Jason Kenney marked May 1 with a message to the Conservative base complaining about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decisive move in the wake of the murderous shooting rampage in Portapique, Nova Scotia, to ban 1,500 makes of military-style rifles. While a significant majority of Canadians breathed a sigh of relief
Continue readingTag: long-gun registry
Alberta Politics: What makes sense for pill presses in Alberta doesn’t make sense for firearms: Discuss
PHOTOS: An illegal pill press, with illegal firearms (Australian Broadcasting Corporation photo). Below: Progressive Conservative MLA Mike Ellis and NDP MLA Deb Drever (Edmonton Journal photo). Hmmmm… Canada’s conservative parties – first among t…
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: A Dangerous Change In Law
In his latest abuse of the legislative processes, Harper has slide a particularly slimy bit into the 2015 budget implementation bill: The Harper government moved to retroactively rewrite Canada’s access to information law in order to prevent possible criminal charges against the RCMP, The Canadian Press has learned. An
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: A Dangerous Change In Law
The Harper government moved to retroactively rewrite Canada’s access to information law in order to prevent possible criminal charges against the RCMP, The Canadian Press has learned.
An unheralded change buried in last week’s 167-page omnibus budget bill exempted all records from the defunct long-gun registry, and also any “request, complaint, investigation, application, judicial review, appeal or other proceeding under the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act,” related to those old records.
The unprecedented, retroactive changes — access-to-information experts liken them to erasing the national memory — are even more odd because they are backdated to the day the Conservatives introduced legislation to kill the gun registry, not to when the bill received royal assent.
The date effectively alters history to make an old government bill come into force months before it was actually passed by Parliament.
Oh, but this gets better. It turns out that this is intended to squelch an ongoing investigation by a parliamentary officer – the Information Officer, Suzanne Legault.
In an interview airing later Thursday on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, Legault expanded on the ramifications of passing these amendments.
“What this does is that it erases the right of the requester to have ever made this request. It erases the right of the requester to have ever complained to my office. It erases all of the investigative powers that I have used during this investigation. And it erases the referral that I have made to the attorney general of Canada. And it erases the recommendations I have made to the minister.
“What these provisions do is they actually erase any potential administrative, civil or criminal liability for any actors involved throughout the investigation and in the destruction of those records in contravention to the Access to Information Act.”
Creating retroactive legislation in Canada that reaches back years in time is unusual, although technically legal as long as it isn’t a criminal code change.
“An argument has been made that there are elements in the information act, the Access to Information Act, that contradict something in that other piece of legislation. At best that is a loophole,” he said at an event in Windsor, Ont.
“I’m not sure there really is a contradiction, but to be perfectly clear, the government is clarifying the information act to make sure it is in full conformity with Parliament’s already expressed wishes on the long-gun registry that the RCMP has executed as they were required to do according to the law.”
The RCMP also rebuffed Legault’s accusations, saying it did nothing wrong.
“The RCMP disputes the OIC’s (Office of the Information Commissioner’s) view that it denied a right of access under the Access to Information Act by destroying records that were responsive to the request,” Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer said in a statement. ( CBC )
However, in this case, it is quite clear that Harper is trying to squelch an investigation into possibly illegal actions of the RCMP and other government officials with respect to the Long Gun Registry data. So, even if this legislation is technically “legal”, it doesn’t mean it is right. No government should be using legislative fiat to make its indiscretions “disappear”.
The Cracked Crystal Ball II: A Dangerous Change In Law
In his latest abuse of the legislative processes, Harper has slide a particularly slimy bit into the 2015 budget implementation bill: The Harper government moved to retroactively rewrite Canada’s access to information law in order to prevent possible criminal charges against the RCMP, The Canadian Press has learned. An
Continue readingAlberta Diary: With floodwaters rising again, will Sun News Network renew its hysterical ‘gun grab’ attacks on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
Sun News Network columnist Lorne Gunter is presented an award by National Firearms Association President Sheldon Clare for his commentary on the so-called “High River Gun Grab.” (Grabbed from the NFA’s website.) Below: Floodwaters roar through High River last year. (CBC Photo) Rain is falling and floodwaters are rising again
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Warning to Canadians: Reefer Madness in Colorado and Washington could mean the end of civilization as we know it!
