In Alberta, with the toughest distracted driving laws in North America, you can smoke while you drive, and (with a nod to Timmie's) you can sip a coffee, but if you do both at the same time be prepared to part with $172.00. Now if while so engaged you pass an emergency vehicle without slowing down to 60 km/hr, make that $772.00. If you're not wearing a seat-belt at the time of these grievous infractions, all of which used to be perfectly legal, you could be on the hook for $1022.00.
Now there are valid arguments to be made for each of these laws, and valid arguments against them. My point here is simply to highlight how we are piecemeal losing our freedoms, penury being the new gulag. I would also argue that the longer governments that enact such laws remain in power, the more freedoms we will lose - and that's an unaffordable proposition.
