To the Editor:
Bill C21 was recently amended in the most unfair way to now include many hunting rifles and shotguns.
We live in one of the most remote ridings in the country, a riding in which subsistence hunting is as real as the $100 pot roasts that sit on Northern Store shelves in our northern communities. Firearms are entrenched in our northern culture; they are a way of life.
We have depended on them as tools that provide food but also defence. This seems an alien concept to our compatriots down south but a charge from a bear or from the even more dangerous moose is a reality of life in the bush.
The Liberal government has shown for all of us to see a clear disdain for rural, especially western Canadians of the blue collar type. Curiously though, this divisive and scandal-ridden government only exists at the expense of a deflated and energy-less NDP.
With what is at stake here in our riding where so many of us have firearms and use them, what can we expect from our NDP MP? Ms. Niki Ashton knows her riding and should know that this bill is a true threat to northern culture. I implore her to share with us just how she intends to act if C21 comes to a vote in Parliament. This riding deserves that, at a minimum.
Jeff Fountain
Thompson
