Where've you gone Woody?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 1:18 PM - 0 Comments

Alas, it was perhaps too good to last. As of this moment, it appears Mr. Bezan’s video on the gun registry vote has disappeared from YouTube. If anyone somehow made a copy before it was lost, do please share it with the class.

In the meantime, here is some archival footage of Mr. Bezan and his trusty steed.

And now a word from James Bezan

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 10:09 AM - 0 Comments

Conservative backbencher James Bezan has a horse named Woody. He has a video camera (or at least knows someone who does). And he has some things he would like to say to you about Bill C-391. This is what happens when those three facts are resolved with each other.

With kind regards

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 8:59 AM - 0 Comments

Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz and NDP MP Charlie Angus exchange greetings.

So Gary, let’s be frank: we’re just not on the same page here at all. Rural New Democrats have brought forward legitimate concerns of rural residents and are looking to have those issues addressed. The Harper Conservatives, on the other hand, would rather try and just stir up rural Canadians with all manner of wild and crazy conspiracy theories about our local police forces. And just for the sake of a quick fundraising buck and some negative partisan advertising.

And how then shall we defend ourselves against the British invaders?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 3:50 PM - 0 Comments

While lamenting the “media war” and the “political aggravation” surrounding the gun registry, Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz frets for our impending police dictatorship.

When law enforcement managers try to write the laws they enforce, history has taught us we risk becoming a state where police can dictate our personal freedoms … Why are the police chiefs so strident in their quest to keep the registry in place? They won’t admit it, but it appears they don’t want Canadians to own guns. To that end, they need a database that will help them locate and seize those firearms as soon as a licence or registration expires.

‘If we can find a way to move forward’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 1:33 PM - 0 Comments

In the wake of Jack Layton’s announcement yesterday, Charlie Angus, one of the dozen NDP MPs whose votes will decide the fate of the gun registry, doesn’t seem entirely committed to voting for C-391 on third reading. But Jim Maloway, who has repeated his intention to vote for C-391, is unmoved.

Regardless, said Maloway, he still plans to vote with Hoeppner. ”Nothing there changes my view on the long-gun registry,” said Maloway.

He also said Layton’s proposal is too little too late. ”This bill just went through committee last spring,” said Maloway. “Where were all these amendments at the committee?”

A wasteful, ineffective, important tool to promote public safety

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:11 AM - 0 Comments

The RCMP’s evaluation of the Canadian Firearms Program—which you didn’t need to see because the Public Safety Minister’s office had already told you what you needed to know—is officially released today. Canadian Press had an early look and the CBC posted a leaked copy. The following from the report’s findings.

Firearms registration is a critical component of the entire firearms program. The program, as a whole, is an important tool for law enforcement. It also serves to increase the accountability of firearms owners for their firearms, by linking registered firearms to licensees. An acceptable level of compliance toward long gun registration is essential for improving the Registry’s utility as a tool to promote public safety … Canadians are receiving value for their tax dollars from the CFP. Overall, the Canadian Firearms Program is cost-effective in reducing firearms-related crime and promoting public safety through universal licensing of firearms owners and registration of firearms in Canada.

Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner, sponsor of Bill C-391, was quick with a response, proclaiming in an release last evening that “the RCMP report supports what I’ve been saying all along – that the long-gun registry is wasteful and ineffective.”

The olive branch

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 12:14 PM - 0 Comments

Four months ago, in announcing he would whip a future vote on C-391, Michael Ignatieff set out a few proposed changes to the gun registry conceivably intended to appease those Liberals who had previously voted to abolish the registry.

Today, in announcing he would not whip a future vote on C-391, Jack Layton set out a few proposed changes to the gun registry conceivably intended to appease those New Democrats who had previously voted to abolish the registry.

Everybody already knows

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 10:21 AM - 0 Comments

Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner reacts to an internal RCMP audit that found favourably of the firearms registry.

“I don’t believe any of these reports make any difference whatsoever,” said Ms. Hoeppner. “It’s been years of mismanagement and waste and there’s not going to be a report that changes our minds.”

