Much of the federal Conservatives' Manitoba caucus was in Thompson Aug. 11. Part of their trip included a sparsely-attended meet-and-greet session at the Chicken Chef restaurant.
Wally Daudrich, the Conservative candidate for the Churchill riding, claimed the meet-and-greet had gone "very well We've had several dozen people arriving," he said, although Chicken Chef staff didn't believe anybody had come to the restaurant on that day wouldn't have been there had the politicians not been, aside from the politicians themselves. Daudrich said that he was glad to see people coming out and "chatting with members of the government, letting us know what their concerns are."
In addition to Daudrich, who hosted the event, present were MP for Provencher and newly-minted Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews, MPs Merv Tweed (Brandon - Souris), Candice Hoeppner (Portage - Lisgar), Shelly Glover (Saint Boniface), James Bezan (Selkirk - Interlake), and Rob Bruinooge (Winnipeg South), Senator Don Plett and Senator Terry Stratton. Charleswood - St. James - Assiniboia MP and Minister of State for Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher later joined the group in Churchill for their two-day caucus retreat.
Hoeppner is well-known for her opposition to the Canadian Firearms Registry, believing that long guns and rifles do not need to be registered as they are not the weapons usually associated with gun crimes. Hoeppner introduced bill C-391, a private member's bill, into the House of Commons in May 2009. Bill C-391 would remove shotguns and rifles from the gun registry. The bill passed an initial vote in the House of Commons due to a number of Liberals and New Democrats breaking rank with their party, but still requires another vote to come into effect. Critics of Hoeppner's bill contend that all firearms are dangerous, and that registering long-guns is not the first step towards outlawing them. Hoeppner believes otherwise.
"[The long-gun registry] targets law-abiding citizens," she said. "People who get a license, they don't commit crimes. They use their firearms to hunt, or for farmers to kill varmints around the area. We have disagreed with the long-gun registry as Conservatives since it started. We think it's spending money on the wrong people. We think they should be targeting gangs, drugs, and criminals who smuggle handguns." Hoeppner also pointed to the cost of the program, noting that "the long-gun registry was introduced by the Liberals they said it would cost two million dollars, it has cost almost two billion dollars."
"Licensed long-gun owners are actually 50 per cent less likely to commit a crime in Canada than los without a license," Hoeppner said. "Gun crime is being committed by criminals, and criminals don't get a license, and they certainly don't register their firearms. Crime in Canada is not being done by hunters. It's being committed by a lot of young offenders, gang and drug-related, so that's where we need to focus. In Toronto, you can go on a street corner and there's somebody selling a gun, and you can buy a gun. There are young kids that have five, six, seven handguns."
Asked what could be done about these illegal guns if the registry is not working, she pointed to the Conservatives' recent crime legislation. "What we've done is introduce an unprecedented amount of bills which would get tough on crime and get tough on criminals. Criminals and young offenders know that they can get away with it, so our approach is to make sure there are sure sentences, mandatory minimum sentences so judges have to give tough sentences to these gangsters and these drug dealers. What we don't think we should be doing is getting tough on hunters and farmers. It doesn't make sense."
In 2008, Statistics Canada found that "the vast majority of violent crime in Canada is not committed with a firearm." Seventy-five per cent of violent crime was committed by physical force or threats, with gun-related incidents accounting for only 2.4 per cent of violent crimes. In 2006, there were 8,105 reported incidents of firearms being used in violent crimes across the country. Statistics Canada also noted that roughly two-thirds of firearm-related violent crimes since 1998 have been committed with handguns. However, although the number of Canadians killed by a handgun annually rose between 1975 and 2006, the rise was mostly due to population increases - the rate of handgun homicides per 100,000 Canadians was virtually the same through that time period, going from 0.38 in 1975 to 0.33 in 2006.
The real difference, according to Statistics Canada, is that over the same time period, the number of homicides committed by shotguns and rifles dropped significantly, while the number committed with knives and cutting instruments has become the most common method of homicide.
By province, however, Manitoba is well above-average when it comes to firearms-related violent crimes. In 2006, there were 37.7 victims of such crimes in Manitoba per 100,000 population, a rate second only to the 38.5 in Saskatchewan. The national average was 27.5 victims per 100,000 population while the lowest rate was found in Newfoundland and Labrador, with 11.4 victims per 100,000 population.
Hoeppner noted that although the Conservative caucus is in favour of her bill, the minority government situation in the current Parliament means that non-Conservative politicians must vote in favour for the bill to become law. "In a riding like Churchill," she said, "where there's an NDP member of Parliament, Niki Ashton needs to stand up for her constituents, vote against the long-gun registry and support my bill." Ashton did vote in favour of Bill C-391 last November, when it first reached the floor.
Hoeppner has her own connections to the North, having spent time living in Grand Rapids, where her husband worked at the time as a teacher.
"One of the things that we're trying to accomplish with this tour across the North is that we as the government would like to do things here, in this riding, but we never hear from the member of Parliament, Niki Ashton, about any of the issues," Daudrich said. "Vic Toews mentioned today that not once has Niki Ashton ever come to him about anything. That is a tremendous loss for our riding. We need all kinds of infrastructure development, we need roads to a lot of our remote communities, and we haven't heard from our Member of Parliament."
"For almost two years, we haven't heard anything from her," Daudrich added. "What we do hear is her ranting and raving on issues that are of no importance, and issues that she does not even clearly side with. Take for instance the Aboriginal Healing Foundation she claims she wants to support this, but yet she votes against all the bills that would provide funding for it. Where I come from, we call somebody like that a hypocrite."
After a little over an hour of the scheduled three-hour event, the group departed Chicken Chef for a tour of the EnviroTREC cold-weather testing facility south of Thompson.
