Stephen Harper will be our next Prime Minister

[Birdy]

everyone has a price. offering cash rewards, and varying levels of protection is a good idea for information leading to arrests, convictions and jail sentences.

i think rather we should focus on education from the get-go... take a good look at the social statistics of those who actually commit violent crime and instead of tackling the problem from the "fighting crime" mind-set, tackle it from a social aspect. ie, what leads a man to kill? family abuse? poverty? these are the real issues out there. a hand gun is a baseball bat is a meat cleaver is a noose. it's all the same. we need to stop wasting our time focusing on the 'end'. everybody knows you can't change a man, but you can mold a kid... that's for sure. that and i find something repulsive about asking or better yet rewarding a person to rat someone else out.. if there's anything i learned from my dad, it's 'stick to your own'.

[Alexis]

i hear harper has had a vaginal inplant in his anus for people like you

[Alexis]

i don't know how we can educate someone enough to stop them from killing for power or pride.

i see how we can educate people from killing based on the motives you gave....but those motives aren't behind the majority of the 50+ gun deaths in TO this year.

[MarcO]

if there's anything i learned from my dad, it's 'stick to your own'.

with all respect to your Dad, that doesn't strike me as a good thing.

I recall my Dad watching CNN coverage of the first Iraq War with the initial flurry of bombs dropping on Baghdad and gleefully saying "better them than us".

I wish I had had the werewithal to remind him that "they" are "us", and that the reverse holds true.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Re. the handgun thing/mandatory minimal sentences for that or anything else/etc., I think it must all speak to our apparent need to whack people over the head with impunity. The state is the only institution with legitimate rights to use violence, and I think a lot of people vote with that in the back of their mind. I remember politicos in Toronto (might have been Harris Conservatives, come to think of it) pushing for mandatory treatment of the mentally ill (viz., here's your electroshock, you sick bastard, now shut up), which is the sort of thing only the state can get away with, and that the citizenry can enjoy vicariously.

It's the way that the Conservatives, and the Liberals to a lesser degree, seem to be appealing to. Makes me nauseous. We're not much better than the Romans at a circus sometimes.

Authentic change really does have to take root locally, not come in from the outside. Not to say the outside shouldn't respond (in fact it's duty-bound to, IMO) to the needs of the locals. It's just best when it's the locals that get to speak first.

[Birdy]

i don't know how we can educate someone enough to stop them from killing for power or pride.

i see how we can educate people from killing based on the motives you gave....but those motives aren't behind the majority of the 50+ gun deaths in TO this year.

i think it's all in how you are raised and how you draw a line between what's right and what's wrong. deciphering what the difference between you and i who can obviously point out why it is wrong to kill a person and a person who cannot, who deems it okay to kill in the name of 'power' or 'pride'. it'd be interesting to get a good look at what their upbringing looked like.

[Alexis]

it's not all upbringing. you can take care of your kids perfectly. but it's not your respect that they may seek out 10 years after you send them off to school and outside influences have had their way with them. it's their peer group that they may look towards.

my head hurts

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

i think it's all in how you are raised and how you draw a line between what's right and what's wrong. deciphering what the difference between you and i who can obviously point out why it is wrong to kill a person and a person who cannot, who deems it okay to kill in the name of 'power' or 'pride'. it'd be interesting to get a good look at what their upbringing looked like.

I'm inclined to agree, but unless anyone's got any insight on how to deal with grand mal alienation and despair - on every possible level from the individual outward - it's hard to imagine where to go with it.

I think of the immigrant families from East Africa that CJ tells me about who move into highrises in Toronto at $1200+ a month, whose parents wipe themselves out to keep them all afloat, and whose kids lose any hope they may have had kindled that they were going to ever find a satisfying life that they glom on to gangsta culture because it offers some alternative to the bleak future they see reinforced everywhere around them. Seems a good option would be for these families to not go to the big cities, but then would small-town Ontario be ready to take them all in?

"No, that's an urban problem. We need to look after our own here."

And yes, that's true. But then why a federal system, if we're all concerned with keeping the problems we have as a society "over there where they belong," only to raise the hue and cry every time an election comes along.

I mean, to throw out an abstract question, does Harper speak more for rural or urban Canada? Whose problems is he going to put front and centre, and set apart from the other problems these are interconnected with? And stoke all sorts of gratuitous vindictiveness with at the same time?

[Birdy]

if there's anything i learned from my dad' date=' it's 'stick to your own'.[/quote']

with all respect to your Dad, that doesn't strike me as a good thing.

I recall my Dad watching CNN coverage of the first Iraq War with the initial flurry of bombs dropping on Baghdad and gleefully saying "better them than us".