Swing votes

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 4:06 PM - 0 Comments

NDP MPs John Rafferty and Bruce Hyer talk to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal about the vote on Bill C-391. Neither are quoted explicitly stating an intention, but Hyer at least seems to be talking like someone who wants to vote yes.

An important, cost-effective outrage

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 1:45 PM - 0 Comments

CBC gets hold of the RCMP report the government doesn’t think you need to see.

One section of the report states: “The program, as a whole, is an important tool for law enforcement. It also serves to increase accountability of firearm owners for their firearms.”

The report found that the cost of the program is in the range of $1.1 million to $3.6 million per year and that the Canadian Firearms Program is operating efficiently. “Overall the program is cost effective in reducing firearms related crime and promoting public safety through universal licensing of firearm owners and registration of firearms,” the report states.

Mixed and inconclusive

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 5:08 PM - 0 Comments

So it seems the survey to which Conservative MP Candice Hoepnner referred this week was drawn from responses to a posting on the online forum of Blue Line magazine. And now the editor of Blue Line is quite displeased on a number of fronts (or possibly the caps lock option on his keyboard is stuck).

MEDIA AND POLITICAL HYPE IS BACKWARDS.  THE REGISTRY IS ABOUT RESPONSIBLE FIREARMS OWNERSHIP NOT POLICE USE. POLICE ARE CALLED UPON TO REFER TO IT FOR MANY REASONS BUT JUST LIKE RESPONSIBLE CAR OWNERS, RESPONSIBLE BOAT OWNERS AND RESPONSIBLE HOME OWNERS HAVE A REGISTRY, FIREARMS SHOULD BE NO DIFFERENT.POLICE INTEREST IS REALLY ONLY WHEN THEY ARE STOLEN, STORED, REGISTERED OR USED IMPROPERLY … THE MONEY HAS BEEN BLOWN (RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY) AND IF SO WE MUST SALVAGE WHAT WE CAN. IF WE NEED TO THROW OUT PORTIONS THEN DO SO. BUT NOT THE WHOLE THING. THAT WOULD NOT BE RESPONSIBLE MANAGEMENT.

Gun registry math (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 23, 2010 at 2:36 PM - 0 Comments

While police chiefs prepare to campaign for the preservation of the long-gun registry, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner, sponsor of C-391, issues a press release saluting the “vast majority” of police officers who oppose the registry. To wit.

“This survey proves what I have been saying all along – that the CACP and the CPA do not, as they claim, speak for Canadian police officers on this issue,” said Candice Hoeppner.  “As I have met with police chiefs and front-line officers this past year, I have repeatedly said that police support for maintaining the long-gun registry is far from unanimous; in fact, it seems that the opposite is true – police support to end the registry is overwhelming!…

“Canadian Police Association President Charles Momy appeared at committee this spring and referred to a survey demonstrating police support for the long-gun registry – a survey that he admitted involved just 400 officers,” Hoeppner commented.  “This new survey involved over 2600 officers and strongly contradicts Mr. Momy’s position.  It seems obvious that a survey sample of 2600 is far more reliable than a survey of 400.”

The survey to which Ms. Hoeppner assigns her finding of reliability was conducted by an Edmonton police officer. From the release announcing his findings, he seems to have placed a notice of some kind seeking replies in a police magazine. In the fourth paragraph of that release, Constable Randy Kuntz is said to be “first to admit the survey is not scientific.”

When Charles Momy, president of the Canadian Police Association, appeared before the public safety committee in May he referenced a survey conducted by the RCMP. Of the 408 respondents, 74% said the registry had aided their work. This would seem to be that survey.

Gun registry math

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 23, 2010 at 12:32 PM - 0 Comments

When Bill c-391, an act to repeal the long-gun registry, came to a vote on second reading last November, it was passed by a count of 164-137. Those 164 votes in favour included 143 Conservatives, 12 New Democrats, eight Liberals and one independent.

C-391 is now due to return to the House for a final vote when the House returns this fall and the vote seems set to be very close.

How close? Well, let’s see. Continue…

Why won't Breitkreuz let Breitkreuz be Breitkreuz?

