We all know that lying is wrong yet we all lie. If you say you don’t you just did. This simple yet complex issue is at the crux of all that is failing our culture, families and society.

As children we learn how to lie from our parents and our playmates. Our playmates learnt how to lie from their parents or their siblings who in turn had to experience it from an elder. It is a behaviour that is learned.

Children are sponges. They watch, witness and absorb everything. They want to be just like Dad, Mom, an elder or a teacher. When one of these individuals makes a decision that some fact is too sensitive to properly inform a child, and justifies modifying the truth by calling it a “white lie” they have started a pattern of deception that the child emulates. A child expects, absolutely, that their mentors will be completely honest; the disappointment has a lifelong and deep psychological impact.

Imagine if you will a young child walking into the kitchen sensing something is out of sorts with mom, while she is standing at the sink doing dishes. The child asks, “What’s wrong mommy?” Continuing with this scenario, the child is accurate, as Mom has just had a very difficult conversation (maybe on the phone with dad) and is on the verge of crying, or is in fact doing just that. Immediately maintaining composure, mom responds calmly, “Nothings wrong honey, just go back outside and play”, or some such thing.

Two things have just happened. The child’s natural instincts and sixth sense has been dismissed as inaccurate and, knowing that something was wrong, was taught that not telling the truth is okay. This may seem very trivial to many in an attempt to justify this behaviour but it is critically wrong. Teaching our children moral behaviour is the most important and sometimes the most difficult task we have. There is never any justification for lying. There is no such thing as a white lie, and further, such a statement demonstrates bigotry, another moral issue that requires reasoned thought.

When testifying in court, you might be asked to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This means not misleading or skipping details that might assist in providing a complete factual account. This is what happens in every facet of our society today. Salesmen and politicians skip or gloss over details that might reveal the whole truth. A person selling something privately might neglect to reveal the faults in the vehicle or the home that they are selling. The politician might skip some details to avoid controversy. All of these immoral patterns have devastating impacts on our family, our neighbourhoods, our communities and our country.

An insignificant yet very demonstrative example, in Terrace, is the new second sheet of ice. Though many know this fact, it is not something that was told straight up and forthright. Terrace was awarded the BC winter games a few years back that will be held in the year 2010, the same year as the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Some City officials believe that this will be of significant financial and exposure benefit. The fact is that if they did not break ground for a second sheet of ice by September of last year, BC Games would have pulled the games from Terrace and awarded it to another community. To hold these games, the basic requirement is 4 ice rinks. Terrace was allowed to include Kitimats’ two rinks in the bid proposal and had promised to have a second sheet built in Terrace. Last September was the deadline for this construction to begin. All the controversy about a referendum, the bidding, the costs, the grants and the rest, were not accompanied by the straightforward honest truth. The promoters said, and did, what ever they needed to, to break ground by September. Many might remember that an excavator was moved on site in September and started digging and then shut down until spring, this year, after the ground thawed. They broke ground. That was what was needed. What was wrong with being forthright? A conversation would likely have ensued about the financial benefits of the BC winter games. This would not serve the political will so it was publicly avoided. This was an unnecessary deception.

But there is another worse, worldlier, example that has a devastating impact on us all. It is the lies spread about marihuana. Ever since the 1930’s the vilifying of hemp has caused extensive environmental and social destruction. In brief, hemp could produce; high quality pulp fiber for processing, oils for paints etc. and fibers for clothing, on the same parcel of land year after year. Now we are using the environmental hazards of crude oils and the felling of trees for pulp that take decades to grow. There is another more important hemp issue however.

Even though we all know, unless you as dumb as that tree stump, that the hazards of smoking pot are not nearly as dangerous as drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Yet we lie and lie to our children. The courts and every structure of our government back up the lie. We jail and make criminals of our children all because of a terrible lie. And this is the point, the point I really want to make. (“I told you all that to tell you this”).

When our children find out, discover all on their own that pot isn’t bad at all and that it is all-another lie, how do we expect them to believe us when we tell them about Crack and Crystal Meth. These drugs are going to fry their brains to such an extent that they will never recover. You see - this is the truth, “Once you do crack you can never come back.” You truly fry your brains; destroying brain cells that will never regenerate. However we told our children the same thing about pot. They watch parents and neighbours fight and families get destroyed by alcohol and observe the police arresting passive marihuana smokers. Why should our children ever believe us?

So we have all these programs that are attempting to teach our children how bad Crack and Crystal Meth is. Until we stop lying to them about everything else, what is it that makes us think they will believe us this time? The solution is to stop lying now. Write letters and become an activist. If you know a wrong (which you now do) and don’t take action to correct it you are equally guilty. The courts would consider this complicit behaviour. Our children, our future, are dependent on your next actions. How many children do we need to turn into mental patients before you do what is right?