Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed that yarn as much as anybody else in this room today, but I am sure you have listened to enough of this discussion that you would like to hear something maybe a little different. Therefore I will give you a history lesson.
By the way, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster.
The history of firearms registration is history replete with racism, bigotry and intolerance. Both Liberals and Conservatives should hang their heads in shame for being so intolerant toward so many minority groups in Canada.
As far back as 1837, the governing elites of this country targeted the Irish, and only the Irish, with firearms control legislation. Yes, the ancestors of the Liberals and the Conservatives were as bigoted as any elites anywhere on Earth. They decided, unjustly and unfairly, that Irish-Canadians were threats to peace, order and their corrupt style of governing.
When the rebellion broke out in Upper and Lower Canada, legislation was introduced prohibiting unlawful training of persons in the use of arms, “and it authorized seizure of arms “collected or kept for purposes dangerous to the public peace”.
Forty years later, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald targeted the Irish with that legislation because he feared the Fenians in the United States might invade Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald was a political grandfather to those across the way and that tiny group sitting way off in the left of the corner in this place. John A. Macdonald called himself a liberal Conservative.
We are here today listening to Conservatives call themselves liberal and Liberals describing themselves as conservative. No wonder Canadians cannot tell the difference between those two parties. There never was any difference, going right back to their political birth.
It was not only Sir John A. who believed minorities and the Irish were less than equal. In 1878, after riots in Montreal, the Liberals, under prime minister Alexander Mackenzie, denied an accused person's right to a trial by jury and ordered the licensing of firearms owners in certain districts of Canada. Most of those certain districts were Irish neighbourhoods. The justice minister of the day was eager to embrace legislation based on the statutes in Britain that were aimed solely at repressing and abusing the Irish.
Today things are a little different. Liberals have the right to abuse absolutely anyone who will not vote for them.
Only a few years later, Sir John A. Macdonald and the liberal Conservatives found a new minority group to target and abuse. After the Riel rebellion in 1885, aboriginals, Metis, disloyal white settlers and who knows what other visible minorities in the Northwest Territories were forbidden to possess improved arms. They could carry and use ancient old smoothbores, like muzzle-loading shotguns and rifles, but nothing with an improved or rifled barrel.
We are only up to 1885, and the minorities targeted by the bigots in the Liberal and Conservative parties are aboriginal, the Irish, Metis and the so-called disloyal white settlers.
Let us skip ahead to 1913. This time it was the Conservatives, feverish with anti-immigrant hysteria, deciding to license handguns. Robert Laird Borden, the Conservative prime minister, thought immigrants were dangerous and he wanted to ensure that they did not have access to handguns. By passing legislation forcing the registration of handguns, he could use the RCMP and local police to ensure that immigrants did not have access.
Of course any good citizen of Anglo-Saxon stock could register them, and by now the Irish were no longer despised by the Liberals and the Conservatives. Liberals and Conservatives know a valuable voting block when they see one.
I would guess the Liberals and Conservatives of 1913 said to each other, “Let's pretend we don't despise the Irish and they will vote for us”. They were still bigots and racists but they hid it better than they had previous to 1913.
It must be embarrassing for today's Liberals and Conservatives, having such a foul legacy of bigotry and racism.
In 1919 another invisible enemy was spotted that required more action on the firearms front. According to Allan Smithies and W.T. Stanbury, writing in the Hill Times , the Winnipeg strike of 1919 raised fears of a Bolshevik revolution.
Robert Laird Borden was calling himself a unionist prime minister. That means that he had both Liberal and Conservatives behind him. Let me quote from Smithies and Stanbury in the March 10 Hill Times .
The federal government responded to the establishment's fears of a Bolshevik revolution that were erroneously attributed to non-British “alien scum” by prohibiting non-British immigrants from owning firearms and ammunition. The government was convinced that non-British immigrants with their “...bad habits, notions and vicious practices,” were “...thorough-paced Bolsheviks, disciples of the torch and bomb,” who showed “...a greater readiness (to) resort to the use of weapons than do our own people”.
That by the way was taken from a speech by the minister of justice in 1919 and Smithies and Stanbury found it in Hansard . Does it not sound a lot like Liberal justice ministers of today? Their kind of people do not hunt, do not target practice and do not own firearms. If their kind of people do not, then no Canadian should hunt, target practice or own firearms. After all, it is their kind of people who really count in Canada. Those who do not count are those who do not vote Liberal.
In July 1920, old bigoted Bob Borden ordered the licensing of gun owners and the registration of rifles. Some Canadian residents had money and Bobbie Borden needed it. British subjects who owned shotguns were exempt. The Liberals and Conservatives eagerly trotted after bigoted Bob, agreeing that only white people of Anglo-Saxon stock were to be trusted.
What all this means is that Liberals and Conservatives did not like people from the Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Germany, Denmark, China, Japan, India and every other country except Great Britain. They did not like anybody but British subjects and they did not trust anybody but those from Great Britain.
Liberals and Conservatives share a common history of racism, bigotry and intolerance along this line.
Moving along to the Great Depression in 1934, federal legislation was rushed through in 10 days. This was after the Communist, Tim Buck, drew greater crowds than Conservatives and Liberals were able to draw. The legislation to which I refer put the RCMP in charge of handgun registration. Smithies and Stanbury say that it was because the RCMP were the first line of defence against internal disorder. They were the most reliable for breaking strikes, smashing the radical trade unions, controlling the unemployed and hounding political dissenters.
In addition to being anti-immigrant, bigoted and intolerant, the Liberals and Conservatives shared another trait in common, a tendency toward fascism.
Smithies and Stanbury say that confiscation of firearms from non-white or ethnic persons was common, dating back to the first world war. Registered firearms were seized from Japanese Canadians who also saw their homes and possessions seized and handed over to friends of the governing parties.
But there is more.
The Liberals' anti-Quebec tendencies came into play in 1940. Fearing fifth column activity among enemy ethnic communities, the Liberals introduced universal firearms registration in 1940. What they truly feared was insurrection over conscription.
I wonder if the present justice minister is proud that Liberals had so little trust in Quebeckers that they saw fit to have them register all their firearms. The prime minister of that time was Mackenzie King, the man who loved his dog, himself and the Liberal Party. He never forgot them in his prayers.
In the west when the government insisted during World War II that all guns be registered, there was evidence of more bigotry. Those who did as the government asked and brought their rifles and shotguns in to be registered discovered who was a good Canadian and who was not. People with names that were eastern European had their rifles and shotguns seized. People with good respectable Anglo-Saxon names were allowed to register and retain possession.
The reason for my little history lecture today is transparent. If we do not learn from past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat those mistakes. Let us learn from the errors of the past and not go back to labelling our ranchers or duck hunters as disloyal white settlers. They made the country.
These are good people like Paul Reibin from my riding who is a recreational gun owner, Rolf Pfeiffer, a resident of 100 Mile House and hundreds of law-abiding citizens who refuse to accept this infringement on their rights and the government's blatant disregard for private property rights. They stand loud and proud against the gun registry.
The bill fails to take into account lifestyle and private property rights. How can we call ourselves democratic while we endorse legislation that tramples the basic rights of our citizens? What a legacy, what a fraud, what a scandal. Canadians deserve better.