The Canadian Smokers Rights Newsletter
A Section of The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights NewsletterIssue 520 - March 20, 2009
Smoking banned at Toronto playgrounds -ON
Illegal smoke shops off limits
Ontario commission calls for Canadian media watchdog
Barbara's Hall of shame -ON
Man nailed for smoking in car -ON
Town eyes smoking bylaw -NS
Smoke ban will drive 'em mad
Car Driver Receives Ticket for Smoking in Car With Minor as Minor Lights Up Cigarette
The day the smoking cops came knocking on the door
ILLEGAL TOBACCO IGNORED
Cigarette tactics a drag
Debate Mired in Deceit - albeit well-intentioned
People hate the smell. The health debate is deceptive
B.C. case could change Canadian web landscape
Majority rule does not always equate to "entirely reasonable."
Do you want trans fats or fascism with your fries? -AB
Smoking banned at Toronto playgrounds -ON
Jan 28, 2009
By BRYN WEESE, Sun Media
TORONTO - Toronto city council banned smoking within 9 metres of playgrounds, wading pools, and splash pads Tuesday, amid some concerns that it was a waste of money and can't be enforced.
The ban also applies to High Park Zoo and Riverdale Farm, but won't come into effect until the province sets the fine's amount, which could be as high as $305.
City Hall is having to shell out $16,000 to pay for signs for the city's more than 800 playgrounds.
In a 30-6 victory, some councillors opposed to the ban questioned whether the ban was a good use of public funds, and whether it would ever be enforced.
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/CanadaWorld/2009/01/28/8178526.html
Illegal smoke shops off limits
Posted Feb 7, 2009
By Monte Sonnenberg SUN MEDIA
Convenience stores checked
The McGuinty government's attempt to curb underage smoking is turning out to be a huge waste of tax dollars.
The Ministry of Health pays the province's 36 health units $50 million a year for youth smoking programs. Most of that is spent monitoring convenience stores to ensure they are not selling to minors.
Enforcement officers, however, are not allowed to go near the biggest source of contraband tobacco in the province -- native smoke shops. Thousands of smoke shops have popped up in recent years on the province's 163 reserves. Locally, a handful have set up illegally in Haldimand County along Highway 6.
A carton of cigarettes at a convenience store costs about $80. However, a baggie of 100 cigarettes typically sells at a native smoke shop for as little as $7. Yet the McGuinty government has told the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit that the smoke shops of Haldimand County are off-limits to enforcement staff.
The fact the worst offenders are immune to the law makes Glen Steen, the health unit's co-coordinator of healthy environments, "very" uncomfortable. He feels it is unfair to other vendors targetted under the Smoke Free Ontario Act.
"I'm sure our kids are getting cigarettes at these establishments and there's nothing we can do about it," Steen said this week.
The Ontario Convenience Stores Association also finds the situation irksome. Health units across the province regularly send underage "test buyers" into member stores in an attempt to identify vendors that sell to minors. Steen reported 261 such attempts last year in Haldimand and Norfolk, with no vendor taking the bait.
OCSA president David Bryans calls the approach "entrapment." Bryans also finds it unacceptable that the province spends so much trying to snare his members while turning a blind eye to the flood of illegal tobacco emanating from native smoke shops.
Bryans says the problem is large and getting bigger. Over the past two years, OCSA has collected cigarette butts from smoking areas at 75 high schools in Quebec and 80 high schools in Ontario. In 2007, 23 per cent of the butts were confirmed as contraband. The corresponding figure for 2008 was 28 per cent.
OCSA believes there is a better way. OCSA wants the province to make it illegal for anyone 19 years of age or under to purchase or possess tobacco products. That, Bryans said, would rid high schools of cigarettes while putting those in possession of them on par with drug abusers. Despite the association's lobbying efforts, no one at Queen's Park is listening.
"No one should be closing their eyes to this," Bryans said. "Not health boards, not parents. It's growing everywhere. But the authorities close their eyes and it is affecting our kids. We can't close our eyes to this. The health units can't close their eyes to this and say they are doing their jobs."
Langton Coun. Roger Geysens wasn't impressed this week when he learned that enforcement staff are not allowed in Haldimand smoke shops. Geysens said the money spent in Ontario on tobacco enforcement is wasted if native smoke shops are exempt.
