Next week, I am moving to British Columbia from my home in central Canada and very much looking forward to it. I have been growing disenchanted with the province of Ontario as time has passed and it seems to me that B.C., which I have only visited once in my life, is a much nicer place to be.
I am especially impressed with the justice system there which seems to me to be about the fairest anywhere. To give you an example, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has awarded a Vancouver man $15,000 because he couldn’t enjoy his Ferrari for seven months. The details are not very important, but the unfortunate psychologist Lawrence Miller took his 2005 Ferrari F430 F1 into a shop for annual service and didn’t get to toot around in it again until almost a full year later.
So, the unmarried man sued the repair shop for $85,000 on the basis that a one-year rental of the same car would have cost $112,572. Now you will say that in that very same city of Vancouver, there are people being shot to death on the street, there is homelessness and child abuse, elder abuse and drug addiction, family violence, property damage and white collar crime. Is the B.C. justice system doing enough to deal with these situations, you are asking.
But really. Just listen to yourself. Repeat all those societal ills mentioned above and then say this out load, into a mirror if need be: NO FERRARI FOR SEVEN MONTHS!!!!. (Don’t forget to include the four exclamation marks when you say it.) When you are done that little exercise, I guarantee you will have calmed down. Maybe even enough to come over and help me pack.
I leave next Tuesday at 8 a.m. in my non-Ferrari, the full use of which I have had for the past seven months and, unfortunately, many many months longer than that. I believe a B.C. court will have way to deliver justice to me and my old bucket of bolts.
©2015 Jim Hagarty
