Bruce Cockburn wrote a famous song that contained the line “The trouble with normal is it only gets worse.”
The same can be said for governments. They always get worse, too. The current so-called Conservative government is a perfect example of this, and Vic Toews unwittingly tried using this to his advantage. He quickly discovered, much to his dismay, that Canadians weren’t quite as dumb as he had hoped.
Speaking to Ezra Levant on the Sun TV show “The Source” Vic Toews said with a straight face,
“Well, right now regulatory authorities have the power to do warrantless searches. That is very standard practice.”
Vic Toews is absolutely correct. It is standard practice in numerous laws on the books:
- The Firearms Act,
the Fisheries Act,
the Wheat Board Act and I’m sure many others.
Vic Toews clearly believes that it SHOULD be standard practice to have Canadians subjected to warrantless searches whenever it suits him, despite the so-called “conservative” nature of his government.
Unfortunately we do not actually have a conservative government in Canada right now. We haven’t had one for a very, very long time. The last truly conservative Canadian government probably predates the existence of anyone alive today.
You see, a truly conservative government would place the sanctity of our Rights and Freedoms ahead of any momentary and passing “need” of government.
A truly conservative government would repeal the laws that place the burden of proof on Canadians to “prove a negative”, something Ian Thomson is being forced to do right now in an Ontario courtroom.
Ian Thomson was charged with unsafe storage of firearms, even though there is absolutely no evidence to support the charge, for two reasons:
1) he dared do the unthinkable in Canadian society… he used one of his firearms to save himself from sure death at the hands of three masked thugs intent on burning his house down with him inside it, and
2) some “brilliant” cop decreed that Mr. Thomson was able to retrieve his lawfully-owned firearms “too quickly” when he was saving himself from sure death, therefore he could not possibly have stored his firearms legally.
This statement is, of course, utterly absurd.
Three men were actively trying to murder Ian Thomson. The entire event is captured on security video for the world to see, and yet the police and Crown prosecutors are going after Ian Thomson as though HE was the one committing the crime of attempted murder. They dropped “unsafe use of a firearm” and “pointing a firearm” charges when public outcry against the Thomson prosecution become too intense.
Ontario’s Crown Counsel has refused to back down on the safe storage charges though, which just baffles all logic. Ian Thomson was the victim of the crime of attempted murder.
Naturally, the men who attempted to murder Mr. Thomson by burning down his home with him inside it have NEVER been charged with the crime they were actually committing: attempted murder. They weren’t using guns when they attempted to kill Mr. Thomson, so by the Crown’s logic they aren’t the ones who should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Vic Toews obviously loves these atrocious and freedom-killing laws that promote self-incrimination, warrantless searches and reverse onus.
If he doesn’t believe in these freedom-killing laws, why would Vic Toews flippantly quip that
“…right now regulatory authorities have the power to do warrantless searches. That is very standard practice.”
Vic Toews didn’t introduce the Firearms Act, the Fisheries Act or the Wheat Board Act, but he’s very glad someone else did. He’s also happy to build on these laws that tear down our Rights and Freedoms by saying,
“Hey, it wasn’t me, it was that other guy. I’m just doing what he did.”
We’ve all heard that logic before, haven’t we?
Conservatives make a big deal out of how they’ve “killed the long gun registry” as though that’s actually done anything to stop the criminalization of Canadians for owning firearms.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Bill C-19 doesn’t do a single thing to repeal the warrantless search provisions that the Firearms Act added to the Criminal Code nor does it remove the provisions that require you to assist those who have decided to search your home without a warrant.
If Vic Toews wanted to do something really substantial for Canadians and act like a true conservative, he would repeal all of the warrantless search provisions from all the Acts that destroy the freedom of Canadians.
But he hasn’t.
Instead Vic Toews wrote all that garbage into Bill C-30 and then tried and pass it off as a shiny new toy that police need or the world as we know it will end.
When we didn’t buy into this freedom-killing garbage, he declared that we who value our privacy and the rule of law are siding with child pornographers. Nice touch.
Bill C-30 is a horrible piece of legislation. At the very least it needs a very serious rewrite, ideally with a focus on protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.
Canadians don’t need more legislation allowing government agents to invade our privacy without a warrant, we need less.
Matt Gurney is correct. Vic Toews should step down as Minister of Public Safety.
Any Minister who will stoop to tactics like calling ordinary decent Canadians “child pornographers” is clearly not someone we want as our Public Safety Minister, especially after he is forced to admit he doesn’t even know what’s contained in the law that has him calling the rest of us to child pornographers!
For more on that, see my February 19th article Public Safety Minister Vic Toews: Are you really as incompetent as your protestations make you appear?
Lastly, Minister of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews made the statement that:
If fair-minded Canadians have come to the conclusion that my comments in that respect that I made in the heat of Parliamentary debate were not appropriate, I’m prepared to accept their judgment.”
“I’m prepared to accept their judgment?”
Really?
Toews is not prepared to apologize for the comment that brought about that swift public judgment. He still doesn’t believe he’s done a thing to be sorry for.
A man with any integrity would have realized he had made a horrible mistake and apologized immediately. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is clearly not such a man.