"The province has to say there is one rule and one law for everyone," Geysens said. "If it's not on disputed property, the law should be enforced."
The subject arose last week in the legislature at Queen's Park. Leeds-Grenville MPP Bob Runciman, acting leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, said the McGuinty program obviously isn't working when nearly half the cigarettes consumed in Ontario are illegal.
"The government is sitting on its hands and looking the other way at scores of illegal aboriginal smoke shacks operating with impunity," Runciman said. "If the premier is serious about stopping teen smoking, when will he enforce the law and stop unethical efforts to entrap small business people?"
Article ID# 1423668
http://www.simcoereformer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1421278
Ontario commission calls for Canadian media watchdog
February 11, 2009
By Joseph Brean, Canwest News Service
The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and "media services" websites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.
The council "would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada," reads an OHRC report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The media's freedom of expression comes with a duty to "address issues of hate expression, and (media) should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership," the report says.
"At the same time, the OHRC recognizes the media have full freedom and control over what they publish. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to provide opportunity for public scrutiny and the receipt of complaints, particularly from vulnerable groups, is important but it must not cross the line into censorship."
Barbara Hall, OHRC chief commissioner, said in an interview that the rise of the Internet has improved the case for a national media watchdog.
In her vision, a national press council would be "a vehicle for full discussion about what's written in the media" that is less strict and more accessible than the courts.
It would be designed with the input of media, and would allow readers to bring complaints against media anywhere in Canada, no matter where they live.
The recommendation is part of the OHRC's submission to its federal counterpart, which is preparing a report to Parliament on its own hate speech mandate, in response to the controversy over human rights law and freedom of expression.
Barbara's Hall of shame -ON
Last Updated: 11th February 2009, 4:54am
Ontario Human Rights Commission, and its 'commissar' have lost their way
There is irony that controversial author Mark Steyn made the trip from New Hampshire to Toronto to call for the dismantling of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
It's a more than just a long drive from a state whose official motto is, "Live Free or Die." You have to change gears in your mindset.
In this province's oppressive nanny state, we still have the right to free speech -- so long as what you're saying is rubber-stamped by OHRC "commissar" (Steyn's word, not mine) Barbara Hall.
Last year Hall commented on a Maclean's article by Steyn, "The future belongs to Islam." Responding to a complaint by the Canadian Islamic Congress, Hall stated, correctly, the OHRC has no jurisdiction to hear the case. Then she went on to condemn Steyn and Maclean's for Islamophobia.
Steyn was as scathing as ever when he spoke to a committee on government agencies here on Monday.
He described some recent ludicrous OHRC rulings as, "incompatible with a free society."
Of course he is right. And once you allow the Halls of the world to define the limits of freedom of speech, you are heading down a slippery slope. It is vigourous debate that makes a free and civilized society, not timid censorship.
Steyn pointed out the "sham" of the OHRC, when it is shamefully silent about so-called "honour killings." Young women are murdered for not conforming to oppressive cultural restrictions on women. But a journalist with an opinion? Oh, my. Can't have that.
I asked Hall for her response. In a telephone interview, she made some astounding comments.
First, she said, the OHRC has two roles -- a judicial one and one that comments on issues such as the articles. So she was perfectly within her mandate.
"We said the complaint process doesn't apply here.
HARMFUL STEREOTYPES
"We find this series of articles to promote stereotypes and that's harmful and we would like the media to think more about the impact on people of what they write," she said.
Well, sorry. The role of the media is to report, review, criticize, comment. If sometimes we hurt people's feelings, well, oops. This is still a semi-free society.
It was her response to Steyn's criticism of OHRC's silence on honour killings that shocked me.
"There are thousands of things that happen in the province of Ontario on a daily basis and we don't comment on all of them," she said.
But, I spluttered, women are being murdered.
"As I said, we are a small commission.
"There are many problematic things that happen in our community and we have to make choices because we can't respond to everything," Hall said.
So honour killings are merely "problematic"?
Here's a woman who's advocated for years on behalf of women's rights. She found time to crucify Steyn and Maclean's, but she's too busy to raise the issue of women who are being murdered over some hideous interpretation of "honour"?
