This news story from my old friends at Canada’s National Post is the descent into societal madness distilled into one perfect paragraph. It’s all the better for starting out as the opposite, a piece about having the guts to draw the line, get tough, butch up, and push back on our present insanity (We’re cracking down: No more welfare checks if you’re on the lam!), before retreating into one qualification after another (maybe by next year . . . if the legislation passes . . . and don’t worry, only for murderers and rapists) and then in the dazzling final sentence finally flying the coop and soaring back to cloud-cuckoo land. Enjoy!
People with outstanding warrants will be denied income assistance in British Columbia as soon as next year if legislation introduced yesterday is passed into law, said Rich Coleman, Minister of Housing and Social Development. “People who have outstanding warrants shouldn’t be getting welfare until they clean up the problem,” said Mr. Coleman, adding that to qualify, warrants must be for indictable offences such as murder, sexual assault and drug trafficking. But Mr. Coleman said the government will not run criminal background checks on welfare applicants to enforce the policy. Instead, it will rely on criminals to disclose their outstanding legal issues when they make an application.
Of course! It would be frightfully unsporting of us to run a background check, so if you could volunteer that you’re wanted for six murders in Moose Jaw we’d be awfully grateful.
Like Derb says . . .