T he crackdown on teen drivers announced yesterday by the Ontario government has two elements. The first is what it does – which is widely supported. The second is how it came to be – which is a little unsettling.

There is a sense that Premier Dalton McGuinty's government has acted with an alacrity over the deaths of three affluent white young people that's lacking when, say, the bodies are poor or black and similarly victims of their own bad choices or contempt for laws.

There is also at least the appearance that the premier's ear and personal attention are more accessible to those with the wherewithal to mount personalized advertising campaigns than they are to those without.

In July, three young Toronto men were killed when, after an after-noon of drinking at a lakeside club, their speeding sports car crashed through a guardrail into a river in Muskoka. A female friend, who kicked free of the submerged car, was the only survivor.

Soon afterward, the father of the 20-year-old driver began a campaign – full-page newspaper ads addressed in large type to the premier – for tougher restrictions on young drivers.

This despite the fact that laws banning the conduct engaged in that day already existed and that the father admitted to injudicious indulgence and insufficient supervision of a son with a history of acting as if those laws didn't apply to him.

Even so, there can be little doubt that the ads – "Dear Mr. McGuinty, My Son is Dead" – got the premier's personal attention.

There was a meeting between the two men in September. There was a personal phone call from the premier last week to inform the father the legislation introduced yesterday was coming.

McGuinty has sons not much older than the victims. It was obvious he could easily put himself in the father's shoes.

"It was a very compelling story," he told reporters yesterday. "Here's a guy, he lost his son... This was a broken man."

By the standards of government, the action taken yesterday a-mounts to lightning response – motivated in no small measure, it would seem, by the premier's personal identification with a father of similar class and circumstance.

Not only that, the premier said that if certain obvious discriminations in the legislation – some likely to draw human rights or constitutional complaints – had to be perpetrated against young drivers to keep them safe, so be it.

"If that means a modest restriction on their freedoms until they reach the age of 22, then, as a dad, I am more than prepared to do that."

Because these were, as the premier's heavy use of the first-person plural made clear, "our" children, "special" children.

"We're going to take special steps, special measures, to protect our children."

How more empathetic and prompt was the premier's response on this issue than his reaction to, say, African Canadian mothers pleading for action over the last few years because their sons were dying in the streets to violence.

Some of these mothers said it was the alienation of young black children from their earliest school days that was, in part, to blame. Some argued that Africentric schools, even on a trial basis, were worth a try, given the horrific cost in lost lives and family heartbreak.

On that issue, most advocates had less luck getting face time with the premier. They also didn't hear the sort of "if-it-saves-one-life-it's-worth-it" argument being made yesterday in defence of the driving legislation or any "in-cases-of-health-and-safety-discrimination-is-okay" explanations being uttered by the premier.

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Perhaps if they'd had money for ad campaigns and more photogenic sons with better teeth.





Jim Coyle's provincial affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.





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