The Post editorial board on the Greyhound murder: The government's best policy response is to ... do nothing
Posted: August 03, 2008, 5:32 PM by Jonathan Kay
Editorial board
Notwithstanding one weird and horrifying murder aboard a prairie Greyhound bus last week, this editorial board refuses to be part of the great chain of hysteria that links hyperventilating news consumers, fearmongering TV producers and pandering politicians. Here is our suggestion for what ought to be done to upgrade the security of bus transportation after the knife killing of Tim McLean by a fellow Greyhound bus passenger: nothing. Leave the system alone. Mr. McLean could have been murdered equally easily by a random psychopath in a movie theatre or a classroom or a wine bar or a shopping mall - or on his front lawn, for that matter. Unless all of those venues, too, are to be included in the new post-Portage la Prairie security crackdown, singling out buses makes no sense.
The ranks of those who aren't capable of seeing this evidently include the opposition parties in the House of Commons. NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, for instance, called the unprovoked slaying "a wake-up call to the issue of security on mass transit."
"This incident sounds like a rare incident," she added. (The qualifier "sounds like" suggests the honourable member will have had to check with her office to get the actual annualized rate of bus-board decapitation homicides.) "But," she noted, "it raises a lot of questions about the broader issue and makes you realize there are no checks in place on buses."
Politicians love occasions that "raise questions" they don't have to answer, like "Just what sort of public space should people be able to enter without 'checks'? And is the New Democratic Party openly in favour of a police state now, or just tacitly?"
Liberal public safety critic Ujjal Dosanjh noted the obvious by saying "It's difficult to foresee armed guards on buses." He then added, however: "But the security experts from across the country have to put their heads together."
Unfortunately, the West's legitimate security experts are working full-time these days trying to eliminate expensive forms of dimwit "security theatre" that already exist in our transport system - a time-consuming kabuki that plays out, for instance, every time we take off our shoes or are forced to surrender our toothpaste before boarding a flight. Most of them would be happy just to have a short breather from moral panics.
The irony is that both Mr. Dosanjh and Wasylycia-Leis both consider themselves political progressives - yet the security concepts they are vaguely musing about would significantly raise the cost of intercity transport for millions of Canadians who can't afford a car. Then again, what do they know about the bus industry? As denizen of Air Canada's Maple Leaf lounges, with generous Ottawa-funded travel allowances, these MPs probably haven't seen the inside of a Greyhound in decades.
In fact, the horrified witnesses whom the national media were chasing around for interviews last week come from a demographic - working class, verging on downright poor, and living outside major metropolitan centers served by air and rail - that is more or less invisible to most politicians and large corporations. In this regard, Greyhound is a notable exception. We defy any of the gum-flappers trying to bully the company into building and staffing 24-hour inspection stations to name, or display any knowledge whatsoever of, the 80 or more potential stops that exist on various Edmonton-to-Winnipeg routes. What know you, O self-proclaimed experts, of Innisfree, Sintaluta, and Virden? Many of the pickup locations are gas stations, post offices, convenience stores, and the like. Quite a few are literally just junctions with side roads.
It would be characteristic of our modern sensibility if we were to react to one bizarre death by hiring dozens of "safety" people to loiter on highway shoulders to check the bags of bus passengers. Of course, as an alternative, Greyhound could just go ahead and eliminate most rural stops. (The people who'd miss them don't vote Liberal or NDP anyway.) But did we mention that even in the cities, riders who intend to continue their journey are constantly getting on and off the bus to have a cigarette or buy a sandwich? We can't have that either, surely. Some wackjob might have a knife stashed behind a toilet in Foam Lake.
We propose a fundamental principle to be observed at the outset of this debate: Let's not try to protect ourselves from crazy people by trying to out-crazy them. (How much happier the world would be now if a few more voices had said so after 9/11.) As a corollary, anyone who wishes for his opinion to be heard on this subject should take meticulous care that that opinion does not immediately reveal a complete ignorance of how long-range bus travel works.
