Gun control is not the problem; gun violence is

Many thanks to TDotLive for this photo: http://tdotlive.com/live-features/keep-awake-more-gun-violence-in-toronto-2

With regard to the recent debate our Party and our country has had over the fate of the long gun registry, I wish to add my two cents in a substantive manner. In 1993, the Liberal Party passed the Canadian Firearms Registry as a response to the 1989 mass shooting at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, where 14 women were killed, and 14 others injured in what is one of the most tragic instances of the use of violence in Canadian history.

The recent discourse the country has had over the long gun registry seems to demonstrate that the long gun registry was a divisive issue among Canadians because it created the unintended consequence of making it much more difficult for law abiding Canadian citizens to acquire and maintain long gun firearms for legal, practical purposes such as hunting and livestock protection—particularly in rural and First Nations communities throughout Canada where such practices are integral to daily life.

We as Liberals should not apologize for attempting to further the cause of “peace, order and good governance” in our country and above all the safety of our neighbours by attempting to pass legislation with the intention of reducing gun violence. We should, however, learn from the analysis of cost versus benefit to the Canadian people that the Canadian Firearm Registry legislation was flawed; it was an undue nuisance for Canadians who wished to use long-gun rifles for practical means, and it did not address the far more prevalent reality of handgun violence that affects our large cities in particular.

In short, the long gun registry was not a failure because of its principles; it was a failure because it failed to address what it was intended to address.

What our Party should be doing is working to prevent gun violence by seeking to address the societal challenges that are typically associated with gun violence; namely poverty (and in particular childhood poverty) and mental disability & awareness. It is the conditions of poverty that limit a child’s pathway to a healthy home, an education, success, and prosperity, and can lead to participation in organized violence and other criminal activity, and represents a tragic failure of Canadian society to provide for them the conditions for which they may attain the success in life that they desire.

Likewise, we need to do more to rise to the challenge of identifying, treating, and caring for those whose mental health may make them more susceptible to the mental imbalances that can lead one to commit acts of violence. Addressing the challenges of mental health in this society must be considered a primary goal in general, as Canada lags far behind its contemporaries in providing treatment and care for persons living with mental disabilities, but particular attention must be paid to mental health when considering senseless acts of gun violence. We can do a better job of preventing gun violence by treating and caring for those whose mental health may put them at greater risk of committing a horrible act of violence, and it is a challenge that we must be willing to meet.

We can do this by promoting greater awareness of mental health issues as a mainstream part of Canadian society, by providing improved and better funded mental health treatment programs, because in addition to treating and caring for those who require long-term care, mental health is something that at one point or another could affect the life of any Canadian.

Only when we address these issues will Canada truly be confronting the root causes of gun violence, and I hope that in the coming weeks and months, Canadians across the country will share their thoughts with myself and with our Party about where they feel our efforts on gun control should be focused.

If we want to get smart on cracking down on gun crime, we as a society need to do our best to ensure that we create the conditions where no Canadian is driven to a gun to inflict senseless and tragic harm on others. That means addressing the conditions of gun violence at their root causes, childhood and long-term poverty, a lack of opportunity, and a deficit in mental health awareness, screening, and treatment measures.

A brief thought on religious funding of schools in Ontario

I hope I’m not coming off as offensive when I write this, because it’s not my intention whatsoever, but Catholic schools in Ontario should NOT be funded! What it amounts to is discrimination of every other religion, in the sense that parents who want their children to learn other religious beliefs (Judaism, Islam, etc.) have to pay an insane amount of money to do so. Which is the way it should be.
Church and state are meant to be clearly separated from the political realm; why then, is the government subsidizing religion? We have many, many churches that young people can attend each Sunday (as well as the Sunday schools they provide) or even on many other days of the week. Parents can also play an important role in instilling within their children religious education or beliefs, and the state should have no role in subsidizing what parents and churches are perfectly able to do on their own.

I’m listening to Ottawa talk radio (580 CFRA) and many people, including Lowell Green, are essentially saying that religion = morality, and vice versa, as if those of us who aren’t religious are incapable of living morally or making moral decisions. As an atheist, that’s a whole other can of worms that I don’t want to open up, but suffice it to say I don’t have a problem with people having some sort of religious belief; I however, am a perfectly moral person, and absent of religious schooling. I became a moral person because of my excellent public school education.

The UN, among other groups, has condemned Ontario for continuing to fund Catholic schools, and I couldn’t agree with them more. What troubles me almost as much is that Conservative-minded people preach that there should be less government involvement in the everyday life of its citizens, and yet most of the arguments in favour of continuing funding of Catholic schools has come from religiously-inclined Conservative supporters. John Tory got destroyed in the previous provincial election for attempting to “level the playing field”, and require all religious schools to be privately funded; an inherently conservative idea!

Ideologically-speaking, this should be an issue that Liberals, Conservatives, and Dippers alike should find common ground on, and I hope that when this issue is discussed at Queen’s Park our politicians can reach some common ground.

