I confess that I have never been a big booster of the 2010 Olympics; I’ve always thought that the money we’ve spent and continue to spend on inviting the world to the Lower Mainland for two weeks could have been better invested in more worthy causes – supportive housing for the mentally ill and addicted, the creation of a more progressive system of taxation, improvements in the quality of public education and health care, and more accessible and environmentally friendly public transit.

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Unfortunately, the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision on Insite may not bring an end to the Harper Conservatives’ determination to shut it down – a facility that our province and our city have quite fairly described as a health care initiative.

Friday’s judgement was interesting and complex, with debate focused on such related issues as interjurisdictional  immunity, provincial paramountcy, and co-operative federalism.  But what was really interesting were the more general policy statements, unencumbered by Canada’s legal structure, and aimed at the heart of the policy issues that we have all been debating. The dissenting judgement, one which would have allowed the appeal of the federal government, concluded, “The current harm reduction model employed at Insite cannot stand isolated from the sourcing, distribution and sale in Canada of the illicit drugs used in its facility, by willfully ignoring the context in which those drugs arrive in the possession of its clientele. This conflicts with Canada’s constitutional mandate for criminal law, which includes the control of dangerous and addictive drugs for the health and public safety of its citizens”.

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As we turn the corner on another decade, hopes for a more peaceful society seem to be somewhat elusive –  locally, nationally and globally.

Here in Vancouver our city Council has approved the licensing of Mixed Martial Arts, a sport that takes boxing to another level, while still retaining its key goal – one man displaying the speed, ferocity and strength to knock another unconscious. On the national stage, the rate of handgun homicides in our major urban centres has been climbing for a decade, as young men with guns kill their adversaries for a wide range of reasons, ranging from theft and failure to repay debt, to imagined or real insult.  On the international stage, matters are even worse. We have literally tens of thousands of individuals, again almost always men, committed to killing as part of some ill-conceived political and/or religious agenda (or mental illness).

What’s the solution? Well, first, let’s separate the mixed martial arts combatants from the young gangsters and the terrorists; at least these folks are playing by some rules. And I must confess, as much as I dislike the blood and the violence, I’m not sure that prohibition of the sport is ultimately a helpful strategy. Increased regulation brings increased safety for those who choose to participate: restrictions on eye gouging and groin kicks, for example, and the comfort of knowing that a properly certified neurologist is sitting ringside.

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We climbed into the back of the taxi and began an air-conditioned 45 minute drive through the back roads of St. Thomas, en route to our hotel. The town of Charlotte Amalie was our point of departure, the hub of the island — a home port for cruise ships and folks like ourselves, travellers by ferry from the British Virgin Islands.

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My wife and I moved to Bowen Island in the spring of 1979, enchanted by the vast green spaces, the swirl of wood smoke on a damp March morning, and the interesting mix of what we would soon describe as hippies and rednecks. There were fewer than 800 full-time residents then, and in most important respects we had all come to Bowen Island to get away from urban life. After all, you don’t move to a small island, accessible only by ferry, for the nightlife and the shopping; most of us are, almost by definition, a little reclusive. We value community, but we also like privacy, quiet and nature, and the lifestyle that these characteristics afford.

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Let’s assume that mandatory minimum sentences for the distribution of illegal drugs represent good social policy, sending a message to would be participants in the commercial trade. One could then argue that mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment tell drug dealers that their activities will have some new consequences, consequences that will serve to curtail their involvement in the business, particularly if they use weapons, or engage in any form of intimidation.

Unfortunately, the bill has its own internal contradictions, regardless of whether one believes in its approach. The most significant contradiction is its relatively harsh treatment of cannabis production, in contrast to its treatment of the trafficking (or possession for the purpose of trafficking) in cannabis (and heroin and cocaine). Section 5(3) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is to be amended to provide for a minimum term of one year imprisonment for trafficking in heroin, cocaine or cannabis, provided that the convicted person commits the offence as part of a criminal organization, uses violence in committing the offence, is carrying or threatening to use a weapon in committing the offence — or has served a term of imprisonment for a designated substance offence (typically trafficking or importing an illegal drug). Somewhat surprisingly and quite inconsistently, these same caveats are not applied to the offence of marijuana production (section 3.1 (b) of Bill C-15). Granted, the minimum term of imprisonment is six months, rather than one year, but the irony is that the distributors of more dangerous drugs are to be treated less harshly than the producers of a less dangerous drug (cannabis), irrespective of the actual amounts involved. And even more oddly, the distributors of cannabis are to be treated differently from the producers of cannabis, again irrespective of the amounts in question.

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I am a child of the 1960s, a product of a rather different era. We were told to question authority and never to trust anyone over 30. We took issue with the morality of what sociologist C. Wright Mills once called the power elites, and we urged greater equality for men and women, rich and poor, gay and straight, and so on.

It is, therefore, particularly disturbing to see that the language of equality and a corresponding distrust of elites is now being used to justify nutty crusades. Take, for example, the need for balance in political debate. Fair enough — for the sake of equality, it’s important that a range of viewpoints be considered. Unfortunately this can produce results of quite silly proportions, when scientists (the power elite) are challenged by those who ascribe the workings of the universe to, take your pick, God, Allah, astrology, the spirit world, or a special bond with the earth. In this world view, equality might dictate, for example, that students be taught not only Darwinism but a literal form of creationism. After all, 45 per cent of Americans believe that God created human beings — in their present form — at some point during the past 10,000 years. Their conception of equality demands that their system of knowledge formation be given respect, even though polls demonstrate that less than one quarter of one percent of American scientists with appropriate educational credentials hold the same point of view. For literal creationists this is all the more telling– it just demonstrates the need for balancing the views of elites with the views of the average working person.

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One of the most striking developments of the last decade is the phenomenon best described as a war against science. The internet has given a platform to anyone with an opinion, regardless of merit: this is not a medium that moves knowledge forward on the basis of careful peer review of its content. To be blunt, any wack job with a computer can spew out his or her pet theories on, for example, the need to lock up all illicit drug offenders, why the polar icecaps are not actually receding, and why vaccination is a government plot, a conspiratorial spin of the roulette wheel, with your health in the balance.

But take, for example, the Harper Conservatives. They do actually reject the best available evidence in relation to crime; one has only to look at testimony before the House and Senate in relation to their proposals of mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment and the elimination of the faint hope clause. And they are pretty lukewarm when it comes to the science of climate change, historically more likely to side with the Bush Republicans than any other constituency. Their position is that the environment must not interfere with productive enterprise and the building of the gross domestic product – furthermore, there’s always a potential technological solution should the worst case scenario arrive on our doorstep.

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There is a consistent thread in the recent Conservative crime bills; get tough on crime by imposing mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment. And it seems intuitively appealing – send the bad guys to jail for clearly determined periods of time, crime rates will drop and we will all have a more peaceful and safer society.

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 As I get older and necessarily see more of political machinations – from my own municipality of Bowen Island, and on to the provincial and federal levels of government – I am struck by the similarities between politics and the worst of competitive sport.

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