A10

By Marc Jolicoeur

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Speak Up

Have you heard the one about the newly proposed restrictions to be placed on New Brunswick's young drivers? No? Well, have you heard the one about the newly proposed restrictions for Ontario's young drivers? Yeah? It's a good one!

As to be expected, the Big-O province has outshined us with media coverage on this shared issue, and it's actually kind of hard to figure out specifically what New Brunswick's planning on changing. All that seems certain is that it plans to follow loosely the course being set forth by Ontario, which is a course fraught with unrest, uncertainty, and blogging.

In case you're unfamiliar with the legislation, I'll summarize. There are three major points:

1) There will be new incremental measures for those under 21 who violate traffic laws (ie "speeding") which will result in immediate suspensions and possible resetting of graduated licensing periods.

2) Those 19 and under will only be allowed to carry one passenger who is of equal or lesser age.

3) Anyone under 21 caught with a blood alcohol level of more than 0.00 per cent will have their license suspended. . .so be careful with the mouthwash.

Of the proposed amendments, item #2 is receiving by far the most flack. If you're asking yourself "Where could I stumble upon a smattering of such 'flack'?" look no further than the 'Watchdog of Justice': Facebook.

"No Mr. McGuinty, we do not want to live in a nanny state" reads just one of the 11,222 wall posts on the Young Drivers Against New Ontario Laws group. At last count, the group had 116,562 members. I tried to find a similar group pertaining to New Brunswick's tabled legislation, but was unable. So, to get a feel for this side of the argument, I was forced to leaf through the comments on this page, some of which were valid, many of which were inane, most of which were made by teens whose spellcheck feature was turned off. The majority of the remarks are "He said/She said" style, claiming that the stats used to back up this legislation are either bogus or bang-on, which make this debate (as most debates are) opinion based rather than truth based. This is an election for the facts.

Side note: Can we honestly trust 18-year-olds to choose who could best run our country but not allow them to carpool?

Much to my surprise, this Facebook group is apparently a somewhat valid form of protest these days. This point has been legitimized by interviews with Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty, and the province's Transportation Minister Jim Bradley. Both of these men seem to imply that they're listening/reading the concerns of these young people, but have yet to hear any other viable solutions to the problems at hand.

"I'm interested in the quality of arguments which would counteract what every safety group has said to me about this," said Bradley, citing the fact that statistics seem to indicate these measures will greatly reduce the amount of fatalities on our roads. Ontario's Premier has said "I think we need to find a way to get on the Facebook. I think we need to find a way to engage them in a dialogue in a social network where they are." Aside from the fact that McGuinty calls it "the Facebook", this statement is also funny because Liberals will have a hard time engaging this demographic during work hours, seeing as how Facebook is currently blocked on government computers in the province.

Facebook isn't the only online forum available, and I figured I'd take a moment to share with you two of my favourite comments about this petition I found on other sites:

Pro - "The tricky part for the Premier is getting all that feedback delivered to him way up in his ivory tower." Halcyon Daze

Con - "Ooo, the power of youth on Facebook. I wish they could get as worked up over something like the environment instead of legislation aimed at saving lives that might infringe upon their mall privileges. The legislation works in other provinces, it's reasonable and statistically-backed. Get over it and do your homework." Michael Moose

This sort of back and forth isn't just indicative of the public reaction to this issue, but the government's as well. Members of the Conservative Party and the NDP are seizing this as yet another opportunity to distinguish themselves from the Liberals by mudslinging them as unilateral and out of touch. Just another day at the office for Canadian politicians.

All this has left me wondering how New Brunswick teens feel about this issue. Why is there no online presence fighting against these laws? Are they apathetic? Do they approve of them? Do they even know what these laws will be? Are the Internet lines down??? It could be any of the above, or it could be that they simply don't realize the implications this may have for them.

In any case, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this issue locally in the coming months . . . maybe.