Forces has been having problems with rapidly growing (much greater than inflation) costs of weapons. Congress passes laws to try and cope and the laws are ignored. One example is the laws calling for accurate life-cycle costs (for development, manufacturer, and maintenance of weapons over their entire service life). A recent study found out that, despite laws calling for accuracy and consistency in these numbers, most manufacturers manipulated the data to make their systems look less expensive than they actually were. The Department of Defense is increasingly taking extreme measures in the face of this corruption and cancelling more and more very expensive systems. But the manufacturers continue to use smoke and mirrors to get new projects started and failed ones funded.

New weapons get approved because of another form of procurement corruption, the Low Ball Bid. Last year the U.S. Air Force demanded that defense contractors stop low balling, which in practice means submitting unrealistically low bids for new weapons (to make it easier for Congress to get things started) and then coming back for more and more money as “unforeseen problems” appear and costs keep escalating and delivery is delayed. Currently, procurement projects are about a third over budget and most items are late as well. Procurement of weapons and major equipment make up about a third of the defense budget. While this is expected to decline over the next decade, as defense budgets shrink, the problem also extends to upgrades and refurbishment of existing equipment.

The most intractable problem is the decades old contractor practice of deliberately making an unreasonably low estimate of cost when proposing a design. The military goes along with this, in the interest of getting Congress to approve the money. Since Congress has a short memory the military does not take much heat for this never ending “low ball” planning process.

February 15, 2012

Stephen Gordon: The timing may be right for an austerity budget

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

The federal government needs to rein in spending, and an “austerity” budget is intended to do that. Stephen Gordon points out that the US economy’s recent positive signs will increase the chances of budgetary success here in Canada:

For the first time in years, the economic news out of the U.S. is encouraging: a strong jobs report for January, a continuing fall in the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits, and even signs that its housing market may begin to revive in the near future. It may appear unseemly parochial to wonder what a U.S. recovery means for Canada, but that is the question that matters for Canadian policy making.

The recent recession should put to rest sayings such as “when the U.S. economy sneezes, the Canadian economy catches cold” to rest. The Canadian recession began almost a year after the U.S.’ did, was much less severe, and was over much more quickly. Nor was this an exceptional episode: the effect of a U.S. recession on Canada is much smaller than what is generally supposed.

The obverse side of this statement is that a strong U.S. recovery doesn’t guarantee strong economic growth in Canada. But it may be enough to offset the effects of an austerity program that will be much less austere than that implemented by the Chrétien Liberal government. In 1995, the federal structural deficit was on the order of four per cent of GDP, as opposed to 1 per cent now. Even if the Conservatives implement federal public-sector cuts similar in magnitude to those of the mid-1990s, transfers to provinces and individuals are to be spared.

February 13, 2012

SSDI “has transcended the usual ideological boundaries (as it was designed to do right from the start) and made tens of millions of Americans into wards of the state”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:38

Monty’s Daily DOOOOOM post at AoSHQ discusses the Social Security Disability Insurance program:

The SSDI component of Social Security is a perfect snapshot of how the welfare state both bankrupts and demeans our society. The program was meant to provide for people who were physically unable to work, but in practice it is simply another vast government program that can be gamed and cheated to provide a paycheck for no work at all. This is the welfare state in all its bureaucratic, amoral, spendthrift glory: rather than helping a relatively few who really need it, it instead enables millions of the able-bodied to avoid work. (Whatever you subsidize, you get more of. If you subsidize unemployment, you’ll get more of it.) Samuelson does a good job of explaining why this program will so hard to reform in any meaningful way, too:

    For starters, any crackdown could become a public-relations disaster. It might seem gratuitously cruel. Many recipients command sympathy. With low skills, their jobs prospects are poor. “People are driven into the program by desperation,” says Autor. Nor are they rolling in money; the average payment is about $14,000 a year.

