FEDUP II RALLY

SEPTEMBER 22, 1998

Presentation by Dr. Judith Ross

The Association of Women Shooters of Canada

I am pleased to be here today to speak on behalf of the Association of Women Shooters of Canada but I must also say that the fact that I have to be here today, and that we all have to be here today, is a matter of great shame for this Liberal government.

The Liberals should be deeply ashamed of Bill C-68 which as everybody now knows was based on lies, with false statistics used by the Justice Department and false statements about the actual costs and intent of this legislation.

Registration of long guns is only one part of it. Prohibition and confiscation of many firearms is another part. Regulations designed to close down gun clubs are another part. All of Bill C-68 impacts on women owners of firearms as well as men but there are some aspects of this bill that are of special concern to women and not just women who own firearms but all Canadian women.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Take the issue of domestic violence. The government has apparently decided, on the basis of biased and totally discredited studies, that women's interests are best served by not having firearms in the home. This is an outrageous distortion of the facts. When women are injured in domestic violence situations, by far the great majority of these situations do not involve firearms. Even when women are killed in domestic situations, the greatest number by far are killed by some means that does not involve firearms. If the Liberals want to protect women from domestic violence, they could put the money they are so willing to spend on registration into treatment programs for abusive men and for alcoholism. Alcohol is almost always involved in incidents of domestic violence. Firearms are not. The Liberals know this. They have chosen to ignore the facts and to promote the lie that firearms are the issue. The Liberals should be ashamed.

HEALTH

Take the issue of health. The Liberal government has cut transfer payments to the provinces with enormous cuts in funding for health care as a result. We all know about long waiting lists, patients who have died in emergency rooms waiting for treatment, hospitals closing, and breast cancer patients in Ontario having to leave their hometowns and travel to other cities in order to be treated.

The Liberals don't have enough money for health care but they do seem to have enough money to register long guns. And the amount of money! If anyone ever actually believed former Justice Minister Allan Rock when he said that registration would cost 85 million dollars, they can't possibly believe it any longer. In fact, the government has now admitted that they will spend well over 133 million dollars this year and that the annual operating costs after that will be 50-60 million dollars a year, every year.

And how much money has the government spent on an issue that is actually a women's health issue, such as breast cancer? Would you believe that the federal government has committed only 20 million dollars over a 5 year period for research on breast cancer. That's at least 133 million this year and 50 million every year to register legally owned firearms but only 4 million a year for 5 years for breast cancer.

You might think from this that firearms were more of a threat to women that breast cancer. Well, think again. In the same year that 38 women died as a result of homicide committed with a firearm there were 4,995 women who died from breast cancer. It is absolutely clear which is the issue that really affects women's health. If the Liberals really cared about women's health, they could take the money they are so willing to spend on registration and put it into research and treatment of breast cancer. The Liberals should be ashamed.

SELF DEFENSE

Let's consider the issue of self defense. The former Minister of Justice Allan Rock has said that firearms may not be used for self defense. Well, self defense is still a right in Canada and when the government says you can't use firearms to defend yourself, this amounts to discrimination against women. The average man is more likely to be able to defend himself in some other way but the average woman is not. The right to defend yourself is not realistically available to most women if they cannot use firearms to defend themselves. The Liberals should be ashamed.

In talking about self defense, we must consider the issue of pepper spray and the recent move by Justice Minister Anne McLellan to ban the sale of small or "purse" size canisters of dog repellent and put them in the same prohibited weapon category as sawed-off shotguns and machine guns. What this means is that even possession of a small canister of pepper spray carries a 10 year maximum prison term. If a woman chose to protect herself from a rapist by carrying a small can of pepper spray, she could well end up spending more time in jail than would the rapist who was able to attack her because she had no effective way of defending herself. This is clearly discrimination against women. It is disgraceful that the Liberals are so determined to ignore actual threats to women's health and safety while at the same time they are so eager to take away any means of self protection for women, even a small can of dog repellent. It is interesting to note that the government had no problem about having the RCMP use pepper spray on Canadians who were holding a peaceful demonstration. But maybe it was okay. Maybe the Mounties didn't use the purse size canisters.

CONCLUSION

This Liberal government is not responsive to the real needs of its citizens. This Liberal government is not responsive to the needs of women. This Liberal government has its own agenda and that agenda is the abolition of private ownership of firearms and the disarming of the Canadian people. The Liberals seem determined to achieve this agenda even if it means lying and deceiving the Canadian people. The Liberals should be hanging their heads in shame.

But the Liberals still have the opportunity to attempt to redeem themselves. They still have the opportunity to listen to the people who have come here today. They still have the opportunity to scrap Bill C-68 and the Association of Women Shooters of Canada calls on the Liberal government to do just that.