From FORCES Canada
FORCES - ESSAYS AND ARTICLES
From FORCES Canada
 Abrogation of interprovincial trade agreement planned - To support the government's vicious anti-smoking agenda, and those who depend upon its existence for a living, British Columbia is prepared to violate Canada's Agreement on Internal Trade.They plan to charge tobacco manufacturers $20 million a year to do business in B.C., and the only comparable precedence for that type of extortion is the Mafia. Anti-smoking 'spokespersons' are truly ignorant if they think that everyone believes their statements of outrage and concern for the nation's health in objection to the Ontario Agriculture Minister's position. After the attempt to keep their coffers full with Bill S-13, (ruled unconstitutional) for their proposed anti-smoking youth 'foundation', and their recent endeavour to have taxes on the product raised again, the only concern that's patently obvious is $$$$$s - for themselves. The anti-smoking cartel has "created a monster, and they're determined to make a living out 'saving' people from it." The B.C. Provincial Government is not mandated to 'fundraise' in this manner, or persecute law abiding citizens with an anti-smoking agenda. When they lose the next election, their treatment of 28% of the electorate will be part of the reason why.
Any politician who thinks this politically correct bylaw has found favour with the general population had better think again. A few rabid zealots aren't enough to carry an election, and the voters who have had businesses destroyed, relationships broken, jobs lost, social activities curtailed, lives made miserable.........won't forget who was ultimately responsible for bringing the situation about. Public health officials are only funded by the taxpayer - NOT elected.
The CRD chief medical health officer is still beating the 'secondhand smoke drum'. Obviously this person has some remedial reading to do; even the World Health Organization was unable to link ETS with lung cancer in their own 10-year study that was finally published last Fall.
This intolerable interference in the lives of normally law abiding citizens is going to be challenged in court on a constitutional basis. Please help fight this disgusting encroachment on civil liberties; if the lifestyle 'Nazis' succeed here - your area could
be next. Send donations to:(tax receipts available upon request)
Victoria
Freedom of Choice Coalition in Trust or send directly to: The Esquimalt Inn For further information
contact: Tel: (250) 386-2152 Fax: (250) 386-4313 Email: anna@islandnet.com
Municipal elections aren't too far off. The residents of this Region have good reason to CLEAN HOUSE at the ballot box, and get rid of the incumbents who passed this encroachment on individual rights and privacy. Politicians who give so little consideration to the civil liberties of their constituents, and allow themselves to be lobbied into passing bylaws that treat adults as children, do not deserve another term of office.
As a bonus, maybe a new slate will also 'clean house' on public health - and get rid of the non-elected fanactics who've caused so much social unrest and misery based on specious evidence, and the misuse of their 'mantle of authority'.
Anyone genuinely concerned about the direction this society is taking should make a point of reading Jacob Sullum's book
We aren't talking about an illegal product - guess that's why neither the CRD (Capital Regional District - Vancouver Island) nor the federal/provincial governments, have banned tobacco altogether. They know the 'speak easy' from the old alcohol prohibition days will come back to haunt them in the form of a 'smoke easy'......what 'the people' want, they'll find a way to get.......politicians and public health officials be damned.
It's bad enough that these 'clean air' bylaws are brought in on specious scientific grounds based on the dangers? of secondhand smoke, but the idea that the government owns your body and has a mandate to protect you from yourself is odious. (or odoriferous, if you prefer)
Who is paying for this? With a severe shortage of hospital beds, and surgical waiting lists several miles long, this is a flagrant misuse of dollars by a health region. The Freedom of Choice Coalition estimates that the cost of implementing the no-smoking bylaw so far is around $3 million dollars. Their efforts to get a full cost accounting, even through the Freedom of Information Act, have be thwarted; it appears that the CRD is afraid that even more people will be furious at their totalitarian regime when they find out how much this social engineering experiment has cost them. Now 'coffee parties' are to be added to the list of expenses. If the 'Tobacco Free Task Force' had to get out and fund raise to support their agenda, the same as any other lobby group, you can bet that coffee parties wouldn't be in the budget. 'Spend Free at Taxpayer Expense' would be a good motto for this group of fanatics.
Please support the Freedom of Choice Coalition. Donation details are in the following article. These people are self supporting, and are fighting for your rights as well as their own. Help stop the spread of the tobacco Nazis. This courageous group of businesses, associations and private individuals has gotten together to combat Vancouver Island's Capital Regional District (CRD) SMOKING BAN. This is the first attempt to ban smoking on a regional basis in Canada, and the intent is to extend it to the Greater Vancouver Regional District by the year 2000. The Freedom of Choice Coalition is, in reality, fighting this intrusion into personal liberty and freedom of choice on behalf of everyone. A 'toehold' has been established in the CRD by anti-smoking fanatics, and they will use it as a base to further spread this infection. LEGAL ACTION costs money. Please show your support by donating (tax receipts available) to the Victoria
Freedom of Choice Coalition in Trust or send directly to: The Esquimalt Inn For further information contact: Tel: (250) 386-2152 Fax: (250) 386-4313 Email: focc@mcdpri.com If you value your personal liberty, and want to protect your freedom of choice, please show your support for what the Freedom of Choice Coalition is fighting for. Your area could be next.
Pursuing the line of collecting money, a new committee is to be formed within the Liberal caucus to come up with an alternative to a private-member's bill (Bill S-13) that was killed before Christmas despite widespread support from MPs, senators and doctors. Had it passed, it would have hit the tobacco industry with a $120 million a year 'levy' to create a new foundation to persuade teens not to smoke. The anti-smoking lobby obviously hasn't given up on trying to latch onto a paycheque - even though they've been a disaster as far as 'persuading teens not to smoke' to date. Having created a 'monster', they're determined to justify their existence and make a living out of saving people from it.
