after the latest evening of multiple shootings in Toronto and the GTa (at least the latest at the time of this writing), the spate of violent gun crime finally got the attention of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. a group of people were sitting outside their homes on a hot summer night when they became the victims of a drive-by shooting. Included amongst the casualties was a 4-year-old boy who was shot in the leg and hip.
McGuinty seemed to have been rattled by the shooting of the 4-year-old. Well, at least this is some progress for our illustrious premier – the child wasn't even his kid. The last time McGuinty got excited about a young person being the victim of a violent crime it was when one of his sons became the victim of an Ottawa mugging.
after expressing his sympathies to the victims of the escalating gun violence, the premier, stuttering and stammering, said that it's time for a "rethink" about the laws. a rethink?
While Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair set up a task force to redeploy officers to areas of the city where most of the gang related shootings are taking place, Dalton has decided to think. Perhaps after all this thinking is done, some action might be taken to combat the nights of multiple shootings in Toronto that have recently become all too common.
about the only specific thing that McGuinty said was that he intends to take up the matter of illegal guns with the american ambassador. He seems to be taking a page from Toronto mayor David Miller who blames the United States for shootings and murders committed in Canada by home grown Canadian criminals. Since becoming mayor, David Miller has refused to take any responsibility for any problems that occur in his city, preferring to blame the federal government, the provincial government and now the United States. But we expect more from the premier who is sinking quickly to the level of the Toronto mayor.
The notion that talking to the americans is somehow going to get them to change their entire gun culture is totally absurd. and if McGuinty truly wanted to do something to stop american guns from being brought across the border, the premier would be talking to the federal government that is responsible for the border, not the american ambassador.
Dalton McGuinty had promised to fund an additional 1,000 police officers for the province but that promise seems to be just lying around until it can officially declared "broken" as most of his other major promises have been.
McGuinty's undertaking a "rethink" and wanting to talk to the U.S. ambassador while the streets of Toronto are being shot up on what seems to be a nightly basis proves that he is totally incapable of dealing with problems that don't fit into his special pet interests.
The premier's reaction to crime is not unlike the way he is treating the province's electricity shortage. The record setting heat is straining the electricity system and the hot weather makes it difficult to even import power from other jurisdictions. But not to worry. Dalton says that after a few more summers of crisis, 9,000 megawatts of power will be added to Ontario's power grid. In the meantime, Ontarians will just have to turn their air conditioners down when the temperature sores and everything will be okay. It doesn't seem to matter to the premier that using power to run air conditioners is important to the health of many people.
While the lack of electricity generation capacity cannot be pinned solely on the current premier, he's had two years to take action. Instead, he concentrated on playing to the anti-nuclear crowd while planning to close coal fire generation stations without taking corresponding steps to increase capacity.
In other words, McGuinty has told Ontario residents that there will be a risk of brownouts and blackouts for the next two or three years. Get used to it.
and McGuinty's "rethinking" about gun laws while wanting to talk to the american ambassador will do nothing to stem violent crime.
Multiple shootings – get used to that too.