The NDP may well pull itself out of its self-created mess on the long-gun registry but not before using up a lot of good will across the country and a lot of political energy. It was a struggle that should not have been necessary. It leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth associated with support for this critical program. Instead of leading the fight to keep the registry, the NDP will be seen as having barely come through. Hardly a glorious day in the party's parliamentary history.
What is clear to me is that this whole ugly business reflects what people have known for years: that the NDP is now just a party machine and no longer a movement. While Stephen Harper can count on populist anger and mobilizing his base of party members and supporters, the NDP cannot. It depends strictly on paid political operatives, ensconced on Parliament Hill. If they had that capacity their strategy would have been to tell Harper to shove it and do serious education work in the ridings in question and counter the lies and fear-mongering put out by the government.
This lack of grass roots capacity is ironic if you consider the NDP's historical roots which were quintessentially populist. The CCF was socialist in its vision but populist in its politics. The term populist now has negative connotations because only the right can mobilize people on this basis. The CCF's populist anger was directed right where it should have been: the banks, the grain companies, the machinery companies and the gouging of other middlemen -- and against employers who squeezed every last dime out of their workers.
The CCF/NDP lost its populist character decades ago and has been an electoral machine ever since. The party cannot call on its members to mobilize at the community level and it has virtually no relationship with civil society organizations upon which it could call upon for allies in a fight like this one. It is almost powerless against the kind of politics practiced by Harper.
That is why rural members of the NDP were terrified of losing their seats. Even though all the facts are on the side of the registry, with a hostile and lazy media and no grass roots presence in the communities affected, the NDP MPs had to run for cover falling back on that old excuse of "representing their constituents." That ends up being just another way of saying opportunism. What happened to principle?
The only way the NDP will ever get beyond its historical high point of about 20 per cent in the polls and elections (it's now closer to 15 per cent) is if it re-tools itself to become a movement-party once again. A few years ago a project called the New Politics Initiative had as its objective exactly that. It found real support amongst many rank and file NDPers as well as among those, like me, from the social movement side of the ledger. One of its aims was to bridge the gap between the two. A resolution calling for such a change in the party achieved nearly 40 per cent support at a national convention.
Maybe it needs to be reconstituted.
The sad reality is Iggy is dumb enough to not call the LGR / C-68 a diaster that we all know it is. If he had a brain he would have pointed at it and said it was a huge mistake.. and help scrap it.
But his antics akin to a school yard bully and trying desperately to defend the LGR are simply heaping more proof on the pile... proof that he is quite possibly one of the most inept disasters in political history. If you look up asshat in the dictionary it should have his picture beside it.
Simple fact is the LGR / c-68 does nothing about CRIMINALS.. and they are the problem,.. not law abiding citizens..
Anyone stupid enough to not grasp that simple a concept should not be allowed to vote since they obviously are mentally infirm.
Ah, yes. If only Iggy were more like Stephen Harper than he already is!
I can"t believe how vicious the people in the pro gun lobby really are. Shalimar calls Iggy "dumb'," "a school yard bully"," an inept disaster", and an "asshat". Anyone that does not want to scrap the LRG is "stupid or "mentally infirm". These people are really scary!
Shalimar is right--the Firearms Act has been an unmitigated disaster. It suspends the Charter rights of legal (i.e. licensed) gun owners, with regards to warrantless search and siezure, but leaves the rights of convicted criminals with illegal, unregistered weapons intact. The Firearms Act created a massive, make-work bureaucracy, which--IN ONE YEAR--claimed $13.5M in 'travel expenses.' C-68 also lined the pockets of IT contractors, like Liberal Party and Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police donor CGI. Coalition for Gun Control maven Wendy Cukier also lined her pockets, both from an ILLEGAL $380,000 lobbyist grant from the Chretien regime and RCMP contracts to her company, Telecon Consulting. Even after massive cuts to law enforcement (disbanding the Ports Police, refusing to arm border guards over their union's pleas and trying to close two RCMP crime labs) and cuts to breast cancer research, the Liberals keep on flogging this $2B porkbarrel as a "public safety and women's" expense. And the 'NRA conspiracy' crap peddled by the Liberals and NDP is hypocrisy on a major level. The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)--a think tank headquartered in the UK, and funded by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations--has used its deep pockets to fund gun control efforts in Canada, as well as 'advising' the Liberals and NDP on the issue. And while doubting the RCMP's opinions on everything else, progressives are taking the Mounties' bogus report on the Long Gun Registry's allegedly only $4M annual cost as gospel truth. With PSAC claiming that 240 jobs would be lost if the LGR was killed, the labour costs alone greatly exceed $4M, and make the report an obvious fiction. The Auditor General really needs to have a look at the RCMP's accounting procedures.
