By Ira Basen

It was probably not surprising that the discussion about guns and youth crime provided some of the most animated exchanges in last night’s French language leader’s debate.

After all, Montreal has been the scene of two of the most horrific school shootings in Canadian history; the killing of 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique in December 1989, and the shooting spree at Dawson College in September 2006. And Stephen Harper’s proposal, made earlier in the campaign, to try some 14-year-olds as adults has, according to the polls, not been as well received in Quebec as it has in other parts of the country.

Banning semi-automatic weapons

The section began with a question from a professor at Dawson College about why semi-automatic rifles have not been banned. Layton, Dion and Duceppe all agreed that a ban was long overdue. Dion described the short-barreled Beretta CX4 Storm rifle, the semi-automatic weapon that killed 18-year-old Anastasia De Sousa and wounded 19 other students, as a “military weapon that has no rationale except to kill people.”

But on pro-gun websites you will find the rifle described as a “short barreled civilian target rifle not used by any military in the world”. Although not illegal in Canada, it is considered a “restricted weapon” because its barrel is only 16 inches long. It carries the same requirements for licensing and transport as a handgun. It can only be legally fired at an approved shooting range. The gun used in the shooting at Dawson was legally purchased and registered.

Elizabeth May argued that semi-automatic weapons are “not used for hunting,” but gun enthusiasts point out that there are about 1.6 million semi-automatic firearms in the Canadian firearms registry, representing about 23 per cent of the total number of guns in the system. Most of those are common rifles and shotguns that are classified as “non-restricted,” and are regularly used by hunters.

The only leader who did not express support for a ban on semi-automatic weapons was Stephen Harper. He said it was “very troublesome” that an obviously unstable person had been able to legally purchase the gun, and called for better checks on gun owners, but he steered clear of calling for any further restrictions on gun ownership.

Stéphane Dion waded into some potentially dangerous water by calling for a revival of the controversial federal long run registry. The registry, begun by the Liberals in 1995 became a financial black hole, gobbling up about $1 billion in its first 10 years. It became a favourite whipping boy for Reform Party and Conservative politicians. It became a potent symbol of Liberal waste and mismanagement.

In government, the Conservatives have been unable to kill the registry because they lack the support of the other parties in the House. Instead, they have brought in a series of amnesties and fee wavers that have essentially protected long gun owners from criminal liability for failing to register their firearms.

In their platform release earlier in the campaign, the Liberals made no mention of reviving the gun registry, so Dion’s reference to it in the debate was somewhat surprising. Perhaps even more surprising was that Harper did not rise to the bait and use the sordid financial history of the registry to remind voters why they were so eager to toss out the Liberals two years ago.

Youth crime

The opposition parties were eager to talk about the Conservatives’ proposed changes to the treatment of young offenders because it gave them another opportunity to develop one of the night’s central themes; that Stephen Harper is the northern George Bush. “Mr. Harper’s vision is like the Republican’s Bush vision,” railed Duceppe. “Have more guns in circulation and more people in prison.”

Dion adopted a similar approach. “We need a Liberal government otherwise we will have a Conservative government that will import from the United States the American solution which even the Americans don’t want.”
All the opposition leaders tried to contrast their approach, which, they claimed, focused more on crime prevention, with the Conservative strategy of “lock ‘em up and throw away the key.” In fact, all parties are advocating a crackdown on gun crimes and greater use of mandatory minimum sentences.

For his part, Harper tried to play down the more draconian sides of his proposal. He emphasized it only applied to the most violent of offenders (“we’re not talking about scuffles in the school”), and his own efforts at dealing with the causes of crime (“I announced an investment of some $50 million for prevention programmes for youth at risk”).

Dion also took on the Conservative plan to curtail conditional sentencing. He claimed that under the Conservative plan, some 7,000 people now out on conditional sentences would be back in jail, forcing the provinces to spend $2 billion on new prisons.

But the 7,000 people represents the total of all people serving conditional sentences, and the Conservative plan only calls for conditional sentences to be denied to people convicted of the most serious crimes. So, yes, more people would be serving time in jail, but the number would be substantially less than Dion claimed.

There was also an awkward moment when the moderator asked Harper if he would consider his revisions to the youth crime bill a vote of confidence in the event of a minority parliament. Harper had made precisely that point when he announced his proposals a couple of weeks ago.

But last night, Harper would only say, rather cryptically, “I won’t predict the result of this election. It’s in our platform and it’s our intention to govern according to our mandate.”

Perhaps he didn’t want to give Elizabeth May more ammunition to support her charge, made earlier in the evening, that Harper’s leadership was “autocratic.”