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 3:01 PM - 88 Comments

Garry Breitkreuz says the language in yesterday’s embarrassing press release “is not me.” Well, gee, Garry, it may not have been you, but as a longtime observer of your career I thought it was an excellent likeness. If you ask me, you picked a pretty bad moment to disavow the self-portrait.

Joan Bryden’s wire story for CP says that Breitkreuz’s statement “compared Canadian police chiefs to a cult and urged Liberals to beat their leader, Michael Ignatieff, ‘black and blue’.” On count one of the indictment, Breitkreuz must be judged not guilty. He actually compared the opposition in the Commons to a cult, and said it was being “led by organizations of police chiefs”—i.e., political advocacy groups that claim to represent police chiefs, and that have a strong interest in the naïve citizen (or the naïve reporter) confusing them with the police qua police.

Breitkreuz has always worked hard to emphasize this distinction, and it was highlighted rather intensely a year ago when John Jones, an ethics advisor to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, quit because of the association’s incorrigible addiction to questionable corporate donations. As Christie Blatchford wrote in the Globe at the time:

Dr. Jones and the members of the ethics committee were in Montreal in August for two days of meetings around the CACP’s annual conference when they learned about Taser’s sponsorship and that of others, including a joint Bell Mobility-CGI Group-Techna donation of $115,000, which went toward the purchase of 1,000 tickets at $215 each to a Celine Dion concert on Aug. 25.

CGI Group Inc. is a major, long-term firearms-registry contractor. In the odious press release, Breitkreuz, or his evil twin, asked “Could it be that CACP support for the registry is financially motivated?” Why the pussyfooting? Seems like he could have just said flat-out that when it comes to the gun registry, the CACP has an obvious conflict of interest and cannot be considered an uncompromised source of policy advice.

As for the charge that Evil Garry called for Ignatieff to be beaten…well, the world will always have its thick-as-a-plank literalists, won’t it? The press release didn’t even refer explicitly to a beating, but said that “[Ignatieff's] true colours are showing, and if his caucus has any integrity, those colours should be black and blue.” If Breitkreuz thinks that this rough-and-tumble metaphor is an offence worth apologizing for, fine; standards, after all, are ever-evolving in this area.

His real problem is that his rather careful statement about the CACP’s conflict of interest would have been easy for the opposition to strip of its context and twist into an anti-cop sound bite. In the wild-and-woolly Reform days, when the party’s base consisted of half-anarchist and heavily-armed rural Westerners, this kind of tension was not a major problem. Old Reformers readily recognize a implicit distinction between lawfulness and regimentation, between policing and the police state. But this philosophical razor is naturally a little blunter in a federal party that is trying to straddle multiple regions and political traditions. Reform’s passion for old-fashioned, demotic criminal justice seems to have been diverted into the task of elevating the police into a species of untouchable philosopher-king. And in the Ignatieff era, this is a contest in which the Liberals no longer have any compunctions about competing.

That puts someone like Breitkreuz in an awkward position, since he is dedicated to the destruction of a gun-registry program that many police really might like—not because it is in the public interest, but because it gives them another pretext for arrests, searches, and horse-trading with the bad guys. The registry self-evidently gives the police more power, but it is difficult to imagine that it protects anyone from personal harm. You can build all the databases you like, but no properly trained officer of the law will ever enter a premises or stop a suspect without accounting for the possibility of a weapon coming into play. If one were to take the CACP at its word, and accept that the registry with all its inaccuracies is routinely used to “check for the presence of firearms” in homes being visited by police, one would be forced to consider the possibility that the damn thing is nothing but a digital Petri dish of overconfidence and carelessness—well worth consigning to oblivion in the name of safety and common sense alone.

Happiness is a warm, registered firearm

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 19, 2010 at 1:36 PM - 122 Comments

In a speech to the Canadian Police Association this morning, Michael Ignatieff laid out the Liberal approach to crime, with three proposed changes to the gun registry.

First, we’d change the law, so that people who forget to register their gun can be issued a ticket, rather than face a criminal charge. This will give front line officers the tools you need to distinguish an honest mistake from a threat to public safety. Someone who habitually breaks the law and flouts the regulations should be treated far differently from someone who makes a one-time mistake. One kind of behavior is criminal, the other isn’t. And you need the appropriate tools to deal with each situation. That’s a message we heard loud and clear.