On a slightly more controversial note, any school that discriminates upon students because of their sexual orientation (not that all–or even many–of the Catholic schools do) should not be funded by the state in any way, shape, or form. The Roman-Catholic church has persecuted people for two thousand years; while they have done a lot of good in the world as well, it is my belief that if parents want their children to attend a school with that as its historical background; all the more power to them; however they should be paying 13K a year like every other member of a religious denomination that wishes to do the same.

Questions? Comments?

If you have any comments, please be respectful of people’s opinions and religious beliefs. I may not agree with Government funding of religious schools, but I do respect the right of everyone to subscribe to religion if they so choose, so please keep that in mind.

A (Very) Brief thought on Bill C-30 (AKA the Online Surveillance Bill)

I would encourage anyone who cares about internet privacy to sign this petition. Do we really want a government that is not just allowed, but indeed readily able to track our personal information and browsing history over the internet?

Of course, we all believe that the authorities should have the capabilities to apprehend those that break the law by looking at deplorable images, or the like, but to frame that as the issue is to be disingenuous. This is first and foremost a public matter because the authorities would not require a warrant to keep tabs on whomever it is they may choose. This information could be requested by the government, and then kept indefinitely, essentially creating an online portfolio of an individual’s history over the internet.

Will the government use this power to muzzle individuals such as myself that oppose them? Highly doubtful; we do not live in the Soviet Union. But when the government abolishes the long-form census and the long-gun registry due to their being an invasion of privacy, and then decides that it’s somehow not a similar invasion to look at the web history of innocent Canadian citizens, you begin to see why oftentimes its ideology trumps its congruency.

The NDP has a relatively inexperienced shadow cabinet due to many important ministers running for their party’s leadership. The Liberal Party can and has acted as an effective opposition party; far more effective in projecting its vision for Canada than its 35 seats might suggest. Once again, in order to most effectively oppose this bill, I would encourage everyone who may read this to take a minute or two and sign  a petition for a party that throughout a rebuilding process and beyond seeks to effectively and successfully stand up for all Canadians who oppose not just this bill in particular, but the branding that Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is attempting to put in place in this country.

http://petition.liberal.ca/online-privacy-surveillance-lawful-access-bill-c30-liberal-amendment/

LPC Biennial Convention and Some Thoughts…

Queen's University Young Liberals and Stephane Dion pose for a photo at the Liberal Biennial Convention, Ottawa, 2012

Hey there! It’s James Bridges again, and much later than I had hoped/expected. Evidently the rigors of applying for Graduate Studies, apathy toward sitting down to write are not great preconditions for getting any writing done, but I digress…

The past few weeks have been interesting ones, as I have had the opportunity to attend the Liberal Biennial Convention for the first time, and Queen’s Model Parilament for the fourth time, respectively. While my experiences as House Leader of the NDP at QMP 2012 were interesting, I wanted to dedicate some time and thought toward the Liberal Convention that took place from January 13th-15th of this year. If it isn’t already obvious, I am a Liberal Party member, and would consider myself left-of-centre ideologically, although if you want to pidgeon-hole me you could say I’m a social democrat who is a proponent of evidence-based policy.

Attending as a youth delegate, I was entirely unsure of what to expect. I was lucky enough to travel by bus to Ottawa from Queen’s University with new Executive Vice-President of the Young Liberals of Canada/Ontario Young Liberals, Maddie Webb, who successfully campaigned to win that position, and to stay in the Lord Elgin in Downtown Ottawa with a few fellow Queen’s University Liberal Association members.

On the first day, at the youth conference portion of the convention, we were greeted by a keynote speech from outgoing-Liberal President Alfred Apps. He spoke to us about the Party’s  history of renewal; how in both 1922 and 1958, the Liberals, seemingly down and out, had been able to renew interest in the party and secure more votes than anyone could have realistically hoped for. While some have viewed Mr. Apps’ Presidency of the Party as tenuous, he is a brilliant mind and will assuredly work with the Liberal Party in some manner for years to come (I think he should try running as an MP once more!).

Senator Mercer followed a presentation on technology/online voting by George Takach, and discussed the role that youth have played in keeping the Liberal Party vibrant–spearheading the pursuit of same-sex marriage legislation, decriminalizing marijuana (more on that) in the Paul Martin years, and the like. Martha Hall Findlay similarly discussed the fact that there has historically been too much discord within the Party, and how to counteract this Liberals must be tough in defining where they stand on issues. She mentioned that if Liberals are simply the party for everyone, we lose the opportunity to define ourselves and instead allow other parties and various interest groups to do that for us, which has led to disastrous results in the past.

Finally, the Right Honourable John Turner chose to speak to us about renewal. To paraphrase him, he told us to “stay loose and relaxed”, to build a movement from the bottom up, and to remember the Magna Carta; or, rather, the notion that Parliament was created to be an open institution, and Young Liberals must lead the drive toward making it an open institution once more.

