MONTREAL MASSACRE LOBBY GROUP BACKS LIBERALS FOR GUN SAFETY PROMISES
The Liberal promises include repeal of changes to the Criminal Code to allow prohibited weapons to be freely transported without a permit, reinstatement of a requirement that gun buyers must show a licence when they acquire a firearm and require firearm vendors to keep records of all their inventory and sales to assist police investigating gun trafficking and other crimes involving firearms.
By TIM NAUMETZ |
Published: Thursday, 10/15/2015 9:31 pm EDT
PARLIAMENT HILL—A Montreal survivors’ group created after the 1989 shooting massacre of female engineering students at Ecole Polytechnique has endorsed the Liberal Party for its platform measures on gun control, while condemning the NDP for failing even to include references to firearms control and gun safety in its election platform.
PolyRemembers—while acknowledging that the Liberal Party election platform includes a promise that Justin Trudeau and a Liberal government would not establish a new national long-gun registry that the Conservative government dismantled under highly controversial circumstances—said Thursday the Liberals offer the “best prospect” for re-establishing a host of other measures Prime Minister Harper and his government introduced to lower control thresholds for other aspects of the firearms industry.
Heidi Rathjen, an Ecole Polytechnique graduate and coordinator of PolyRemembers, called the absence of NDP election references to gun control “clearly disappointing, given the party’s historical support for the range of measures needed to ensure effective gun control.”
“The lack of a clear NDP position on gun control is distressing,” Ms. Rathjen said in a statement from PolyRemembers.
Nathalile Provost, a graduate of the Montreal engineering college and also a spokesperson for PolyRemembers, said mass shootings that occur regularly in the U.S., 47 school shootings so far in 2015 alone, should remind Canadian voters of a need for heightened gun safety following what the group described as a “weakening” of gun laws under the Conservatives.
“Even though we are talking about reasonable controls for extremely dangerous objects, it is fair to say that the Liberal Party’s stand on gun control is commendable and courageous,” Ms. Provost stated in the joint statement released by PolyRemembers.
“The Liberals have put forward important measures to effectively strengthen our debilitated gun laws, measures that will undoubtedly provoke the ire of the gun lobby,” she said.
Ms. Provost cited the Liberal Party’s promises to reinstate measures that were weakened or eliminated by the Conservatives, except the long gun registry,
The Liberal promises include repeal of changes to the Criminal Code to allow prohibited weapons to be freely transported without a permit, reinstatement of a requirement that gun buyers must show a licence when they acquire a firearm and require firearm vendors to keep records of all their inventory and sales to assist police investigating gun trafficking and other crimes involving firearms.
A Liberal government would also devote $100-million a year to programs that would remove illegal guns from Canadian city streets and reduce gang violence.
“The Liberal Party would reverse almost all the damage wrought by Conservatives over the last 10 year—that is, they would reinstate all the measures that were weakened or eliminated by the Harper government except for the long-gun registry,” said Ms. Provost.
“In short, the election platforms of Justin Trudeau’s party represent the best prospects of fixing a large part of the damage to our gun control laws inflicted by the Harper government,” Ms. Provost said.
Mr. Trudeau’s created significant ripples and ruffled feathers among former Liberal government members during his campaign for the party leadership, when he said the long gun registry Jean Chretien’s government established in 1995 was a costly failure.
Mr. Trudeau made the statement in Hawkesbury, Ont., as he launched his campaign, in one of the rural electoral districts the Liberals as well as the NDP lost in 2011 as voters in those areas were lured to support Mr. Harper by his promise to dismantle the registry.
Although the government of Quebec went to court, unsuccessfully, in an attempt to salvage Quebec firearms data from the federal registry, the gun registry was as unpopular in rural regions of the province as it was in the rest of farm and hunting territory.
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Toll Free: 1-888-873-4339
E-Mail: info@cssa-cila.org
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