CFN – Reportedly the City of Ottawa handed over 17,280 condoms to a single person for free without so much as asking why he wanted them (does anyone really need that many?) and without asking for any I.D. to ensure that he actually represented a legitimate organization rather than someone wanting to make a profit on them. There are regular condoms and lubricated condoms as well as strawberry, banana and vanilla flavoured condoms.
Dave Paul, the Libertarian who ordered them from the City as a test, wasn’t impressed at how freely his tax dollars are being spent and went public with the news. Ottawa talk news radio station CFRA has been having a field day with the story. Shortly after CFRA host Nick Vandergragt broke the news, Sun News’ Brian Lilley addressed the matter on BYLINE and on his Lilley Pad blog. Now, apparently, the City would like the condoms back (presumably unused), but the Libertarians are debating whether or not they can do a better job than the City when it comes to exercising due diligence in the distribution of said condoms. One of the Libertarians’ college age members has requested to have 1,000 of them to distribute.
In our video clip, Dave Paul tells the story in his own words.
The Ontario government requires Ottawa Public Health to distribute free condoms. Last year alone the city handed out 900,000 of them to individuals and groups at a cost of $55,000, 75% of which was paid for by Ontario tax payers.
Don Smith reports on a variety of topics, notably good news items as well as social justice issues.
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Thanks for covering this. This is exactly why libertarians believe in Limited Government and Personal Responsibility. In this condom-gate scandal – we can see how little government cares about how well it spends the tax-payer money. It measures itself by how much money it spends – not how well it spends it. It didn’t care at all – it was willing to give thousands of condoms to any random person that just asked. What a joke. How many dozens and hundreds and thousands of times in a year – is this same type of thing repeated. Whether it be ORNGE, or gas plants, or condoms – government sucks because it is unaccountable. The simple alternative is the free market and that is what libertarians are promoting.
As a fellow Libertarian Party activist, I am proud of my friend Dave. He self engaged himself in this enterprise to illustrate some of the waste of our tax money that some government agencies do. Dave got over $10,000 in taxes transferred to him.
Why should tax payers pay to provide “free” condoms in bulk to anybody who ask? Dave told me that there was another 20,000 condom order waiting for another individual to pick up at that warehouse when he picked-up his order. Somebody is going to get another $12,000 in taxes given to him or her just for asking.
Now who should be responsible for paying the price of buying a very private piece of private property to be used and disposed of by a private individual? The government has decided that paying for condoms is the responsibility of taxpayers. We libertarians disagree. The private individual user should pay for his or her own pleasures.
As a tax payer, I would rather be spending the money on the condoms, then on paying for medical bills when someone has contracted an STI or had a baby that they can not care for. When you look at the cost difference of a condom vs health care for someone with an STI the difference is worth paying for the condom. It is also worth the cost of the condom so that people are not having babies when they are not ready too. There are already too many children who are in need of good homes and proper care. I know not every one who uses the condoms would not be able to care for a child, but I am thinking about the groups of people that I have worked with in the past, and many of them would have been better off had they been given the free condoms when needed.
That being said, I think there should be more control over the amount given to an individual. You should not be able to do what Dave did and order 17,280 condoms. The obviously need to have a better method of ordering the condoms. Community Health Centres and special events should be able to order in this manner. Individuals should be able to order a months supply, and be given information on where in the community they can go to get the free condoms, such as community health centres.
I agree with Janet, well said.
What? Only 17,280 condoms? I hope it didn’t spoil his weekend!
Most of us feel really good to pay tax knowing that some money goes to safety nets and programs that people may need from time. When we see a program like free anything, it can make us feel good. that is helping others, but lump all of these individual programs together, and you see debt and deficits. Do we really need governments to be our babysitters?
Thank you for exposing the obvious lack of control over our money.
So, let’s be clear, this guy lied to the City of Ottawa, knowingly took something for a purpose other than what it was intended for (which, by the way, was a public health measure) and we’re supposed to be mad at the City. This guy is a piece of work. I wish someone woud liberate him from his delusion.
K, this is a symptom of poor program management and control, and from I have seen, he provided his full name and address, no lies and obviously, no verification was done.
To K, the guy did nothing wrong, and to make sure you understand, “he never lied about anything.” He gave them his name, phone number and email address. He gave them the name of a group that does exist.
He looked into how the system was setup and he found a major problem on how they were conducting the business of distributing the items that are supposed to be for those who cannot afford to buy them from regular sources.
The question here is, if the city is that incompetent on a simple issue of giving out to the needy, then how many other departments are run in this way? If taxpayers dollars are wasted in this fashion, how much more is wasted in other municipal departments and we haven’t touched the provincial and federal governments.
Further on the accountability, the way it was setup in the past, nothing prevented people from within the municipal government to abuse this system and place orders for themselves through others.
If anything, we need to do more of these types of tests on our bureaucratic machinery.