I wish I had had the werewithal to remind him that "they" are "us", and that the reverse holds true.

i should have clarified.. noone has ever gotten ahead in this world for getting involved in someone elses business. my dad is a criminal defense attorney and has bore witness too many times to what happens to those who squeal.. enough to ingrain it in his kid's heads that you just don't do it.

[Birdy]

I think of the immigrant families from East Africa that CJ tells me about who move into highrises in Toronto at $1200+ a month, whose parents wipe themselves out to keep them all afloat, and whose kids lose any hope they may have had kindled that they were going to ever find a satisfying life that they glom on to gangsta culture because it offers some alternative to the bleak future they see reinforced everywhere around them. Seems a good option would be for these families to not go to the big cities, but then would small-town Ontario be ready to take them all in?

i once lived in a house in vancouver and underneath that house lived a philipino family in a one bedroom basement apartment. there were 12 people in that family, who eventually were evicted by our landlord. options have got to be bleak for those people. but is it just an "urban" problem? i'd rather say it is an "everything" problem.. what is it exactly that we do that makes these types of living conditions possible? by encouraging diversity, are we really closing the door to so many of the 'diverse'? i can't help but think.

i feel that on a societal whole we are constantly focusing on the wrongs and never the rights.

[Birdy]

all in all though after thinking about it.. it's kinda scary... considering that what we think is harsh and unthinkable to some is the better of two alternatives.

[Lazlo]

remove the taint.

But it's the sexiest part.

[SaggyBalls]

"And yes, that's true. But then why a federal system, if we're all concerned with keeping the problems we have as a society "over there where they belong," only to raise the hue and cry every time an election comes along.

Well look at it this way: When the average Canadian looks at the issues that we have plaguing our country (lacking health, education, and social systems to name a few) and then looks at the advantages that refugees and immigrants get to help them start off their new lives, that average Canadian is more likely than not going to want to keep their tax dollars for the EXISTING canadians. not the hopefuls. Then when - as is often the case here in Vancouver - the majority of the violent, gang-related crime (at least the stuff in the newspapers) is perpetrated by 'new canadians' they get even more frustrated.

When you're trying to make a living for yourself and your family and the government takes upwards of 50% when is all said and done (6 digits might seem like a lot to you but 50000 dollars is a lot of money to get taken from you for no good reason - and that's how many look at it) then you're going to want the problem to stay over there.

I mean, to throw out an abstract question, does Harper speak more for rural or urban Canada? Whose problems is he going to put front and centre, and set apart from the other problems these are interconnected with? And stoke all sorts of gratuitous vindictiveness with at the same time?"

I think Harper is speaking for all the Canadians that don't care to give their money away to social programs.

I'm torn between being a bleeding heart and a hardass.

Especially when I see how multiculturalism has been so mishandled over the past 30 years. less of a celebration and more of a tolerance, which is more of a melting pot than america.

I believe it's led us to lose our national identity. Now it's more geo-political than social. It's nice to lose the characiture but it hasn't been replaced with anything yet.

I'm still thinking that the best thing for this country to smarten itself up is a conservative majority. the people that care for the left wouldn't vote strategically anymore and the conservative voters would have to notice how much of a joke Harper is and how we need a REAL leader.

i like the idea of an NDP minority but really - the liberals and conservatives would just team up on Layton and force a new election. The only one I could trust not to play dirty politics is Layton's NDP but they don't act strong enough to demand any sort of respect from me. nice that they're nice but it's not my kid's kidergarten teacher we're talking about here.

Canada needs to give back to its citizens while still being able to bring in new canadians. without immigration, we LOSE population. less people are having children. I feel like a minority here in Vancouver and without the proper planning and societal model the different groups will just ghettify. We don't need racial and religious districts that's not diversity, that's just tolerance.

if it's an era of equality, we've got to give back to Canadians, and not just with tax cuts.

We need to be taxed evenly and get more for our dollars.

We need a real government. One that helps rather than helps itself.

I don't see that in our future anytime soon.

it makes me want to punch somebody in the face.

[payce-ley]

I'm not terribly excited by any of the current political choices, so therefore am not excited about this election at all

Harper I especially do not like though... his overt enthusiasm to send troops into Iraq was a profound error in judgement (killing people over lies will never sit well with me)

in my life experience, when the Liberals are in control of the federal government most Canadians have jobs and are happier and more productive than under any other party... yes it costs Canadians taxes, but there are more opportunities to make money (without bowing to a highly judgemental, right wing status quo)

and god, were things ever flippin miserable under Mulroney... the years when crack took firm hold in Canada (and it was no suprise)... thank Mulroney for Toronto's gun violence... their cutting way back on social programs escalated street gang activity by 1000%... I believe everyone should provide for themselves but saying 'screw you' for falling through the cracks is definately the wrong method of addressing the problem

street crime in europe and the states are worlds apart... the liberals act like the current governments in germany and spain, which are both enjoying less crime and soaring economies... the jobless rate in canada is at a 30 year low, this is good

my 2 cents

Edited January 4, 2006 by Guest

[bald guy in a blanket]

I think Ottawa will look the same for a while.