Your intrepid blogger with one of the wholesome and touristic murals of Legal, Alberta – evidence Civilization As We Know It survives in Canada, thank goodness! Note the crowds of tourists. Below: Perfesser Dave; Mural on the Legal Post Office; Mural on the wall of Denver Airport; So, do you
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Former Tory strategist Allan Gregg rips Harper Cons’ ‘systematic attack’ on facts and reason
A couple of old guys born just before the last King passed on, one of them your blogger, the other the pollster and former Tory strategist Allan Gregg. Below: Mr. Gregg in his iconoclastically Conservative heyday. Long-time Tory pollster and strategist Allan Gregg ripped into the Harper Government on Saturday
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Minuscule Canadian Taxpayers Federation in running for ‘Turfy Award’
Former Canadian Taxpayers Federation Alberta Director Scott Hennig, now the group’s Communications VP, in a nice AstroTurf-coloured sweater at last weekend’s Ottawa conference of the Manning Centre for Undermining Democracy. Below: CTF President Troy Lanigan; CTF member … rrrrrrr … supporter, Riley Climenhaga; CTF Operations VP Shannon Morrison. When it
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Freedom from gun terror: why understanding American history can help keep Canadians sane
An American militia in 1773 … before they were well regulated and illustrating why they needed to be. Most militia units, said Gen. George Washington, were “totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill.” Below: President Washington; President Thomas Jefferson. One of the effects of the horrific tragedy at Sandy
Continue readingBoreal Citizen: Occupy the MP Party / A Harper Year in Review
Parliament is winding down, and it’s getting close to Christmas…do you know where your politicians are? Most likely they’re boarding a plane and heading back home to sip egg nog with their constituents. Which has me thinking, why should Conservative MPs enjoy such a festive holiday when we citizens are
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Trudeau and Garneau On Guns
I have been pondering the recent policy reverals on the long-gun registry from LPoC leadership candidates Justin Trudeau and, now, Marc Garneau. I actually don’t find Justin’s response that hard to parse: if there was a registry left to defend, he would defend it, but now that its gone resurrecting
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Thanks to a murderous nut, long gun registry will be Harper’s first post-PQ test – he will likely fail
Gavrilo Princip under arrest in Sarajevo in 1914. But a speedy arrest wasn’t enough to avert a long war. Below, Quebec Premier Designate Pauline Marois. If you think about it – and you can bet on it that the Canadian gun lobby will refuse to do so – the murderous
Continue readingAlberta Diary: How far will Prime Minister Stephen Harper go with separatists to hang onto power?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left, with Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois … or something very much like that. The politicians pictured above may not be exactly as illustrated in real life. Below: Thomas Mulcair, Jack Layton. Now that our sullen neo-conservative prime minister is on speaking terms once again with
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: NDP MP Bruce Hyer Quits and Then Wants Back In
Okay, wouldn’t it have made sense for Hyer to discuss his concerns with Mulcair BEFORE taking an extreme action that he now obviously regrets? All of this only shows poor judgment on Hyer’s part. Hyer was really just sore because he wasn’t picked for a shadow cabinet position. Of course
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Savvy Move By Mulcair; Dumb One By LPoC
While the bill to end the controversial registry received royal assent in Ottawa last Thursday, the NDP’s newly minted leader vows to bring it back if he becomes Prime Minister. Speaking on the Radio Canada show Tout le Monde en Parle Sunday, Thomas Mulcair said the solution is to fix
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber on the long-gun registry: welfare state social engineering, or what?
Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber, in naval costume, gets off some potshots with a Glock, or something. Below: Another shot Brent in a military getup. Note the flag, I swear I dragged this photo straight off his website without even passing it through Photoshop! Remember guys, when you’re looking down
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Are there really 287,000 law-abiding farmers, trappers, hunters and fishers in Toronto?
A strong market in central Canada for raccoon coats like the one worn by this man accounts for the large number of urban trappers who live in Metropolitan Toronto, law-abiding gun owners who account for some of the 287,000 long guns in that city. Or something like that, anyway. Below:
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Conservative Mantra: Statistics? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Statistics
The title of this post, meant to evoke the misquote of the Mexican bandits as they prepare to eliminate Fred Dobbs, the miscreant protagonist of The Treasure of the Seirra Madre played by Humphrey Bogart, seemed appropriate in light of the Harper government’s contempt for the authoritative substance of statistics.
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Is political gun violence on Canada’s agenda too, thanks to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives?
Sarah Palin’s notorious “target” chart. Below: Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2008; Ms. Palin herself; mug shot of Jared Lee Loughner. Last year’s North American political news cycle began horribly and tragically on this day with the attempted assassination of Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six
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