GIULIANI TIME, EH?

NY Press ^ | Vol 19 - Issue 5 - February 1-7, 2006 | Jeremy Lott

[fanfan]

On Saturday the 21st, reports of gunfire drew police to an apartment containing a dying cabdriver named Ashok Malhotra. Witnesses saw two men, Jose Antonio Barajas and Ishtiaq Hussain, flee the scene. This homicide was Richmond, California’s first of the year and a new chief of police had just been sworn in, so the hunt was on.

It ended last Tuesday 900 miles from the scene of the crime, at the Peace Arch border crossing near Blaine, Washington, with the perps just a yard shy of home free. Barajas and Hussain had pulled into a rest stop along I-5 when a police officer matched them with the APB and tried to collar them. They gave him the slip, sped toward the Canadian border at over 100 mph, and plowed into several American police cars before a strategically aimed van brought them up short. They then tried to hoof it, but cops shot Hussain in the leg and tackled Barajas.

Here’s the kicker: When the Americans turned around to ask their Canadian counterparts, “How do you like that, eh?” they could hear the crickets chirping. More that 40 Canadian customs officers had abandoned their posts to avoid the conflict. Which made good sense, given that the Americans (cops and crooks both) were the only ones who had guns.

The story made slight impress south of the 49th parallel, but for many Canadians it captured everything that is wrong with their government’s approach to public order. The border officials weren’t cowards, just sane men. A spokesman for their union asked: What were they supposed to do? Throw their flashlights at the invaders?

In fact, their retreat didn’t stray too far from the script. Because Canadian border “guards” do not carry guns, they are not supposed to engage a motorist suspected of having one. It’s standard procedure to allow him into the country and then call in the RCMP and hope for the best.

It gets better: If Barajas and Hussain had made it through, it’s likely that they would never have returned to Richmond to stand trial. Canadian courts have proven extremely reluctant to extradite prisoners who face the possibility of the death penalty, and the tragic execution of St. Tookie doubtless demonstrated that the state of California is barbaric enough to kill convicted murderers. Canada used to get our draft dodgers. Now it gets our murder suspects to add to its growing problem of urban violence.

As luck would have it, the day before the border run, Canadians went to the polls in a federal election and tossed out the Liberal government in favor (sorry, “favour”) of a new Conservative one. Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party ran on a platform that included anti-corruption measures, tax relief, and a less lame approach to law and order. One plank was a proposal to finally arm border officers, whose union has been asking for side arms for years. The Liberals, in power for the last 13 years, had stubbornly refused. The Peace Arch incident was a slam dunk argument to follow through on that pledge. As a Globe and Mail headline put it, “Tories stick to their guns.”

Aboot time, you might say, but that sensibly hard-headed approach has been missing in Canada for the period of Liberal rule, and some feared it was gone forever. David Miller, the left-wing mayor of Toronto, blamed recent shootings there by Jamaican gang members on America’s easy gun regime and a too-porous border. And Parliament has passed a slate of largely useless gun control measures, including a national long-gun registry to try to cut down on all those drive-by hunting-rifle shootings.

Harper’s party fell well short of a parliamentary majority, so they will be looking for issues to fashion coalitions around and which will better position Conservative candidates for the next go-round. Law and order issues will be awfully tempting. Some of the great demon figures in Canadian politics are the nation’s lenient judges, who seem to find new rights for criminals under every clause and semicolon of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to vote while in jail.

Unlike in the U.S., a national anti-crime effort could make real difference in the Great White North. Canada has a uniform criminal code that can be amended by an act of Parliament. And the RCMP is a cross between state troopers, the FBI, and Barney Fife. Many communities contract with the national government to provide all their local law enforcement needs, so changes in RCMP priorities would matter a whole lot more than D.A.R.E. (Hello, broken windows!)

As Harper contemplates the next election, the simple fact is that Liberals and the further left NDP have carved out strongholds in three of the nation’s larger urban areas: greater Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. He must whittle down support for the opposition parties there if he has any hope of holding on to power.

Fortunately for Harper two of those three locales are beset by serious gang violence, and polls indicate that the locals are mad as hell about it. They might even consider voting Conservative if the new government proves serious about punishing violent lawbreakers. Making MPs vote on, say, tougher sentencing laws and jail construction would hand Harper’s party either legislative victories or wonderfully effective attack ads.

And arming border officials might give new meaning to the last line of the country’s national anthem. You know, the part where hockey fans sing, “We stand on guard for thee.”

[fanfan]

I haven't heard that, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Simo Hayha]

Canadian MP Garry Brietkreuz believed criminals used the registry.
He said there were 19 suspicious thefts in the Edmonton area alone.
He said, "It is inconceivable that the theft of handgun reports to the police hasn't raised red flags in the RCMP and in the Canada Firearms Centre." page 122 of the October 2005 issue of American Rifleman. The NRA-ILA website may contain this same information, possibly additional info, as well.