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The Trudeau government understands that fear wins votes – so it’s always in their electoral interests to stoke the flames of fear at every opportunity.
Public Safety’s web page titled “Reducing gun violence together”[i] is one of those fear-laden documents with little basis in reality.
The shocking headline.
“Violent crime involving firearms is a growing threat to public safety across Canada.”
And the images used to support this premise?
The first picture is a man standing on a mountaintop in hunter orange, a rifle slung over his shoulder and a pair of binoculars in his hands.
Are unsuspecting Canadians supposed to assume this hunter is responsible for the ‘growing threat to public safety across Canada’?
Yes.
That’s precisely what this Liberal government would like you to assume.
The second picture is of a woman at a shooting range wearing eye and ear protection.
Are unwitting Canadians to assume this woman, presumably a licensed firearm owner shooting at a federally licensed shooting range, is responsible for this ‘growing threat to public safety across Canada’?
Yes.
That’s precisely what this Liberal government would like you to assume.
If this Liberal government had a shred of intellectual honesty, they would use images of violent Toronto gangsters holding illegal handguns or drug dealers in a shootout in downtown Surrey.
But they use images of a hunter and a target shooter – law-abiding firearm owners – instead.
These visual lies bombard us before we ever reach the page’s three main bullet points.
More Liberal Deception
The first of three fear-generating sub-headlines states Canada has an “81% increase in violent offences involving guns since 2009.”
Percentages are a wonderful tool to terrorize people with because the number of crimes is intentionally hidden from view.
In 2019, the total number of offences for ‘Firearms – use of, discharge, pointing’ reported by police was 3,503.
Almost all of these offences were committed by people with long criminal histories, not the hunter or sport shooter this Liberal government pictured at the top of their deceitful page.
More Liberal Lies
The heading “Break-ins to steal guns nearly tripled between 2009 and 2019” is terrifying – until you check their StatsCan source document and realize the total number of ‘breaking and entering’ crimes dropped 30% between 2009 and 2019.
Of those ‘breaking and entering’ crimes, only 16% were ‘Cleared by charge’ or ‘Cleared otherwise’,[ii] meaning this Liberal government cannot possibly know why a criminal broke into someone’s home in the other 84% of B&Es.
Worse, the StatsCan page cited for this Liberal Lie does not contain any information on firearms or why a home was broken into.
There isn’t a shred of evidence to back up their deceitful statement.
This Liberal Lie is sold to an unsuspecting public because they know 99.9% of people will never spend the time required to peel back the layers of deception necessary to uncover the lie.
Even More Liberal Deception
“1 in 3: homicides in Canada that are firearm-related,” says the third Liberal talking point.
The Statistics Canada page cited by Public Safety states:[iii]
Historically, either shooting or stabbing have been the most common method used to commit homicide in Canada. However, shooting has been the most common method used for the past three years, accounting for 37% to 41% of all homicides where the method used.
Prior to this three-year increase from 2014 to 2017, the rate of firearms homicides had declined steadily since 2005, which was itself a spike from previous years.
Finally, the Liberals conveniently ignore two major decreases in firearm-related homicides noted by StatsCan:
- The national rates for both firearm-related (-8%) and gang-related (-5%) homicides declined in 2018. This marks the first decrease in firearm-related homicides since 2013 and the first decrease in gang-related homicides since 2014.
- The national year over year decline in the number of firearm-related homicides (-18) is a result of fewer firearm-related homicides in areas outside of census metropolitan areas (-20).
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
This Liberal government uses them all to deceive Canadians.
One CSSA member, a retired Police Chief, noted the following:
“As a retired Police Chief, I would comment that since most B&Es are not solved, I wonder who exactly they interviewed to determine what the “Intent” of the B&E was. From my experience, B&Es are normally done to obtain anything and everything that might be converted to cash to sustain the perpetrators lifestyle and habits and are not specifically targeting any one thing.”
We’re grateful to this retired police chief for his service and for his willingness to do something Public Safety Minister Bill Blair cannot – he’s willing to tell the truth.
Sources:
[i] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/campaigns/firearms.html
[ii] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3510017701
[iii] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2019001/article/00016-eng.htm
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