I am very conservative and don’t approve of this kind of a behavior but I can say is that there are plenty of sexual diseases out there and Ottawa is full of them including drug addiction.
Some years ago not long after we first came back to live in Ottawa my daughter was at a lab downtown. She was waiting to be called for her blood test since she has thyroid disease. Well one young girl in front of her could not have been more than 16 or 17 and turning in old needles to get new ones. This young girl was not diabetic or anything like that but a street girl full of tatoos and no clothes made for the kind of weather we had that time. I do agree that something has to be done or else disease will spread rampantly.
There are many children born to single moms and many of many races and you can see the poverty that these people have to live under. I worked with a girl back in the late 70’s era and she got pregnant and didn’t know where to turn. She had a job through an agency and was in her last days with the agency. One lady in our group helped Noreen get baby clothes that she had from her daughter and another lady crocheted her some things. Noreen had a baby boy at the same time I had my son. Noreen had to live off welfare afterwards and it wasn’t a shock for her to live in hardship since she came from a family of 15 kids. It is mighty sad to see a lot of cases like this and much worse.
The operative three letters in condom are CON. The authoritative source in North America (Guttmacher Institute) tells us that 15 out of 100 women using condoms get pregnant in a year. And women are only naturally fertile for about 10% of the time. HIV can be caught at any time. The City of Ottawa is worse than profligate with our money: it is encouraging risky behaviour by handing out condoms that give a FALSE sense of security. And the penalty for HIV can be death.
If the reason for distributing condoms is to battle sexually transmitted diseases, why are they distributing flavoured condoms?
We can safely surmise that the flavoured condoms are to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and not to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Considering that for that specific condom type, and its intended use, you cannot conceivably get pregnant.
Is there something about the taste of strawberries that Herpes doesn’t like?
I’m so glad that this individual has exposed an incident regarding a level of our government’s stupidity!
Wasteful and crazy, once again.
Now, apart from the condom jokes, as shown in the video, it seems that this Dave Paul has a better idea than paid elected officials on how to distribute condoms.
Again, the question begs to be asked:
“How is it that we pay these individuals huge salaries to take care of programs that impact all of us?”
It seems that good old fashioned community grassroots goes a longer way than bureaucratic redtape.
Distribute all of the condoms to college’s/universities across Ottawa.
Dave should be charged for fraudulent use of the system. This is done in good faith and a smart ass like Dave took advantage of it. 17000 condoms in bulk costs max of 2000$. 1 sick individual with HIV costs 100’s of thousands over the life of that individual. Do the math smart ass.
John
March 19, 2013 at 7:41 pm
John what did he do that was fraudulent?
He advised he was part of a group of which he is and he was given 17280 condoms without even a signature,he did nothing that would be considered illegal .
He simply pointed out the lack of accountability with this institution.
But it could have easily have been someone selling them after instead of giving it to those that need it .
I think Dave should be charged with frauding the system! He did indeed lie and liars should be charged and dealt with.
Condoms are to be used to prevent pregnancies, not to be used a joke against the City of Ottawa and be held over the heads of people who legitimately require condoms.
Dave needs to return those condoms to where he got them from. Hes a joke.
I am absolutely with John on this one.
Did you know that if you call 9-11 the police will respond?
Every single time…
Did you know that if you go to an emergency room and say you have chest pains they will admit you for several hours of examination?
Every single time…
This is not exposing government waste, its being a troll.
Dave Paul is trolling our social safety net that is intended to be used by people who actually need it. He really should be held to account.
For those of you calling “fraud” or “liar” or “its better this than paying for medical costs” – you are completely missing the point. The whole point is the utter stupidity, waste, and largess of government programs. In the end, one could wonder how many other people walked in off the street to get “free” stuff and walked out with hundreds of condoms? This is a small example of why government programs never have the intended results, and why they never (*NEVER*) have the efficiency of a private NGO. More dollars go to waste and bureaucracy in a government program than go to the people who need it most. Wake up. Its 2013.
I think some of you on this thread are missing the point here.
Dave Paul has done a service to Ottawa (and Ontario) taxpayers. The program to distribute condoms was a political decision, done by politicians to make themselves appear as though they are helping to fight a problem.
The politicians are trying to make the community believe that they should be re-elected because of their foresight etc. etc. Its very easy to spend other people’s money.
In fact, what they have done is created a way to spend tax dollars without being accountable to taxpayers. They are the ones that need to be removed (recall would be nice here). Dave has exposed this spending scam for what it is by inviting the press to show everyone how government central planning cannot possibly do ALL the things that people think they can do.
Dave sounds like the kind of person that should be elected, instead of the jokers currently in office.
Man some people are straight up dumb or too stupid…
They give flavored condoms away to promote using condoms for Oral sex… Dave seems like an attention seeking troll.. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.. Taking advantage of an amazing program like this one makes Dave just one pathetic human being!