Let them eat false equivalencies

Marcus Gee, on the Toronto doctor who has allegedly been helping welfare recipients top up their meager cheques by approving their dietary allowance forms:

It's a modern version of sticking it to “the man.” Your employer isn't paying you enough so you raid the supplies cabinet or take a sick day when you are perfectly well. The store is charging too much for jeans so you slip a pair in your backpack without paying. The store is rich, after all, and you are poor. You are entitled.

Quite right, Gee. Poor people using a loophole to get almost enough money to survive is exactly like someone shoplifting jeans.

Here's Gee doing a little concern-trolling:

In other words, the ends justify the means. If people are suffering and claiming a diabetic condition can get them more welfare money, why not help them claim it? The trouble is that dodges like that undermine the whole welfare system, reinforcing a public suspicion that people on welfare are out to fleece the system.

Oh no - people in this province might start thinking badly of welfare recipients! In other words, it's all about not incurring the wrath of the fat assholes who think all poor people are lazy schemers. Not to be too class war-ish about it, but why is it that corporate execs never worry about all this "public suspicion" when it comes time to offer themselves bonuses or write off every expensive little perk at the taxpayer's expense?

Keep in mind, too, that Gee, in his past few Globe columns, has defended the sneaky and possibly illegal billing practices of the owners of the 407 and railed against the proposed new billboard tax (billboard putter-uppers being some of the more flagrant and visible bylaw-breakers in our fair city). He has also, as far as I know, had nothing to say about the notion of Toronto police hiring themselves out as human traffic cones.

Gee's Law: It's only cheating when it's done by someone less powerful than you.

(Oh, and you forgot to capitalize "the Man", daddy-o.)