In Canada, Fat People Get a 50% Discount on Flights

This is less of an education and more of a rant. Anyone who is here to really learn something other than my opinion, read a different blog or blog entry.

It's official according to the Supreme Court, "Functionally disabled by obesity for purposes of air travel" get a second seat free.

This has little to do with the main subject of this blog. The only tenuous connection here is that I feel for business owners that are being sold out by bureaucracy that has been repackaged with a fake sticker that says "defender of the people". Specifically when it actually hurts the people it is supposed to help, and make everything more expensive for the rest of us.

The best part is, the the Canadian Transportation Agency's ruling doesn't even give a proper guideline for how to determine is a person is "functionally disabled by obesity for purposes of air travel". The best they've got? Whether or not the armrest will go down. If you refer to someone serious, like, you know, a doctor, they have a very specific definition of what obese is.

When I set up my business I had to get a business bank account and license from the city before I could apply for an office. To get the office, I had to go buy insurance (arguably a good idea generally, but still not my choice), in order to hook up the alarm I had to pay another fee to the city for false alarms I hadn't had yet, do a search in city hall to determine if the office was zoned properly for my technology business and then apply for a residency permit to be allowed to go into the office I was paying rent, insurance and alarm bills for.

So yes, I get uppity when a business like an airline has to charge their other customers more so that obese people (many of whom have a choice about being obese) can have a second seat for free.

Before anyone throws the old argument "but obese people don't choose to be obese" in my face, I counter with yes, most of them do. Unless they have some kind debilitating medical condition (obviously not including laziness) that restricts their diet and exercise, it usually is their own fault.

I will continue my beliefs about why most obese people have a choice here.

As a wealthy society, we should be helping those less fortunate. My point here is that if we want to stay on top of all of this wealth we need to drop barriers to making a profit so that we have a better chance against businesses in countries where they can focus on conducting business instead of waiting at city hall for an occupancy permit.

Also, so my taxes don't go to bailing out our national airline again.