The Rural Voice, 1992-08, Page 10It Pays
to Know
About
FCC
Long -Term
Loans
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Caught in the middle again
Whenever people start talking environmental danger. These are
people who have worked very hard in
other aspects of their business to live
up to environmental standards. They
just didn't know about this standard
and now they are about to pay for
their ignorance.
It's this ignorance -of -the -law -is -
no -excuse part that is making life
unbearable. When there's a new law
a day coming out of every legislature
in the land, how on earth is the
ordinary citizen supposed to be able
not to be ignorant. Between
municipal bylaws, provincial
legislation, federal legislation and
new rulings on things like income tax
that never even have to be debated in
parliaments, how can anybody
possibly keep up? Chances are if you
go to your lawyer or accountant, he
or she isn't up on the latest
regulations. You may be referred to
an expert in the particular field you're
asking about, someone who has the
time to read the tons of paper coming
from various government offices.
Last issue I talked about how
impossible it is for a farmer to be all
the things he has to be today and
didn't even mention about the
impossibility of keeping up with the
law. That's a problem shared by all
businesses except for those huge
companies that can keep their own
teams of staff lawyers and CA's.
What's the solution? Of course
the real solution is for each individual
to act responsibly toward employees,
the environment and their fellow man
— then we wouldn't even need
government and regulations.
Unfortunately, each of us tries to
stretch the rules. It's not going to hurt
if we just go 90 km in an 80 km zone.
Our little bit of smoke from our
burning garbage isn't going to do any
harm. We know we shouldn't be
spreading manure on frozen ground
but we can't afford to put in a bigger
holding facility.
It's easy to identify the problem.
It's the solution that's the problem.0
about the need for deregulation, I
always get suspicious because
usually it's a code word for a right-
wing, pro-business, dog-eat-dog
philosophy. Yet I
have to admit on
the other hand
that sometimes
the rule-making
just gets carried
away.
While every-
body hates regul-
ations, from kids
whose parents
lay down rules
about bedtimes
to people who
resent new gov-
ernment laws
that restrict their
freedoms, a lot of times we just can't
get along without them. The fact is
that many of us just won't do the
right things without rules. We
wouldn't, for instance, need speed
limits on the highways if everybody
used their common sense and slowed
down.
But the regulations keep growing
and growing. The most productive
manufacturers in the country are
probably the legislators who are
always developing new rules to try to
plug the loopholes citizens, (and their
lawyers) have found in the old rules.
That said, I must admit to feeling
a little squeezed by the rules lately.
Our company just got caught in rules
it didn't know existed and it's going
to cost several thousand dollars to
pay for fees we should have been
paying all along if we'd known we
were supposed to. Our lawyers never
pointed out to us we were supposed
to be paying. Our accountants never
pointed it out. The government, so all
knowing in so many other areas,
never pointed out we weren't doing
the right thing.
But ignorance of the law is no
excuse. Some friends recently ran
afoul of some environmental rules
they didn't know existed and now
stand to be fined thousands of dollars
for doing some simple thing they
didn't even imagine was an
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice as well
as being a playwright. He lives on a
small acreage near Blyth, Ontario.