January 2002
Editor's Notes
By dint of circumstance and birth, Canadians live in one of the higher-income nations in the world. Safe and nutritious food, many home comforts, and attractive natural surroundings are ours for the asking.
Part of our good fortune includes a high degree of personal safety. Because our lives are so well-protected, we rarely have to face the harsh realities that people in less fortunate countries deal with on a daily basis. Malaria and typhoid fever and tuberculosis are virtually unheard of in our world. However, far from being content that we have escaped these and other devastating diseases, many of us turn our natural inclination to worry to focus on risks that are, frankly, comparatively very small. Pesticides, dioxins, particulate matter in the air, hormones in our meat—these risks and many, many more cause us great concern.
Unfortunately, the concern about "unacceptable" risks frequently evolves into regulations under which everyone must live. From car tires to food products, from electrical equipment to clothing, every product we make or use or buy is regulated. The regulations are implemented to protect us, to protect others, to protect the environment, and to protect the unborn.
The problem with regulations is that they are not costless. Of course, most of the time we can't see the cost of regulation because it is hidden in the purchase price of whatever it is we are buying. But the cost is not just that included in the ticket price.
More insidious, and much more difficult to measure, are the costs of what is not being produced or bought or invented as a consequence of regulation. We have not yet developed a vocabulary with which to communicate about these costs (the way we have with taxation and our tax burden, say). So they continue on, unabated. There is little accountability for these costs, and politicians suffer no public consequences for incurring them. Who has ever heard of a politician voted from office because he or she spent too much money "protecting" public safety?
This issue of Fraser Forum takes a look at the risk and regulation debate. It attempts to begin the much-needed discussion about the cost to us all of unnecessary risk aversion.
—Kristin McCahon
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