Leitch seeking to legalize mace, pepper spray

Intended to curb violence against women

OTTAWA • Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch vowed Thursday to make it legal to carry mace or pepper spray, a move her campaign is positioning as a way to reduce the incidence of violence against women.

Mace, tear gas, pepper spray and other gases that can harm or incapacitate another person are currently listed as prohibited weapons in the Criminal Code.

In 2012, in Gatineau, Que., a store clerk used pepper spray to ward off an attack but was not charged for using the spray. But two 15-year-olds in Ottawa in 2013 ended up facing a combined 18 charges after discharging pepper spray on a city bus.

Leitch, should she become prime minister, would remove any ambiguity and make it legal for anyone to carry and use cans of mace for self-defence while continuing the prohibition on the use of pepper spray as a weapon in any other instance.

A can of pepper spray, usually sold as bear repellent, can be picked up in hardware and some department stores for about $50.

“My thoughts around this issue are primarily with Canadian women,” Leitch said in a statement.

“Clarifying the laws around the use of mace and pepper spray for selfdefence will give women a greater measure of protection against would-be attackers.”

Leitch, the MP for the Ontario riding of Simcoe-Grey, recently had to summon the police to her home near Creemore, Ont., to alert them to what she believed were online threats made to her.

A few hours after that, in the middle of the night, she was forced to call police again in response to what she believed was an intruder in her garage.

According to the most recent data collected by Statistics Canada, more than Self-defence pepper spray is currently listed as a prohibited weapon in the Criminal Code. 173,000 women in 2011 said they had been a victim of violence.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women has been studying the issue of violence against women and girls. That committee has been asked to consider some changes to the Criminal Code to recognize gender disparity when it comes to victims of violence.

Among the changes it may consider would be to recommend that a woman not be held to the same standards as a man in the case of self-defence.