PomoChristian

Ah… Warren K. I put up a post earlier today on my blog suggesting that Torontonians are responsible for the messy stench which is Toronto today. This, apparently warranted derogatory treatment on his blog. He went after my religious beliefs, and suggested I’m in bed with neo-nazis. You’d think someone as well acquainted with nuisance lawsuits would be more careful about what he says. What’s curious is that he takes the time to bash my little blog for my commentary, but does not tell his readers the real reason why my post upset his gentle and balanced constitution: I made a little joke about him.

You see, the Toronto Star made an entire ’special report’ out of a families inability to bury their cat in their backyard due to their inability to dig a hole without municipal government oversight. In the context of this article I wrote:

They required the government to hold their hand, recommend the proper depth of the hole to prevent scavenging by raccoons and Warren Kinsella.

As with all attempted humour, sometimes humour falls flat. This little shot at his comments about favouring ‘cat and rice’ at Chinese restaurants was an ill concieved attempt at humour, and I figured if it was funny, the self-described ‘ass kicker’ of Canadian politics would shrug it off and move on. Apparently, however, Warren’s ego is too big for that to happen. Instead he had to try and attack me personally, choosing to attack my religious beliefs. No doubt he is rummaging through his closet at the present time attempting to locate his Barney the Dinosaur costume.

With regard to the points he raises in his post: I do think Neo-Nazis should be permitted to own unrestricted firearms. I personally think neo-nazis are crazy idiots, that doesn’t mean I think they should have abridged property rights (or for that matter abridgement to their freedom of thought, conscience or belief). I did note that it was commendable for police to arrest the man for his actual criminal behaviour, and I do think the charges for unsafe storage are appropriate. Such storage rules, while enforced rather capriciously, and being ambiguous, are nevertheless neccessary and should be obeyed under penalty of law. The personal opinions of the accused individual are completely unrelated to the question of whether he should have the right to own property. I happen to think Warren represents the very worst of the Liberal party, I would not support abridging his right to own a firearm of his choosing. The odiousness of one’s view of the world have nothing to do with the sort of property they should own. The fact we’re having this discussion is true proof of the ‘need’ based distortion with regard to property in the logic of Torontonians.

The commenters that Warren has sent here are similarly enlightened individuals. They’ve compared me to Ted Haggart, suggesting I therefore support meth use and homosexual trysts. Hmm… Silly me, I thought the left was supposed to support gay people? When exactly did homosexuality become a slander? The comments on his site are not much better. There are ones that suggest I’m unemployed, and another that suggests I’m illiterate. The same one also compares me to a nazi. Apparently I’ve hit the trifecta of Liberal insults: I’m a gay, nazi, idiot. I look forward to the other nuanced and complex comments which this post is sure to elicit.

The point of the post was very simple: Toronto needs to live in its mess for a while longer. Long enough to realize that the mess it has, is the result of its own actions. If you choose to elect politicians who think that the appearance of doing something is better than actually doing something (such as Mayor Miller, and Warren’s buddy Dalton), then you deserve what you get. You built the stink, you get to enjoy it. The best way to fix the problem which Toronto has created for itself is for Torontonians to wake up and smell the figurative garbage represented by the views of reliance on government and an abridgement of personal freedoms embodied by its leaders. Once they smell it, they need to go and take out the trash.

Oh, and Warren, I’m sorry about putting your name in my post. Not my classiest moment. Neither was this yours.

At first one might be inclined to believe that the smell emanating throughout the GTA from the City of Toronto is one of rotting garbage. While one cannot deny that the olfactory assault is at least partially related to the piles of fetid refuse strewn throughout Toronto’s parks, the true smell is of chickens coming home to roost.

I grew up on the northern edge of Toronto, and I went to school in North York. I have nothing against Toronto as a city, per se, and no smell would ever prevent me from cheering for the Maple Leafs or Blue Jay (who have produced enough stink over the last several years, which obviously has me immunized). The problem in Toronto is not unions or politicians, its the people of Toronto who are at fault. They are at fault for electing leaders who believe the appearance of doing something is more important than actually doing something. They are at fault to encouraging the sort of silly civic organizing that results in the massive tax increases and budget shortfalls they now face. However, their biggest failure is that they have become infantilized, and require the intervention of government to help them make the sorts of regular decisions people outside of Toronto make without any government input.

