Raise the Hammer, an online magazine about Hamilton produced and edited by Ryan McGreal (who writes here as Ryan), is celebrating its one-year anniversary.

Ryan was kind enough to ask me if I would like to start writing a column. It’s called Digital Kayak (save it lever, you’ll have plenty of time to give me a hard time over the holidays) and you can go ahead and read it if you like.

Ryan, thanks for giving me the chance to inflict my point of view on a few more poor souls.

When I was in high school, things weren’t always easy for me and my friends. The constant pressure to get good grades and save up enough money for mickies of vodka so we could get loaded in the bush meant that we were often stressed out. That meant that we needed to gather on the very edge of school property, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the next fight to break out.

These days things are very different. Back then, in the mid-90s, teenagers were genuinely trying to get ahead. Today’s teenagers are utterly hopeless individuals whose primary goal is to leech money from taxpayers. They need to be taught a lesson and I am overjoyed that Ontario’s government has decided to do just that.

Ontario is about to become the first Canadian province to deny driver’s licenses to teenagers, or suspend their driving privileges if they already have one, if they drop out of school or have bad attendance. According to Education Minister Gerard Kennedy, this is part of a plan that will be “opening up better choices for students.”

The plan also includes fines of $1,000 for students who don’t attend class regularly, and the same penalty for their parents. Bravo, Gerard! You’re opening up students’ wallets along with their choices, and that is to be commended.

Like so many other excellent ideas in government, this one isn’t original. Nine states in the US already do the same thing. These are widely regarded as bastions of compassionate conservatism, or what I fondly term survival of the fittest, like Alabama, Georgia, Texas and South Carolina.

Kennedy has also introduced “new co-op programs, apprenticeships and specialized diplomas in areas like construction and the hospitality industry to encourage more teens to stay in school, especially those not interested in the academic stream”, another superb idea based on the carrot and the stick approach. The stick is losing your driver’s license and getting fined $1000. The carrot? Go to class and learn how to mix drinks, wait tables, and carry the luggage of international travellers.

Once teenagers turn 18, they no longer have to worry about these penalties because they only apply to minors. This is a shrewd move, because that’s when they get to vote, too. I wouldn’t want the loss of a driver’s license or a thousand-dollar fine to cloud the minds of teenage voters when they finally get to have a say in government.

Way to go, Ontario. Struggling students everywhere will thank you when you take away their license, their money, and their dignity. And you’re making sure that public transportation remains viable in the province. It’s a win-win situation!

I just got a phone call from a friend whose ideas are always hugely ambitious. Discussing his latest with me, he said:

“If only I had money, I’d be a millionaire.”

I picked up The Doubters Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense by John Ralston Saul (our last Governor General’s husband) from the library today. It includes this definition:

Canada

1. So complicated that nobody knows how it works, which causes Canadian social scientists to talk about it all the time, which causes foreigners to say it’s boring because nothing ever happens.
2. The most decentralized country in existence, which causes Canadians to complain constantly about the power of the central government.
3. Administered under the third oldest constitution in the world, which causes Canadians to insist that it has never worked and must be changed.
4. The only major country in which the two leading western cultures have managed to live peacefully together for several centuries, causing Canadians to insist that they cannot live together.
5. Burdened by the laziest elite of any developed nation; people who have made their fortunes by selling off the country’s resources and by working for more energetic foreigners. They are most comfortable on their knees, admiring those from larger countries who have purchased them.
6. A country where 95 per cent of the land is north of the major cities, which causes its urban inhabitants to treat their hinterland as an embarrassing and backward region, while pretending that they themselves are situated hundreds of miles to the south, somewhere between New York and Florida.

I hope you have a fantastic day.