Earlier this week, the Conservative Party of Canada launched a fundraising drive on the hot button issue –for Tories — of the long-gun registry. The Conservatives also launched a series of radio ads targeting 8 Liberal MPs who have voted in the past to kill the registry.
Now the Liberals are fighting back. The following letter went out this afternoon from Liberal National HQ:
[NAME REMOVED] —
Barely 48 hours after Michael Ignatieff proposed sensible changes to make the long gun registry fairer and more effective, Stephen Harper has opened the Conservative war chest – and teamed up with the gun lobby – launching personal attacks against MPs and police who support gun control. As the Liberal Party’s chief fundraiser, I need your help right now to fight back.
The attacks began as Conservative spokesman and Saskatchewan MP Gerry Breitkreuz compared Canada’s police chiefs to “members of a cult” who “should be ashamed of themselves” for defending the gun registry – a tool police officers use over 11,000 times each day in their work protecting public safety.
Close behind was a deluge of radio ads targeting Liberal MPs in rural ridings, spreading misinformation and questioning the integrity of our MPs for doing exactly what you and I elect our representatives to do – listen to their constituents and work to adapt the laws of the land in ways that find common ground.
Police across the country tell us that they rely on the gun registry. I believe them. Law abiding gun owners tell us the gun registry has problems in its current form and I believe them too. So we need a balanced solution and the Liberal proposal provides it. Now, our MPs who helped to create that solution are under fire and need our support.
That’s why it’s critical that we respond with a targeted ad campaign of our own. Canadians need accurate information about the changes we’ve proposed, and the MPs under attack need to know that Liberals from coast to coast to coast are standing behind them.
Please be a part of making these ads happen. Your donation of $100, $250, or whatever you can afford will contribute directly to this important campaign. And if we receive your donation online before midnight Monday, we’ll send you a special link to be among the very first to see the ads in the coming days.
The Conservatives continue with tactics that attempt to divide rural and urban Canada. You and I can’t let that happen.
Thank you.
Adam Smith
National Director, National Liberal Fund
PS. In addition to helping build this ad campaign, your donation will earn you a generous tax credit of up to 75 per cent. That means that you’ll get as much as $75 of your $100 contribution back at tax time, and a $250 contribution costs only $62.50!
Yet again, the figure of 10,000+ uses a day comes up. It's been long known that that figure reflects the fact that every criminal record check AUTOMATICALLY polls that database, whether the officer cares or not, and usually with no results as the criminals don't generally register their weapons.
The figure of INTENTIONAL access is closer to dozens than thousands.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Firearms_Registry#Usage :
“Chief Armand LaBarge, president of the Ontario Association of Police Chiefs, stated that police officers across the country search the registry about 18 times per day. (Instead of the misled 9,400 a day where any personal information search is count as a hit)”
What a bunch of copycats. They even imitate the style of the Conservative fund raising emails. They previously copied their mail bulletins. Can the Liberals come up with anything on their own. NOPE.