The National Post has this story about Buddy buying the farm after drinking stolen windshield washer fluid. He thought he was drinking vodka. The fact that Buddy can't distinguish between vodka and windshield washer fluid tells you something.
The fact that the National Post frames the story as that of a hard-done-by employer being "forced" to pay out $218,000, an amount that represents about fifteen minutes profit for the Brewers Retail monopoly in Ontario, tells you what their bias is, but that's another blog post.
For today I'd like to focus on Buddy.
So Buddy and his buddy work for the contractor who washes Beer Store trucks. While they have no reason to ransack the truck cabs, they find a vodka jug behind the seat of a truck and decide it's party time!
Vodka is not beer. This was a beer truck. The driver had used an empty vodka jug to store windshield washer anti-freeze.
Buddy dies and his buddy undergoes a spell of dialysis.
The National Post want you to believe this story is about over-regulation and courts that are biased against corporations.
I believe this story is about insufficient oversight of contractors who take on work that has been contracted out of big regulated companies into a poorly regulated sector that relies on desperate minimum wage labor to do society's dirty work.
Buddy and his buddy just thought they scored a jug of vodka.
Stealing a jug of vodka doesn't merit a death sentence.
It also tells you something that Buddy is so desperate to drink anything alcoholic. This tragedy is about addiction, which defies all socioeconomic lines. There are plenty of minimum wage workers who don't drink the first thing they find that says "Vodka." Alcoholism gone untreated will kill you. that is a fact. Sad.
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