Cdn-Firearms Digest Wednesday, April 21 2010 Volume 13 : Number 823 In this issue: re:Homicide in Canada. Easy pickings for this year's seal hunt MacLeans - Why won't Breitkreuz let Breitkreuz be Breitkeuz Heads have rolled... Tory staffer steps down after harsh statement on police chiefs Gun registry news release backfires, Tory aide resigns Democratic participation tough if noone represents your interests CONS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:40:43 +1200 From: Walter Martindale Subject: re:Homicide in Canada. In ref. below: When Dec 6 89 was still in mopping up and counting shell casings, the then minister of justice was asked by a reporter if he was going to enact new gun control legislation. His response was "You can't legislate sanity." Still true, but shortly thereafter he was replaced by Kim Campbell who believed that you can. Others have added to that you can't legislate law-abidingness, either. Also true. W > Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:10:27 -0600 > From: 10x@telus.net > Subject: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub........................ > > http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2008009/article/10671-eng.pdf > > > Homicide in Canada. > > http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2008009/article/10671-eng.pdf > > Reading the raw data presented in this report it does not look as if > Firearms Safety Education, Firearms owner licensing, and gun registration > has had any impact at all on the firearms crime rate in Canada. > The rate for murder with a firearm seems to be independent of the laws > passed. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, April 21, 2010 1:46 pm From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: Easy pickings for this year's seal hunt THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR - APRIL 21, 2010 Easy pickings for this year's seal hunt by Canadian Press http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/755891 ST. JOHN'S - Newfoundland sealers say a smaller ice pack this spring is making it easier to meet individual boat quotas this year - and the price they're getting for pelts has improved. Frank Pinhorn of the Canadian Sealers Association says the animals have been concentrating on the smaller floes, making it easier for hunters to get to them. Pinhorn says so far they've taken about 60,000 seals out of an allowable quota of 330,000 and may kill another 12,000 before they're done in late May. Buyers have been paying up to $25 a pelt - more than double what they were fetching last year. Forty-two large boats are working in the area known as the Front, between the Grey Islands and Newfoundland's northeast coast. Several smaller inshore boats have also been participating in the hunt. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:39:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: MacLeans - Why won't Breitkreuz let Breitkreuz be Breitkeuz http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/04/21/why-wont-breitkreuz-let-breitkreuz-be-breitkreuz/ Why won't Breitkreuz let Breitkreuz be Breitkreuz? by Colby Cosh on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 3:01pm 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 naďve citizen (or the naďve 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. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:49:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Heads have rolled... From Canadian Gun Nutz: "Harper's office just announced that Brant Scot, Garry's Executive Ass"t has resigned as a result of the furor over the "black and blue " press release" Too bad. Yours in TYRANNY! Bruce ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:24:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Tory staffer steps down after harsh statement on police chiefs http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Ignatieff+demands+Breitkreuz+apology+over+registry/2933753/story.html OTTAWA — A political staffer has resigned after the office of Tory backbencher Garry Breitkreuz issued a scathing news release denouncing Canadian police chiefs as a "cult" and suggesting that Liberals who oppose the gun registry should beat up their party leader for forcing them to vote against a bill to scrap the database. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons on Wednesday that the Breitkreuz aide quit and that Breitkreuz regrets the news release. "The member of Parliament in question immediately said that those remarks were not acceptable," Harper said. "He apologized for them. We all agree with the apology and we accept the apology." Breitkreuz, a long-standing and vocal opponent of the federal long-gun registry, did not return telephone calls Wednesday, so it was unclear whether he had a hand in the release or approved it. The statement, issued Tuesday, remained on the Saskatchewan MP's website for a day until it was pulled Wednesday afternoon. A staffer in Breitkreuz's office confirmed that Breitkreuz's Parliamentary assistant Brant Scott, whose name is on the bottom of the release, is no longer on the MP's staff. Last fall, Scott sent a letter to the editor of an Ottawa-area newspaper arguing against the gun registry, but did not identify himself in that letter as a member of Breitkreuz's staff. