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FIRST READING: Another gun ban (that also probably won’t do anything)

Joe Biden screws over Canada again

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First Reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent direct to your inbox every Monday to Thursday at 6 p.m. ET (and 9 a.m. on Sundays), sign up here.

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TOP STORY

One of the few surprises in Tuesday’s Throne Speech was that the Liberal government intends to empower provinces to ban handguns if they want to. Under a proposed law, the federal government would refuse to issue restricted (ie: handgun) licences in any province or municipality that votes to become a “no handgun” jurisdiction. This is the Liberals’ second major swipe at gun control, after a controversial order in council last year that banned more than 1,500 firearms based largely on their “assault-style” appearance, rather than any inherent functionality.

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The good news: While “assault-style” firearms always represented a tiny fraction of the guns used in crimes, the opposite is true for handguns. Last year, half of all Canadian gun homicides were committed with a handgun. So, the feds are finally addressing a category of firearm that actually has some relation to the problem they’re purporting to solve.

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The bad news: A wildly disproportionate number of handguns used in Canadian crimes are smuggled in from the United States, and are thus unaffected by any ban. Earlier this month, Toronto Police Chief James Ramer identified illegal U.S. guns as the single largest factor affecting the city’s rising rates of gun crime – with nearly four in five Toronto crime guns originating in the United States.

Toronto Mayor John Tory attempted to encourage children to be vaccinated for COVID-19 by holding a press conference alongside this hideous golem creature, which was reportedly a character on the now-cancelled children’s program Polka Dot Door.
Toronto Mayor John Tory attempted to encourage children to be vaccinated for COVID-19 by holding a press conference alongside this hideous golem creature, which was reportedly a character on the now-cancelled children’s program Polka Dot Door. Photo by City of Toronto

IN OTHER NEWS

Our politicians are finally right back where we want them: Sitting on opposing benches throwing insults at each other on live TV. John Ivison was an eager spectator at the first Question Period of the 44th Parliament, and he gives a win to the Conservatives for forcing the prime minister to admit that he doesn’t know how much bacon costs. Ivison also spotted the minister for veteran’s affairs killing time in the House of Commons by playing solitaire on his phone.

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Google’s take on Patience, the most popular version of computer solitaire. According to John Ivison, the game is a favourite of Minister of Veterans Affairs Lawrence MacAulay when he’s trying to kill time in the House of Commons.
Google’s take on Patience, the most popular version of computer solitaire. According to John Ivison, the game is a favourite of Minister of Veterans Affairs Lawrence MacAulay when he’s trying to kill time in the House of Commons. Photo by Google

The Canadian Pacific Railway is once again sending trains into Vancouver just 10 days after catastrophic floods severed their usual links to the Lower Mainland. Mudslides on Nov. 15 severed CPR lines in at least 30 places, and even derailed a freight train in the Fraser Valley.

(Further to the above, a B.C. reader wanted us to remind everyone that even in the worst of the flooding, Canada never fully lost access to its Pacific ports: Prince Rupert always retained its rail and road links to Alberta and beyond).

The NDP appears to have said something mildly in support of the oil sector, for a change. After NDP House Leader Peter Julian said this week that he intends to seek an immediate halt to the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made sure to note that Julian is acting against party policy. To be clear, the federal NDP still hate the pipeline project, but they’re not planning to obstruct what they largely see as a done deal. As Singh told the Toronto Star, “I’ve always been opposed to the project, and I’ve said once in government we would assess and make the decision about what to do with the asset.”

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A fringe online figure known as the “QAnon Queen of Canada” has openly called for the murder of healthcare workers administering COVID-19 vaccines to children. Roman Didulo is a Canadian woman who has convinced thousands of online conspiracy theorists that she is the secret ruler of Canada, according to Vice Media. In a recent post, she told her 70,000 followers to “Shoot to kill anyone who tries to inject Children under the age of 19 years old with Coronavirus19 vaccines.” While it may seem like harmless online bluster, QAnon has inspired followers to commit murder before.

DATA NERD

The raw number of Canadian homicides is now higher than at any time in the last 30 years, although this is due in part to the actions of one man in murdering 22 people in a Nova Scotia mass-killing in early 2020. All told, 743 Canadians died by homicide in 2020, of which 277 were committed with a firearm. It’s the highest number of homicides that Canada has experienced since 1991, although the optimist could find some solace in noting that Canada had 10 million fewer people in 1991.

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Canada’s homicide rate from 1971 to 2020. While the raw number of homicides is at a 30-year high, it is still proportionally much lower than in 1991.
Canada’s homicide rate from 1971 to 2020. While the raw number of homicides is at a 30-year high, it is still proportionally much lower than in 1991. Photo by Statistics Canada

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

According to the people who keep an eye on such things, Canada appears to be altering its prior China strategy of meekly trying to stay out of Beijing’s way. The clue? The Speech from the Throne briefly mentioned that Canada would be strengthening its “Indo-Pacific” alliances – a term that most diplomats would understand to mean “everybody in the Pacific who isn’t China.” As China becomes ever-more bellicose about its territorial ambitions — particularly with regard to Taiwan and the South China Sea — it’s prompted a wave of defensive alliances among rival Pacific players. One of the most notable is AUKUS, a pact under which the U.S. and U.K. will help Australia acquire nuclear submarines.

The U.S. media is fond of saying that Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden have a “warm relationship.” So they may be surprised to learn that the White House once again took a measure that screwed over their northern neighbour. The United States has doubled its duties on softwood lumber to 17.9 per cent, a move expected to severely curtail Canadian forestry exports to the U.S. This is on top of Biden’s plans to implement a vehicle tax credit that would kneecap the Canadian auto sector. There’s also that major Canadian oil pipeline that Biden cancelled before immediately demanding that OPEC pump more oil to make up the difference.

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Things do not appear to have gone well for a Montrealer who left for Syria in 2013 with dreams of glory as an Islamic State fighter. Safwan Al-Kanadi is best-known for a 2014 video in which he burns his Canadian passport as a sign of fealty to the Islamic State, but he fell out with the group in 2016 and is now a prisoner of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, a Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate.

Safwan Al-Kanadi pictured destroying his Canadian passport in a 2014 ISIL propaganda video.
Safwan Al-Kanadi pictured destroying his Canadian passport in a 2014 ISIL propaganda video. Photo by File

SOLID TAKES

Terry Glavin – who is a British Columbian as well as a National Post columnist – has noticed a predictable federal response on the frequent occasion that something catastrophic happens to his province. Whether it’s record-breaking fires or a once-in-a-millennium flood, Ottawa first seizes on the tragedy as evidence of the need for dramatic action on climate change (“Our earth is in danger” is how the Speech from the Throne put it). Then, the feds proceed to enthusiastically ignore B.C. pleas to help rebuild.

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Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

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