IF YOU are a Liberal political strategist making plans for the 1997 election campaign, how do you play the gun control issue?
The early indications are that there will be different messages for different target groups – rural and urban, male and female.
In urban Canada and among women voters, the Liberals think gun control is a winning issue.
To both those constituencies, the Liberals will be aggressively selling their gun registration scheme as a way to make urban streets safer and to reduce violence against women.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Recently in the House of Commons, two Liberal ministers showed a bit of their hand. If their performance is any indication, the election ‘debate’ on guns will be emotional, partisan and personal.
When he tabled gun control regulations recently, justice minister Allan Rock laid out a stark contrast.
His Liberals would “stand up to the gun lobby.” Opponents of the law are “in the grip of the gun lobby.”
Rock paid special attention to the NDP, which is hoping to make a comeback in some of Canada’s low-income urban ridings.
“Let the New Democratic Party kneel before the gun lobby,” he shouted. “Let it betray its principles of decades.”
Days later, on Dec. 6 as MPs paid tribute to 14 Montreal women killed on that date in 1989 by a man screaming anti- feminist slogans, it was solicitor general Herb Gray’s turn.
The normally low-key minister took partisan aim at Reform.
By opposing gun control, Reform was refusing to support efforts to reduce violence against women, said Gray.
In rural Canada, there will be a different strategy. Gun control will be played down as an issue. If need be, the rules will be defended as fair to gun owners.
And in some ridings, rural Liberals will be able to note that when the legislation was debated, a handful of them defied the Liberal party by voting against it.
Mainly, though, Liberal candidates in rural areas will be downplaying guns.
This might be a useful strategy in constituencies where the main Liberal opposition comes from the NDP, which is divided on the issue.
In ridings in which Reform represents the main competition, forget it.
Consider the plans of Allan Kerpan, Reform MP for the Saskatchewan riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre who will run in the new riding of Saskatoon Blackstrap.
His main opposition will be Liberal MP Morris Bodnar, who supported the gun control bill despite much opposition.
Kerpan says he will not let the gun issue simmer. It will bubble.
“I expect Morris will say it is no longer an issue, but I think it will be one of the key issues,” he says. “It will be high profile and I will do all I can do to make sure it stays like that.”
Warring political parties with diametrically opposed views have been asserting they speak for the people of Saskatchewan on gun control.
In ridings like Saskatoon Blackstrap, with such a clear choice available, voters finally will have their chance to indicate who really speaks for them.
