Aug 10
30
Ontario libertarians at centre of property rights fight
I was as shocked as any other respectable Canadian when I saw the reports about the illegal bureaucratic swarming against the rural Ontario Jaworski family.
Oh, wait a second. It wasn’t illegal. The kind of behaviour that makes bureaucrats indistinguishable from mob enforcers is increasingly legal in Ontario… and this country.
You can now read several stories on the internet about this case – though not nearly enough: not even a 10th or a 20th of the number of stories I have seen when the homosexual political movement scores a victory; or when the gun controllers or abortion activists make gains that are consistent with the sentiments of Canada’s hard-left journalists and editorial boards.
Click here for the Jaworskis’ website. Click here for Kevin Libin’s National Post article. Click here for Brian Lilley’s Toronto Sun article. Click here for Ezra Levant’s Toronto Sun article. Mr. Levant quite appropriately begins his column by noting that “One of the few thrills of working as a bylaw enforcement officer is making people cry.”
The Jaworskis open their property north of Bowmanville, in the Municipality of Clarington, Ontario, to an annual libertarian conference each summer. It is organized by Peter Jaworski whose parents own the property. They operate a Bed & Breakfast on the property as well.
This year, local bureaucrats, acting in such a way as to bring back memories of communist terror to mother Jaworski, investigated the conference activity on the property, imposed numerous conditions on holding the conference just days before the event took place. As Mr. Libin reported: “First came the health inspector who turned up unannounced, four days before the festivities. The family had no permit, she said. The kitchen was not up to code for preparing group meals. The water was unacceptable. The bathrooms insufficient. The event would have to be catered. Only bottled water was allowed. There must be hand sanitizer provided and portable handsinks. All dishes must be disposable, condiments ‘individually packaged.’ ‘Pre-packaged non-hazardous foods’ were allowed; anything perishable must be ‘consumed immediately’.”
Despite complying with the health inspector’s conditions, the property owners now face a $50,000 fine for using their property in commercial ways that do not conform to their zoning. Mr. Libin reported: “Peter’s parents each received a summons to appear in provincial court on Sept. 28. They were charged with using their land ‘for a use other than permitted residential use; namely for a commercial conference centre’.”
Many government-schooled Canadians may lack the ability to appreciate how an order to use bottled water could conjur up images of a Soviet terror that caused a Polish family to flee for their lives. Such people are the successful products of a socialist school system.
One of the key issues here is private property. Canadians have barely any real private property rights left. We have a host of governments justifying their existence and fuelling their socialist spirit by inventing more and more rules and restrictions to govern people’s use of their own property. They are implemented gradually and they are rationalized with appeals to health, safety and environmental protection.
And it appears that a growing number of Canadian adults lack the self-confidence to make their own health and safety decisions – and they certainly don’t trust their neighbours enough to do so – so they embrace the socialist spirit and grant the civil government the added authority to do so. I typically don’t rub shoulders with such people, but a few months ago, I actually found myself speaking to an atheist couple who couldn’t be shaken from their conviction that the state needed to provide all these protections for us.
It’s only when a particularly outrageous case such as this one comes along that a few more people pay attention to the cost associated with this paternalistic agenda of the messianic state. Meanwhile many others are also suffering quietly because they don’t know how to fight back or they are too afraid to do so.
Socialists and most naïve Canadians see only two solutions to these issues: state-imposed rules to protect safety OR no safety. Due to the cultural and academic environment in which we are trained, the concept of self-government simply does not compute for most of us. If the state isn’t solving the problem, the problem isn’t being solved. Period. We just can’t trust the issue of safety to individuals, to parents, to consumers.
For libertarians like the Jaworskis and for right-thinking Christians, this is antithetical to our understanding of how best to order society, making such political and bureaucratic inquisitions far more onerous than they would be for the average property owner.
The source of the problem is socialism, and socialism is a humanistic and atheistic theory. Not all atheists are socialists. A very small body of atheists are libertarians. The Jaworskis may be atheists, and so may not appreciate this part of my column. The reality is that humanists must decide whether they will pursue a model for life that elevates the individual person or aggregate humanity. Almost all humanists pursue unity in place of diversity and opt for aggregate humanity. The represenative of aggreggate humanity becomse the state. Hence, for socialists, the state takes the place of God. The state becomes the central organizing principle for all of life. Regretably, due to the pervasiveness of sin, as well as the dominance of socialistic thinking in our day, many Christians have also made peace with socialism. (In Canada, the Libertarian Party consistently runs fewer candidates and garners less votes than the Christian Heritage Party, and is indicative of how few humanists or atheists find libertarianism to be a genuinely livable worldview.)
