THE BIG BROTHER

In George Orwell's nightmare totalitarian vision Nineteen Eighty-Four, Room
101 contains whatever you most fear in the world. For Winston Smith, it's
rats. For a civil libertarian, it might be a Liberal MP.

Members of the special parliamentary committee on Canada's drug strategy
say that when the report is released, it will call for a "drug czar" like
the one the United States has. Oh great. Not only are we going to imitate
the Americans' war on drugs even though by all accounts the drugs are
winning, but we're going to replace our system of democracy with Imperial
Russia. Once upon a time it was generally agreed that it was good to
restrain government; why are we prepared to throw that out the window as
soon as we're dealing with an issue that's important, or, failing that, the
subject of popular hysteria?

Yet Liberal MP and drug committee member Derek Lee complains that the
trouble with our illicit-drug strategy at the moment is "There's no 'Big
Brother.'" Right: We have no maximum leader unrestrained by law, morals or
even a reliable record of his past actions, capable of intruding at will on
citizens' freedoms. Some of us think that's good.

If a Liberal MP such as Mr. Lee blundered into Room 101, he might find a
free, self-governing citizen reading Orwell.