Carey Price learned that lesson last week when he weighed in on the current anti-gun debate roiling in the House of Commons.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on December 12, 2022.

OTTAWA—Hockey players should stay out of politics. Carey Price learned that lesson last week when he weighed in on the current anti-gun debate roiling in the House of Commons.

Poor Price should have stuck to hockey. He is definitely one of the best goalies in the business, but his depth of political knowledge is somewhat limited.

How else to explain the claim by the Montreal Canadiens that Price had never heard of the misogynistic massacre at École Polytechnique?

Their apologetic excuse, subsequently denied by Price, was that the event happened before he was born.

But that poorly-crafted lie inflamed the situation to the point where it even became a main topic for discussion in the Quebec National Assembly.

Price remembers who scored the winning goal in the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, even though he wasn’t born when it happened. 

Price remembers the famous Montreal Canadiens record-breaking lineup of the Rocket Richard, Jacques Plante, Doug Harvey, and Jean Béliveau.

But for some reason, Canadian women’s history does not seem to have had the same historical resonance, according to the Canadiens’ management. 

There is nothing wrong with someone weighing in on the facts around gun possession.

As a gun owner, Price was speaking from a place of personal experience. 

But before he decided to become the chief spokesperson for the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights, he should have done a little research into the details of the subject.

The ongoing gun violence in Canada’s major cities obviously needs action. But that urban desire for action runs smack into a rural desire to continue recreational hunting and fishing. 

Any political move must balance the wishes of both, unless the government has decided it does not want to elect any rural Members of Parliament. 

Price isn’t the only one who is opposing the current gun amendments.  

The Saskatchewan Party is using the legislation as a fundraising tool, having already launched a protest petition called “Stop the Trudeau gun ban”.

When it comes to gun laws, even some Liberals and New Democrats think the proposed legislation has gone too far.

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus has publicly attacked the government for amendments which include banning approximately half a million widely used hunting rifles that were approved for sale in the last batch of gun amendments. 

“I think they made some serious mistakes with this amendment and they have to fix it” was his blunt assessment of the gun ban extension to semi-automatic SKS rifles.  

Angus is right. Chances are the decision to extend the ban to SKS rifles was made by someone who had no idea of the political uproar it would cause.

The government has always argued that its gun legislation was meant to prevent mass murder, not to criminalize legal hunters. 

Many Canadians have actually purchased the SKS rifles in good faith as they were not on any previous ban list.

But the recommendation by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino that the government should buy back the banned weapons is not going to cut it. 

Instead, the cabinet needs to incorporate some political smarts into its policy-making.

If a key opposition voice like Angus, a northerner with a long and successful political career, can’t stomach the amendments, chances are they need to go.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that the current list of banned guns is being reviewed to ensure that it does not target legitimate gun owners. 

But Price’s inflammatory comments could encourage the government to double down on its position. 

The issue was a public relations fiasco for the Montreal Canadiens, who wrongly issued the original statement that Price did not know of the Polytechnique massacre.

He subsequently reversed that position in a social media post when he said he knew about the massacre of 14 women on Dec. 6, 1989.

On the eve of the anniversary, further outrage was provoked when the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights used the promo code “POLY” for purchasers to secure a 10 per cent discount on arms’ items from its online store. 

Price’s posting gave oxygen to the PolySeSouvient movement, which is lobbying for more limits on guns. 

Gun laws in Canada have proven to be political quicksand for successive governments in the past half century. 

It is impossible to table a piece of legislation which will satisfy both sides of this highly polarized debate.

However, if politics is defined as the art of the possible, the government needs to find a middle ground.

The best new gun law will likely satisfy neither side completely.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

In my day, threats were few and far between. Today, they are becoming commonplace, and almost expected or socially acceptable. But the viral load on the shoulders of every Member of Parliament should cause us all to sit up and take note.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 25, 2021.

OTTAWA—A parliamentary murder in the United Kingdom has left many Canadian Members of Parliament questioning their own safety.

And well they should.

Much has been said about the toxic debates generated by the influence of social media.

And that toxicity can lead to harm.

The image of Jan. 6 on Capitol Hill is burnt into our collective memory. When a gang of anti-politicians can roam the halls of power in one of the world’s most vaunted democracies, can anyone really be protected?

Our own Parliament was stormed by a madman, forcing the prime minister Stephen Harper and everyone else into hiding.

Just last week a second British murder in five years was perpetrated on 38-year political veteran MP David Amess while in a church meeting with constituents.

He was stabbed multiple times by an assailant who was a self-described Islamic State supporter.

A previous British shooting and stabbing of member Jo Cox also occurred while she was preparing to meet constituents on the eve of Brexit in what the British call a parliamentary surgery.

Frankly, the surgery is most vulnerable as it involves riding meetings with constituents.

The unsung work of a Member of Parliament can often involve dealing with people who are under tremendous personal stress or even suffering acute episodes of mental illness.

And the reality is that once members exit the relative safety of the Parliamentary Precinct, they are most vulnerable in their home communities.

When I served in Parliament, I was regularly threatened, with a brick once sailing through my office window so hard it hit the back wall. Luckily, no one was injured.

Provincial Hamilton East colleague Bob Mackenzie wasn’t so lucky. His constituency assistant was burned when the riding office was firebombed by an irate citizen who escaped without ever being arrested.

At one point, a constituent was harassing my staff and leaving hundreds of bizarre messages on my telephone. The riding office is supposed to be part of the parliamentary process so instead of the local police, the RCMP provides security.

The harassing individual entered city hall, where my mother was an elected city councillor, and burst into her office, slapping down a Soldier of Fortune magazine featuring an armed man sporting an Uzi on the front cover.

