Friday, July 17, 2009

I thought Czars went out with the Romanoffs.

I have been planning a blog on the issue of Commissioners subsuming the role of our elected officials and plan do so in more detail later.

I do though want to touch on the issue now, as a result of one of today's national papers screaming on its front page "Facebook Breaches Privacy, Czar Says" and as the result of a BNN interview yesterday that I will speak about in a minute.

The term Czar has been picked up by the liberal media in America, to describe their ever-growing list of omnipotents who have assumed responsibility for everything from the economy, to homeland security, to overseeing the GMs of Amercia. Our liberal press is following suit aping this title in recognition that these isolated officials are increasing in number in Canada as well.

However one looks at it, the undeniable result is less democracy for our two countries.

These so-called Czars are performing important functions that affect us all and that should be performed by our elected officials.

Yesterday, on BNN I was fortunate to watch the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, John Tory interview Canada's Privacy Commissioner the one and the same Privacy Czar referred to in the above newspaper. The Commissioner led off by declaring that Face Book improperly stores personal information of its users and that this would have to cease even if it meant charges being laid.

Tory, to his credit, countered with two loaded questions:
  • First, is it not true that the 'personal information' at issue was voluntarily provided by the user. Madam Commissioner allowed that this was the case.
  • Second and of equal importance, has any of the users complained to her office? Madam Commissioner again allowed that none had done so.

It begs the question why would the Commissioner concern herself with such a none issue.

From my perspective, once the Government establishes such a Commissioner that individual and his or her staff then take it upon themselves to justify their existence, large salaries and benefits included. We the citizen pay the price with more taxes and less freedom.

It is time to scrap these Czar Empires and return their functions to where they belong - our elected officials.

Much more on this later,

"Galagher"