Someone had the 'bright?' idea of putting information inside cigarette packages for smokers who want to quit, either a toll-free number or a website address. Pardon me? There hasn't been enough advertising on 'help' available....."see your doctor ... Nicoderm ... Nicorette... Zyban? There hasn't been enough money wasted on this issue - who's paying for the 'toll-free number' - and the website? This is a sop to the anti-smoking cartel, and any of those messages inside a cigarette pack that this smoker receives will be marked as 'garbage' and find their way, one by one, to the office of The Hon. Health Minister of Canada.
Prohibition, no.....an end to the SCAM, yes!
Dr. Richard Stanwick is the Chief Medical Health Officer for the Capital Regional District on Vancouver Island, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, whose 'compassion' and humanity are well-known in that area.
(national no-smoking week)
In celebration, The Hon. A. Rock, Canada's Minister of Health, is going to propose some tough new health warnings. To be included among them, it's rumoured that since' research' has shown that "Smoking is hazardous to your erection" something along that line will be included on cigarette packages in the future. Rock to hit male smokers right where it hurts
After we pick ourselves up off the floor from laughing (God, it's GOOD to laugh once in awhile) from trying to imagine the 'research conditions/criteria' this study was conducted under, - the same as 2ndhand smoke is more dangerous than radon. EPA 1993? - it really is necessary to question this government department's sanity. Are Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, and the Non-Smokers' Rights Assoc. the only groups with a open-door policy in Ottawa?
Robert Parker, President/Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council said it best......"The only thing that surprises me is that anyone would believe it's about smoking."
It's POLITICS, pure and simple.
On the same subject, one of the 5 eastern provinces slated for this tax increase is Quebec. Finance Minister Bernard Landry (a 'reformed' smoker) admits to being pressured to agree to this measure by the cancer society. It's for the CHILDREN of course; higher prices are supposed to cut down youth smoking. Quebec mulls tobacco-tax hike
Perhaps they haven't seen the letter to the editor published in the Globe and Mail, 16 January 1999:
"Re: Higher Cigarette Tax Planned in East
I returned from living in England (for 12 years) in May of this year. There a carton of cigarettes cost the equivalent of $80. This very high cost, however, did not stop young people in Britain from smoking. Indeed, they buy the strongest tobacco in order to emphasize their defiance.
I wonder when health ministers in this country will admit that higher taxes do not prevent smoking but merely provide more money for the government.
Perhaps this is their plot?
Roy Crichton, Wiarton, Ont."
It's obvious that what happened to the 78 year old senior in Winnipeg just before Christmas Senior smoker freezes to death in Winnipeg, Manitoba is of no consequence. She was just someone who was "more affected than others" in pursuit of the anti-smoking agenda. It can pretty well be taken for granted that this lady was neither a relative, friend, nor anyone the anti-smoking fanatics cared about - she was expendable - a 'casualty' of their cause.
Too late for publication in the linked article, the Esquimalt Inn was 'busted' this afternoon and fined $100 as a first offence against the new bylaw which came into effect on January 01st, but wasn't being enforced until today, after the holiday festivities. Also fined $100 was a customer who tried to escape out the front door when these new moral authorities were known to be on the premises. After the 'conquistadors' had left, everyone lit up, and got back to life - enjoying themselves.
A hint to the Esquimalt Inn - perhaps bars, pubs, casino halls......should start playing the Horst Wessel Song (Germany's Nazi Government's 'national' anthem) to alert patrons when the Smoke Police are sighted.
The WHO wrapped up it's precedent setting 'conference' on tobacco control in Vancouver, B.C. last week as its first step toward "....a four-year plan to curb smoking and protect public health around the world." The Hon. P. Priddy, Minister of Health, Responsible for Seniors in British Columbia is quoted as having said, "The WHO wiped out smallpox in this century.
Let's hope it can wipe out tobacco in the next." Would Ms. Priddy care to elaborate on how much pleasure, satisfaction, and relaxation victims of smallpox enjoyed on their way to the 'inevitable' that each of us faces? Did they voluntarily and deliberately set out to contract the disease? Smallpox 'was', with few exceptions, contagious mortally. Would the health authorities like to compare that with the effects of secondhand smoke in view of a recent court decision (Osteen, N. Carolina, July 1998) and the WHO's own latest published study on this issue?
If Dr. Derek Yach (project manager for the WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative) is prepared to divulge how many children he has successfully raised in support of his contention that member countries "...focus on children", perhaps the words might not sound so hollow. This WHO initiative will not succeed simply because they refuse to acknowledge that there is a positive side to the use of tobacco - and the existing 'delivery system'. Sorry, a patch, pill, or whatever - just isn't the same as 'lighting up' on one's own - without a prescription. Some of us prefer to make our own choices in our dance with life. The eradication of a DISEASE is admirable; the extinction of an informed freedom of choice is not.
Would you like to tell us again how dangerous smokers are to everyone around them - worse than radon gas? This is NOT a 'public-health' issue. It's a matter of individual freedom of choice, which these days can hardly be called uninformed. There is also the moral and ethical consideration involved in forcing consumers of a legal product to finance a 'cause' in which they do not believe.
Passing this Bill would have afforded a nice steady income of $120-million a year to the proposed Foundation - and help pay a lot of mortgages as well. Hasn't underage smoking steadily been on the rise since the anti-smoking groups made such an big issue out of it? It's virtually the only form of 'advertising' the tobacco industry gets. Looks like these antis just don't understand 'kids'.
Help "the children"? Help themselves to a paycheque is more like it.
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