How do the following three sources show the role of government in society and the positive effects of government intervention? How are the sources...

Let us look at each of these images separately to try to see what they are saying.  Together, we can see that they all comment on the pros and cons of government intervention.  This is how they are all related  to one another.

Source I shows a protest against oil taken from the “tar sands” of Alberta.  With respect to the role of the government in society, these protestors are asking for more government intervention.  They believe that the oil from the “tar sands” is dangerous to the environment and so they want the government to stop allowing companies to extract and ship that oil.  They want the government to do more to (as they see it) protect the environment.

Source II shows us that wealth in Canada was, as of 2008, distributed very unequally.  This source does not directly say anything about the role that government plays in society.  However, we can relate it to that issue as well.  One way to reduce inequality of wealth is to have the government redistribute that wealth.  In other words, if the government takes more from the rich in the form of taxes and distributes that money to the poor, the distribution of wealth in Canada will become more equal.

The cartoonist who drew Source III clearly believes that the government is too involved in society.  The cartoonist is mocking the extent to which the government is involved in trying to protect people from their own bad decisions.  In the cartoon, the police officer is not just admonishing the driver about actions that might endanger others.  Instead, he is scolding the driver for acting in ways that harm only himself.

Sources I and II, then, call for more government intervention in society.  The protestors in Source I clearly want the government to intervene more in order to protect the environment.  Source II at least implies that the government should intervene in order to stop the rise of income/wealth inequality in Canada.  Canada has been getting less and less equal over the past few decades (as seen in the links below) and this source can be interpreted as evidence that we need government to do more to reverse this trend.

Source III is not promoting the “positive effects of government intervention.”  Instead, it is mocking the government because it believes the government intervenes too much.  If you have to use this source to argue in favor of government intervention, the best way is to show that the cartoonist’s attitude shows why his position is too extreme.  The cartoonist implies that the government should not prevent us from using our cell phones while driving, saying that this is the equivalent of the government telling us not to drink soda.  Clearly, the cartoonist does not understand that many kinds of government intervention are good because they protect society from harm.  The cartoonist’s extreme view shows how important it is to have government intervention.