Toronto “if it only saves one life” crowd rides again

The city of Toronto has passed a bylaw controlling in-ground swimming pools. The new bylaw imposes the toughest standards in North America and will require all new in-ground pools to be fenced in on all four sides. And new fencing that is constructed around existing in-ground swimming pools will likewise be required to be placed around the entire pool. The purpose of course is to prevent people, especially small children from wandering into pools and drowning. Perhaps this bylaw is not all bad. All of the so called legal owners of in-ground swimming pools should consider themselves lucky that the social engineers haven’t passed a bylaw that would make these pools illegal. After all, more people have drowned in these Toronto pools than have been shot to death by legal gun owners. Thank you, City Hall.

---

Ed Gibbs, the president of the Pool and Hot Tub Council of Canada has been quoted as saying that the new bylaw doesn’t protect children from drowning in lakes, ponds, creeks, streams, kiddie pools or above ground pools. The major requirement for being a successful municipal politician is the ability to constantly talk without actually saying anything of note. With a mayor and 44 councillors all continuously yapping, occasionally a whiff of common sense does come out. On this issue it came from Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby. Lindsay Luby, who voted against the bylaw, said that people who go back and forth to their in-ground pool will end up propping the door open. That, of course defeats the entire purpose of requiring that the pool be completely fenced in. No doubt this is a real concern and Toronto will no doubt hire a bunch of pool police that will go along with the smoke police, the idling police and all the other “police” that we currently have. If we had as many new real cops as we have these specialty police, Toronto would be a much safer city. The bylaws defenders such as Councillor Howard Moscoe and his fellow traveller Councillor Janet Davis defend the bylaw on the grounds that if it only saves one life it is the right thing to do. The notion of saving just one life is simply a justification to defend the indefensible. That phrase was often employed during the 1990s when the Federal Liberals brought in the long gun registry. It was bad enough that the law abiding long gun owners were not the ones that were committing gun crimes, but when the cost of the gun registry rose from an estimated $2 million to $2 billion, it was hard to justify. Those who don’t care about the diminishing property rights that people now possess, attempt to justify their improper regulation of private property by using the “if it only saves one life” argument. Of course there are a lot of things we could do that would save at least one life from banning air travel to reducing and enforcing speed limits that would ensure no one would die in a traffic accident. Perhaps the mayor and his supporters on council should shut up about Toronto’s waterfront. Surely by not encouraging people to go down to the lake, at least one life will be saved from drowning in Lake Ontario. And apparently that’s what it’s all about. The argument that laws should be passed if they only save one life are bogus. Look for the Kerryish Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, to be in favour of this law being implemented throughout the province after he’ll be against it.