The Laytonite NDP pulled a Tony Blair, and sold out its farmer-blue collar labour base a long time ago. Now, the NDP is another post-Trudeau Liberal Party: supporting business lobbies, ethnic bloc-voters and the latte-liberal crowd. Some of the current NDP's connections have been pretty dubious. LTTE and Babbar Khalsa lobbyists were courted, with someone in an NDP riding office even leaking a list of voters' names to the Tamil Tigers, to troll for ethnic Tamil 'donors.' And Layton's pro-PRC stance reflects his cozy relationship with expat Chinese business interests. From attacking Harper for "lecturing China on human rights," to refusing to involve his party in the Ironworkers' fight against a crane in Esquimalt being built with imported Chinese labour, Layton is completely in the thrall of his Chinese business supporters. The NDP continues to drag out the red herring of Canada-Colombia free trade, even as trade with China has all but obliterated Canada's manufacturing jobs, China's human rights situation is as bad as ever, and PRC-based companies keep buying up our resorce sector. Richard Fadden's report likely won't be made public, but you can bet that Jack Layton and Olivia Chow are at the top of the 'foreign influence' list.
Jack Layton probably whipped his caucus to vote against C-391--just behind closed doors, unlike Iggy. And the NDP's new-found support for the Firearms Act is but another indication of how the party has completely abandoned its roots as a rural and working-class entity. When an openly-gay, Conservative politician (John Baird) starts referring to the NDP as "Toronto elites," and blue collar people from Timmins to Red Deer start nodding in agreement, you know the New Democratic Party has finally alienated its origional base.
@Robby,
Is that any worse than the pro-LGR people calling gun owners "whackos," "rednecks," "hillbillies," "inbreds," "cousin fuckers," "nazis," or some of the other nice epithets I've encountered on Rabble/Babble? And let's not forget the "really scary" people here who believe that 9/11 was a 'Zionist-CIA' conspiracy...
I think Jack played the hand he was dealt as well as he could. While we can't be sure that the LGR will survive, I suspect that, had Layton whipped the vote, he would have got people's backs up, including some of our caucus members, and the death of the rigistry would have been ensured.
Having said all that, I agree with you, Murray, on the need to revive the NPI or something like it. I supported it in Winnipeg and was disappointed when the party apparatchiks shot it down. We need to give progressive canadians a reason not to vote strategically for the Liberals, and we're not doing a good job of it at the moment.
So, in the short term, on this issue, we've done the best could; in the long term, we have a lot of work to do.
@ Robby
I have indeed... it's not scary unless you are afraid of the truth.
let me address your points and allow you to see some of that truth.
Iggy "dumb' - any politicians can see the LGR is a disaster.. Iggy did not create it and if he was SMART he would have distanced himself from someone else's massive mistake.
"a school yard bully" - Whipping the vote is being a BULLY.. it is undemocratic.. it is trying to force MPs to do as HE says and NOT how their constituents say. That is in essence preventing them from doing their JOBS.
"an inept disaster" - see above point about 'dumb' and add in his absolutely insane attempts to defend the LGR. Reality is is does not work.. cannot work and never could.
It does NOT do a damn thing about CRIMINALS.. it only polices law abiding gun owners and has been repeatedly abused to persecute those same citizens whom are NOT the problem.
It has cost the lives of LEOs whom were naive enough to believe the BS from it.. when it does not even list all of the LEGAL guns.. never mind ILLEGAL ones.
