Kevin Libin, of the Canadian National Post has a story about how Canadian officials are bullying a libertarian family of immigrants to Canada from what was Soviet-occupied Poland. They left a dictatorship, but they’ve run into the soft, oppressively bureaucratic culture of modern-day Canada. (Sadly, something like his story might easily happen in countless places in America.)

Peter Jaworski wasn’t born in the cradle of freedom, but his mother says she hid illegal, anti-Soviet pamphlets in his baby carriage, covertly passing them out to fellow dissidents on the streets of Wroclaw, Poland. When local police sent an order to his father to report to them for unspecified reasons, the family used a permit to travel to Germany and fled, eventually settling in Orono, Ont[ario].

Since coming to Canada, Peter has celebrated freedom with more enthusiasm than most. He helped found the Institute for Liberal Studies, a libertarian advocacy group; he’s writing his PhD thesis about concepts of ownership rights; and every summer for the past 10 years he’s hosted the two-day Liberty Summer Seminar on his parents’ acreage. There, a few dozen libertarians – past attendees have included Conservative Cabinet minister Jason Kenney and Ontario Cabinet minister Randy Hillier – camp out on the idyllic grounds, hear a handful of pro-liberty speakers, tap their feet along with some freedom-minded musical acts, and enjoy Mother Jaworski’s cooking.

At least, they used to. This past July may have been the last, as the libertarians met their nemeses in the flesh: bureaucrats armed with a red tape roll full of regulations that may not only shut down the seminar for good, but threaten to hit the Jaworskis with as much as $50,000 in fines for using their property for reasons unapproved by government.

“I thought government would help me to do business, to be independent, not to be on welfare, but it’s the opposite. It’s like “you own this property? Now we own you,” Marta Jaworski says. “Government is just like Big Brother. Without government we would [apparently] be all dead. They think we need them so much in every aspect of our lives.”

The way they’ve come under officials’ scrutiny is so very typical of how bureaucrats operate in towns across this country:

The Jaworskis aren’t sure why inspectors, after years of summer seminars, suddenly showed up on the property to itemize violations. There was a “complaint,” they were told, though they insist neighbours always seemed fine with the event, which drew 72 people this year, each paying $125 each ($75 for students). They recently turned their home into a bed and breakfast to make ends meet, marketing their pastoral property as a perfect spot for wedding planners. They suspect another hospitality business in the municipality of Clarington turned them in. They have no proof, but they have grown suspicious others are exploiting government to hurt them.

Ever wonder if this happens in your own towns, where a businessman will use regulations — and cozy connections to local officials — to harass his competitors? Often, when bureaucrats say they re pro-business, it turns out to mean only the business owners they like, their friends’ businesses. For their friends’ competitors, there’s not so much liking, and a lot of regulating.

It’s a middling official’s way of feeling important, of misusing the public trust to be a ‘person of influence.’

See, Bureaucratic Bullies Foil Annual Libertarian Retreat.