I wouldn't go as far as Steyn in calling for an end to the OHRC. I think there is an important role for it to mediate in cases where people are refused accommodation based on the colour of their skin or where they didn't get a job based on their age or gender.
The human rights system in this province cost $17.6 million this year. The government needs to find savings in its next budget.
Cut it in half. Get back to basics -- and get out of the censorship business.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/christina_blizzard/2009/02/11/8345531-sun.html
Man nailed for smoking in car -ON
Last Updated: 15th February 2009, 2:39am
But cop watches as 15-year-old passenger lights up
PORT HOPE -- A Port Hope man is the second person in Ontario charged under a new law that prohibits smoking in vehicles carrying children.
And while the 20-year-old man was waiting to be issued his ticket after being pulled over yesterday, his 15-year-old female passenger got out of the vehicle and lit up a cigarette.
Port Hope Police Const. Tammie Hartford said she could only watch in frustration as the 15-year-old smoked.
"She was the reason why I pulled the vehicle over," she said. "She was under the age (of 16)."
Under provincial law, it's only illegal to sell or supply cigarettes to anyone under the age of 19, but there's no law prohibiting a person under 19 from smoking.
Hartford noticed the vehicle travelling on Victoria St. N.
There were four people in the vehicle and she said she recognized one as being under the age of 16.
Hartford said she saw the driver smoking and watched him flick the ashes out twice before pulling the car over.
Under the new Smoke-Free Ontario Amendment Act 2008, which came into effect on Jan. 21, smoking is prohibited in a motor vehicle with persons under the age of 16.
The fine, a provincial offence, carries a $125 ticket, plus court costs that drive the total up to $155. If a person fights the fine in court and loses, the fine can jump to $250.
The new rules are part of an effort to protect children from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke.
Two weeks ago, a 53-year-old Kingston man was the first person in the province to be charged.
Officers were stopping vehicles at a roadside spot check in Napanee looking for drunk drivers when they discovered a man smoking with a child in the rear seat.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/15/8397666-sun.html
Town eyes smoking bylaw -NS
By IAN FAIRCLOUGH Valley Bureau Comments 8
Sun. Feb 15 - 5:18 AM
KENTVILLE — Kentville is the latest municipality to consider restricting smoking in public outdoor spaces.
Town council has asked its solicitor and staff to come up with a draft bylaw to regulate where, or if, people can light up in parks and recreation areas.
"This issue (of smoking around others) has gained prominence," town chief administrative officer Keith Robichaud says.
The village of New Minas is taking similar action.
"We have a number of outdoor recreation areas, and while many people who smoke are courteous . . . there are people who aren’t and light up in bleachers and crowds of people."
Mr. Robichaud said there are a number of options, including having designated smoking areas or banning it outright.
"The big thing is to provide smoke-free areas for people, so they can enjoy being spectators at sporting events."
He says there is research to be done, and there will be people on both sides of the issue.
He said one suggestion made at last week’s council meeting was to raise the idea with the other municipal units in Kings County so there is consistency.
Mr. Robichaud said that would make it easier for visitors coming to the county for large events, like soccer tournaments that use fields in a number of communities, because the law would be the same everywhere.
Any bylaw would apply to all outdoor recreation sites owned by the town, including walking trails. Council may also look at other public spaces as well, following the lead of the towns of Bridgewater and Truro, which have already imposed restrictions on smoking in public areas.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/forum/read/21/92906/page=1
Smoke ban will drive 'em mad
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Last Updated: 17th February 2009, 2:49am
'At some point somebody's going to snap,' cop says
PORT HOPE -- It's only a matter of time before someone "snaps" after being pulled over under Ontario's new law forbidding smoking in a vehicle carrying a minor, a police officer said yesterday in response to a quirk in the legislation that was made evident during a weekend incident.
"People got mad enough when they couldn't smoke in bars anymore or bingo parlours," Port Hope Sgt. Bryant Wood said. "Now you're telling them they can't smoke in cars. At some point somebody's going to snap along the way here."
Nova Scotia is the only other jurisdiction in the country to have a similar law. Ontario had previously banned smoking in all enclosed public places and workplaces before the new legislation took effect late last month.
