October 23 roundup

On the lam, and on the dole

Mark Steyn calls this news clip from Canada “the descent into societal madness distilled into one perfect paragraph”:

People with outstanding warrants will be denied income assistance in British Columbia as soon as next year if legislation introduced yesterday is passed into law, said Rich Coleman, Minister of Housing and Social Development. “People who have outstanding warrants shouldn’t be getting welfare until they clean up the problem,” said Mr. Coleman, adding that to qualify, warrants must be for indictable offences such as murder, sexual assault and drug trafficking. But Mr. Coleman said the government will not run criminal background checks on welfare applicants to enforce the policy. Instead, it will rely on criminals to disclose their outstanding legal issues when they make an application.