Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Phil's Silly Stats

Phil claims that he conducted "fairly extensive" surveying of Brantfordians on the long gun registry issue. I wonder if he considers mailing an insultingly biased survey to your house as a statistically reliable source!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Friday, September 24, 2010

Phil's Pointless Promise

Phil McColeman was very happy to announce funding for an extension to Brantford's famous Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre. But then he imposed an impossible construction deadline. Now city councilors are desperately trying to get a funding extension for the project beyond March 2011. If they don't get an extension, Brant is faced with the choice of either paying extra money to get the project finished early, or paying extra money to complete the project after the deadline.


Brantford City Councilor Richard Carpenter said that "the federal government was interested mainly in showy photo-ops and not needed work such as road repair, leading to an overwhelming amount of arena and community centre renovations across the country and thus causing a bottleneck situation with contractors" that ultimately raised the cost of doing these renovations.

In Ottawa, Phil was too busy blabbering on about the gun registry instead of fighting for issues that really affect Brantfordians. However, Liberal Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Critic John McCallum did stand up for Brantford. McCallum said,
Next year, the Conservatives will spend billions on corporate tax cuts, while offering no flexibility to cities and communities who had to wait on the government’s delays.… The federal government is stiffing municipal ratepayers with the bill for Conservative delays instead of helping to finish projects. We need to finish the job and extend the deadline.
But Brant city councilors doubt that Phil and the Conservatives will listen to their request.

One Mouth, Two Tongues

French Canadians have an expression that goes, "She has one mouth, two tongues." It means that somebody contradicts themself or says two opposite things. It certainly applied to Phil McColeman yesterday. First, he behaved like a sore loser after losing the vote on the gun registry, which has proven to be an invaluable crime-fighting tool. In Parliament he said:
Twenty coalition MPs originally supported the simple and straightforward bill to scrap the long gun registry, but under pressure from their Ottawa bosses, they turned their backs on their constituents and voted to keep the registry. One of those flip-floppers…

On this side of the House, we do not believe in treating law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters as criminals and we will continue to work to scrap the $2 billion wasteful registry.
Well you know what, Phil? If I don't register and insure my car I can be charged on summary conviction and have to pay a fine. In other words, I'm a "criminal." That's because a car can be used as a deadly weapon and can cause damage to property, in addition to being an invaluable tool. Kind of like a gun, don't you think?

Then, Phil spoke in favour of a nonsensical tough-on-crime bill regarding prisoner transfers, despite the fact that crime has been decreasing for decades in Canada:
…we have taken action on the economy and on many other fronts including cracking down on crime. In particular, we have introduced several measures to crack down on violent gun crimes.

The bottom line, as I mentioned, is that Canadians want a justice system that works.

[This bill], therefore, reflects this government's commitment we have made to Canadians to stand up for victims and to ensure our streets, our homes, and our playgrounds are safer places.

This act would ensure the protection of our society is given paramount consideration
So instead of preventing violent gun crime by making people register their guns, Phil would rather punish people after they've committed the crime. In terms of considering the victim, I think that your average victim would rather not be a victim in the first place. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Just ask MP Scott Simms what it's like to have someone in your family killed by a gun. He is one of the "flip-floppers" who voted in favour of the gun registry. If we can prevent even a single death, he said, the registry is worth it. He didn't mention punishment after the fact.

(Mr. Simms also doesn't go around posting tasteless photos of himself with assault rifles.)

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Phil with an Automatic Weapon

True to form, Phil has posted a photo of himself with an automatic weapon on his website.


(See this post, this post, this post, and this post for more on Phil's unwavering hatred of the firearms registry).