“Fair-minded Canadians” from coast to coast are fed up with Vic Toews, his comparing us child pornographers and his police-state mentality.
Toews is far more Liberal than he is Conservative, something to which both his introduction of Bill C-30 and his admission that he had no idea what Bill C-30 contains can both attest.
If Vic Toews was a true conservative, he would be repealing all these atrocious warrantless search provisions from all the other Acts that contain it instead of attempting to slide in more of that Freedom-crushing legislation in Bill C-30.
I’ve said it before and I will say it many more times before I’m through…
Oh, how I long for a Conservative government that isn’t conservative-in-name only.
Excellent column!
Of the three pieces of deadly parliamentary legislation–Firearms Act, Fisheries Act and Wheat Board Act–you provide as examples of warrantless searches being standard fare, the Firearms Act is the most vile, repugnant and dangerous law for a “free society” to have to endure–although the Fisheries Act and Environmental Act are equally as disgusting and dangerous.
Over the years, the narrow-minded, non-gun-owner audience refused to accept that just because they didn’t like or own guns didn’t matter a hill of beans to the police who, with the coming of Bill C-68 and the Firearms Act in 1995, have been given an open-door policy to infringe everybody’s fundamental rights and freedoms in one way or another.
“I haven’t done anything wrong; I have nothing to fear or hide from the police,” is the usual idiotic chant.
Gun owner or not, police have been authorized to conduct inspections and searches of people’s home under lenient provisions in the Firearms Act that have been translated for legal use into other parliamentary legislation.
Now these same unconstitutional aspects are being adopted into virtually every piece of Canadian legislation written.
Most people have never seen–much less read–an Act. If they are not gun owners, they certainly aren’t going to bother reading the Firearms Act they think doesn’t pertain to them.
With the exception of politicians who come to Ottawa with a legal background, when most politicians are first elected to Parliament or to a provincial or territorial legislature chances are they have never seen a copy of any Act, either.
That is how the free-wheeling,hot-shot, two-bit government lawyers get by with breaking every rule of law when penning draconian legislation to their liking. They give no thought to the fact that they are not automatically immune to someday being victims of their own Marxist handiwork they so cleverly crafted down in the bowels of the Parliament Building.
Then the naive politicians, holding to the Party Line, try selling the public a bill of goods about “not the bill’s intention” without having a clue what the bill says much less what its intentions really are.
Most have never sat through court cases and have no understanding of how the so-called Justice system doesn’t function.Therefore, they are too naive to be able to read between the lines to understand the brutal implications of how the legislation can be illogically twisted to serve the Crown’s purpose to strike down a defenseless defendant.
In this article, Christopher conveniently gives an example of the absurdity of government-think: “some “brilliant” cop decreed that Mr. (Ian) Thomson was able to retrieve his lawfully-owned firearms “too quickly” when he was saving himself from sure death, therefore he could not possibly have stored his firearms legally.”
Next, after the bill has been decreed a law, the police and firearms officers try covering up the truth to the public by espousing nonsense such as “the truth of the matter is that the police must obtain a search warrant prior to searching a residence ‘unless exigent circumstances exist’.”
… “unless exigent circumstances exist”. That covers all bases, doesn’t it?
Every situation where a boneheaded, abusive, badge-bearing bully is in a hurry and doesn’t want to be troubled by a pesky warrant–if he even remembers from training that he is supposed to obtain one from a judge–simply claims “exigent circumstances” and gets by with it under the guises of “officer safety” and “public safety”.
More times than not, irresponsible Kangaroo Kourtroom judges, who don’t give a hoot about a defendant’s rights, will accept the officer’s “exigent circumstances” verbiage and behind-the-scenes pay-offs.
In a prior column posted February 23rd, “A Loaded Pistol was Found in his Car, Yet He’s Not Arrested, Charged or Sent Off to Prison”, in reference to Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham’s negligence and indiscretion once again, Christopher wrote:
“Can you imagine if you or I left a loaded handgun under the front seat of our vehicle and someone else found it? Here’s roughly what would transpire next:
1. SWAT would be called in to serve a “high risk warrant”…”
I daresay a “high-risk warrant” would not necessarily be requested, issued or served. Nobody would bother with any nuisance piece of paper from a judge that simply delays an “emergency response” team eagerly exercising “exigent” duties in busting down a front door to a private dwelling (often the wrong address) expecting to find “weapons”.
And, if the members are thoroughly hyped on self-importance, complete authority and what could be nothing more than a fishing expedition, they’ll senselessly open fire on the victim, whether or not the person has been proven a real or imagined sinner.
Presently on The Hill, the illustrious CINO (Conservative in Name Only) government has found another means for infringing your Charter rights and sending you straight to the jailhouse.
Bill C-30, cloaked in the sweet-sounding title “Protecting Little Children from Big, Bad Internet Predators Act”, seeks to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to hand over Canadians’ personal and private information to the police without having to apply for a judge-signed search warrant based on proving reasonable and probable cause to secure one.
Warrants be damned. They are no longer needed in this Marxist society that is under United Nations management.
It is time for the people to choose. I support our right to choose.
No to Bill C-30.
Jollean Matsen