by Blair Hagen, National President
Tonight, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals were returned to Queens Park with a majority and will govern Ontario for another four years. The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party ran a weak candidate who made a number of gaffes during the campaign, who failed to define the election debate, and couldn't offer Ontario voters a viable alternative to the Liberals.
Just what does this mean for the firearms community of Ontario? The last four years are an indication of just how the Liberal government of Ontario regards the firearms community in that province. To them, you are an intolerable source for the theft of crime guns, and thus you present a danger to the Ontario community at large. Your handguns should be banned and your long guns should remain registered and tightly controlled. The Ontario government wants to see "gun control" laws stiffened, and will continue to harass the federal government to this end. To the Ontario Government, if you own firearms in accordance with the laws of Canada in that province, you are the problem.
The current policies of the Ontario CFO will continue. There may even be an effort to make them even more onerous for the law abiding licensed firearms owner with registered firearms. It is easier to target you for enforcement than criminal gangs and smugglers; you won't shoot back and probably have no experience with Canada's legal industry. A simple conviction for a paperwork crime can see your guns taken away, and end your days as licensed firearms owner. Statistically, it is more fruitful to pursue these charges than it is to press for serious criminal charges against recidivist criminals who already have firearms prohibitions.
As we move forward, the Ontario Government will attempt to prevent, stymie and delay the inevitable re-writing of Canada's firearms control legislation. It will use every opportunity that presents itself to prevent the federal Liberal Firearms Act of 1995 from being replaced, it will fight to prevent the end of the registration of long arms, and it will fight to prevent the reform of the useless and retrograde firearms regulations that plague the law abiding members of the firearms community across Canada.
So what effect all this will have on the federal Conservative government's efforts to keep its long standing election promise and policy of ending the Liberal firearms registry boondoggle? It will depend on the politics of the time when the registry is being eliminated or replaced. So far, the Ontario Liberals have not been successful in re-branding gun control as a viable public policy. Two billion dollars of federal tax money was blown constructing a bureaucracy around administering the federal Liberal gun registry and Firearms Act. Many firearms were banned, all firearms supposedly registered. The numbers of firearms of all types used in violent crimes and tragedies has risen, not fallen. A serious shooting tragedy took place at Dawson College in Montreal in September 2006 in spite of both "tough" federal and provincial firearms laws and regulations. Gang shootings in Toronto and other major Canadian cities continue unabated.
Citizens in Ontario and other Canadians now know this. They know the firearms registry has failed. McGuinty, Bryant and Miller have failed to change this dynamic, even in Ontario. If they go forward, they do so on their own volition and with only the tacit support of Ontarians. They are ideologically committed to the concept of gun control and will never accept that it has not made Canada safer.
However, the majority of Canada's provincial governments have accepted that the federal Liberal Firearms Act and firearms registry were a mistake and a national disaster. When new legislation is introduced by the federal government, there will be much co-operation in finally taking care of what is now seen as the inevitable end to a very bad, very wasteful and poorly conceived public policy and failed federal program.
Most provincial public safety ministers and attorney generals will work with the firearms community of Canada and the federal government in bringing about the best legislation possible to balance the legitimate concerns of public safety and the rights of Canadian firearms owners. Firearms legislation must target resources at the real sources of firearms crime, not hunters, farmers, target shooters, collectors, nor those needing firearms for protection.
Ontario and Quebec are now the front lines of the gun control battle in Canada. The provincial governments of these two provinces now represent the remains of the political aspirations of the Canadian gun control lobby. This is of no matter, we will meet them on the battlefield of public opinion and we will win. In 1995, gun controllers were given carte blanche to construct the gun control program that would finally drive the last nail into the coffin of the Canadian firearms community. They were given the holy grail of the civil disarmament lobby with which to do this: Universal Firearms Registration.
A dozen years later, despite having unlimited funding, no federal oversight for most of the programs existence and the solid backing of successive federal Liberal governments, the Firearms Act has failed and is due to be replaced by the federal Conservative Government. The firearm law has lost all of the public support that it once enjoyed, it is now viewed critically by a national media that once championed it, and it has become an international laughing stock and national disgrace.
The firearms community of Ontario now has four years to plan on how to remove Dalton McGuinty's gun ban/gun control government. Firearms laws are a federal purview, and the Ontario government may only go so far in targeting the law abiding for "special treatment". When the Ontario provincial government attempts to do so, court actions can be fought, by elections contested, and appeals to the federal Ministers of Justice and Public Safety can be made. The ultimate solution is a political one. Until provincial politicians and legislators realize the gun control agenda has failed to deliver both positive results in public safety and more importantly votes, they will continue to allow themselves to be blindly led around by the nose by the gun control lobby.
The Ontario firearms community faced a less than favourable set of political circumstances in the 2007 election. This is a set back, not a defeat. To members of the Ontario firearms community who were active and campaigned in this election, well done. Your efforts were not in vain, and now you have the opportunity to create a favourable set of conditions for the next election.
Bring Ontario back into the fold of the family of Canadian provinces and a federal government that wants the madness to end, and tough and effective real world legislation brought in to replace the failed gun registry, in our never ending quest to stop crime and violence in Canada.
PCs win a majority in Newfoundland.
Provincial Progressive Conservatives under Premier Danny Williams won a 43 seat majority in Newfoundland and Labrador Tuesday, October 9th.
But what does this mean for the members of the firearms community in Newfoundland?
It means they have the same solid provincial government they had before the election.
Apart from Newfoundland's disagreements with the federal government on other political issues, one thing they can agree on is that the federal Liberal firearms registry boondoggle must end.
To this end, Newfoundlanders need to remind their newly re elected representatives and provincial government that when the time does come when the federal government introduces new legislation to end the Liberal firearms registry and re write the Firearms Act, it is within the interests of Newfoundlanders and all Canadians to support this effort and finally put an end to one of the worst chapters of legislative excess and failure in Canadian history.