Many of the articles in the media that I had read leading up to and during the Convention called for the Liberal Party to come up with radical new ideas, or face extinction. I think that voting to allow supporters to determine who our next party leader will be will accomplish exactly that, and I disagree to an extent over the media’s portrayal of the Convention itself. While new ideas were certainly required, this convention was just as much about putting a dagger in the party’s historical infighting and firing up the 3200 delegates to build a grassroots movement over the next four years. Having fared poorly in the past two elections is no effective method of keeping Liberals invigorated for what must now be a permanent campaign, but a Convention of rousing speeches, stimulating conversations, and an opportunity to connect with the “Party Elites” surely will!

I do not wish to make this post an entire essay, so for today I will leave this post with a few closing thoughts, which I hope people will take the time to comment on. Firstly, I was entirely surprised at the amount of people at the Convention who were interested in hearing what Canada’s youth had to say regarding the state of Canadian politics, and of the Liberal Party itself. I was lucky enough to speak to former-MP candidate Joe Cormier from the Nickel Belt riding for nearly an hour, and he gave me all the encouragement I need to continue to take steps to make an impact within the party, and hopefully within the country by extension. If this party can become the party of youthful renewal, and can attract that vote by appealing to the 18-35 age demographic by pursuing the legalization of marijuana, for example, then all the more power to them. I can say that I will be working tirelessly in the next few years to make that the case!

Secondly, and this is not just a suggestion for the Liberal Party alone–but politics is and has traditionally been a realm that people are either uncomfortable getting involved in, or feel as if it is an aspect of daily life that does not affect them directly. While I could go on for pages about why this is not the case, I’ve found that the most effective way to engage people in politics is simple: converse with them about it! This may seem like a fairly self-evident statement, but oftentimes people will be passionate about things that they have no idea are political. For example, with someone planning on or attending a post-secondary educational institute, a common and debilitating issue is that of student debt, coinciding more recently with high youth unemployment. Many people in this situation may not be students or followers of politics, but if they are engaged in a conversation that makes them realize that simply accepting the current Government’s catering to corporate interests over ensuring the long-term success of it’s future leaders is not the only option, they will realize that something that is an every day concern is indeed political. Another example would be discussing Canada’s falling crime rate since 1974 and the fact that the Government is becoming increasingly tougher on crime while building prisons to contain this new generation of benefactors. The cost of the omnibus crime bill (C-10, by the way) that will accomplish this is costed at approximately half a billion dollars this year alone, and has been estimated to cost Ontario alone over a billion dollars within the next few years. This money could be spent better elsewhere, say, in improving education so that people don’t become criminals in the first place. This is where the discussion would transition to “evidence-based policy”, where I think that most people would agree that there are better places to spend this money. The same type of argument can be invoked against the Government’s decision to dismantle the long-form census.

Lastly, in dealing with the Convention, as I’ve said earlier, it was about getting Liberals fired up again, and I hope that anyone who reads this will consider looking at the Liberal Party as an alternative to our current government in the next few years. Oh yeah, and I got the opportunity to speak to my hero in politics, Bob Rae. It took me about three days to work up the courage to do it, but I told him his newest book, “Exporting Democracy” (which I would highly recommend) was a fantastic read. He thanked me, and it was awesome. Yeah….I’m a loser, I know, but what can I say? It was probably less awkward for him than when he and Justin Trudeau came to the Young Liberals party at the Government Conference Centre and were dancing the night away with Young Liberals!

Hopefully somebody reads this and enjoys what little observation I made of the weekend that was. I’ll try to be less partisan with my other random observations going forward, except for this one; GO SENS GO!

As a last little tidbit of Liberal information, here is the link to Bob Rae’s fantastic speech to close the Liberal Biennial Convention. If you keep your eyes open at 14:55, you’ll see me applauding beside Alf Apps, who was undoubtedly too busy with membership renewal requests on his phone to applaud when I was :p

All the best!

–James Bridges

Before I go to bed…(for all you QMP’ers and Cdn Politics Junkies!)

A Queen's Model Parliamentarian comparing a Green Party member in his left hand to a Conservative in his right.

Something rarely ever seen in the House of Commons…think this would lighten up Question Period/bring Parliamentary decorum into question?

Hello Everyone!

Hello Everyone!

It’s me, James Bridges. For those of you who know who I am, hello! You are probably few and far between. For those of you who don’t, I’m a 21 year old Queen’s student majoring in Political Studies with a personal focus on International Relations. I am also a huge fan of the Ottawa Senators (Yes Toronto fans, I’ve heard it all!). I’m hoping to take a Masters in International Affairs or Political Studies next year, and then hopefully on to law school!

As you’ve probably already guessed, I’ve become immersed in the political interest and realm like many of my fellow colleagues, some of whom have their own blogs and I would like to very much use blogs like these as tools for people like ourselves to generate important debates concerning both international affairs and Canadian federal politics in particular.

As I post news updates, editorial pieces concerning international affairs and domestic Canadian politics, and any other random musings, I encourage people to leave comments so that we can generate interesting discussions going into the future. Like my friend and peer Omer Aziz, I hope that we can all collaborate and come up with some meaningful insight! Look for some more updates moving forward as I wind down from exams!