FOR MONTREALERS, GUN CONTROL MATTERS
There’s just no comparison these days between Montreal and Toronto when it comes to homicide rates or gun violence.
So far this year, 59 people have been killed in Toronto, 30 of them by gunfire. That includes a 10-year-old girl and an 18-yearold woman who died during a mass shooting spree on the Danforth in late July; 13 people were also injured. Meanwhile, there have been 249 shootings, according to the latest crime data from Toronto Police. Among the wounded were two sisters, ages 5 and 9, caught in the crossfire at a playground.
In contrast, it has been crickets in Montreal. The number of homicides stands at 16 as of last week, after hitting a 46-year low in 2017 with only 22. And while there has been the odd shooting, there haven’t been enough to register unusual alarm with the public.
Still, Montrealers won’t get too smug about their relative safety — nor should they. The spectre of gun violence casts a long shadow over this city. The legacies of three mass shootings since 1989 still haunt Montreal, most notably the murders of 14 women at École Polytechnique. We’ve had our fair share of mob hits, street gang score-settlings and the biker wars, too. The slaying of six worshippers and wounding of many others at a Quebec City mosque in 2017 continues to reverberate.
For this reason, it is natural that Montreal will soon lend its voice to a growing national chorus demanding stronger gun-control legislation in this country. Alex Norris, the chair of the public security committee, announced that he will present a motion at the upcoming city council meeting calling on Ottawa to ban handguns and assault weapons in Canada, which, he rightly points out, are “principally designed to kill people.”
With Projet Montréal’s majority, the motion is sure to pass, putting Montreal front and centre once more in a national debate over gun control as the federal government reviews Bill C-71, tabled last spring.
This is right where Montreal should be. The Polytechnique tragedy gave rise to the movement that eventually led to Canada’s firearms registry, created in 1998. When the Conservative government of former prime minister Stephen Harper disbanded it in 2012, Montreal was the epicentre of efforts to keep it. Quebec launched a bid to maintain its portion of the data collected for the federal registry, a court battle it eventually lost.
But Quebec has since re-established its own long-gun registry, a law adopted 99 to eight in the National Assembly with crossparty support. It went into effect this past January, after the province successfully fended off legal challenges from pro-gun groups.
It’s difficult to know whether this law explains the latest disparity in gun violence between Montreal and Toronto. But it’s fair to say, most Montrealers and many Quebecers, tend to be generally supportive of restrictions on firearms ownership — and deeply offended by U.S.-style rhetoric like “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”
The recent multiple shootings in Fredericton, N.B., and the grim toll in Toronto this summer are certain to reignite debate over Bill C-71 when Parliament resumes in a few weeks. The federal bill proposes to beef up background checks for those seeking a firearms licence, return authority for classifying restricted weapons to the RCMP, require sellers to verify a purchaser’s permit, obligate vendors to keep records that include details on the buyer — and close other loopholes opened up by the Conservatives’ dismantling of gun laws in 2012.
But already advocates of tighter restrictions argue it doesn’t go far enough. The Coalition for Gun Control, which was formed in response to the Montreal Massacre, wants C-71 to give police access to sellers’ records as needed, rather than have to request a warrant. Toronto council has already passed a motion requesting that Ottawa ban the sale of handguns within city limits, while Ontario Premier Doug Ford has already rejected its plea for a prohibition on ammunition sales in Toronto.
Montreal’s call for a nationwide handgun and assault weapon ban thus ups the ante. Get set, then, for Montreal to perhaps become ground zero of the pushback against greater restrictions by hunters, sports shooters and collectors. They will argue that regulations are already onerous enough, that their pastimes are harmless fun, or that those with evil intentions will not be stopped by tougher laws.
But Montrealers know that the Quebec City and Dawson shooters obtained their firearms legally, despite a history of depression that ought to have disqualified them. (The alleged Fredericton sniper also had a licence to carry, incidentally). And the mosque shooter fired 48 rounds with a Glock handgun and had a semi-automatic rifle with a 29-round magazine, according to testimony heard in court; the Dawson shooter fired 72 times with a semi-automatic rifle and six times with a handgun, according to a coroner’s report that recommended outlawing such weapons.
For most Montrealers, these are not proof that gun control measures are futile, but that the failure to act to keep dangerous firearms out of the wrong hands only compounds subsequent tragedies.
This city may not be the one in the crosshairs of gun violence for the moment — but Montreal is only too keenly aware that public security must never be taken for granted.
Montreal is only too keenly aware that public security must never be taken for granted.