The man announced to my startled mother that this was the weapon he was going to use to kill me. At that point, the RCMP was called but because it was Friday evening, there was no one on duty in Hamilton. The backup investigator was in London, some 120 kilometres away.

When an officer finally responded, he discouraged me from pursuing charges, but I insisted. It turned out the individual in question had already been convicting of stabbing a journalist.

Cabinet ministers receive more security support than ordinary members, with police patrols established where they have a residence in Ottawa.

But the real danger is in ridings, far away from regular police protection.

Canadian Members of Parliament will be seized of the issue when Parliament reopens because of their own fears, observing what has been happening across the pond and down south.

They also face the bold new world of cyber-stalking.

NDP MP Charlie Angus was the target of a two-month cyber-stalking campaign last year.

The Twitter feed of former minister Catherine McKenna recounts internet threats and real-time graffiti attacks at her local campaign office.

McKenna joined other female environment ministers involved in the climate action fight, all of whom experienced misogynistic attacks.

She was quoted last week in the media saying her biggest challenge as minister was feeling constantly on edge. “It was the threats, people verbally accosting my staff & defacing my constituency office & sending me smashed up Barbie dolls.”

In my day, those threats were few and far between. Today they are becoming commonplace, and almost expected or socially acceptable.

Therein lies the problem. The toxic vocabulary used during election campaigns by many political parties increases the danger.

And the negative view of all things political which permeates the social media world has made things more dangerous.

The aggressive behaviour of anti-vaxxers picketing hospitals gives us some idea of just how unhinged some people can be.

Indeed, when it comes to protests, politicians are suggesting they should happen in front of Parliament not medical facilities.

But the viral load on the shoulders of every Member of Parliament should cause us all to sit up and take note.

The deaths in the United Kingdom and Washington are harbingers of what could easily happen in Canada.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

Published in The Hill Times on Monday, November 28, 2016.

OTTAWA—Charlie Angus is being heralded as the Canadian Bernie Sanders.

His decision to resign as chair of the New Democratic Party caucus to explore his leadership ambitions was wise and welcome.

Angus is a solid parliamentary performer who is well-respected for his understanding of rural, northern and aboriginal issues. He stands up for the marginalized, which puts him in sync with Sanders’ Democratic primary campaign message, but the comparison stops there.

There are two key reasons why the political gulf between Sanders and Angus is so wide.

First, the urban-rural split in the United States is quite different, and the bizarre electoral college system proffers disproportionate influence to certain states, which happen to have more small town voters.

Canada is a more urban country. In the most recent Statistics Canada data, more than 80 per cent lived in urban centres. Similar American statistics put the number of their urban dwellers at 70 per cent. Ten per cent doesn’t seem like a lot but a comparison of the two systems of voting will yield more clues as to why the Sanders-Angus comparison will not fly.

In Senator Sanders home state of Vermont, the capital city boasts a population of 7,855 which swells to 21000 during the day because of an influx of government workers from neighbouring bedroom communities.

Angus lives in Cobalt, Ontario’s most historic town, with a population of 1,133.

His Timmins-James Bay riding includes 83,104 people. The riding represents one seat in a House of Commons with 338 members.

Sanders’ state of Vermont has a population of 626,042, the second smallest in the union, and get three electoral college votes. With only 278 electoral college votes determining the presidency, the relative importance of Vermont voting patterns looms much larger in the race for the presidency.

The United States has more rural and small town voters, but most important, the electoral college system skews the influence of votes disproportionately toward those voters.

The second major difference between Angus and Sanders is that Sanders voting base exists within a party that has formed government. During the primary, Sanders’ message appealed directly to disaffected Democrats who felt they were being left behind by globalization and international trade deals.

From the rust belt through to the Midwest, Sanders attracted a swathe of voters similar to those who ultimately switched to Donald Trump. They included disaffected union members, the less educated and the kind of Flint, Michigan working-class voter documentarized by filmmaker Michael Moore.

For the most part, Angus’ New Democratic Party is already the home of that demographic. The leadership of the majority of Canadian public and private sector unions is formally, constitutionally tied to the NDP, with specific voting privileges at national and regional conventions.

Unlike American unions, Canadian labour leaders have sacrificed leverage by supporting only the NDP at a national level.

Some provincial trade unions have broken from that tradition.

The Working Families coalition in Ontario was formed to fight anti-union policies from any party. In the lead up to the provincial election that elected Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, they waged a vocal anti-Conservative campaign. The group including teachers, nurses, and construction workers, campaigned to vote strategically in ridings to defeat anti-union candidates.

The result had the effect of driving New Democrat voters over to the Liberals to stop Tim Hudak.

In the United States, labour unions can decide elections. In a few Canadian provinces, Quebec and British Columbia to be precise, labour plays a similar role. But those examples are rare, and generally flourish in two-party provinces.

Angus has a formidable challenge. He was quoted last week as saying he wants to build a bridge between the dreamers and the doers in his party. That will be no mean feat because the hard-core NDP membership is bound together by the ideology of socialism.

An ideologically based party is much harder to shift than a party shaped by the art of the possible. The historical strength of the Canadian Liberal Party has been based on a guiding set of principles tempered by political realism.

Governing has an abrupt way of snuffing out ideology. That doesn’t mean cabinets don’t care, but rather they are influenced more by what is done than what is dreamed. If the possibility of defeat looms, it has a way of focusing your attention. If a party has never actually formed government, it is much easier to promote idealistically unachievable goals.

Angus’ potential candidacy is good news for the NDP. But he is no Bernie Sanders.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.