Wood's comments came a day after one of his colleagues, Const. Tammie Hartford, pulled over Port Hope resident Tory Ashton, 20, and wrote him a $155 ticket for smoking in his vehicle with a person under age 16 present.
Ashton was transporting several passengers, including a 15-year-old girl. While the ticket was being written, the girl got out of the car and legally lit up a cigarette.
Ashton said the girl was upset he was given a ticket.
"She's 15, she smokes also and ... they're giving me the fine," he told CTV.
There is no law prohibiting a 15-year-old from smoking; it's only illegal for someone under 19 years of age to purchase or sell tobacco.
Wood, who has been a police officer for 16 years, said he anticipates that as more people are written up in Ontario for the new driving violation, problems will arise.
"The problem is people believe they have the right to smoke," he said. "It's their vehicle, it's their free will to be able to have a cigarette.
"Generally speaking, I think we're going to run into a lot of bad attitudes when we pull people over for that. It's going to become almost a human-rights issue for them."
The provincial politician representing the eastern Ontario riding that contains Port Hope called it a "glitch" in the law that allowed a man to be fined for smoking with a 15-year-old girl in his car while she could stand by the side of the road and legally light up.
Liberal Lou Rinaldi, member for Northumberland-Quinte West, is asking for a meeting with the province's health promotion minister later this week to find ways to improve the fledgling legislation.
Car Driver Receives Ticket for Smoking in Car With Minor as Minor Lights Up Cigarette
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Globe and Mail is reporting that an Ontario driver was "nabbed" for smoking in a car with a minor under a recently enacted provincial law. While the driver was waiting to receive his $155 ticket, the minor got out of the car and lit up a cigarette. Since there is no law prohibiting minors from smoking, the girl was not doing anything illegal. However, the driver was charged with violation of the provincial law that is intended to protect minors from exposure to secondhand smoke.
The Rest of the Story
This story is a perfect illustration of the reason why I have opposed these types of laws. The state either has or has not a justification for intervening into parental autonomy to make decisions regarding the health risks to which their children are exposed. If the state is justified in telling parents that they cannot expose their children to the increased disease risk that comes with exposure to secondhand smoke in a car, then it is also justified (and even more appropriate) for the state to protect children from the even greater risks that come with exposure to smoking in the home and from active smoking itself.
Thus, if the government were truly interested in protecting minors from health risks, it would certainly want to prohibit parents from allowing their children to smoke. The driver in the above story would have been cited both for exposing the minor to secondhand smoke and for allowing the minor to smoke. In fact, the active smoking clearly represents a greater risk to her health than the secondhand smoke.
It is inconsistent for the government to isolate a single health risk to which many parents expose their children and to outlaw that particular risk, but to allow parents to expose their children to all other health risks. It suggests that something else is going on, other than simply a rational expression of health protection that is focused on what is in the best interests of the children.
The problem is precisely that once you agree that it is appropriate for the government to regulate parental decisions regarding health risks to which children are exposed, then there are a whole range of exposures - many which are much more hazardous than secondhand smoke - that should, to be rational and consistent, be regulated.
This story is an illustration not that the law isn't working, but that the law is inconsistent and somewhat irrational.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/02/car-driver-receives-ticket-for-smoking.html
The day the smoking cops came knocking on the door
Posted March 1, 2009
Posted By Michael Jiggins
The tri-county health unit's officials might be afflicted with a chronic case of fiscal reality detachment, but there's definitely no shortage of chutzpah over on Laurier Boulevard.
In a move that even Vladimir Putin would have to admire, the health unit's smoking police came knocking on this newspaper's door shortly after 6 a.m. Wednesday.
Using the legislative authority of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, a pair of inspectors demanded entry into The Recorder and Times' building to check for violations.
Perhaps it was the lungs of those who work here that roused these guys from bed so early, but I wonder if there was another reason.
You see, the early morning incursion came just one day after the health unit board and staff were upbraided in an editorial for approving a 2009 budget that demands 24 per cent more from municipalities in Leeds, Grenville and Lanark.
A coincidence?
Could it be that those inspectors were dispatched in retaliation for Tuesday's editorial?
If so, it's outrageous that the health unit chose this approach rather than engaging this newspaper's editor - and I would add a slew of local elected officials and residents outraged by the budget - in an exchange of ideas on our editorial page.