We'll get a new government when someone gets a new idea...

with one exception,

Layton will get screwed.

He's over...and it's his own fault.

Think of it this way...even with all the scandal money going the Liberals have balanced the budget 8 years in a row.

When was the last time that happened?

The problem is that people without an obvious issue in this election feel the need to punish the people in power who happened to work with some people who cheated a bunch of years ago.

People have this belief that the parties aren't that different so it doesn't matter who's in power--it does! They only seem the same because they're all playing for the middle ten percent. Trust me, I lived through the "common sense devolution".

The parties are different.

Jef

Edited January 4, 2006 by Guest
I forgot words

[Birdy]

I think Harper is speaking for all the Canadians that don't care to give their money away to social programs.

I'm torn between being a bleeding heart and a hardass.

Especially when I see how multiculturalism has been so mishandled over the past 30 years. less of a celebration and more of a tolerance, which is more of a melting pot than america.

I believe it's led us to lose our national identity. Now it's more geo-political than social. It's nice to lose the characiture but it hasn't been replaced with anything yet.

I'm still thinking that the best thing for this country to smarten itself up is a conservative majority. the people that care for the left wouldn't vote strategically anymore and the conservative voters would have to notice how much of a joke Harper is and how we need a REAL leader.

i like the idea of an NDP minority but really - the liberals and conservatives would just team up on Layton and force a new election. The only one I could trust not to play dirty politics is Layton's NDP but they don't act strong enough to demand any sort of respect from me. nice that they're nice but it's not my kid's kidergarten teacher we're talking about here.

Canada needs to give back to its citizens while still being able to bring in new canadians. without immigration, we LOSE population. less people are having children. I feel like a minority here in Vancouver and without the proper planning and societal model the different groups will just ghettify. We don't need racial and religious districts that's not diversity, that's just tolerance.

if it's an era of equality, we've got to give back to Canadians, and not just with tax cuts.

We need to be taxed evenly and get more for our dollars.

We need a real government. One that helps rather than helps itself.

I don't see that in our future anytime soon.

it makes me want to punch somebody in the face.

I think you're bang on.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

From the Globe and Mail:

MICHAEL TRIPPER Toronto's spate of deaths and casualties from gunfire has drawn comments from all quarters, from political opportunists to family members to police, about what we must do to stop the violence and protect the innocent. I'd like to add my perspective, as someone once engaged in monstrous acts myself.

At 41, I can look back and see the error of my ways. As a man-child, I could not. I am that archetype, the son of a single mother with no father to guide me. I must have been 12 when I figured out that I was stronger than my mother and could do what I wished. When a boy hits puberty and there is no older, trusted male to guide him, the streets seem like the best available teacher. And their lesson is that might is right.

Back in mid 1970s, we didn't call our groups "gangs" but that's what we were. We'd skip school and attack random strangers in the subway system or venture to other schools to beat people up in order to show them not to mess with the guys from the High School of Montreal.

We engaged in horrible deeds and we loved every minute of it.

Eventually, I started to worry about myself: What if someone we'd roughed up caught me alone and beat me? Engaged in a brawl in the subway system, I began to worry that I might get tossed onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train.

I've had many years to look back and wrestle with my conscience.

It was fear for myself that made me stop and think; the pain of others was simply not enough to warrant my attention back then.

Now, I can offer you this -- the reasons we engaged in this behaviour.

We were not inherently psychopathic. But we were poor. When you see what looks like wealthy children, happy with the latest toys, clothes and treats, you become resentful. Even a trip to McDonald's was a luxury. You envied those who could go when you could not.

I'll always remember the moment when I made the calculation to commit crimes. I must have been about 10. The older boys from the neighbourhood had brought me along as a decoy on a shoplifting trip.

I was a little apprehensive, but then, walking down Milton Street toward downtown Montreal, it hit me: Why should I be deprived of the things that make life enjoyable simply because I didn't have wealthy parents? A mere chance of birth determined that my life was a horror show. I would not let chance destroy me as an individual.

I was poor through no fault of my own -- and so I had a right, no, an entitlement, to take for myself what others had only because of the random occurrence of their birth.