It has never yet saved even one life.. nor can it since it's a completely flawed design sold as "helping the public safety" when in reality it cannot do that ever.. it harms the public safety by wasting $$ that would do good if used elsewhere.
"asshat" - "A general term for someone who carries out actions with such stupidity that they might as well wear their ass as a hat." The description fits wither you like it or not.
Anyone that does not want to scrap the LRG is "stupid or "mentally infirm". - Well what would you call someone that has been given all the facts about the BILLIONS of wasted $.. the complete failure of the LGR to do what they tried to say it would. The fact it has been used to persecute law abiding citizens and make them into criminals by defacto standard. Either you have your head firmly buried in the sand and are unwilling to see the simple reality.. or you are too damn stupid to understand it.
These people are really scary! -
No.. scary is a woman being attacked by a rapist and not being LEGALLY allowed to defend herself with even so much as pepper spray.. and if she DOES so she gets charged.
Scary is a home invader knowing full well he/she can get away with it because those living there cannot legally defend themselves or THEY get charged.
Scary is anyone with a completely irrational fear of guns 'because they look evil".. are "baby killers" etc etc... Guns are simply TOOLS.. inanimate objects
Why on earth you continue to believe a gun will suddenly jump up and start shooting people is completely insane.
Scary is YOU wanting to prevent legal gun owners from having guns and/or forcing us to be treated worse than pedophiles are... meanwhile completely ignoring the fact we are NOT the criminals..
Scary is that level of stupidity exists in Canada today and that you refuse to open your eyes
It really is a very sad thing..... what you should be afraid of are the criminals.... they are the "Bad Guys"
So ultimately you need to grow up and clue in about reality.
And the Scariest thing is you still don't grasp the simplest concept:
CRIMINALS do not register their guns and they are laughing at the waste of resources on this which means less resources left to catch THEM.
Oh and fyi.. I'm not a PC.. I'm a Liberal/NDP.. I simply do not have my head stuck in the sand.
And the reality is while everyone is pissed about the G20, the census and the gun registry the real action was with the budget implementation committee. That bill has locked us in just where Harper wants us. His work is pretty well done no matter who is in power. It is the speed with which it happens that we are going to be fighting now. That is why he is not backing down on cutting the deficit.
I say bring it on. The sooner people realize that no one represents their interests in Ottawa the sooner we met in the streets and decide the battle mano a mano.
Let's get ready to rumble!X!!!
Scary is someone who lives in a rural community with a long gun who gets loaded beats his wife and grabs his gun and holds his family hostage when the cops show up! Now that is scary! Most violence in this society is violence agaisnt women in a domestic situation. I would think this applies even more to women isolated in rural communities locked in a patriarhial relationship ( cause that's just how god planned it) with no resources to escape. That is reality and those who search the social science will find that it is supported.
Cheers,
RR
@ RockyRacoon
1st.. wtf are you smoking??? Have you ever read any of the statistics of WHO is most likely to be shot with a gun??
MEN... They are the most common to be shot..
However let me bring some light to your post.
Assuming the case is there is an abusive man which does indeed happen (and the opposite doed as well contrary to popular rumor).
But for this arguement it is a man abusing the woman..
Now you have only X number of $$$$ to spend on "the public good"
The LGR does not prevent the abuse.. cannot prevent the abuse and reality is a KNIFE is the most used weapon in domestic violence situations.
However if you took the same $$$ wasted on the LGR and instead funded more womens shelters.. anger managment and mental health... and more LEO's to deal with such cases.. that would have a tangeable benefit for society.
Now reality is we don't have unlimited $$.. and to spend $$ on a tool that does SFA other than waste those $$ is pointless.. esp when we have other tools that actually do work.
Not to mention the $$ spent are accurately used.. and not wasted on persecuting every single gun owner for what someone else might or might not do.
Here's a good message for you:
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/3342/domesticviolenceshelter.jpg
Or how about this one:
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7978/domesticviolencefists.jpg
Whats next... a knife and baseball bat registry? How about a lawn dart registry.. those could be "really scary" as well...