Second, we’ll permanently eliminate fees for new licenses, renewals, and upgrades.

And third, we’ll streamline paperwork, to make registration as quick and easy as possible.

Liberals will apparently be required to vote against Conservative Candice Hoeppner’s bill—a private member’s initiative that would effectively end the registry—when it comes up for a final vote. Eight Liberals (Simms, Russell, Rota, Martin, Easter, D’Amours, Bagnell and Andrews) voted in favour of the bill on second reading and two (Guarnieri and Karygiannis) abstained. In his speech, Mr. Ignatieff said the party had been working with these MPs on the proposed reforms.

Even if you move those 10 votes to the no side, the bill would pass by a count of 156-147.

Does regulating guns result in fewer murders?

By John Geddes - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 10:54 AM - 94 Comments

In the debate over the federal registry for rifles and shotguns, the strongest argument on the side of those in favour of scrapping it has always been that imposing rules on law-abiding gun owners doesn’t work and isn’t fair. After all, criminals are not about to register their guns, so why inconvenience good citizens?

Although my instinct is to defer to police who say the registry is useful to them, I have always thought there was something to the case against, as the Prime Minister has said, “attacking farmers or duck hunters.” I grew up in a small town where rifles and shotguns were everyday items and I can see why a hunter might feel slighted by having to register.

Still, when you think it through, if gun regulations that only peaceful citizens comply with don’t actually work, then the inherent uselessness of these rules should be evident by now in the historical data on gun offences. In other words, decades of laws that by definition only the lawful obey should have had no measurable impact on violent crime.

But that’s not what the record suggests. Continue…

'Just recently'

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 12:32 PM - 47 Comments

Peter Van Loan, Thursday. I received it and looked at just recently, in recent days.

Toronto Star, today. Responding by email to questions from the Star, RCMP Sgt. Greg Cox said late Friday the force submitted its 2008 firearms report on Oct. 9, four weeks ago.

For it before he was against it, Easter edition

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:46 PM - 14 Comments

Fun facts. From 1892 to 2005, Canada had a solicitor general. From Oct. 2002 to Dec. 2003, Liberal Wayne Easter, as noted here, held that title. From April 2003 to Dec. 2003, that position put Easter in charge of the federal firearm registry. And on Wednesday night, Easter voted to have long guns removed from that registry.

In July 2003, six gun owners showed up at Easter’s constituency office, reported that they had not registered their weapons and invited him to take action. He declined. “I don’t direct police operations,” he told Canwest at the time, “that’s up to the police to decide. And as I’ve said a number of times, the police know the difference between somebody trying to make a point politically versus concerns for public safety.”

Three months later though, with the release of statistics showing a drop in gun-related deaths, Easter was sought out for comment and seemed generally supportive of the registry’s general purpose. Canadian Press dispatch after the jump. Relevant portion in bold. Continue…

Coyne v. Wells on guns and germs

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 7:30 PM - 20 Comments

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For it before he was against it (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 12:52 PM - 14 Comments

Two footnotes to that footnote, taken from a pair of subsequent stories Joan Bryden wrote for Southam. In the first, the future prime minister comments on the threats he received after his vote in favour of the gun registry. In the second, Mr. Harper explains why he switched his vote and why he no longer believes it entirely necessary to survey constituents before voting. Continue…

For it before he was against it

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 12:13 PM - 27 Comments

An odd footnote to the gun registry debate that was pointed out to me last night: though he voted against it on third and final reading, when the Firearms Act was offered for second reading in the House 14 years ago, a young and idealistic Reform MP by the name of Stephen Harper voted in favour.

The Canadian Press dispatch on that vote is below, the relevant portion in bold. Continue…

Megapundit: Climate change—like Y2K, only warmer

By selley - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 1:33 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Dan Gardner on Y2K+8; Colby Cosh on gun control.

On Americans, Canadians, and guns
Why we don’t have a well-armed militia, and why maybe we should.