And so I became a thief -- petty to be sure, but a thief nonetheless.

Of course, I feared getting caught, but I could set that against a return-on-investment calculation: What would the punishment be? Was it worth the gain? Given the lax laws of the time, my friends and I even spoke of murder as being something we could get away with. Back then, we expected we'd be locked up until the age of 18 and then let go.

There are many things I could tell you, but I want you to know this: While the unfairness of poverty will sometimes lead to criminal behaviour, you should know, too, that if the laws are too easy on adolescents, then they will make their calculations of brutality.

If the consequences are short and not too severe, the risks become irrelevant.

Luckily, guns were rare in those days. While we used knives, chains, or anything else we could get our hands on, no one died as a result of our acts (a few friends who stayed criminals did die -- but that was later).

The solution to the youth violence problem is, in my opinion, two-fold: 1. Courts must deal severely with any use of guns. Why not hear crimes involving firearms in a military court -- after all, if you use weapons of war against a civilian population, shouldn't you face military justice? More realistically, I'd like to see those who use guns in the act of committing crimes be excluded from the provisions of young offender laws; 2. The federal government must look at the causes of poverty, such as our high immigration levels. Pouring desperate people into large cities isn't helping poverty, it's adding to it. We all know that there are many benefits from immigration. But despite Ottawa's wishful thinking, the vast majority of newcomers do not want to live in small-town or rural Canada. What is happening right now is that underemployed newcomers put a downward pressure on wages, while resources that could go to skills training and upgrading instead go to teaching English and soft skills. If you were born into poverty in this country, this seems monstrously unfair.

Until it is clear to young people that there are severe and long-term consequences to using firearms, and until the federal government stops adding to poverty instead of reducing it, Canadians can look forward to more murder and mayhem. The feds have the tools. It's up to whoever forms the next government to implement the solutions to the problems they have helped create.

Michael Tripper is a graphic designer who has worked in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Also:

Read my lips: There is no crime epidemic in Canada

--------------------------------------------------

JEFFREY SIMPSON Toronto being Toronto, and the national media being mostly located in Toronto, that city's spate of gun violence has become big news.

Front-page coverage. Crime columnists hyperventilating. Politicians rushing to propose quick solutions. America-bashing. The rest of Canada has seen and heard it all. Toronto's problems equal Canada's.

Except that they don't. Step back from the frenzy and look at some numbers.

There were three shooting incidents in Ottawa, for example, before and after Christmas, with two fatalities and several near misses, including a shotgun blast to the rear of a car and the riddling of another with bullets. Amount of coverage in the national media? Zero.

There were two shooting incidents during the same period in Toronto, with two fatalities. Amount of coverage? You saw it.

Toronto is now deemed a violent city. It isn't, no matter what the media report. Canada is said to be becoming a violent country.

It isn't, no matter what the media report.

Toronto has a localized violent crime problem in several pockets of the city. It is concentrated, largely but not exclusively, among Jamaican-Canadian youth. To extrapolate widespread violence in the city or the province from this tiny subset of the population grossly distorts reality.

You want violent crime? Consider this: The homicide rate in Western Canada is much higher than that of Ontario. In Manitoba, the rate is 4.3 for every 100,000 people; it's 3.9 in Saskatchewan and 2.7 in Alberta and British Columbia. In Ontario, the rate is 1.5, the same as in Quebec, a province with a much smaller population.

Toronto's deaths -- at least the ones the media highlighted -- were from shootings. It was therefore taken for granted that Canada had a handgun problem, and politicians rushed to propose remedies.

In Ottawa, by contrast, only two of the 11 homicides in 2005 were gun-related. The others were from beatings and stabbings.

While the media fixate on death by shooting, here's what Statistics Canada reported about homicides in 2004, the last year for which final numbers are available: More murders resulted from stabbings (205) than handguns (172). From 2000 to 2004, more murders were by knives (849) than guns (840).

Throw in murders by strangulation, beating, burning, and what Statscan calls "other methods," and 2.5 times more people were murdered by means other than a gun in 2004.

From 2000 to 2004, homicides in Canada rose by 7 per cent, but the population increased by slightly more than 5 per cent. This is an epidemic of crime? The press coverage suggests yes; the facts say no.

The homicide rate inched up during those years, but the incidence of every other category of serious crime declined, including attempted murder, sexual assault, robbery, break and enter, and theft. And yet, reading and listening to the national media and watching the campaigning politicians with their palliatives, the unsuspecting might believe that Canada is besieged by violent crime.

Predictably, those searching for an explanation to Toronto's murders pointed to the United States, where the homicide rate is eight times that of Canada. Accusers rightly say there are guns aplenty across the border.