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said it was typical of the Harper government to let assistants take the fall. "This is a government that is always passing responsibility on to aides," said Ignatieff. "I asked the prime minister three times today to get up in the House and apologize to the police chiefs of Canada and he wouldn't do it and I just think that is a disgrace actually." In the news release, Breitkreuz said defenders of the long-gun registry are "like a cult that is led by organizations of police chiefs who pretend the registry helps them do their jobs." The release also said "pro-registry groups such as the Coalition for Gun Control and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police are politically motivated lobby groups that derive financial support from pro-registry sources." A quote is then attributed to Breitkreuz which says, "Their positions are tainted and suspect in my view, because their endorsement can be bought." Ignatieff described the release as "vulgar" and "contemptuous." A news report quoted Breitkreuz as apologizing, but his office said the MP would not be available to confirm his position. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has more than 1,000 members who represent about 90 per cent of Canada's police community. Representatives did not respond to interview requests. Ignatieff's demand for an apology came as the Conservatives launched new attack ads in the ridings of eight Liberal MPs who voted with the Tories last November to kill the controversial databank. The radio ads aimed at Liberals in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Ontario, B.C. and the Yukon identifies each MP by name and urges listeners to lobby their representatives to vote to scrap the registry when the bill comes back to the House of Commons for a final vote. Conservative backbencher Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill, which passed in a preliminary vote in the Commons with support of Liberals and New Democrats, is expected to return late this spring or next fall. Ignatieff made a pitch Monday to save the registry by proposing changes he believes will make it more palatable for the opposition opponents. Ignatieff said he would like to make it easier for firearms owners to register their long guns, and failure to do so would not result in a criminal charge the first time around. Moreover, if there's another vote on the long-gun registry, Ignatieff will "whip" or order all his MPs to support it. In the release issued by Breitkreuz's office, the MP suggested that Ignatieff should be pummeled for forcing his MPs to support the registry, created by the former Liberal government 14 years ago as part of a wider gun-control package. Breitkreuz is quoted as saying: "His true colours are showing, and if his caucus has any integrity, those colours should be black and blue." © Copyright (c) Canwest News Service ------------------------------ Date: Wed, April 21, 2010 3:44 pm From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: Gun registry news release backfires, Tory aide resigns CANWEST NEWS SERVICE - APRIL 21, 2010 4:19 PM Gun registry news release backfires, Tory aide resigns BY DAVID AKIN AND JANICE TIBBETTS http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/registry+news+release+backfires+Tory+aide+resigns/2933872/story.html OTTAWA -- A political staffer has resigned after the office of Tory backbencher Garry Breitkreuz issued a scathing news release denouncing Canadian police chiefs as a "cult" and suggesting that Liberals who oppose the gun registry should beat up their party leader for forcing them to vote against a bill to scrap the database. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons on Wednesday that the Breitkreuz aide quit and that Mr. Breitkreuz regrets the news release. "The member of Parliament in question immediately said that those remarks were not acceptable," Mr. Harper said. "He apologized for them. We all agree with the apology and we accept the apology." Mr. Breitkreuz, a long-standing and vocal opponent of the federal long-gun registry, did not return telephone calls Wednesday, so it was unclear whether he had a hand in the release or approved it. The statement, issued Tuesday, remained on the Saskatchewan MP's website for a day until it was pulled Wednesday afternoon. A staffer in Mr. Breitkreuz's office confirmed that Mr. Breitkreuz's Parliamentary assistant Brant Scott, whose name is on the bottom of the release, is no longer on the MP's staff. Last fall, Mr. Scott sent a letter to the editor of an Ottawa-area newspaper arguing against the gun registry, but did not identify himself in that letter as a member of Mr. Breitkreuz's staff. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said it was typical of the Harper government to let assistants take the fall. "This is a government that is always passing responsibility on to aides," Mr. Ignatieff said. "I asked the prime minister three times today to get up in the House and apologize to the police chiefs of Canada and he wouldn't do it and I just think that is a disgrace actually." In the news release, Mr. Breitkreuz said defenders of the long-gun registry are "like a cult that is led by organizations of police chiefs who pretend the registry helps them do their jobs." The release also said "pro-registry groups such as the Coalition for Gun Control and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police are politically motivated lobby groups that derive financial support from pro-registry sources." A quote is then attributed to Mr. Breitkreuz which says, "Their positions are tainted and suspect in my view, because their endorsement can be bought." Mr. Ignatieff described the release as "vulgar" and "contemptuous." A news report quoted Mr. Breitkreuz as apologizing, but his office said the MP would not be available to confirm his position. