Madam Speaker, yesterday I addressed a very simple question to the Minister of Justice. I do not think the seven million gun owners out there will be very pleased with his response.
The minister dismissed opposition from the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta justices ministers, saying:
I have a decent respect for the opinion of my provincial and territorial counterparts but in the final analysis this is a matter for this federal government to deal with.
As I said in my question yesterday, the legislative assembly of the province of Saskatchewan has voted unanimously, all three parties, to oppose any further gun controls. The chief law enforcement officer for the province of Saskatchewan has written to the minister expressing his government's opposition. He is concerned about how he will be able to enforce gun control laws which the majority of voters in the province know are unfair and unnecessary to control violent crime.
In September the minister told over 10,000 law-abiding, responsible gun owners that he is not interested in making laws by taking a head count and yet he continually refers to bogus polls, which is a head count, to support his biased view that the majority of Canadians actually support his useless, ineffective gun control proposals.
A Ph.D. with 30 years of experience who teaches an honours research design and analysis course at Concordia University described an Angus Reid poll on gun control as fraudulent,
saying his students found a dozen fatal flaws in the five questions asked in the minister's favourite poll and stated: "Any student who submitted such biased questions would fail the course". This is what the minister is appealing to.
When a Gallup poll asked a well worded question, 69 per cent of the respondents felt passing more severe laws over legitimate gun owners would have very little influence on criminals. This is the exact opposite view expressed in the minister's oft quoted poll.
If the minister is going to govern by polls then he must ensure that the polls ask fair and unbiased questions. Further, if he really believes in implementing laws which reflect the will of the majority, he should at least allow the members of this House to have a free vote on the gun control proposals.
Frankly, I do not think the minister is a big believer in true democracy or direct democracy. I think his answer to my question yesterday proves that specifically.
I specifically asked the minister if he had taken a head count of all the justice ministers in this country to find out which of them support his proposals and which do not. The Minister of Justice answered "we govern by what is right", referring to the Liberal gun control proposals tabled last week in the House of Commons. He dictated that this is the government's assessment of what is right.
What have Canadians learned from the minister's reply? We learned that he has indeed consulted "with officials of every provincial and territorial attorneys general ministry" but that he does not care what they think. He is going to do whatever he thinks is right, not what the majority of Canadians think is right, not what the provincial justice ministers think is right even though they are the ones who have to enforce these ineffective gun control laws, not what the police on the street think is right, not even what the provincial legislators think is right, and certainly not what the majority of our municipal governments think is right.
His only justification for this intrusive and costly bureaucratic, make work project is that he and the Liberal cabinet think it is right. If Canadians thought for a moment that registering their rifles and shotguns and confiscating guns from law-abiding firearms owners might actually reduce violent crime and stop criminals from acquiring guns, they might actually support him. But they do not.
They know criminals do not obey any laws, especially gun control laws, and criminals will always be able to get their guns.
In conclusion, unfortunately democracy and majority rule take a back seat to what the Liberals think is right. Frankly, I fear a government that will not listen to the people a lot more than I fear a law-abiding citizen with a gun.
I ask my question again: Has the minister taken a head count of all the justice ministers in this country to find out which of them support his proposals and which do not and could he share the results of this head count with all Canadians?