Which is why I'm issuing a challenge for someone on the board of health to stand up at next month's meeting and demand an explanation for Wednesday's inspection.
Certainly I'm not comparing what was done here to the intimidation tactics faced by newspapers and journalists in other parts of the world.
No one here ended up in jail (at least not as this column was filed) or on the missing persons list.
The inspectors denied that their timing had anything to do with the editorial. They were acting as a result of a complaint, they said. And to be fair, they did find cigarette butts near an outside door in the former press room, which has been unoccupied since the newspaper's printing operation was moved to Ottawa.
Nonetheless, it would be unacceptable if a government agency used the authority of the state to strike back at the press for carrying out its most basic of functions: demanding those in power be accountable for their decisions.
Rest assured that we won't shut up.
And if you're inclined - and undoubtedly many are - to think it's about time someone fought back against The Recorder and Times for being so damned opinionated, I'd just ask you to consider one thing.
Who's next?
After all, the list of health unit critics is a lengthy one and many of them also run private businesses.
Head's up Brockville councillors Jane Fullarton and Gord Beach, Augusta Reeve Mel Campbell, Prescott Mayor Suzanne Dodge and the rest of you who've dared to speak out, indeed sometimes with words more harsh than we used in our editorial.
Back when the local landowners group was going toe-to-toe with the health unit, I used to chuckle a bit at their dire warnings that the regulations were a another step down the slippery slope toward state control of our lives.
Given what happened here this week, though, the landowners are starting to make sense.
Oh, and just to save you guys a trip to my apartment, I'm not a smoker.
Article ID# 1455795
http://www.recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1455795&auth=Michael%20Jiggins
ILLEGAL TOBACCO IGNORED
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Re "Tobacco companies on notice" (March 5): So, it's OK to set up special legislation to sue tobacco companies that have sold a legal product -- from which the government has netted billions of dollars in taxes over a couple of generations. What about illegal tobacco -- the cigarettes and cigars being manufactured, imported and sold on First Nations reserves to non residents? This generates no tax revenue and causes far more harm due to the lack of quality control and government regulation, including inspection. If every legal manufacturer closes its doors today in Canada, cigarettes will still be readily available from Native stores. When are we going to put an end to this ridiculous situation?
GORDON SKINNER, UXBRIDGE
(And what politician or police force is ready to touch the political third rail?) CLEAN UP, DON'T CULL
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/letters/2009/03/07/8660841-sun.html
Cigarette tactics a drag
March 7, 2009
By Michael Den Tandt
Smoking kills, we all know that. Big Tobacco has much to answer for, we know that too. But isn't it time government took responsibility for its own share of the problem, rather than simply kicking the industry?
This week the government of Canada's most populous province proposed legislation that will allow it to sue big cigarette companies for a share of the estimated $1.6 billion that Ontario taxpayers fork over each year in health costs related to tobacco use.
Other Canadian provinces have taken similar steps, and those efforts have been upheld by the Supreme Court. According to the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco, Ontario alone may be in for a windfall in the $50-billion range.
Wonderful. If you need to soak someone in a recession, who better, politically, than a multinational tobacco firm?
Here's the wrinkle, though, and it has to do with integrity. If governments, both provincial and federal, are so adamantly against tobacco use, why do they continue to allow flagrant illegal sales of cigarettes on Indian reserves?
This is not a new problem. In 2007 a study by the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit found that nearly 40% of the province's smokers were bypassing cigarette taxes by picking up smokes on Indian reserves. The illegal price is typically a third of the store price.
You can't drive across a First Nations reserve in Canada without seeing half a dozen big signs advertising "cheap" cigarettes. And the Internet is awash with outfits selling the same.
It may be that there are practical reasons why our national and provincial police forces, led by politicians, choose to look the other way. Perhaps they're concerned about potential conflict. Perhaps, given the poverty on many reserves, there's a reluctance to remove a source of income.
Be that as it may, the rank hypocrisy is impossible to overlook. At the very least the federal and provincial governments should explain themselves. Why are they choosing not to enforce the law and crack down on illegal smokes? That's something they can do themselves, right now, without going to court.
