AGES CHANGE, LAWS REVERSE 

As one age crumbles the laws of that time aid the rapid change between the old and the new.

A case in point. Smokestack Age laws were enacted to keep the status quo stable. When everybody knew their place they obeyed the laws as if they were written in stone. At one time the laws of the church dictated who was to get what job. Sometimes the culture of the time dictated which language you must speak to obtain work.

Now as religious laws are changed from "no meat on Friday - Mass in Latin" to a more open society those laws as well of those of the Smokestack Age secular sector no longer have the power to terrify or impress. What is right becomes a more personal thing. Sometimes the responsibility to go with that freedom lags behind.

In an Age of Change old laws set up for one purpose often turn back on the very purpose for which they were originallky formed. Take discrimination. The new Canadian Bill of Rights stresses 'no discrimination'. Recently the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the Quebec Language Law. We all know what a fuss that caused. A Smokestack Age law introduced in a period of rapid change. They don't work. The next will cause an even greater upheaval.

Expect any day soon to see some individual, group or politician start an action, legal or otherwise, claiming that under the discrimination clause in the new Federal legislation, he or she has been denied a job because they were not a member of a union! Read the legislation: Being forced to join a union to get a job is discrimination in the eyes of many. When the many realize it the law changes in substance if not on paper.

Imagine the cry from the very people that supported the laws against discrimination in the workplace to find those laws now apply to them as well as to their employer.

This is but one of the radical changes just over the horizon.

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