CARLYLE, Sask. (Staff) – Toronto may fancy itself the centre of the universe, but people at a gun rally here turned it into a bull’s eye of anti-eastern wrath.
“Let’s separate,” shouted one audience member during the rally, which saw more than 700 people fill a hall and the adjoining movie theatre in this southeastern Sask-atchewan town.
“We are fighting people from the East who feel their ideals” should apply across Canada, said Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative leader Bill Boyd. “It’s time the people in the cappuccino cafes in Toronto listened to the people in the coffee shops in Carlyle.”
Read Also
Canadian Food Inspection Agency red tape changes a first step: agriculture
Farm groups say they’re happy to see action on Canada’s federal regulatory red tape, but there’s still a lot of streamlining left to be done
Speaker after speaker (more than 10 speakers addressed the rally) condemned the federal government’s proposals for a new, stringent gun law, including Liberal MP Bernie Collins.
Change wanted
“I’m not going to kiss anybody’s butt,” he said, to applause. “No, I won’t support it (the proposed legislation). I won’t support it now, and I won’t support it 10 months from now and I’ll fight like hell to make sure it’s changed.”
He criticized eastern Canadians for not taking western considerations into account.
“You get the mentality in Ottawa that all of us are bazooka hunters and we’re crazy,” he said. “The people in Ottawa don’t like the people who own guns.”
Gun owners in a gun shop, located beside the hall where the rally was held, forecast dire consequences for Canadian unity if federal justice minister Allan Rock proceeds with the gun law proposals. The new laws would outlaw many guns and force owners to register all their firearms.
“We’re told by our politician friend that we have a great problem with Quebec,” so people shouldn’t complain about the proposed gun law, said Ray Markosky. “But these gun laws are going to make us western separatists – in a big way.”
The meeting took the form of federal government denunciation, especially of Rock.
Saskatchewan justice minister Bob Mitchell called Rock “just a fool,” and criticized him for not listening to Canadians.
“The amount of consultation he’s had, you could stick in your eye and you wouldn’t even blink,” said Mitchell.
No one at the rally defended the proposals. Politicians from four political parties, including Reform and Liberal MPs and PC and NDP MLAs, took turns attacking the proposed legislation.
Mitchell said they are typical of Liberal governments, and Reform MP Garry Breitkreuz said they show why Canadians need less government. Boyd said his party will make an issue of gun control in the coming legislative session.
Collins attacked his own government, but also challenged Mitchell to stop crown prosecutors in Sask-atchewan from plea bargaining on weapons-related charges. He said if people who use weapons to commit crimes are given light sentences, criminal law “isn’t worth a bucket of hooey.”
Anti-gun-law petitions were signed by many in the crowd, and some donated money for the fight against the federal government.
Ed Begin, the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation member who is organizing a number of upcoming protests and fundraisers, said he wants to see $40,000 to $50,000 spent to fight the proposals in every Liberal constituency in Sask-atchewan. In view of Collins’ opposition to the proposals, his riding won’t be targeted, Begin said.
“We can save money on him and spend another $50,000 in (federal agriculture minister) Ralph Good-ale’s” Regina constituency, he said.
