Some incidents, such as the December 26 shootings on a crowded downtown Toronto street that left a 15-year-old girl dead and six others wounded beg for a response from all levels of government. When one of these governments is in the middle of an election campaign, it is easy to label statements that are made or actions undertaken as simply playing politics for electoral gain. Keeping that caveat in mind, the federal Liberals went way over the top in exploiting what will be forever known in the history of the city, once known as Toronto the Good, as the "Boxing Day shootings".
after Paul Martin blew into town, went to Jane/Finch area of the city where much of the city's gun violence has taken place and announced his solution to the problem--banning handguns that are mostly already banned, many law abiding gun enthusiasts decided to fight the proposal. a coalition of groups had planned a $100,000 advertising campaign during the last two weeks preceding the January 23 election to argue that this ban will do nothing to stop the carnage that is taking place on Canadian streets. The Liberal proposal was aimed at law abiding citizens; not criminals.
The group cancelled their campaign in light of the shootings, but that didn't stop 20 Liberal candidates from holding a meeting/photo op to exploit the situation. The event was held at the Delta Hotel, a mere half a block from that portion of Yonge Street where 15-year-old Jane Creba spent the last few moments of her all too short life.
after the necessary perfunctory expressions of condolences for the Creba family, the MP wannabes launched into doing what Liberals do best when there is a problem--they blamed the americans. accusations were made without any accompanying evidence that the groups that opposed to the Liberals' crime solving problems were funded by the american-based National Rifle association (NRa). Scarborough agincourt MP Jim Karygiannis was quoted as saying "I will be damned the day I will let american-style politics into our country". This Liberal photo-op was nothing more than using the brutal murder of an innocent young girl as an excuse to play politics with their proposed handgun ban and to bash the americans. It was nothing more than an attempt by a government, devoid of any ideas or real solutions to the problem of increasing gun violence, to attempt to hold onto power.
as shameless as the gathering at the Delta was, it was nothing compared to the statement that the Prime Minister made about the shootings. Speaking less than 24 hours later, Paul Martin said, "I think, more than anything else, they demonstrate what are, in fact, the consequences of exclusion."
Exclusion. We have, or should have a society that doesn't exclude people. What Martin was saying, although it is doubtful that he really understood what he said is that the gun-toting thugs, who seem to have taken over our streets are the real victims. To follow the bumbling Martin's analysis further, if the shooters were the victims what does that make Jane Creba and those innocent holiday shoppers that were wounded? The only inference to be drawn from what the PM said was that society is excluding these poor deprived teens who think nothing of going into a crowd and having a shootout. and included in this "society" are people like Jane Creba's family, who by all accounts raised their daughter and are raising their other children in a happy and well adjusted environment where they were encouraged to excel in whatever they pursued from academics to sports. Martin's sympathies obviously lie more with the thugs that run around with handguns than with hard working families who bring up their children to contribute to society, provided that they manage to live long enough to get the opportunity to do so.
Even Toronto Mayor David Miller, who can blame the americans and sympathize with the bad guys with the best of them, recognizes that more police and tougher sentences are needed to stem the violence. In Paul Martin's simple mind, the criminals are the victims; exclusion, whatever that really means justifies going into a crowd and killing innocent bystanders.
Paul Martin's statement in the wake of the death of Jane Creba was one more example of why, political ideology aside, he is not fit to govern Canada.
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