Dallas Hansen

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Dallas Hansen (b. February 14, 1977) is a Winnipeg, Manitoba-based writer whose work appeared periodically on the Winnipeg Free Press editorial page from 2000 until December, 2006.

Hansen is an advocate for the construction of a subway system in inner-city Winnipeg, which he believes will lead to increased residential and commercial densities and the rebirth of Winnipeg's troubled inner city. In 2005, he co-founded TRU Winnipeg, the city's Transit Riders' Union, which aims to promote urbanism via construction of a subway and urban planning based on the ideas of Jane Jacobs.

[edit] Views

Although a fierce advocate for regenerating inner city neighbourhoods via new urbanist infill, he has expressed his admiration of the free market. He supports the free movement of goods, capital, and ideas across international borders, but also the free movement of labour. He has written that both the United States and Mexico would be better served by an open border between the two countries. He believes cities, to prosper, require proper infrastructure—rapid transit—and that urban neighbourhoods feature high residential densities and mixed-use storefront-apartment commercial strips.

Hansen is also a strong supporter of neoclassical architecture and is unsympathetic to what he perceives as modernism's cold austerity.

Hansen is also critical of Ritalin treatment of ADHD, as well as the increasingly widespread use of such antidepressant drugs as Zoloft, and Prozac.

In the summer of 2006, Hansen gained headlines in the Winnipeg Free Press after he was barred from the new skateboard park at The Forks after officials alleged he was being disruptive and disrespectful to Downtown Watch patrollers, whom he accused of turning downtown into a "totalitarian war zone".

In September, 2006, Hansen wrote a controversial piece headlined "Willpower best weapon against poverty," which celebrated individual achievement under capitalism while calling for welfare reform. In a libertarian vein, Hansen believes welfare creates poverty rather than solves it.

In December 2006, Hansen wrote another controversial piece headlined, "Time to put a cork in liquor monopoly" calling for the dismantling of Manitoba's government-run liquor retailing. The column featured an anecdotal lead about how he and his girlfriend were denied a bottle of wine from a Manitoba Liquor Control Commission store because he lacked identification.

The Free Press ran an Editor's Note on December 12th about the column as follows:

"A Dec. 9 column on the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission contained an inaccurate account of an incident at a liquor store. The column began with an anecdote about a writer being asked for identification at a liquor commission outlet. The commission has provided the Free Press with taped evidence and witness statements showing that an incident occurred, but was not accurately described in the paper and contained false information. In fact, liquor store staff were following a policy that requires them to ask any customer who appears to be under 25 for identification. The writer became agitated, used profanity and made rude gestures, according to liquor store employees. The writer was not accompanied by a female, though his column said that a woman with him produced expired identification that was rejected. The Free Press has withdrawn the column from its website and apologizes to the liquor commission and readers for the errors."

Officials at the Manitoba Liquor Commission, a major Free Press advertiser, were outraged at Hansen's column that called for the institution's dismantling, and, in an attempt to discredit him, delivered to Free Press management archived audio-video footage of a frustrated Hansen berating Liquor Mart employees. Not content with Hansen's termination and the subsequent retraction, Peter Olfert, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union which represents Liquor Mart employees, published a rejoinder on the Free Press's opinion page, which a reluctant Comment Editor Gerald Flood gave the tongue-in-cheek headline "Crown-owned liquor stores provide valuable service".

Hansen stands by the veracity of his writing, maintaining that the taped incident and the anecdote mentioned in his column were two separate incidents, and that his leading anecdote happened as described. It did not occur to Free Press editor Bob Cox to fact-check the source (Hansen's girlfriend, whom Cox had met at a 2005 Christmas party) of Hansen's anecdote, or that Hansen might have had been denied the sale of wine for want of identification on more than one occasion, before labeling his story as untrue. A statement clarifying the incident was issued on Hansen's website shortly after his firing.