harper's gun rhetoric

Harper Wrong on Guns and Mandatory Minimums
January 02, 2006
liberal.ca/news_e.aspx?id=11293

Stephen Harper today claimed that the government is not addressing gun crime.

“This was a government that in the days leading to this campaign was literally ridiculing the idea of mandatory minimum sentences and now they're out there talking about, you know, keeping people in jail, tougher bail, even before people have been convicted,” Mr. Harper told reporters in Ottawa.

THE FACTS

Mr. Harper has a selective memory. By forcing the election, the Conservatives killed legislation (Bill C-82) that would have strengthened law enforcement in Canada. The lost bill would have:

doubled mandatory minimum penalties for firearms smuggling, trafficking and the illegal possession of loaded handguns in public places;

created two new offences of break and enter to steal a firearm and robbery where a firearm has been stolen; and

expanded the use of firearm prohibition orders to establish Lifetime weapons prohibition orders to be extended to all classes of firearms for those convicted of serious violent offences, including manslaughter, sexual assault and robbery, among others, when committed with a firearm.

When the Liberal government brought in an earlier Bill (C-41) that established mandatory minimums for gun crimes Harper and his colleagues voted against the legislation.

Harper has spent his career fighting gun control.