To hear Premier Christy Clark tell it, her party has done yeoman duty reducing the impact of red tape. It鈥檚 a claim the B.C. Liberals have made repeatedly, and with at least some evidence in their favour.
A report last year by the Finance Ministry suggested that since 2001, the number of government regulations has been reduced from 360,000 to 206,000. The cutback has met with praise in the business community.
But the real concern isn鈥檛 how many regulations get passed. It鈥檚 how intrusive they are.
The statute books are full of arcane and technical provisions that scarcely ever affect us. More worrying is the growing tendency to legislate in areas that do affect our private lives.
And looked at from this angle, a case can be made that the current Liberal government has gone much further than its predecessors. Some examples:
Last year, regulations were passed allowing ambulance technicians to demand blood samples from accident victims. There was a legitimate concern here: EMT staff may be exposed to bodily fluids that contain communicable disease agents.
Yet patient consent is a founding principle of medical care. That principle was quite deliberately set aside.
This month, legislation came into effect that radically expanded the reach of marital obligations. The new Family Law Act decrees that after an unmarried couple live together for two years, the financial obligations of marriage apply. This means both are entitled to a 50-50 share of all assets, debts and pensions accrued during that period, even if they had no intent of marrying.
It certainly is appropriate to define the duties of partners in a long-term relationship, especially if there are children. But by forcing marital obligations on adults who don鈥檛 want them, the government intruded on a highly private matter 鈥� the choice to remain single.
The Liberals have been equally willing to regulate matters affecting personal health. The use of trans fats in restaurant cooking has been restricted, teenagers have been banned from tanning salons and the use of cellphones while driving has been outlawed.
As before, there are indeed public interests in these areas. Yet thousands of factors affect our health and well-being. By choosing to legislate instead of issue warnings, the government has opened the door to a huge new field of regulation.
Indeed, this tendency to reach for a sledgehammer when cracking a nut has become a Liberal trademark. When tainted food samples were traced to commercial meat plants, the government brought in sweeping regulations. But the new legislation wasn鈥檛 confined to large-scale producers. Small, farm-gate operators were told they also had to comply.
This wasn鈥檛 just financially impossible, it was entirely unwarranted. There was no evidence linking farm-gate producers to tainted meat.
The result of this heavy-handedness can be seen in the fallow fields throughout Central Saanich. It is no longer feasible to raise a handful of turkeys for Christmas, or sell a few sides of beef.
No doubt, each of these decisions, in isolation, seemed warranted at the time. But taken together, they have created a picture of bossiness that many find both unpleasant and unseemly.
Indeed, the power of regulation has been used so widely that the question may reasonably be asked 鈥� is anything off-limits now? Is there any field of personal choice that remains solely our own?
Of course there is a dilemma here. Governments are elected to protect and secure the lives of ordinary citizens. Regulations can help achieve that end.
But we do require a degree of moderation, if only so those lives remain worth living. The last 12 years have seen the pendulum swing too far.