Ultimately though the reality still is the LGR is an unequivocal failure since it is "supposed to" prevent gun crims and catch CRIMINALS.
It cannot do either one.... ever.. so get over it.. scrap the useless wasteful pile of shit and focus on the actual problems.
@ RockyRacoon
btw.. guns.. long and short are not rural only... there are many many thousands of us living in cities as well whom own BOTH.
The rural / urban myth is just that.. something commonly touted by Iggy and others... meanwhile it still is just a myth since gun owners exist all over Canada.
As for the domestic violence issue... by your post it would be more scary because it's rural? As if such things never happen in any city.. etc etc...
RockyRaccoon,
How about the guy who has his son strangle his sister, because she wouldn't wear a bag on her head? Or the religious wackos who assemble materials and plan to blow up targets in Canada, including the Montreal Metro, packed with passengers? Or the successful businessman who plotted to blow up a Danish newspaper's headquarters, over some cartoons. Or the nice young man who firebombed a Jewish school? Or those nice members of third-world separatist groups who use Canada as a base for fundraising, so they can blow up airliners and send pregnant suicide bombers into crowds? How about those nice gangsters with criminal records as long as your arm, who shoot bystanders to death on city streets. Or that nice young man (Gamil Gharbi, I think his name was), whose dad came from a horribly mysogenist background and beat contempt for women into his son, so that the stupid boy would grow up to blame women for everything, flunk out and shoot a whole bunch of his betters in their school. I could go on and on, but I think you catch my drift--you seem to enjoy scapegoating rural, Christian-Canadians, so as not to say anything unpleasant about certain, politically correct groups. Anti-white/anti-Christian racism and prejudice is just as repugnant and evil as any other kind.
Does anybody have an opinion on Murray Dobbin's actual point, which was not about the LGR but about how the NDP has lost whatever connection it had with leftist populism and is now nothing more than a bureaucratic election machine?
If not, please take your racist, xenophobic stereotypes elsewhere. I'm sure the CBC and the Globe and Mail would love to publish them online...
@ M. Spector
Simple.. the NDP in this case made a huge blunder.. by not supporting 391 overall since we all know the LGR is a disaster.. if Jack had grown a set of balls and with iggy.. well being iggy.. jack could have easily trounced the Libs in any vote atm.. gaining him a good chunk of seats.. and quite possibly putting the ndp in as official opposition.
However Jack does not have a set.. he instead has chosen to sit on the fence as much as he can. But at least he didn't try to pull iggy's school yard bully bullshit.
Not to mention there are ndp mp's such as my local one.. whom sadly are so damn dense when it comes to the lgr they just cannot see simple facts in front of tier own face... and it will mean her being booted from office next time round. Too bad though since on most other things she usually had a brain esp compared to the other local candidates.
Is it not possible to have a conversation on the internet without resorting to name-calling?
@CYS: I would love to see references for the information you present as facts.
Also, I fail to see how guns could protect us from terrorists since suicide bombers don't tend to make their intentions known before committing their irreparable mistake. I don't believe in vigilante justice and I doubt that what we need to stop a terrorist attack is a shootout in the Montreal Metro. Guns are great for hunting and target practice, but that's it. Does anybody here actually know a Canadian who protected himself from criminals with their gun? I don't, but I know plenty of hunters.
As for Mr. Dobbin's point, I agree that the NDP is too busy playing the political game. Like the Liberals, they seem to be in an existential crisis, unsure of what to do to kick Harper out of office. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are united behind their destructive libertarian economic agenda and have yet to face a worthwhile opposition. Their smoke and mirror strategy seems to be working fine. The NDP reconnecting with their movement origin might be what they need to propose a vision that might capture people's attention and allow the party to get somewhere.
@ Deontosaurus
"I fail to see how guns could protect us from terrorists since suicide bombers don't tend to make their intentions known before committing their irreparable mistake"
Ok.. and how is that any different that the foolish sheeple that rely on the registry to somhow magically prevent a crime???
