Laws, by the Numbers

This is a post for all of those who at sometime or another have wondered:
How many laws are on the books that govern what I do?
Wonder no more.
For Canadians, living in Ontario, the answer is 175,650 laws on the books as at Dec. 31, 2015.

One hundred and seventy five thousand + laws,  is a big number of laws. Huge, really.

If you had that many loonies (Canadian dollar coins), and you carefully stacked them one on top of another, they would reach 1,125 feet into the sky. Just a few feet short of Sudbury's Superstack which is 1,250 feet high. (a loonie is 1.95 millimeters thick)

What is as noteworthy as the size of the number of laws, is that until quite recently, no one really knew how many laws we had. No one had ever bothered to count before. Hard to believe, but true.

In a moment I'll come back to some of the reasons no one had counted before, and some of the challenges in doing the counting. But first a few words about why it is good to finally get a law count.

Here are my top 5 reasons for saying a count of laws is a good thing.

1. it is a principle of our legal system that citizens are expected to know the laws that are in place. "Ignorance of the law" is not an excuse or defense to breaking a law. Having a count of the laws gives you a sense of the challenge you face in not being ignorant.
2. at some number, (and let there be a debate about what that number might be), there are simply too many laws for ordinary citizens to come to grips with. But if one does not have a count of the laws the discussion becomes rather meaningless.
3. if we know the number of laws at a given point in time, we can get other numbers for other points in time. Then we will know if the number of laws is holding stable, or decreasing or more probably, growing. 
4. we can compare ourselves with other jurisdictions along the dimension of how many laws each place has. We might find some interesting relationships between the number of laws in a place and the characteristics of the place. 
5. you can't manage what you don't measure.

Does it strike you that 175,000 or more laws is too many?
If so, do you not wonder how the heck we got to this number?

It was only about 3 and a half millennia  ago, around the time of Moses of the Old Testament, that their society only had 10 laws on the books - or clay tablets as the case may be. You will have heard of these as the 10 Commandments. Now that is a manageable number. Shucks, a regular person could commit all of them to memory.

Actually, a couple of hundred years before Moses, in the region of Mesopotamia, in the Kingdom of Babylon, society was ruled by the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was the King. He enacted this set of laws, and had them recorded on clay tablets and stone slabs (stele) for all to see. The most prominent stele ever discovered is on display at the Louvre in Paris today. And the number of laws in the Hammurabic Code: 282.

These 282 laws were set out in 44 columns, and comprised only 28 paragraphs. They covered contracts and commercial transactions, crimes, and family law. Here one finds the first written example of the law which suggested the punishment of "an eye for an eye". Simple. Easy to remember. And I dare say, effective.

Meanwhile, back here at the ranch, we have so darn many laws that the lawmakers discontinued putting them on paper, or in books. I'm not making this up. Consider the situation for Ontario and its laws.

Through the 1900's, about every 10 years the government would get the Queen's Printer to publish a set of Ontario's laws. The last of these was the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1990. I have a set. It consists of  12 thick volumes, plus an index volume, with hard covers, labelled on the spine. It takes up about a meter of shelf space, and weigh in at about 25 kilos. Every public library in the province, and nearly every law office had a set at the ready. These were the go to books for Ontario statute law. They are not only out of print, they are now more than 25 years out of date. And necessarily out of utility, save for historical research.

Let me give an example of a rather typical Ontario statute. The Anatomy Act. Which, until a few minutes ago I had never heard about (obviously subject to the imperfections of my recollections).
For sure this Act was passed by a majority of the then sitting, and in attendance, Members of Provincial Parliament some years back. And from a government operated web site (e-laws Ontario) I ca confirm that it is still 'on the books' - but not literally these days, just figuratively.

This Act opens with a fewer than a dozen definitions.