“We are fond of interpreting [Canada's and the United States'] different gun cultures as the product of their origins,” Colby Cosh writes in the National Post, but as recently as 100 years ago, the differences were few and far between: “a housebreaker or robber in Canada could then still expect to be greeted by the nose of a revolver,” and concerned homeowners could purchase their weapon of choice by mail order. The fact that US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s amazing defence of the handgun (e.g., as opposed to a rifle, “it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police”) now “seem[s] to float to us from some alternate universe very far away” is proof, says Cosh, of how “small social differences … can be exaggerated by means of policy within just a few generations.”

The Toronto Sun‘s Peter Worthington, meanwhile, trots out all the usual statistics to show that gun control doesn’t work, including the fact that the murder rate in Washington, D.C. went up after the city instituted the handgun ban that was overturned by the Supreme Court last week. We wholeheartedly support Worthington’s campaign against Toronto mayor David Miller’s hopelessly facile anti-gun campaign, but as usual with these arguments, it’s really just a big mess of chicken and eggs. For example: is Arlington, Va.’s miniscule murder rate in comparison to Washington’s a byproduct of its relatively high rate of private gun ownership, or its relatively rich and well-educated populace? (Answer: it depends whether the gun control opponent is trying to argue that gun ownership reduces crime, or that criminals, not law-abiding gun owners, are the real and only problem.)

Continue…

Megapundit: James Moore, son of Trudeau?

By selley - Friday, June 27, 2008 at 1:48 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Don Martin on Gomery’s comeuppance; Susan Riley on the cabinet shuffle; Richard Gwyn on the Green Shift.

Stuck in the past
Some of us, apparently, haven’t quite gotten past David Emerson’s floor-crossing and the fact that Michael Fortier isn’t an MP.

If Fortier and Emerson awoke today with a burning sensation all over their bodies—less painful than white phosphorous, say, but not by much—it may have something to do with Susan Riley‘s piece in the Ottawa Citizen. She portrays Fortier as an idly rich, over-entitled, unelectable layabout who exacerbates Stephen Harper’s contempt for the democratic process in appointing him with his unconvincing promises to run in an election if and when a riding with a “winning profile” is located. Emerson’s personality fares slightly better, but his CV doesn’t: he stands accused of “negotiat[ing] a flimsy truce on softwood lumber” and, in his previous Liberal life, “putting the brakes on Stéphane Dion’s environmental ambitions” (Aha! So he’s why it’s so difficult to make priorities!) This is all several feet over the top, particularly Riley’s bizarre talk of “class loyalty” affecting the appointments, but we sure loved reading it!

Continue…

Megapundit: The Big Three's 'great reckoning' is upon us

By selley - Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 1:27 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: David Olive and Don Martin on the auto industry; Dan Gardner on oil addiction; John Ivison on losing confidence in the Tories; Chantal Hébert on Jean Charest and Dalton McGuinty; Christie Blatchford on the Toronto 18.

The death of the truck
Things aren’t as bad as they look for the internal combustion industry… yet.

Auto industry consultant Dennis DesRosiers has last month as “the second best in the history of Canadian auto manufacturing,” Don Martin notes in the Calgary Herald, and even as GM slashes jobs in Oshawa, Ford is adding 500 in Oakville to make the “new Flex crossover vehicle, complete with what sounds like a beer cooler in the console.” This is what happens when gasoline crests $1.30, he argues, and Buzz Hargrove “is clearly off his meds if he truly believes this truck sales skid is preventable or reversible.” Far more sensible than propping up production of gas-guzzlers, as McGuinty seems determined to continue to do, would be to invest in “advanced efficiency or environmental technologies for the auto industry.”

“This is the great reckoning,” David Olive writes in the Toronto Star. This is what Detroit gets for betting the farm on “gas-guzzling but high-margin SUVs and heavy trucks” when $1.30 gasoline was “foreseeable,” while mulishly refusing to invest in their own hybrid vehicles. And this is what Dalton McGuinty gets for not tying “auto-sector subsidies to a Detroit commitment to small, fuel-efficient vehicles.” “The new Motown bosses reject the … tradition of satisfaction with intermittent profits,” Olive concludes, “and will be dispensing still more bitter medicine” in hopes of stable profits and stable employment for its workers. There isn’t a thing Hargrove can do about it but “fulminate.” And away he goes…

Continue…