Parliamentary reporter Karl Nerenberg shines a light on Ottawa politics.
Long gun registry
Mothers of gun violence victims call for help to save the gun registry this Mother's Day
Open letter, May 6, 2011
In response to the recent election, we, the mothers of victims of gun violence, are calling on politicians to stand up for public safety. During the election it became clear that many candidates were ill-informed about how important the gun registry is as a tool for police.
A registry to prevent crime, not domestic violence
We suspected it and now it is confirmed. The Conservatives don't think domestic violence is a crime.
MP Candace Hoeppner said as much on CBC Radio, no less, in Toronto last week. At the tail-end of her long, failed crusade against the long-gun registry, she distinguished use of the registry in domestic violence from fighting crime.
She said: "if the only defence of it [the gun registry] right now is domestic violence" then that means "nobody is saying that it [the registry] stops crime anymore." It's hard to interpret that any other way than it expressing the thought that domestic violence is not a crime.
Gun registry is not a threat to freedom
On a list of favourite activities, renewing my car registration would rank rather low. Still, having done it recently, I can attest that it didn't feel like an assault on my freedom.
Other car owners with me in line seemed similarly undisturbed, apparently realizing this was part of a rather sensible system of licensing and registering drivers and vehicles in an attempt to ensure that the powerful, motorized vehicles we drive at great speeds kill and injure fewer people.
Yet, strangely, this week parliamentarians seem set to vote for a Conservative private member's bill to scrap a registry that provides a similar system of regulatory control -- but for a product that is far more likely to kill.
Bill C-19: Victims of gun violence and women's safety experts outraged by the expected outcome of today's vote
Members of Parliament are expected to vote today to send Bill C-19 to the Senate, which, if passed, ends the long-gun registry and destroys all long-gun data collected since the registry's inception. Victims of gun violence and women's safety experts are outraged at the possibility that Bill C-19, a bill which places the safety of all Canadians in jeopardy, may become law. Given the likely conclusion of today's vote, the government is completely ignoring the recommendations of the majority of Canadians including victims of gun violence, women's groups, suicide prevention experts, police and labour organizations.
Montreal masacre
On December 6, 1989, 25 year-old Marc Lépine entered École Polytechnique armed with a hunting knife and a .22 calibre rifle. He went from class to class in the engineering school, separating men from women and open firing on what he called "une gange de féministes". His rampage stretched three floors and several classrooms. He murdered 14 women and injured ten others just because they were women before turning the gun on himself.
Legacy
Forum remembers Ecole Polytechnique, fights violence against women today
The 14 women killed at École Polytechnique in Montreal 22 years ago were remembered by over a hundred participants at a public education forum for ending violence against women, which took place at The Cultch on Vancouver's East Side on Dec. 3, one of many such events across the country.
Fourteen other people, 10 women and four men, were also injured during the Montreal Massacre, which took place on Dec. 6, 1989.
Shooting down the gun registry
Sometimes political arguments amaze me. Listening to debate on certain issues makes one wonder whatever happened to logic and reason. Perhaps those things are no longer taught in schools, or maybe the will to win a point is stronger than common sense for many people. In either event the net result is a dumbing down of society and the attendant poor results that are liable to come from the political process.