Nevermind the fact that the LGR does not track criminals at all. It only persecutes legal gun owners and treats them much the same as pedophiles... actuallty WORSE overall sadly.
How about the fact a woman is legally NOT allowed to even have pepper spray to defend against say a rapist.. and if she has such she is the one charged??
Common sense is MASSIVELY LACKING in the Canadian populace to say the least.
As for knowing anyone that has protected himself from criminals with a gun I know more than one... including myself.
Do I like doing it? No.. but I do what is necessary at the time..
Will I willingly give up and not defend my family? Fuck no. The LEO's average response time where I live is 6min+.. and I'm in a Major city..
After Military exp as well as other training I rely on ME first and everything else 2nd.
The sad reality is so many ppl have an irrational fear of guns it's beyond stupid.. A gun is not evil.. it is morally neutral.
It is an inanimate object.. it does not jump up and randomly shoot people.
What you need to focus on is WHO has the gun... Are you afraid a cops gun will randomly shoot you?? I sure as hell hope not (unless you are a criminal)
Well why be afraid of X person.. whom has gone through the licensing system and has their guns LEGALLY???
Why waste millions and millions on a tool that CANNOT ever work because it aims at the wrong target??
The criminals will never register their guns.. they will never be without guns.. they will continue to LAUGH at your stupidity of supporting the LGR which is wasting $$$$$ on something that helps them!!!
Until you grow up... get a clue and do a reality check the criminals win... it's that simple.
So who's side are you on? There are only two choices.
The law abiding citizen (including the millions of gun owners)
Or...
THE CRIMINAL
Take your pick... you cannot abstain.. you cannot choose any other option..
It's time for you to do a reality check and clue in... or you might as well join the criminals and help them out... since supporting moronic laws that aim at the wrong people is already doing exactly that.
"Does anybody here actually know a Canadian who protected himself from criminals with their gun?"
Next time you see a couple of Brinks, G4S, etc. guards refilling an ATM, have a look at what's on their hip: you'll see a .38 Special, or a .40 pistol. Armoured car security guards are issued Authorizations To Carry handguns, for self-defense, from would-be robbers. As a consequence, armoured car robberies in Canada and the U.S. are fairly rare. Contrast that to Britain, where guards are unarmed and the number of robberies of G4S guards there exceed those of all the countries Securicor operates in (including Iraq and Mexico) COMBINED. ATCs are also issued to people, like trappers and scientists, for protection against wild animals in the back country. There is also a very rare permit, the ATC Type-3, which enables civilians to carry a CONCEALED handgun, for self-defense, when the police are unable to protect them. There are about a dozen, or so in Ontario, mostly issued to Crown Prosecutors, political cronies and the like.
As for Islamic terrorists, the best defense is to 'observe and report.' Look for the obvious signs (shalwar kameez, niqabs on the wives, large groups of men assembled in one place, acquisition of certain materials) and report this to CSIS and the RCMP. The mounties have been a disaster on many levels (see the Firearms Centre, and the excellent blog post in this site on that criminal libel case), but busting terrorists and gangsters IS something they do very well.
Creepy ex-military types with huge anger management issues are the best argument I have seen for gun control laws.
@ M. Spector
Those ex-mil's are who has been defending your freedom including your right to even post as you have.
And if that is your best arguement for something that cannot ever work you really are a complete moron.
Some pieces of wisdom for you to learn from if you can wrap your head around such "complex things" such as freedom of choice.
"At the end of the day, it is safe to say that criminals do not care about gun bans or licences,"\
-Scotland Yard spokesman Carrie Lee
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1775.
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more effective, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
- Adolf Hitler, 1935
Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or SA- ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.
-Heinrich Himmler
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity."
-Sigmund Freud, General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1952)
And in regards to vets whom you seem to not appreciate.
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life,wrote a blank check made payable to 'Canada for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.'
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-- John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
If you can read this, thank a teacher
If you can read this in English, thank a veteran.
dupe.
dupe.
"Creepy ex-military types with huge anger management issues are the best argument I have seen for gun control laws."