But haven't guns always been available in the U.S.? Is there anything new about their availability? The U.S. supply of guns has been a constant for decades. What's changed is the demand. And where's the demand? Right here in Canada.

It's too bad for Americans and for us that guns are so prevalent in the United States. That more of them are showing up in Canada reflects a change in Canadian demand, not U.S. supply.

Crime sells newspapers and drives TV ratings ("if it bleeds, it leads"), which is the most plausible explanation for the media's focus, despite the statistical evidence that serious crime is declining.

An immense amount of pernicious nonsense usually surrounds violent crime reporting and its breathless aftermath. Canada, like all Western societies, has a generalized crime challenge, what with thugs and nasty people around.

Canada's particular problems, however, are inner-city drug- and gang-related: aboriginal gangs in some places, Indo-Canadian ones in B.C.'s Lower Mainland, Jamaican-Canadian ones (and a few others) in Toronto, biker gangs in Quebec and parts of Ontario.

Serious as these problems are, they do not constitute a crime epidemic, media coverage notwithstanding.

[Alexis]

good articles. makes me think that perhaps our media is becoming more and more like their fear peddling counterparts in the US.

[traveler]

vote green party!

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

i don't think anything is "wrong" with banning handguns. in theory it's beautiful. but as legislation, i think it's useless and will mop up tax payers money that could be better spent elsewhere.

in the end, the weapon isn't the criminal. the criminal is.

what a cute little phrase. However, it makes absolutely no sense. PLEASE GIVE ME ONE REASON WHY ANYONE SHOULD BE PERMITTED TO CARRY A HANDGUN IN OUR COUNTRY (outside of the police) Handguns do kill people, alot more frequent than any other type of weapon. And where would you rather spend money??? Sorry, I think providing protection for the citizens of Canada takes precendence over a self-indulging tax break.

[bradm]

Handguns do kill people, alot more frequent than any other type of weapon.

Uh, did you read what Jeffrey Simpson wrote?

While the media fixate on death by shooting, here's what Statistics Canada reported about homicides in 2004, the last year for which final numbers are available: More murders resulted from stabbings (205) than handguns (172). From 2000 to 2004, more murders were by knives (849) than guns (840).

Aloha,

Brad

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

I think Harper is speaking for all the Canadians that don't care to give their money away to social programs.

I'm torn between being a bleeding heart and a hardass.

Especially when I see how multiculturalism has been so mishandled over the past 30 years. less of a celebration and more of a tolerance' date=' which is more of a melting pot than america.

I believe it's led us to lose our national identity. Now it's more geo-political than social. It's nice to lose the characiture but it hasn't been replaced with anything yet.

I'm still thinking that the best thing for this country to smarten itself up is a conservative majority. the people that care for the left wouldn't vote strategically anymore and the conservative voters would have to notice how much of a joke Harper is and how we need a REAL leader.

i like the idea of an NDP minority but really - the liberals and conservatives would just team up on Layton and force a new election. The only one I could trust not to play dirty politics is Layton's NDP but they don't act strong enough to demand any sort of respect from me. nice that they're nice but it's not my kid's kidergarten teacher we're talking about here.

Canada needs to give back to its citizens while still being able to bring in new canadians. without immigration, we LOSE population. less people are having children. I feel like a minority here in Vancouver and without the proper planning and societal model the different groups will just ghettify. We don't need racial and religious districts that's not diversity, that's just tolerance.

if it's an era of equality, we've got to give back to Canadians, and not just with tax cuts.

We need to be taxed evenly and get more for our dollars.

We need a real government. One that helps rather than helps itself.

I don't see that in our future anytime soon.

it makes me want to punch somebody in the face.[/quote']

I think you're bang on.

are you serious?

Wow.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

first, I have two issues with this. one, you want to be taxed evenly, but you support the conservative party? correct me if I am wrong, but, i would suggest that the conservative philosophy is not in favour of equal status.

Secondly, you have me confused, you suggest that we need cultural diversity--but you are concerned about losing our Canadian identity? That appears to be an oxomoron in my view.

You comment about feeling like a minority?? How so?? because of the colour of your skin? Is that important to you?

I would suggest that the less you identify people by their physical features, and the more you identify them by their personalities the better the idea of multi-culturalism will sound. Acceptance has come along way in my eyes, and I think the Conservatives will look to "conserve" old ideas, of protection, separation, etc.

That is one of the reasons why I am voting liberal.

[Diggzz]

Now I'm no expert, but hand-guns are essentially illegal in Canada, no? You need a license/permit to carry one, if you don't have said permit it is illegal, so what exactly is banning hand-guns going to accomplish?