CKNW Editorial
for August 9, 1999

So here, now, is the law according to police flack Anne Drennan and Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen … I’m on the Skytrain going to Vancouver and a Policeman asks to look in my bag. I say why and he says open it. I say on what grounds and he says because I say so. Upon what reasonable and probable grounds do you demand to see in my bag, I ask? Because I think you may have liquor in it. But as a free member of a free society I’m quite entitled to have liquor in my bag. Open it or I’m putting the cuffs on you. If I have liquor in my bag, which I’m entitled to have, what are you going to do with it? Confiscate it.

Just a bloody minute – how can you, in other than a police state, demand to see what’s inside my bag, look in my bag without the slightest apprehension I’m committing an offence, and if it’s liquor confiscate it?

Because we don’t want any illegal drinking at the cigarette company’s fireworks! And the Chief Magistrate of this free city, on the grounds of convenience, is not only justifying it but, as Chairman of the Police Board, supporting it.

What happens if I resist? Am I thrown in the Paddy Wagon and taken to jail? On what charge? That I tried to stop a policeman from breaking the law?

And would this be a repeat of the APEC Conference … that I would only be released on condition that I not carry any more liquor in my bag until the Fireworks Show is over? Is this what we’ve come to in this bluddy country?

Does the ends now justify the means?

Does this mean that at the border – through which our illegal narcotics come - that everyone will now be strip searched because while there is no reasonable and probable grounds that any individual has drugs on him if we do strip search everyone we’ll cut down on drugs? And why not some ransacking some houses just for the hell of it. We know that lots of people who live in Mayor Owen’s neighborhood – Shaughnessy – use cocaine. Why not spot house ransacks looking for drugs … even the mayor’s house though we know he never uses the stuff himself. Why there’s no telling what one could find. Maybe some old unregistered fire arms ... a still or two … or a little pornography. None of this at the mayor’s house of course but goodness knows what his neighbours might be up to.

And, after all, if a person has nothing to hide, what’s to be upset about.

Well, call me old fashioned. I’ll tell you what I have to hide on that Skytrain or in my home. It’s my privacy. And what I also hold sacred is my right to move freely and do what I please without interference from the law unless I’m committing an offence.

The searches conducted by the police would be justifiable if they had reasonable and probable grounds to believe that I was carrying something unlawful … but I’m not. I’m obeying the law in every respect.

But we’re such an insipid anally retentive lot in this country that whatever the police do – so long as it isn’t to us personally is quite all right. After all, you always can, at your won expense, go down to the police station and after the usual bureaucratic BS get your liquor back. What a democratic free country this is, I DON’T think.

Speaking of outrage – I’ve a belly full of it today.

Here we have Forests Minister Dave Zirnhilt, who along with then Premier Harcourt and then Forests Minister Dan Miller stole the timber licence from Carrier Lumber, being an adviser to the Indians who were the ultimate beneficiaries of this hijack. It’s unbelievable! Zirnhelt is an active adviser to one of the bands involved, goes into government and helps the government defraud the legitimate owners of the Timber License and gives it to the Indians he had been advising. This is little short of piracy! And the man stays on as Forests Minister!

Surely there must be more to come. Isn’t there a criminal law against this sort of behaviour? Can a man advise a client, then go into government and deprive someone of what’s lawfully theirs and give it to that former client?

This Carrier Logging case is breathtaking … three cabinet ministers including a premier can, with a wave of the hand, destroy rights then grant them to someone else and no one pays except the taxpayer? To the tune of $150 million or more? And the ministers remain So here, now, is the law according to police flack Anne Drennan and Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen … I’m on the Skytrain going to Vancouver and a Policeman asks to look in my bag. I say why and he says open it. I say on what grounds and he says because I say so. Upon what reasonable and probable grounds do you demand to see in my bag, I ask? Because I think you may have liquor in it. But as a free member of a free society I’m quite entitled to have liquor in my bag. Open it or I’m putting the cuffs on you. If I have liquor in my bag, which I’m entitled to have, what are you going to do with it? Confiscate it.

Just a bloody minute – how can you, in other than a police state, demand to see what’s inside my bag, look in my bag without the slightest apprehension I’m committing an offence, and if it’s liquor confiscate it?

Because we don’t want any illegal drinking at the cigarette company’s fireworks! And the Chief Magistrate of this free city, on the grounds of convenience, is not only justifying it but, as Chairman of the Police Board, supporting it.

What happens if I resist? Am I thrown in the Paddy Wagon and taken to jail? On what charge? That I tried to stop a policeman from breaking the law?

And would this be a repeat of the APEC Conference … that I would only be released on condition that I not carry any more liquor in my bag until the Fireworks Show is over? Is this what we’ve come to in this bluddy country?

Does the ends now justify the means?

Does this mean that at the border – through which our illegal narcotics come - that everyone will now be strip searched because while there is no reasonable and probable grounds that any individual has drugs on him if we do strip search everyone we’ll cut down on drugs? And why not some ransacking some houses just for the hell of it. We know that lots of people who live in Mayor Owen’s neighborhood – Shaughnessy – use cocaine. Why not spot house ransacks looking for drugs … even the mayor’s house though we know he never uses the stuff himself. Why there’s no telling what one could find. Maybe some old unregistered fire arms ... a still or two … or a little pornography. None of this at the mayor’s house of course but goodness knows what his neighbours might be up to.

And, after all, if a person has nothing to hide, what’s to be upset about.

Well, call me old fashioned. I’ll tell you what I have to hide on that Skytrain or in my home. It’s my privacy. And what I also hold sacred is my right to move freely and do what I please without interference from the law unless I’m committing an offence.

The searches conducted by the police would be justifiable if they had reasonable and probable grounds to believe that I was carrying something unlawful … but I’m not. I’m obeying the law in every respect.

But we’re such an insipid anally retentive lot in this country that whatever the police do – so long as it isn’t to us personally is quite all right. After all, you always can, at your won expense, go down to the police station and after the usual bureaucratic BS get your liquor back. What a democratic free country this is, I DON’T think.

Speaking of outrage – I’ve a belly full of it today.

Here we have Forests Minister Dave Zirnhilt, who along with then Premier Harcourt and then Forests Minister Dan Miller stole the timber licence from Carrier Lumber, being an adviser to the Indians who were the ultimate beneficiaries of this hijack. It’s unbelievable! Zirnhelt is an active adviser to one of the bands involved, goes into government and helps the government defraud the legitimate owners of the Timber License and gives it to the Indians he had been advising. This is little short of piracy! And the man stays on as Forests Minister!

Surely there must be more to come. Isn’t there a criminal law against this sort of behaviour? Can a man advise a client, then go into government and deprive someone of what’s lawfully theirs and give it to that former client?

This Carrier Logging case is breathtaking … three cabinet ministers including a premier can, with a wave of the hand, destroy rights then grant them to someone else and no one pays except the taxpayer? To the tune of $150 million or more? And the ministers remain in office? And the former Premier can simply shrug it all off?

This dear friends, is the same bunch which used to sit across from the government, of which I was for a time a part, and waggle their self righteous fingers claiming their unimpeachable virtue … this is the same bunch that led, in their time, by Dave Stupich, Mike Harcourt, Dan Miller, Glen Clark, Moe Sihota, and Dave Zirnhilt, sneered at the Socreds … insinuating all manner of sins and proclaiming that when they came to power, clean honest government would finally prevail.

It’s a government of crooks and fools worthy only of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall or the Chicago of Richard Daley Sr. They’re rotten to the core and not even capable of the common decency to step aside and be replaced.