By arthur Weinreb
Friday, September 22, 2006
When Parliament resumed sitting on Monday, the Liberals wasted no time in playing politics with the tragic death of anastasia DeSousa, who died in a hale of bullets at Montreal's Dawson College the previous Wednesday. although the Bloc Quebecois asked one question of the government during Question Period, the remaining questions about the government's proposal to do away with the long gun registry came from the Liberals. The NDP were silent on the issue during the fall session's first Question Period. This is not surprising; the NDP's idea of protecting the lives of Canadians is to bring all the soldiers back from afghanistan and have them knit socks and scarves for the Taliban to help get them through the harsh afghanistan winter. and then maybe the Taliban will like us.
No, it was the leaderless and shameless Liberal Party of Canada that was determined to play politics with the recent tragedy (on the plus side, at least they won't be leaderless for too much longer). The first question that was asked in the first Question Period of the session was by Liberal interim leader Bill Graham. after reiterating the mandatory and perfunctory "our thoughts go out to the families and victims of the tragedy at Dawson College", Graham went on to accuse the prime minister of weakening Canada's gun laws. The reality is, of course that nothing has yet been done to the Liberals' beloved multi-billion dollar gun registry and more importantly, having the gun registry that we currently have would not and did not prevent the carnage that occurred in Montreal last week. The shooter, 25-year-old Kimveer Gill had no criminal record, was a member of a gun club and had a lawful right to own guns. Nothing short of fully implementing a total ban on firearms that is what the Liberals and their fellow citizens of the world at the United Nations really want, would have prevented the shootings. If Canada had been completely free of guns it is doubtful Gill would have given up and gone back to mommy and daddy's house. He would have used another weapon since his real aim appeared to be to kill as many people as possible before committing "suicide by cop".
The death toll at Dawson College could have been a lot higher than it was. The reason that it wasn't was not because of any enlightened piece of legislation that was dreamed up by society's do-gooders but by the fact that two police officers just happened to be near the location of the tragedy and heard the initial shots being fired.
The most exploitive and ridiculous question of the day was asked by Liberal Lucienne Robillard -- "Why does the minority government not recognize that this registry is valuable, even if it saves just one life?"
Even if it just saves one life! Since when do we pass laws for the purpose of saving just one life? This question was the most shameless exploitation of the death of anastasia DeSousa to in order to score cheap political points against those NRa-loving Tories. If we were really concerned about having laws that saved at least one life, we would drop the speed limits on the country's highways to 10 km/hr. That would be bound to save a lot more lives than just one. Even better, we could bring back the death penalty for speeding. That would do it. The argument that the death penalty is not a deterrent only means that those who commit offences like murder that are thought of as capital crimes are (much like Kimveer Gill) not deterred by the possibility of death. But to an otherwise law abiding speeder, the thought of being put to death for exceeding the speed limit would slow them down. and Lucienne would be happy in the knowledge that at least one life would be saved.
No law will ever prevent the type of tragedy that occurred in Montreal last week. The harping on about the gun registry immediately upon the resumption of Parliament and in less than a week after the Dawson College shootings was nothing more than a disgusting use of the death of anastasia DeSousa and the serious injuries of several others to score cheap political points.
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