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has more than 1,000 members who represent about 90% of Canada's police community. Representatives did not respond to interview requests. Mr. Ignatieff's demand for an apology came as the Conservatives launched new attack ads in the ridings of eight Liberal MPs who voted with the Tories last November to kill the controversial databank. The radio ads aimed at Liberals in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Ontario, B.C. and the Yukon identifies each MP by name and urges listeners to lobby their representatives to vote to scrap the registry when the bill comes back to the House of Commons for a final vote. Conservative backbencher Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill, which passed in a preliminary vote in the Commons with support of Liberals and New Democrats, is expected to return late this spring or next fall. Mr. Ignatieff made a pitch Monday to save the registry by proposing changes he believes will make it more palatable for the opposition opponents. Mr. Ignatieff said he would like to make it easier for firearms owners to register their long guns, and failure to do so would not result in a criminal charge the first time around. Moreover, if there's another vote on the long-gun registry, Mr. Ignatieff will "whip" or order all his MPs to support it. In the release issued by Mr. Breitkreuz's office, the MP suggested that Mr. Ignatieff should be pummeled for forcing his MPs to support the registry, created by the former Liberal government 14 years ago as part of a wider gun-control package. Mr. Breitkreuz is quoted as saying: "His true colours are showing, and if his caucus has any integrity, those colours should be black and blue." - ---------------------------------------- GLOBE AND MAIL - APRIL 21, 2010 5:12 PM 'Disgraceful' gun registry quip sends Tory aide packing by Gloria Galloway http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/disgraceful-gun-registry-quip-sends-tory-aide-packing/article1542334/ An aide to a Conservative MP is apparently looking for work today after a press release from his boss that said support for the federal gun registry is a like cult led by police chiefs who pretend it assists with law enforcement. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff stood in Question Period on Wednesday to demand that Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologize to Canada's police chiefs and condemn the "disgraceful remark" contained in the release issued Tuesday by the office of Garry Breitkreuz. Mr. Harper replied that Mr. Breitkreuz "immediately said that those remarks were not acceptable. He apologized for them. In fact, the staffer in question has actually resigned." That wasn't good enough for Mr. Ignatieff, who previously said he would insist that all members of his caucus vote against a Conservative private member's bill to scrap the registry. "I asked him whether he would stand in this place on behalf of the government and condemn remarks which every Member of Parliament must regard as disgraceful. Will he condemn them and apologize, yes or no?" Mr. Harper repeated that Mr. Breitkreuz had already apologized. "What we do not accept is the Leader of the Liberal Party trying to force a policy on members of this House that he, himself, knows is wrong, that he, himself, has flip-flopped on," the Prime Minister said. "The long-gun registry is wasteful and ineffective, and we are going to work to get it abolished." In the release, Mr. Breitkreuz is quoted as saying: "The opposition continues to claim that the registry can somehow stop criminals from using guns. They say that laying a piece of paper beside a gun saves lives. It's preposterous and counterintuitive, but they've said it often enough that they're beginning to believe it themselves. It's like a cult that is led by organizations of police chiefs who pretend the registry helps them do their jobs. They should be ashamed." After the first questions from Mr. Ignatieff, the Liberals introduced a new phrase into parliamentary banter - the Conservative culture of deceit. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:08:53 -0300 From: Al Muir Subject: Democratic participation tough if noone represents your interests - ----- Original Message ----- From: Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 12:06 AM Subject: Democratic participation tough if no one represents your interests - Letters to the Editor - Opinion - The News (New Glasgow) http://www.ngnews.ca/Opinion/Letters-to-the-Editor/2010-04-20/article-1031373/Democratic-participation-tough-if-no-one-represents-your-interests/1?action=sendToFriend To the editor, Letter writer Tyler Cameron is absolutely correct when he states, "the NDP (provincial) are proving to be a government that spends wildly, grows our debt, raises our taxes and gambles with our young people's futures." As he is, to my knowledge, a hard core supporter of the federal Conservatives I suppose it is to be expected he is not apply the same labels to them, regardless of how deserving they currently are. One would think they are