HANNAFORD: Now the Trudeau Liberals want you to quit drinking

If only the Trudeau Liberals would stop trying to make us into better people.Thanks to our friends at Blacklock’s Reporter, we are advised this morning that Health Canada has been tasked to research “suggestions for regulatory measures” on alcohol, such as restricting glamorous depictions of drinking in the movies.It follows a proposal to mandate cancer warnings on liquor, beer and wine. In other words, they would like to do to Molson et al what they did to tobacco manufacturers. For a start, they should hire Dylan Mulvaney. He certainly knew how to get people to stop drinking Bud Light..Anyway, suggested for your personal betterment are "regulatory measures included increasing the cost of alcohol, i.e. taxing it more, restricting the availability of alcohol, legislating generic packaging as is the case with cigarettes, offering tax incentives for producers of low or non-alcoholic beverages and non-liquor serving establishments, limiting or restricting alcohol advertising and restricting the depiction of alcohol consumption in movies.”Wait a minute. Wasn’t this the same government that made one of its first jobs to legalize the sale of marijuana?Marijuana may or may not be as bad as its detractors say it is and its legitimate medicinal benefit is conceded. But however much people enjoyed it, nobody ever seriously argued that it was actually good for you.Yet there it is, more cannabis stores than Starbucks, with Ottawa's blessing and encouragement.So, where’s the policy consistency? Mr. Trudeau is happy to promote weed, but doesn’t like tobacco and now he wants people to quit drinking as well? Dear heavens, sometimes after a week of his policy announcements a few quick ones before we go home is all the comfort that's left.And by the way, if somebody does come up with a happy alternative to alcohol, Liberals will find a way to attack that too. Look at the vaping file: Vaping is said to be considerably less dangerous that smoking tobacco and has for a lot of people, been a successful off ramp from cigarettes. Yet, Health Minister Mark Holland seeks to restrict its use.More evidence, I fear, that outside climate change and relationships with indigenous people, there’s no consistent approach to anything in this government.So, here's what to expect. First, the decision has been made. Now, Ottawa will find an anti-beer spokesman outside government, and fund them. They have already spent nearly $100,000 on the focus groups that led to the Blacklock's report. The designated mouthpiece will then produce reports saying how bad things are and the government having accepted them will, in the infelicitous words of our prime minister, 'step up' to do good to you against your will.This procedure of funding people to tell the government what it wants to hear has been refined over the Trudeau years to justify policy in many areas. Notably, but not exclusively, it is used to create fear in some communities in order to justify repressive government intrusions upon free speech. And they can always find somebody to cash the cheque.Finally, the government wages war and deploys taxpayer-money backed by the state's coercive power to change the behaviour of Canadians.There exists within the office of the prime minister on the fourth floor of Centre Block's west wing, a concealed drinks cabinet. To reveal what's on offer today, it is a matter of knowing which wooded panel to press; whether it will survive the current Centre Block renovation was not known at press time.Be that as it may, the famously thirsty Sir John A. was long dead when the new Centre Block was built to replace the earlier building destroyed by fire in 1916. So who might have caused this hidden jewel to be added to the fabric of the office?Why, none other than the prime minister's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He who put a wine cellar in the PMO would, I suspect, say the state has no place in the wine cellars of the nation... I didn't care much for him when he was in power but you know, sometimes, I miss the old man.

HANNAFORD: Now the Trudeau Liberals want you to quit drinking

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