No better example of this can be found than the incredibly moronic story printed in yesterdays Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/living/article/669093 In a ‘Special Report’ the standard bearing newspaper for individual impotence and reliance upon government detailed the chronicles of a family who, having lost their pet cat to natural causes, sought to bury it in their back yard. Most Canadians, confronted with a deceased pet and possessed by a desire to bury it in their yard would go out with a shovel, dig a hole, and bury the remains. That would, however, not fly for the Torontonian family in the article. They required the government to hold their hand, recommend the proper depth of the hole to prevent scavenging by raccoons and Warren Kinsella. Here’s an clue: dig it as deep as you can, put it in and fill it up with dirt, you don’t need government to tell you what to do. Alas, their attempts to gain the bureaucratic insight required to dig a simple hole in the city of Toronto were thwarted by the strike, as no one answered their calls. Ironically, the answer was eventually found on the website of a private law firm. If you’re keeping score at home that’s capitalism 1, socialism 0.

However, the children masquerading as adults were not at ease with this information, and eventually exhumed the cat for fear of running afoul of bureaucrats, and took it back to the vet for destruction of the carcass. It boggles my mind that what would be a simple 2 minute task, possibly longer if the children wanted to conduct a burial ceremony, turned into a weeks long episode. Whatever happened to self-reliance? The Torontonian nanny state has completely neutered its resident’s ability to think for themselves.

A second example of Torontonian silliness emerged in yesterday’s national post. It seems an unsavoury character who was licensed to legally possess firearms was arrested for impersonating a police officer, and subsequent to a search of his premises, unsafe storage of firearms. While his arrest is commendable, the police’s statement regarding a .50 calibre rifle found on the premises was simply asinine. The officer said he has ‘no idea’ why anyone would need a ‘sniper rifle’ in downtown Toronto. Well, ignoring the fact that it was highly unlikely he ever used it downtown (a .50 calibre rifle would wake up six square blocks if fired, its very loud), and likely used it at an approved range outside of the city, the larger issue is this idea of ‘need’. Torontonians have accepted a needs based view of personal property. People don’t need cars, especially sports cars or ‘gas guzzling’ SUV’s, they can take public transit, for example. This acceptance that government should tell them what they can and cannot own is caustic to the very principles of a liberal democratic nation.

All in all, it has been quite a joy to see Torontonians wallowing in the squalor of their own creation. With any luck, Torontonians will see the folly of their ways and hopefully the smell of rotting garbage will soon be replaced by the fetid stench of the corpse of Torontonian socialism. But I’m not holding my breath. I don’t have to, since I no longer live there.

Art imitating life:

“Michael Ignatieff wants Canadians to think big.

High-speed rail links between major cities. An east-west electricity corridor. Completion of a coast-to-coast, four-lane national highway system.”

Even a national energy strategy (Not to be confused with the hated National Energy Program, he stresses).

The Liberal Party has a convention coming up, and to help their delegates get there, they’ve created a program for delegates to fundraise their convention fees. Here is the link to the program.

On the surface, this looks like its all above board, except that those delegates will recieve a tax credit for a donation to a political party for roughly 2/3’s of their convention fees. For the CPC convention it was $525. As many of you are aware, the convention fees contribute towards the annual limit of $1100 under the Elections Act as adjusted by the Federal Accountability Act. However, those contributing to the delegates through this fundraising program, do not recieve a tax reciept, nor is it counted towards their $1100 limit. This means people who have already given $1100 are able to make political contributions over that amount.

Another possible Liberal party fundraising scandal? I’m not surprised.

Today the government tabled senate bill S-5, which purports to repeal the gun registry. Despite my long standing partisanship on behalf of the CPC, this is not the case. The bill is a revived version of C-24 from the previous session of the house. The bill does remove the criminal prohibition against failure to comply with the registry, and it does remove the requirement for legal gun owners to carry around registry certificates, but it doesn’t undo the registry, it just makes it paperless.

Bill S-5 reads in part:

(c) in the case of a transfer to an individual, the transferor informs a chief firearms officer of the transfer and obtains the authorization of the chief firearms officer for the transfer;
…
27. On being informed of a proposed transfer of a firearm under section 23, a chief firearms officer shall

(a) verify

(i) whether the transferee holds a licence,

(ii) whether the transferee is still eligible to hold that licence, and

(iii) whether the licence authorizes the transferee to acquire that kind of firearm;

This means that a person will still have to call the CFC and have the CFC approve the transfer. The call will be logged, and the information from the call placed into the database.

