i was a junior high school student at swift current’s o.m. irwin school in the late 1970s when the province of saskatchewan introduced its seatbelt law . saskatchewan was the third province to mandate seatbelts, and the 1977 law required drivers, front-seat passengers and children under 16 to buckle up.
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outside the classroom, and despite the irritation of a good many saskatchewan drivers, the seatbelt law stood. in those days, tickets were $20. over time, province after province enacted similar mandates. alberta was the last to do so, a full decade behind saskatchewan. gradually, seatbelt laws evolved . in time, everyone had to wear a seatbelt, and requirements were added for special car seats for infants and booster seats for young children. and the fines went up too.
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but some canadians resisted seatbelt laws more forcefully. in 1987, kim maier, “a bit of a maverick,” challenged alberta’s brand-new seatbelt law by “circling the calgary police station with his seat belt hanging out the door.” then, “he put a sign on his truck announcing his misdeed to the world.” finally, “he took to shouting at passing police cruisers: ‘hey, i’m not wearing a seat belt. give me a ticket.’” on july 5, 1987, after taunting calgary police for eight hours , maier got the ticket he craved.
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given our long-running experience of seatbelt use, you will not be surprised to learn that the court ruled that “the principle of fundamental justice” had not been violated. moreover, the judge determined that the benefits of seatbelts justified the mandating of their use as “a reasonable limit (to freedom) demonstrably justified in a free and democratic country.” maier appealed and the seatbelt law was temporarily called into question until the alberta court of appeal once more confirmed the original judgment. maier remained steadfast in his anti-seatbelt convictions. his rationale? “i like risk and i think seatbelts reduce my enjoyment of life. i’m doing this so that my kids can enjoy life.” he tried to appeal his case to the supreme court of canada, but the court refused to consider the case .
while some still argue that vaccines are ineffective, unsafe or worse, other canadians express concern over the role of the government in requiring vaccines through a vaccine mandate (in alberta, the “ restrictions exemption program ”) and a vaccine passport (in alberta, the “ card-sized vaccination record ”). i have no doubt there will be court challenges to vaccine mandates across canada, based on constitutional grounds. i expect they will fail, in much the same way as kim maier’s seatbelt case failed in the 1980s and 1990s.
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