How ironic it is when dictatorial Prime Minister Harper wants to get rid of the Census long form, so as to take government out of citizens’ lives and respect their privacy, everyone, Liberal, NDP, the Globe and Mail, and even his own caucus, are mad at him! Go figure!

This morning’s Political Panel on CBC’s Early Edition, of which I’m a member, discussed online gambling and, frankly, Moe Sihota for the NDP spent his time slagging the Liberals while Erin Chutter for the Liberals, fell all over herself trying to justify Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell’s latest decision as one that brought in needed revenue.

It seemed, with respect, that my colleagues missed a very essential point – this hugely damaging decision which will require dealing more and more with gambling addiction only brings $100 million into the Treasury. Now $100 million is a lot of money to you and me – and to Elin Woods as she extracts that sum from Tiger – but it’s a drop in the bucket for this government and I suggest that logic tells us that the social costs will far outweigh the small income rise.

Quite apart from the monumental hypocrisy which attaches to the Liberals, do they not realize that while BC gets this tax, the immense profits leave the province? And that it’s a tax on the less well off?

These aren’t religious orders we’re dealing with here, folks, they’re corporate thugs.

What’s happened to this province? Have we no sense of morality left as we destroy our trees, our rivers, our fish and our public institutions then support the huge theft from citizens’ pockets by gambling interests?

My guess is that in May 2013 voters will, as Charlie Brown does when Lucy promises not to pull the ball away, forget the history and vote this hideous lot back into office.

[Article by Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun: Gambling grab morally no different than dealing drugs]

Finally, this morning we talked about Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s latest earthy use of one of the oldest words in the English language and Bill Bennett, a serial writer of ill thought out emails, latest billet doux to a constituent.

I was, and remain, bewildered at the fuss this stuff caused.

Unquestionably politicians should not use intemperate or naughty language or both while performing their public duties.

My only reaction this morning remains my reaction now – who cares? Hs no one watched television or a movie lately? Believe me, when Clark Gable shocked the public on all continents when he said “frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn” he opened the floodgates of earthy uses of the language.

It’s a generational thing. When one of my mothers-in-law was watching Platoon and heard the longish “C” word meaning fellatio, she nearly had the vapors. When then wife and I explained that this is how soldiers talked, mother-in-law exclaimed “well it didn’t do them much good, did it?”

When I was Consumer Minister several centuries ago, my first public statement, a day or so after taking office, was to observe that “consumers need a kick in the ass” sometimes meaning that we all must learn, as a child can only learn by experience, that a hot stove is hot.

This tart phrase followed me wherever I went and in the result, the next election gave me an even larger majority than before.

The message is, I think, that the media whose own newsrooms and studios use “f**k” as often as this generation says “like”, need to get a life and recognize when a headline story ought to have been a sidebar item at most.

As one might expect, Michael Smyth (he used to be known as Mike) takes the age old Tory view that she “overlooked a little thing called ‘personal responsibility’”. What he obviously doesn’t understand is that sick people, as part of their illness, can’t take what Smyth would see as the appropriate “personal responsibility”.

Since Smyth looked, evidently, our society has discovered mental illness. Slowly, I would agree and unevenly most certainly – but our society tries to properly diagnose mental illness and treat it as they would any physical illness.

My own form of mental illness, for which I’ve been treated for over 20 years, is depression usually in the form of “anxiety”. I’m under treatment and now for 90% of the time I’m clear of symptoms. Sometimes, however, for reasons I can’t tell, I have an attack. And it’s devastating. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone but it would be useful if Smyth could have just one bout of it. He would soon learn that the illness cannot be treated with “stiff upper lip” discipline and that one of the main causes of mentally ill people not getting treatment is that so many people think it’s a matter of “character”.

Of course I know the thing that’s giving me this bout is irrational. That’s the essence of much mental illness whether it’s depression, alcoholism, drug addiction and yes, gambling addictions. Slowly, very slowly, our society is starting to understand that addictions are not something the addict wants to have and giving treatment to the patient not prison or shunning or both.

While we still ban addictive substances, such as what we call drugs, we don’t jail the user. We do, however, jail the supplier. Quite irrationally, we give licenses for sale of the most dangerous drug of them all – alcohol.

Starting back in 1843 with the famous McNaghten’s case we have developed rules whereby the inability, through insanity, to form the necessary intent to commit a crime, one is found not guilty then detained at “Her Majesty’s pleasure” until cured, if that happens.

Over the years the law has come to recognize that professionals who, knowing of the addiction, feed it for profit must accept some responsibility. It started, I believe, with “dram shop” cases in the US. The courts began to find, for example, bars responsible for deaths at the hand of someone they have over-served.

I do not make the case for giving people back their losses at the racetrack as a matter of routine. I do say, however, that a purveyor of services that feed addictions when they knew or ought to have known the services were being used by an addict, does bear some responsibility. If that standard is to be visited upon bartenders, why not casinos?

This isn’t a case of a person in Monte Carlo, in full formal attire as required, losing huge sums of money. This is a lady of 54 losing the sort of money that any casino operator ought to recognize as most probably out of the usual.

Does that mean that casino operators ought to concern themselves with their patrons lose and how they lose it?

Yes it does. Casinos have a vested interested in seeing their patrons lose. Every game in the casino is “fixed” so that, in the aggregate, patrons lose. Just as bartenders know that serving mind altering drugs places upon them a special obligation, so should casino operators recognize that same special responsibility.

Of course Ms. Ross was a damned fool if she was in control and chose to risk her life’s savings. That she wasn’t under control was known to BC Lotteries by reason of her volunteering herself for help they provided.

As usual, Smyth stretches analogies asking if breweries should be responsible for beer bellies and :Safeway for all those cheese doodles they openly peddle to overweight snackaholics.” This method is called reductio ad absurdum and is used to trivialize the serious matter at hand.

Each case depends upon its own facts. The rule is not that everyone who serves a drunk is responsible for all that drunk does thereafter.

It is to say that if you know, or based on the facts ought to have known, that your profit making exercise poses a serious risk to the consumer and others, you will be held responsible.

Joyce Ross was known to the Lottery Corp to have a gambling addiction. Even if she hadn’t communicated that fact to the Corp, a jury might well hold that her actions were so unusual as to raise serious suspicions of her mental ability to gamble rationally.

Ms Ross was – she would have to prove this – mentally incapable to make rational judgments when gambling was involved. The Corp knew this or ought to have known it and should pay.