From The Province
These days, we are bombarded with demands for bans by a garden variety of supporters of the nanny state and politicians are happy to help. Politicians seem to adore bans. Why? Because bans allow politicians to appear to be creating simple solutions to whatever problems have captured the imagination of the worrying class. However, bans also create unintended consequences and even worse, they reduce responsible people to supervised children with few opportunities to make choices on their own.
A well-intentioned public risks being buried under the ban demands of the ban-crazy worrying class. Its list of bans reads like somebody’s day out at the mall. Bottled water and incandescent light bulb bans litter the province. Plastic bags may soon be banned across Canada. Greater Victoria has just voted to ban teens from tanning beds. Ban the tan? When no intrusion is too small for government to consider, it’s a sign the nanny state has run amok.