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Opinion/Editorials/2009/03/07/8660306-sun.html
Debate Mired in Deceit - albeit well-intentioned
March 8, 2009
Given that a 10-kilogram campfire log produces a volume of smoke equivalent to approximately 10,000 cigarettes (yes, folks, it contains virtually the same "thousands of chemicals" tobacco smoke does) how can the government not take action? Think of the children! On the other hand, perhaps the anti-smoker attitude of our rulers isn't really about health, just about persecuting smokers while bending over for the bigoted parasites that make up the anti-tobacco industry. Maybe it is time to start "denormalizing" special interest groups.
Alan Ritchie
(It's a debate mired in deceit - albeit well-intentioned.)
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2009/03/08/pf-8669576.html
People hate the smell. The health debate is deceptive
If Action on Smoking and Health's Les Hagen discriminated against any other minority such as natives, Afro Canadians or the obese, I think the public would demand he be kicked out of the province, let alone the City of Edmonton. Smoke from tobacco in a decently ventilated venue is a statistically insignificant health risk.
Thomas Laprade
(People hate the smell. The health debate is deceptive.)
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2009/03/14/8745906-sun.html
B.C. case could change Canadian web landscape
March 16, 2009
By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa Citizen
A court case in British Columbia has the potential to drastically change the Canadian Internet landscape by making search engines such as Google and Yahoo! illegal.
A case brought against the Canadian Recording Industry Association by a small search engine for BitTorrent files, called ISOHunt Web Technologies Inc., is raising questions about whether search engines are liable for the sharing of copyright-protected content online.
The question before the British Columbia Supreme Court is if a site such as ISOHunt allows people to find a pirated copy of movies such as Watchmen or The Dark Knight, is it breaching Canadian copyright law?
"It's a huge can of worms," said David Fewer, acting director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa. "I am surprised that this litigation has gone under the radar as much as it has. I do think this is the most important copyright litigation going on right now."
ISOHunt helps people search through more than 44.77 million BitTorrent files available on the Internet in order to find the movies, TV shows, software and music they may be looking for. The company does not store the files, nor does it work directly with people offering the files for download. The search engine boasts more than 20.88 million regular users.
After receiving numerous legal threats from CRIA, the B.C.-based company decided to take matters into its own hands. In September, the company filed a petition with the B.C. court asking a judge to rule on whether ISOHunt was in breach of Canadian copyright law. The case was heard last week.
In his argument, ISOHunt's lawyer Arthur Grant — of the firm of Grant Kovacs Norell Barristers & Solicitors — used Google to show the judge how the world's most popular search engine can be used to find many of the same questionable files available on ISOHunt.
"Anybody can. Do it yourself," he said. "ISOHunt is a search engine and it operates no differently than Google. The difference is Google searches every file type under the sun."
When contacted Monday, officials for Google Inc., declined to comment on the ISOHunt case saying the company has not been officially named in the lawsuit.
CRIA argued that the petition should be converted into a full-action court case. The judge agreed on Wednesday, saying a full court case will be necessary to decide the matter. Both sides are now preparing for a lengthy court battle.
Despite repeated attempts on Monday, no one from CRIA returned phone calls.
The litigation will mark the second court battle that ISOHunt finds itself fighting. The company is currently locked in a bitter dispute with the Motion Picture Association of America over similar copyright issues.
The company has repeatedly argued that much like the case of Betamax versus Universal Studios, ISOHunt cannot be deemed illegal simply because it has the potential to be used for questionable purposes. In 1984, courts in the U.S. ruled that people can use their VCRs to record TV shows and that the manufacturers of the VCRs cannot be held liable for copyright infringement.
BitTorrent, a system for sharing files on the Internet, is routinely used for the distribution of non-copyright infringing files. In March of last year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., used a BitTorrent service called Mininova to distribute the show Canada's Next Great Prime Minister over the Internet.
However, the technology has caught the attention of various movie and music groups globally because it has been used to share films, while they are still in theatres, and CDs, prior to their release date. The Dark Knight became the most pirated movie in history after people found it through a BitTorrent search engine while it was still in theatres.