No. Creepy, commie types, who fetishise mass murderers like Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Enver Hoxha, Vladimir Lenin and other monsters, believe 9/11 was a Jewish plot, cheer on the Taliban, LTTE and Babbar Khalsa, support the statist thuggishness of Chief Bill Blair and his friends in the RCMP, and are the mouthpieces of IANSA and other billionaire-funded lobby groups represent the best argument AGAINST gun control laws.
The state is a useful adjunct to a civil society in many areas: defending rights, providing basic services, protecting the nation from external forces. But the state should not have a monopoly on power--you need an armed citizenry to keep would-be Hitlers, Lenins, Mugabes, or Khomeinis from consolidating power. This is why the Nazis, Marxist-Leninist regimes and other authoritarians made the first order of business firearms licensing and registration, quickly followed by confiscation. Please read the very informative blog post on Rabble re. the Calgary Police Service and the RCMP, and their 'criminal libel' charge, to see what sort of people you're hopping into bed with on the gun control/LGR issue.
@CYS: Handguns in a professional setting are not covered by the LGR, to my knowledge, so the argument of security guards is irrelevant. For guns to be useful in protecting one's self means that the gun owner needs to carry it at all times, which seems excessive considering Canadian violent crime rates, not to mention the fact that police responding to a shootout might have trouble differentiating between the criminal and the vigilante. Your response to my intervention seems to reinforce my point.
@Shalimar: The black and white thinking in the law-abiding gun owners vs criminals is a fallacious argument. The real world isn't that polarized. I am not an expert on guns or crime and as such have no strong opinion on the matter of the LGR.
I don't think the opposition parties are suggesting removing the right to own a gun, they are simply insisting that they be registered. The NDP also proposed to reexamine the LGR to try to correct its flaws, but the Conservatives have chosen to remain their usual divisive selves.
"For guns to be useful in protecting one's self means that the gun owner needs to carry it at all times..."
This is what the ATC Type-3 allows--24/7 carry. The 'regular' ATC only covers specific activities, for instance an armoured car guard on the job (not on his lunch break), or a geologist in the woods (not sleeping in a motel). Handguns (restricted weapons) have been registered since 1935 (out of fear of commies, BTW). Non-restricted weapons (e.g., pump shotguns) have been used for home defense, and the courts have upheld this right.
There was an extraordinary case, where the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the right of a convict to CARRY A SHIV IN JAIL, for self-defense. This, I take it, would imply that non-convicts have the same right.
Most of the opposition to the LGR involves its use as a defacto confiscation registry, with the recent warrantless searches and confiscations by thug Police Chief Bill Blair reinforcing that fear. And Iggy and Layton are lying through their teeth, when they say the registry can be 'decriminalized.' This would involve removing firearms legislation from the Criminal Code, and scrapping the Firearms Act--something they know isn't possible (or desired by them), but they want to pull one over on the public.
@ Deontosaurus
C-68 does nothing to catch criminals.. nothing to prevent illegal guns.. nothing to enhance the public saftey at all...
It's very cut and dry it only is aimed at law abiding citizens since criminals do NOT register their guns nor get a gun license!
Fact is having a gun license alone should have been enough w/o the registry.. since the registry cannot ever do what they have claimed it was for.
Meanwhile it has been used repeatedly to seize guns from citizens whom are NOT criminals... How about the Norinco 97's where the RCMP has demanded the guns be turned over w/o compensation?? (That is in court still thankfully)
Not to mention Blair's latest BS of "Operation Zero Tolerance" explicitly targeting the law abiding gun owners regardless of the guns legal status.. and especially targeting seniors!! ( http://www.nfa.ca/commentary-operation-zero-tolerance )
Fact is the LGR is a complete disaster.. waste of $$ and has only ever been used to attack the law abiding citizens.. never yet any criminal!
The LGR cannot be "fixed".. it needs to be eliminated.
You don't need to be an expert to realize it comes down to only 2 sides...
CRIMINALS or US..
You have to pick one or the other..
As for the rest.. if you have questions about gun or crime.. just ask.. I'd be happy to help educate you on the matter.