Any attempt to tie off this spouting artery will bring howls of outrage, and not just from the left. To a large extent the welfare state has transcended the usual ideological boundaries (as it was designed to do right from the start) and made tens of millions of Americans into wards of the state. The end of the welfare state means the end of their monthly checks; it means the end of the “free” money they’ve been getting. Young or old, rich or poor, sick or healthy: it takes a rare soul to forgo “free” money in the face of some purely theoretical economic emergency. The welfare state will continue until this nation fails because, deep down, Americans don’t really want to give it up. Americans still — mostly — feel that if we just tweak this knob that way and pull that lever just so, it will all come out okay. It’s not so much good old American optimism as it is a deep and inchoate terror: the instinct of many an animal in dire peril is neither to fight nor run, but to crouch trembling where they are and pray that the danger passes them by.

How Greece got into their predicament

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Government, Greece, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:18

Anita Acavalos wrote this article in 2010. It’s still relevant — perhaps even more so today:

Although at first glance the situation Greece faces may seem as simply the result of gross incompetence on behalf of the government, a closer assessment of the country’s social structure and people’s deep-rooted political beliefs will show that this outcome could not have been avoided even if more skill was involved in the country’s economic and financial management.

The population has a deep-rooted suspicion of and disrespect for business and private initiative and there is a widespread belief that “big money” is earned by exploitation of the poor or underhand dealings and reflects no display of virtue or merit. Thus people feel that they are entitled to manipulate the system in a way that enables them to use the wealth of others as it is a widely held belief that there is nothing immoral about milking the rich. In fact, the money the rich seem to have access to is the cause of much discontent among people of all social backgrounds, from farmers to students. The reason for this is that the government for decades has run continuous campaigns promising people that it has not only the will but also the ABILITY to solve their problems and has established a system of patronages and hand-outs to this end.

Anything can be done in Greece provided someone has political connections, from securing a job to navigating the complexities of the Greek bureaucracy. The government routinely promises handouts to farmers after harsh winters and free education to all; every time there is a display of discontent they rush to appease the people by offering them more “solutions.” What they neglect to say is that these solutions cost money. Now that the money has run out, nobody can reason with an angry mob.

[. . .]

Greece is the perfect example of a country where the government attempted to create a utopia in which it serves as the all-providing overlord offering people amazing job prospects, free health care and education, personal security and public order, and has failed miserably to provide on any of these. In the place of this promised utopian mansion lies a small shack built at an exorbitant cost to the taxpayer, leaking from every nook and cranny due to insufficient funds, which demands ever higher maintenance costs just to keep it from collapsing altogether. The architects of this shack, in a desperate attempt to repair what is left are borrowing all the money they can from their neighbours, even at exorbitant costs promising that this time they will be prudent. All that is left for the people living inside this leaking shack is to protest for all the promises that the government failed to fulfil; but, sadly for the government, promises will neither pay its debts nor appease the angry mob any longer. Greece has lost any credibility it had within the EU as it has achieved notoriety for the way government accountants seem to be cooking up numbers they present to EU officials.

H/T to Steve Baker MP for the link.

Greek government expands categories of disabled to include “compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Government, Greece, Health — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:04

At a time most people expect the Greek government to be cutting back, the Labor ministry just expanded the recognized disabilities to include a few categories that will raise eyebrows:

Disability groups in Greece expressed anger on Monday at a government decision to expand a list of state-recognized disability categories to include pedophiles, exhibitionists and kleptomaniacs.

The National Confederation of Disabled People, calling the action “incomprehensible,” said that pedophiles could be eligible for a higher disability pay than some people who had received organ transplants.

The Labor Ministry said the categories added to the expanded list — that also includes pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists — were included for purposes of medical assessment and used as a gauge for allocating financial assistance.

Der Spiegel: Is it too late to save Greece?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Government, Greece — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:48

The Greek civil service is overstaffed, and has lots of quirky habits, proving the old adage that there’s nothing as permanent as a “temporary” government program:

One of Greece’s purported saviors is a short, rotund, 72-year-old man named Leandros Rakintzis. He was once a respected constitutional judge on the country’s highest court, the Areopagus. Since 2004, he has been the head of a government agency that is the first of its kind for Greece. Rakintzis is Greece’s general inspector of public administration.

His body twitches and shakes with delight as he talks about his successes and discoveries. For example, he discovered that on weekends, hospitals admit elderly people who require nursing care or are confused because their children bring them there so that they can take a few days of vacation. This, of course, drives up healthcare costs.

[. . .]