In December, a man from Los Angeles pleaded guilty to uploading Guns N' Roses' latest album, Chinese Democracy, to the Internet — which numerous people then found through search engines such as ISOHunt, months before it hit store shelves.http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5060
Majority rule does not always equate to "entirely reasonable."
Re: Thomas Laparade's March 13 letter. The bottom line is that smoking is a choice. You cannot compare smokers' rights to natives or Afro-Canadians. The comparison just doesn't hold up and is probably offensive to those groups. The vast majority of people in this city and the province supported the smoking bylaws that have come into action over the last several years and they are far from unreasonable.
Vince Leonty
(Majority rule does not always equate to "entirely reasonable.")
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2009/03/17/pf-8776411.html
Do you want trans fats or fascism with your fries? -AB
By Rob Breakenridge, For the Calgary Herald
March 17, 2009 10:02 AM
It's quite rare to see the relentless advance of the nanny state interrupted. That is the case with Calgary's now-defunct trans fat ban, and it provides us with an opportunity for reflection.
How far can and should the state go in protecting us from ourselves? It's a question worth asking, because there are clearly those who do not believe the question even has an answer. To the nanny-statists, there is no end point--it's a continual work in progress. On this specific issue, we have two further questions to ponder: 1) how harmful are trans fats? and 2) do we require protection from them?
There is still plenty of debate over the first question, but regardless, I would argue the answer to the latter is a definitive "no."
That might depend, though, on how you define "protection"--that can come through awareness, and certainly that's now the case with regard to trans fats. It now requires minimal effort to be informed about trans fat content--people can check labels, check websites or simply listen to companies boasting of their reduced or eliminated trans fat content.
However, if a company truly believes its french fries taste better with trans fats and its fully informed customers agree, then, sorry, but none of us have any business in the matter.
Yes, I have no doubt that the regular consumption of french fries will inevitably lead to health problems. And, yes, I realize we live in a society with universal health care; however, "universal" means everyone --even the stupid.
A mammoth government program is a poor excuse for further encroachment on people's lives--maybe fewer government entitlements would encourage smarter and healthier habits. If the ban is the sword of the nanny-state crusader, surely the health-care system represents his shield.
I wonder, though: do trans fat bans actually encourage unhealthy eating? I would think if we mandated the alcohol content of beer to no more than three per cent, people would probably end up consuming more beer. Is the same true for trans fat-free fried cookies?
Of course, we don't mandate the alcohol content of beer (well, not yet anyway) despite everything we do know about the dangers of alcohol. There's a big difference, however, between the hey-it's-Saturday-I'll-have-a-beer drinker and the hey-it's-everyday-I'll-have-a-case drinker, just as there's a big difference between the once-a-month and the thrice-daily doughnut consumer.
Sweeping government bans make no distinction-- everyone gets "protected," whether they asked for it or not.
And what is it we're protected from?Well, that's where it gets a little murky. Nobody disputes that trans fats are unhealthy--but just how unhealthy?
In 2006, the president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) testified before New York City Council, voicing her opposition to such a ban, arguing that saturated fats are still the bigger threat and that such a ban would accomplish very little.
The ACSH had also released a study calling for greater awareness about the risk of both saturated fat and trans fat (the latter was actually once a much-celebrated alternative to the former), but at the same time calling for an end to scare tactics, arguing that overstating the risk of trans fats could itself be harmful to public health.
Also, the late Dr. David Kritchevsky--who was a renowned biochemist and nutrition expert--constantly warned about the "demonizing" of trans fats, calling it "the panic du jour."
Well, the "panic du jour" has become the "panic du decennie" and despite a brief respite here in Calgary, it would seem as though we're not done panicking just yet.
The Alberta government will be under pressure to resurrect this ban, and B. C. is already pressing ahead with a similar ban. The federal government hasn't ruled out action either.
Governments and advocacy groups should confine themselves to raising awareness and promoting healthy choices and healthy lifestyles. Unleashing the food police is both counterproductive and an affront to individual choice and freedom.
One thing we know for sure -- if I may borrow a popular smokers' rights battle cry--doughnuts are healthier than fascism
Rob breakenridge hosts the world tonight, weekdays from 6:30 to 9 p. M. On AM770 CHQRhttp://www.calgaryherald.com/Health/want+trans+fats+fascism+with+your+fries/1397676/story.html
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