How Much Did Allard Cost You?

How Much Did Allard Cost You?

The government has spent over a million dollars on Allard. In the lead-up to the February/March 2015 proceedings, the budget was projected to be $431,590.00. What did that pay for? Lawyers, paralegals, maybe flying in all those foreign witnesses[1] — which Justice Phelan said had little weight in a constitutional case. You would think with that kind of money they would have made a stronger case than, “fire, mold and organized crime.” But perhaps there were ideological strings being pulled somewhere beyond the traditional modes of power.

The litigation costs for Health Canada went through the Department of Justice. Cannabis in Canada put in an Access to Information request and the facts contained here are extracted from what they sent. We know these numbers pertain to Allard, but as to the specifics, the documents have been redacted as per Section 23 privacy issues. Apparently the bureaucracy didn’t want us seeing how wasteful everyone in government is. Nevertheless in December 2014, Allard cost taxpayers $57,436.30. And this is only the beginning. In September of that year, taxpayers had no choice but to see their hard-earned wealth go to $100,602.90 in government legal fees. And we can go back further. That July, Allard cost taxpayers a total of $99,217.19. In May it was $85,301.79. And this was after the injunction. This was the government responding to Justice Manson’s ruling not by rewriting the policy but by fighting patients with their own money.

If Canada were a bit freer, we wouldn’t be having this issue. We wouldn’t have to worry about how in the lead up to the first Allard case, taxpayers involuntarily contributed $247,834.01 to the government’s defense. Or how the more recent 2015 case cost us $464,752.81. By March 2015 the federal government had spent $1,071,501.76 defending their coercive elimination of Canada’s medical cannabis farms and patient’s personal gardens.

Meanwhile the Cannabis Rights Coalition has raised four times less than that – literally – and yet they are still winning the fight. The Coalition didn’t have the bottomless pit of the taxpayer; they relied on voluntary donations. For every dollar raised, the government raised three more. But in spite of the odds, the Coalition prevailed, and relying on donations means the money must be used wisely. People must have an incentive to give. The government doesn’t need this kind of accountability. They take by force and spend as they please. Whatever they don’t collect in taxes they borrow from future generations. Elections? Look no further than the wise words of H. L. Mencken, “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

For now the injunction is still in place. While the federal government continues to appeal and spend our money doing so, the Coalition is continually growing and getting ready for any challenge the prohibitionists throw at them. Meanwhile the government’s side of the case remains funded with taxpayer money. With no risk of a shortfall, the organizational result is inevitable bureaucracy: wasteful and ineffective.