Every December 6, the entire nation stops to engage in a few sombre hours of navel-gazing, wondering just how what took place on December 6, 1989 could have happened.
Some people have wondered how what took place when Marc Lepine -- also known as Gamil Gharbi -- burst into L'Ecole Polytechnique, divided the men from the women and murdered the women, could be prevented. Others have pretended, but done nothing more. They've only pretended.
Sadly, some of those who were victimized in 1989 are among the latter, and not the former. They've participated in the politicization of the L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre, and they've taken it beyond being merely ideological, and made it partisan.
Today, Tory MPs were excluded from a L'Ecole Polytechnique memorial. The idea was to punish Conservative MPs for daring to abolish the Long Gun Registry, that government program that has had magical violence-abating qualities ascribed to it even though no evidence has ever supported that notion.
More on this shortly.
But the organizers of the "memorial" -- among them Suzanne Laplante Edward whose daughter was sadly killed at L'Ecole Polytechnique, Coalition for Gun Control President Wendy Cukier, and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union -- have made it clear that the purpose of the "memorial" is not actually to memorialize the victims of Lepine/Gharbi, or the victims of gun violence, but simply a political rally. Nothing more.
They can deny it all they want, and they will. But they're just not telling the truth.
A memorial for the victims of gun violence would require only mutual revulsion at what took place on December 6, 1989. Disagreement with whether or not a specific programme has had any effect on gun violence -- involving long guns or otherwise -- would be tolerated. But not by Laplante, Cukier, or the CEP. The decision to exclude those who don't agree with them about the Long Gun Registry is, to that end, predictable. Such people have never tolerated disagreement, regardless of what the facts actually indicate.
In the end, the only thing remarkable thing about the move is that Laplante, Cukier and company declined the opportunity to emotionally blackmail Conservative MPs in person. Because that's all these things have been about.
It certainly isn't about what the facts state. If it were, getting Long Gun Registry advocates to acknowledge the information contained in this graph, originally published by the Globe and Mail, wouldn't be like pulling teeth.
Compiled using data on gun crime from Stats Canada, the graph clearly shows that violence involving long guns had been declining Canada since 1982 -- seven years before L'Ecole Polytechnique, and 12 years before the long gun registry was established.
It's staggering and undeniable evidence that the LGR just hasn't been the miracle cure that its advocates insist it has been. The LGR is a mere cosmetic gun control measure, designed to give the illusion that something different has been done, while in fact it does nothing.
The Long Gun Registry would be bad enough if it were merely ideological. But it's far worse than that. The steadfast and ongoing tantrums of the LGR's advocates, even in the face of all the available information -- actual information, as opposed to merely the assertions of its supporters -- demonstrates that the LGR is in fact demagogic in nature.
It merely appeals to the prejudices, emotions (particularly fears) and vanity of Canada's left-wing, and is merely being allowed to stand as a symbol not of Canada's opposition to gun violence -- actually violence-combatting measures alone would do that -- but of the left-wing's success in rebuilding Canada in its own image.
That a Conservative majority government could exist at all is deeply threatening to that notion. That they would dare destroy one of the left-wing's sacred cows is yet even more threatening. That's all they really care about.
These memorials, whom the politically-motivated self-appointed gun violence martyrs demand that Conservatives stay away from -- have finally succeeded in trampling the memories of those actually killed December 6, 1989, and holding up their bloody carcasses as political strawwomen.
It's emotional blackmail, and it's their intention that the fix is in. The Tories should show not an ounce of quarter. Abolish the long gun registry, destroy the data, and let the demagogues weep over it.
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