Monte Sonnenberg
Monday May 28, 2007
Simcoe Reformer
Anytime our federal and provincial leaders are put to the test, the discussion degenerates into an endless round of finger-pointing. The people of Haldimand and beyond are certainly paying a hefty price for this. It’s been at work for 15 long months during the native standoff in Caledonia.
The weaklings at Queen’s Park responded by reining in police and promising the lawbreakers that the province would not call in the military. The province then appealed an entirely reasonable cease-and-desist order from a judge in Cayuga. Having created an absolute power vacuum, the province tosses this hot potato into the lap of the federal government. But with the province capitulating, Ottawa has no leverage. Where are the federal government’s bargaining chips?
As we saw last week in Hagersville, natives are going to test the limits of this power vacuum until someone pushes back. This cannot go on forever. Aboriginal Canadians will not end up with six miles on either side of the Grand River or the equivalent value of this real estate in the bank. More of this and our reluctant leaders will have a militia movement to contend with along with growing native unrest.
Another round of buck-passing got underway in Toronto last week hours after a 15-year-old boy was gunned down at school. Toronto Mayor David Miller took the United States to task for being awash in weapons and allowing them to be smuggled into Ontario. Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty took Prime Minister Stephen Harper to task for allegedly refusing to ban handguns. McGuinty released an open letter last week reminding Harper that he had asked in 2005 for a ban on handguns, mandatory minimum sentences for those who commit gun crimes and mandatory minimum sentences for those possessing illegal weapons.
It is shameful to play politics with this tragic event. With his letter, McGuinty insinuates that the Harper Conservatives have done nothing because they are soft on crime. In point of fact, the Conservatives have made little headway on anything because they are in a minority position. The Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats support this country’s kid-gloves approach to crime and will defeat this government if it attempts to correct it. McGuinty’s colleagues in Ottawa have their own agenda. But instead of telling them to get out of the way, McGuinty suggests that this is somehow the fault of the only person in the room who actually wants to do something about it.
As for Mayor Miller, he blames Americans because, as mayor, he is responsible for street-level law-and-order issues in Toronto. The shooting of a high school student in broad daylight makes him look bad. Miller needs to be reminded that former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took a violent, unsafe community and, in short order, cleaned it up and gave it back to its citizens. Giuliani did it despite the fact that New York City is located in America.
Someone needs to explain to McGuinty and Miller that guns are only a symptom of a deeper problem. Show us a student who brings a hand gun to high school and we’ll show you a punk who is up to his neck in crime and who has no fear of the consequences. Where might that attitude have come from? The people of Caledonia could certainly answer that.