intent on "stimulating" us into oblivion, regardless of the lack of evidence that stimulus has had any effect and the inevitability that our "young people" will pay dearly for that stimulation. The point is despite any protestations to the contrary, all any of our governments seem to be able to do well is two things: tax and spend. At the local level there is currently a push to have all the towns amalgamate. There is no doubt that if that should occur there will be initial savings. Looking forward however, this larger municipal government will be tempted to fall prey to the disease of tax and spend. Setting aside the fact that the larger the population ruled or led (one would wish represented) the further government gets away from the individuals it "represents," we are left with the cost. In the case of a larger municipal unit it is only a matter of time till we will need a Wellness Centre or something similar on every corner. The largest city in Canada, once Toronto, now the Greater Toronto Area, is currently wallowing in red ink. But then the theft of road tax dollars for municipal infrastructure might help even if the roads the taxes were intended for are falling apart. One might think from the proceeding comments that the point of this letter is fiscal, but it is more to do with representation than taxation or spending. In particular the op-ed piece in the same issue of The News, "Should we be forced to vote?" is the focus. In order to understand my case there has to be an awareness that democracy is a relative term. For example Nova Scotia recently celebrated 250 years of democracy, even though women have had the vote for less than 100 years. Some readers may remember that the then-Conservative provincial government spent $25 million, that now, according to the NDP it would appear, Mr. Cameron (Tyler) and myself, we did not have, on fireworks to celebrate that 250 years of "democracy." The author Heather MacIntosh seems impressed that countries like Australia, under penalty of $20 dollars if they do not vote, have 82 per cent participation. Others, she says, with no penalties are at 60-70 per cent. Perhaps she would be equally impressed with the turnout percentage in the high 90s that the USSR experienced when there was only one candidate on the ballot. She does not say. Such comparisons only underline Ms. MacIntosh's own caveat "attempts to artificially alter voter turnout could mask deeper issues of democratic deficit and could be counter-productive in the long run." When she attributes low turnout to "one's individual right to be apathetic" she misses the point in many cases. Take myself for example, I have not voted in the last two federal elections. My three voting-age family members have also supported my request not to participate. The reason is simple. No candidate in the federal election supported my interests and by extension theirs. More importantly, no party supported them. My interest is in property rights and in particular the issue of private firearms ownership. Ms MacIntosh's panacea for the problem is a "none of the above" entry on the ballot. In theory this would work for me, because if a majority of voters voted none of the above all candidates on the ballot would be removed from a run-off ballot. The problem with this is as much as an individual candidate is important for local representation and carries the possibility to be responsive to local wishes, with the party system that is not truly possible. Individual candidates are the slaves of their parties. What the party wants, they deliver or they are turfed. A majority vote for none of the above would result in a different candidate for the same omnipresent parties. That candidate would have all the legal advantages and all the financial resources that independents are not privy to under the elections act. Their private members bills would disappear in the trash. Forget a large amount of spending to promote none of the above. Not allowed. My voting under such conditions would result in my forced participation to legitimize a De-mock-racy. Rather than do so I would prefer the state pick-pocketed me for another $20. After all that is what they do best. I suppose solace can be taken in the fact municipal politicians are not slaves to the party system, but then again a lot of them are supporters of particular parties and more then a few have wider aspirations. Al Muir ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:22:22 -0300 From: Al Muir Subject: CONS Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, was quoted as saying. "I would suggest (there are things we can do) as well around the issue of firearms themselves. Certain types of weapons. Automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The time has come to question whether weapons that can be fired in rapid succession should be available to the public, and whether their use should be further limited". (Ottawa Citizen, September 16, 2006, Page A6). ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V13 #823 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator's email: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca FAQ list: http://www.canfirearms/Skeeter/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://www.canfirearms.ca CFDigest Archives: http://www.canfirearms.ca/archives To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next four lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".)