Rakintzis has stories to tell that take place throughout Greece, and some are downright unbelievable. For example, the government agency that was created to manage a bid to make Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, a European cultural capital in 1997 is still humming away. Its employees are supposedly working on winding down the major event and settling up the accounts — 13 years later.

How many people work there? “I don’t know. Not even the government knows that,” says Rakintzis. He adds, in an almost threatening tone: “Not yet.” Rakintzis and his staff are now in the process of investigating about 4,000 government offices and agencies in similar situations.

[. . .]

Greece has more than five times as many civil servants per capita than the United Kingdom. The country’s inflated government apparatus consumes tens of billions of euros a year. It’s money the Greek state doesn’t have — and actually never did. Greece’s gross domestic product is only slighter higher than that of the German state of Hesse and is just one-tenth the size of Germany’s total economic output.

February 12, 2012

Bryan Caplan on “the stranger”

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:36

An interesting post at Econlog:

What do you call a man you never met? A stranger.

What are you morally forbidden to do to a stranger? You may not murder him. You may not attack him. You may not enslave him. Neither may you rob him.

What are you morally required to do for a stranger? Not much. Even if he seems hungry and asks you for food, you’re probably within your rights to refuse. If you’ve ever been in a large city, you’ve refused to help the homeless on more than one occasion. And even if you think you broke your moral obligation to give, your moral obligation wasn’t strong enough to let the beggar justifiably mug you.

Notice: These common-sense ethics regarding strangers, ethics that almost everyone admits, are unequivocally libertarian. Yes, you have an obligation to leave strangers alone, but charity is optional.

Daniel Hannan at CPAC 2012

Filed under: Britain, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:11

If you want to hear from someone who unmistakably understands the profound impact of America’s founding and believes there is still time for its citizens to take hold of its bureaucratic laden government and return it back to the will of it’s founding, then you must hear this speech from Daniel Hannan. You’ll appreciate America all the more afterwards, I assure you.

H/T to John Ward for the link.

Gary Johnson in the Washington Times

Filed under: Economics, Government, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:30

Libertarian presidential hopeful Gary Johnson is interviewed by Brett M. Decker:

Decker: America would be a lot better off if Washington adopted more libertarian positions, especially those that advocate cutting red tape, slashing taxes and getting Big Brother off our backs. In a very tangible way, however, many Americans have gotten hooked on federal largesse and aren’t willing to give up their government goodies. How can you make the message of smaller government resonate in this growing climate of dependency, and who is your main audience?

Johnson: I believe most observers would agree that, of all governors in modern history, I governed from a more libertarian foundation than any other. When I ran for governor and when I took office, many claimed the sky would fall. It didn’t, and I was re-elected and even today enjoy the highest approval ratings in my home state of all the governors in the presidential race. And New Mexico is a Democratic state. That tells me that people actually get it. They understand that government “largesse” is not largesse at all; rather, big government and the “benefits” it provides come at a price that is simply too great. They also understand that by limiting the federal government to that which it really needs to do, we will free the states to deliver essential services in innovative and efficient ways. And we will free the private economy to create real jobs and restore opportunity as an American trademark. Government would not disappear in a Johnson administration. It would live within its means and do what the Constitution says it should do. No more, and no less.

As I convey this message, I find that Americans of all ages, incomes and demographics respond. Young people, in particular, are embracing a libertarian approach to government. They want to be left alone to live their lives, chase their dreams and do so without government imposing values and burdens that limit their freedoms. I am convinced that there is a majority of voters in America today who are classical liberals — committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law,due process and individual liberty.

Never before has that majority been more poised to organize and exert itself in a political environment that has for too long been controlled by the two “major” parties.

Decker: Conventional wisdom is that a third-party challenger cannot be elected president of the United States. Certainly, a Libertarian candidacy siphons votes away from the GOP. Is that the point — to send a message of protest that Republicans need to be more principled, especially on fiscal issues?

Johnson: Conventional wisdom has never been a guiding principle in my life or career. Conventional wisdom held that a businessman who had never been in elected office could not run and win as a Libertarian-Republican in New Mexico. And conventional wisdom would argue against a former governor with a not-yet-healed broken leg making it to the summit of Mt. Everest. My candidacy is not about a message of protest. It is about defying conventional wisdom and giving voice to what I believe is a majority of Americans who today do not feel comfortable in either the Democratic or Republican Party.

