The real story behind the cost overruns at the Canadian Firearms Centre. What the Liberals and Conservatives don’t want you to know.

 
The controversy around the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC), is a key element in the Conservative Party election campaign. It has been their cause celebre for years as the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, and now as the ‘new’ Conservative party. It has been their rallying cry for speaking for Western alienation from Central Canada, especially Ottawa and the Federal Government. As a pseudo-republican party, the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives have decried the Canadian Firearms Centre, as an attack on the ‘right’ of Canadians to own guns, in this case hunting rifles and shotguns.

Canada has long had gun control legislation, originally brought in by the Trudeau Liberal Government. This legislation at the time was denounced by some as an attack on the right of Canadians to ‘bear arms’. Though such rights have never been enshrined in law. The attacks on the Trudeau legislation came from rump right wing conspiracy groups like the Gosticks, Canadian League of Rights and by Alberta Separatists like the Western Canada Concept, the predecessors of the Reform Party.

Declaring their purpose was Law and Order and Good Government the Liberals introduced the first Gun Control legislation in response in part to the October Crisis in Quebec. This legislation was limited to hand guns and automatic weapons, and was not without controversy at the time. Gun Collectors, hunters, farmers, those from rural Canada and of course the right wing of the conservative movement were opposed to any form of gun control, it was seen as the State interfering in the rights of the individual. This American republican notion is at the core of the current Conservative opposition to the Canadian Firearms Centre.

The new legislation was introduced in response to pressure on the government from women’s groups and largely centered around mobilization of public opinion in Canada’s largest cities; Toronto and Montreal, after the Lepine Massacre at Ecole Polytechnic. Again the Reform Party, representing a grass roots right wing populist movement, cherished the ‘right to bear arms’ and belittles feminism and women’s rights, as can be attested to by their political alliance with right wing women’s groups such as Alberta Women United for Families. Their opposition to day care and abortion, and any state interference in the so called free market that might impose a tax based social program for the good of all, is key to their political discourse. As the Alliance and now Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, this is still their underlying ideology.

So the issue of the CFC is wrapped up in their political ideology of being the Republican Party of Canada. Even if there had not been cost overruns at the CFC the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives saw the gun legislation and the centre as a backroom conspiracy to take guns away from Canadians. As the saying goes; “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t to get you