Regs


Building Code
But no more

The Skinny on Climate Change

.
'Climate Change'.
Two simple words, easy to say, each well-used alone, yet remarkably mischievous in this present time - the  twenty mid teens.
For some, too many in my view, it is a battle cry or a call to arms. Regrettable really.
For a smaller group, but just as misguided, it announces a conspiracy of pinkos, intent on a grander revolution along socio-economic lines.
An inbetween group hears it as a cacaphony of voices, claiming a unison that never materializes. These folk are open to staying alert, but have trouble embracing forecasts of doom that may only affect their grandchildren or later issue.

The greater part of the mischief of this phrase arises from a lack of consensus about what the phrase encompasses or signifies. I can't help thinking that depending on what camp one is in, "climate change" can imply a little or a lot.

Knowing what someone means / implies by the phrase, is critical to a sensible conversation with that person.
At a minimum, the phrase means that the planet has experienced (in the last 20 to 200 years), and is likely to experience, a modest change in average temperatures, and it may even be said to imply that  the planet has experienced and will experience a greater than usual number of adverse or extreme weather events.

At the other end of the spectrum, some believe that the phrase embraces a large catalogue of scientific 'truths' (that explain what the changes are and why they are happening - with an emphasis on human caused reasons), and further what changes will occur in the near and medium terms under different policy options, and the essential governmental policies and individual actions that are needed to forestall imminent disasters. It is this group that I do not agree with. And I note that it is near impossible to reconcile the differing explanations, forecasts & prescriptions which different subgroups within this category advance. They are not all on the same page, though rarely will any acknowledge this.

Good Climate Change
Most folk speak about climate change in the same fashion as speaking about 'child molestation'. By this I mean that the phenomena is wholly bad. It does not have and can not have any socially redeeming value is a common refrain. This is unfortunate.
From my perspective and home, I am not willing to embrace the notion that a warmer Sudbury is altogether bad. I kind of imagine it would be quite OK. Heck it might even be wonderful.
A longer growing season: good. Less snow to shovel: good. Improved road conditions: good. Lower heating bills: good. More time to swim in our lakes: good. Fewer deaths from hypothermia: good. Is there something I am missing here?

The Distribution of Power

Power, power, who has the power?

One may be forgiven for thinking that power is quite centralized in particular individuals.
The presidential election in the US of A in 2016, with its wall to wall media coverage, seemed to deliver that message. The theme was simply that the person elected as president would be the most powerful person on the planet.

And when D. Trump took office, and even in the days just before that, the impression was that Trump would exercise that power in a singular fashion, as if his powers were absolute, at least in respect of affairs of the national state.

The attentive masses, those large numbers paying some attention to the affairs of the US, soon began to see that there were all sorts of possible constraints on the Presidential power. For many it was an education. For some it was just a refresher course in civics.

Consider one of the first Presidential acts of the Trump. An "executive order" concerning a travel ban on certain individuals - in part focused on restricting entry to the US by people from 7 countries with large Muslim populations.

No sooner that the Order was signed, the challenges started pressing in. The State of Washington was out of the blocks first. They challenged the Order in the Courts. And now it appeared that some federally appointed judge would have the power to determine whether the Order was legit, and whether it could be enforced.In short, that Judge now seemed to have 'the power'.

The tussle for power in this US context has been playing out continuously since. Of course, it has always been playing out since the creation of the US of A. But now, the drama seemed more public.

More recently, as the office of the President has taken some hits on the this struggle for power, the President's team has been crying foul about the antics of some critics of the President. This concerns information "leaks". That is the improper and probably illegal disclosure of confidential information that is undermining the President.

Leaks are not a new phenomena. But it is interesting to observe the hypocritical nature of the responses from the key players. Those who used to be in power, and used to be up in arms against leakers, now welcomed the leaks. And vice versa of course - those who used to welcome leaks (and coincidentally were out not in power) now were loudly complaining about the leaks.

My main point is this: the leakers have power. Serious power to change the agenda of discussion, and the outcomes of those discussions.

In others words, real power is very widely distributed. One does not need a fancy title, or an obscene bank account, or a high placed posting, to have power. Some mail room clerk may hold real power - in some narrow respect.

It has always been this way. And frequently folks forget this important insight. But it will do us all well to keep this point in mind, because it will always be this way.