This is fundamentally different from the private members bill C-301, which does not require the CFC to approve a transfer. All that C-301 would require is that the seller verify, under threat of criminal penalty, that the buyer is licensed to possess the firearm being purchased.

This is a very important distinction, because there are really four objections to the long gun registry:

1) It treats law abiding people as criminals, and subjects them to criminal punishment for a host of regulatory infractions.
2) Its extraordinarily costly, and does not provide value for money.
3) It would allow for future confiscation.
4) It’s data can be compromised, allowing criminals knowledge of the location of firearms.

I’ve long been skeptical of #3, and my opposition to the bill on #1 has been somewhat muted, and my real objection has been on the fiscal conservative issues related to the registry: its darned expensive for something that does very little! This Senate bill will not reduce those costs AT ALL, because it doesn’t actually destroy the registry, it just makes it electronic. The fourth objection has been a long standing issue. The auditor general has investigated this issue, and breaches of the security have been located, but there has been no way of measuring that compromised information. With this bill its likely that the long gun portion will be removed from the CFC website, which would alleviate that concern (though nothing in the bill mandates that this occur).

In addition to being better at repealing the registry, the private member’s bill had several other amendments which were beneficial, though the opposition have impugned them. Here is a quick explanation of them, and why they are important:

1) Change the ATT process from ‘may issue’ to ‘shall issue’.

Currently, persons owning firearms in the restricted class or prohibited class must apply for an authorization to transport (ATT) to take those firearms too and from the range. The only allowed reason to be transporting firearms in that class is to go to and from the range (with exceptions for those who have an ATC such as security guards and police). However, ATT’s are issued by the CFO, who are appointed by the provincial government, and in some provinces, notably in Quebec and Ontario, those officers use their discretion to stymie valid licenseholders from taking their firearms to the range. In fact, all across Canada, certain prohibited classes (notably 12.5 and 12.3 class under the firearms act), are not issued ATT’s at all (despite there being no law preventing it). Creating a silly and non-sensical situation in which people who are legally allowed to possess these firearms are allowed to own those firearms, but cannot actually take them to the range and use them. This is a de facto form of confiscation, and the language in the bill will force the provincial CFO’s to once again issue ATT’s. For regular restricted firearms, the CFO’s will issue ATT’s, but they choose to be obstructionist by creating long wait times between the request and issuance of the ATT. Because an ATT is required whenever a firearm is transported, people who hold the valid licenses, and are legally allowed to possess such firearms, and may in fact already possess similarly classed firearms, have to purchase the firearm and then wait weeks or even months before they are issued the ATT to transport them to their homes!

I do not currently hold a restricted or prohibited class license, but I do believe it is a matter of fairness that the federal government mandate that such authorizations be issued, and that the provinces not be allowed to hold up such matters.

2) Institute a mandatory 5 year review of all measures within the CFC, the firearms act, the RCMP firearms laboratory, and all aspects of firearms regulations by the auditor general.

Firearms owners respect the rule of law, and understand the need for sensible regulation of access to firearms. However, many of the rules are needlessly obtuse, ineffective, or too costly for the benefit acquired. A review would be a benefit by streamlining the regulatory aspects of the law, to allow for effective and beneficial regulations that assist public safety, while respecting the legal purposes of firearms owners.

3) Make PALs renewable every 10 years, instead of 5, and convert those holding POLs into PALs.

The basic licensing requirement is the possession and acquisition license (PAL). The possession only license (POL) is a legislated grandfathering for people who previously held Firearms Acquisition Certificates, prior to the introduction of the new licensing scheme. At the time, the POL required the person to take the same safety courses as a PAL and had the same rights, however, new POLs are not being issued, and while POLs can be renewed there was a time when they could not be. Given that the POL can only be issued, and was only issued, after passing the same requirements as a PAL, there is no reason not to convert them into PALs, and this would save a significant amount of money.

The 10 year time frame would reduce the costs of licensing to the government by halving the cost of mailing renewal notices, and the processing costs. PALs would still be able to be rescinded or cancelled if the person was convicted of criminal activity, or other reasons to restrict their access to firearms.

As I have laid out above, the bill is a good, sound piece of legislation, that will reduce government costs associated with firearms regulations, while establishing fairness for the legal firearms owners who obey the law. Bill S-5 does not do that, and should be opposed by all Conservatives or fair minded persons.

If you could ask any question of Elizabeth May, what would you ask?

She’s coming to the law school next week, and I want something great to ask her.

Post your questions in the comments, the most devastating or amusing question I will pose to her and blog the results.