Likewise, I do not accept the premise that my candidacy siphons more votes from Republicans than from Democrats.As I hold online town halls, travel the country and read the emails and messages coming into our campaign every day, it is obvious that we are connecting with at least as many Obama voters as McCain voters from 2008. A lot of people who thought they were voting for change in 2008 are today very disappointed that what they achieved was only a slightly different version of the same business-as-usual they wanted to reject. The desire for a truly new approach cuts across all parties and independents alike.

February 11, 2012

Tim Harford discusses Nudge-ology

Filed under: Britain, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:16

Yes, I committed a neologism in the headline. It’s Saturday morning, and I’m too lazy to think up a better headline. Perhaps I need a nudge:

I hear the Nudge unit is in the news again …

I am waiting for the government to establish a Dig in the Ribs unit. Maybe even a Slap and Tickle unit, who knows?

Don’t be silly. Remind me what Nudge is again?

It started as a concept, “libertarian paternalism”, advanced by two American academics, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The idea was that the government could help people to help themselves without violating their liberty — for instance, by assuming they would like to make pension contributions unless otherwise stated. Then it became a book and the concept got a bit broader and a bit vaguer and more generally about the use of psychology and behavioural economics in policymaking. Then “Nudge” became a fashionable label to be slapped on any policy in search of a headline. Finally, David Cameron set up the Behavioural Insight Team — aka the Nudge unit — to do more research on the subject. The Cabinet Office published some of their findings this week.

[. . .]

For example?

Let’s say somebody has been fined in court but has not paid. You could send in the bailiffs. Or you could send a text message explaining that if the fine isn’t paid quickly, the bailiffs will be on their way. The Behavioural Insight team and the courts service ran a randomised trial, sending no text message to some people and a variety of text messages to others to see which approach works best. It turns out that text messages are highly effective and even more effective is a text message that mentions the miscreant’s name. The difference between no message and a personalised message is that instead of one in 20 people immediately paying up, one in three people do. That adds up to 150,000 occasions on which the bailiffs need not be called in.

This doesn’t sound like rocket science …

No, and it’s not brain surgery either. But it does appear to work. Sometimes these effects are mind-numbingly obvious. For instance, a letter sent by HM Revenue and Customs to chase up tax from doctors was vastly more effective after being written in a straightforward way with the key messages and request for action at the top of the letter. It was just as effective as an alternative that shoehorned in many fancy behavioural insights.

“Courts are often the state’s battering rams, used for breaking down individual rights and freedoms”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:00

George Jonas explains why Canadians were more free before their rights and freedoms were codified in the Charter:

The Canada in which I landed in 1956 may not have had a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but it had rights and freedoms galore, making it the envy of the world. The Canada in which I make my home today has a Charter, but Canadians who say they had more rights and freedoms 50 years ago aren’t paranoid: They did.

There seems to be an inverse relationship between written instruments of freedom, such as a Charter, and freedom itself. It’s as if freedom were too fragile to be put into words: If you write down your rights and freedoms, you lose them. Minimally, governments will try to take away every freedom you haven’t remembered to include.

“Where does it say you have a right to breathe, sir? Surely it’s not a fundamental right. If it were, it would be in the Charter.”

The 19th century British constitutional scholar, A.V. Dicey, foresaw this. He cautioned against written constitutions for this very reason, among others.

Part of the reason for the inverse relationship between written rights and actual freedom is the court system:

When I came to Canada, a court of law was often a place where individuals went for protection against the state. These days, they’d be taking a chance. Courts are often the state’s battering rams, used for breaking down individual rights and freedoms. Climate trumps the law, obviously, considering the law isn’t the law until a judge says it is. There is global warming, as the world is warming to tyranny. A judicial climate change has turned Canada’s courts from frequent champions of individual liberty to near-permanent defenders of social policy.

A judicial expression used to call policy “an unruly horse.” If you’ve time for only one book to see how events unfold when policy starts driving the law, pick up Christie Blatchford’s account of the native land-claim standoff at Caledonia, Ont., called Helpless. It shows what happens when the justice system becomes a branch of social engineering.

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