But the key aspect for ordering human society for Biblical Christians is self-government – under God. The primary place of self-government, as opposed to civil government, or the state, is where right-thinking Christians and libertarians agree. Christians, however, know that self-government is impossible without God. That is what God declares in the Bible. Mankind is born in sin. It is also the indisputable testimony of history. Attempts to live without hierarchy always, without exception, produce anarchy. That anarchy, in turn, fosters a sympathy for strong totalitarian leadership to once again bring order and peace to society.
The strongest, most compelling experiments with self-government thus far have come out of Christendom. And they are disappearing as Christianity – certainly as public, politically influential Christianity – wanes and the humanistic ethic rises to replace it. Though, as enervating as it is, humanism may be nothing more than a short-lived stepping-stone to the ascendency of Islam.
All that to say that we must breathe new life into the ethic and vision of self-government in Canada if we want to salvage any liberty from the centralizing trend that’s sweeping this country, and especially Ontario under the paternalistic messianic state-ism of Dalton McGuinty. Christians in particular need to step up to the plate in this respect if we have any residual commitment at all to ordered liberty and fundamental justice.
And we need to insist on the dismissal of every goulish bureaucrat who fancies himself as in the employ of a new Hitler. Listen to what Ezra Levant wrote about a Clarington bureacrat to whom he spoke about this affair: “I phoned that bylaw officer to ask him about the Jaworskis. I found a man on a mission, boasting to me that his next step would be to take down the street sign for the family’s small bed and breakfast. He was particularly pleased that he could do that without issuing a summons, or even receiving a complaint. When he sensed my sympathy for the Jaworskis, he hung up on me.”
That brief report should make your skin crawl. My original title for this article was going to be, “How easy it is to become a Nazi.” I decided against that. But it’s the hideous attitudes of people like this in a First world, open, developed country which prompted that headline option. It is evidence of how dark human nature is, and how badly we need redemption from God in Christ. It’s evidence of how close to the surface evil is, and of how little effort is required to bring it to the surface.
Equally as offensive to the private property violations is the fact that this kind of inquisition can be launched from an anonymous complaint. Apparently, the court case the Jaworskis now face is based on an anonymous complaint about their business activity on their property. Anonymity is a tool for terror. It is intimidating and it can be a public security threat. For these reasons, many people properly oppose attempts by some Islamic factions to allow women to wear their burkas for identity pictures and security screening procedures.
Additionally, if, as the Jaworskis suspect, the complainant is somebody in the hospitality industry who finds their activity to be a competitive threat, it makes this outrageous situation even more scandalous. One of the most offensive characteristics of the modern socialist state is that it has become an enabler for greed and envy. Redistributive taxation is envy-driven at its core, as is affirmative action and numerous other public policies. An anonymity-driven complaint system for investigating zoning violations is perfectly designed to encourage envy-driven people to target their enemies.
Envy is a barbaric characteristic. The Bible condemns it as a vile sin. Government policies that encourage, rather than condemn, envy are evil and need to be changed. If the Clarington investigation is based on a complaint, and if the complainant is so immoral and cowardly that he refuses to identify himself, this investigation should be immediately terminated.
By pursuing this investigation, the local government is acting as an enabler of vigilante action. Vigilantism should be against the law, not enabled by government officials. This whole situation is one giant moral mess.
Self-government under God is foundational to the solutions needed in Ontario. A very limited civil government with much decentralization is necessary so that when evil does rise to the surface, it’s scope of influence is limited. Equality before the law must be reinstated, especially between the governed and the governors, in place of a growing problem of politicians and bureaucrats running rough-shod over the law, or changing laws and public policy to their advantage so that actions that should be against the law no longer are. In this spirit, we also need to see stronger private property rights in Ontario, and across Canada.
In the meantime, you can make a donation to the Jaworskis’ legal defence fund, using Paypal from their website.
You can contact the Clarington mayor and councillors to express your disgust and urge reforms to the laws. ChristianGovernance supports equality before the law, not one-off special favours, so we aren’t calling for special political intervention on behalf of the Jaworskis. We want to see the laws and behaviour that are being used against them to be repealed so that they aren’t used to destroy anybody else’s lives either.
Here are the councillor email addresses we gleaned from the above website.
Mayor Jim Abernethy [email protected]
Regional Councillor Mary Novak (1 & 2) [email protected]
Regional Councillor Charlie Trim (3 & 4) [email protected]
Local Councillor Adrian Foster (1) [email protected]
Local Councillor Ron Hooper (2) [email protected]
Local Councillor Willie Woo (3) [email protected]
Local Councillor Gord Robinson (4) [email protected]
You can also contact the Clarington bureaucracy here.
The municipal clerk responsible for by-law enforcement is Pattii Barrie: [email protected].
And find out what the different municipal candidates’ views are on these issues as we approach municipal election day on October 25th.