Like Father, Like Son -- The Disingenuous Justin Trudeau

Considering the depths the Liberal Party sunk to in order to divide Canadians over the long-gun registry -- invoking support for the registry in urban regions over opposition in rural regions -- one should find it utterly comical to hear Liberal MP Justin Trudeau lecturing protesters about the Liberal Party's desires to "bring Canada together instead of allowing us to be driven apart".

The extent to which Trudeau -- like so many proponents of the long-gun registry -- chooses to argue in absence of fact is truly remarkable. When his "uniting Canadians" rhetoric falls flat and Trudeau is called upon to name a single Canadian saved by the long-gun registry, Trudeau insists that the registry has saved "many" Canadians, and refers to suicide statistics.

Trudeau is clearly ignorant of the statistics regarding suicide in Canada, and perhaps wilfully so.

As Dr Gary Mauser points out, the reduction in suicide with firearms -- actually the result of licensing and screening processes, rather than the registry -- has been accompanied by increasing rates of suicide by other means.

"Suicide rates have slowly declined over two decades. Firearm suicides have declined as well, but suicides by hanging have soared," Dr Mauser notes. "Some call this a success. In 1991, 3,500 people took their own life; in 2005, 3,700. The long-gun registry has not saved any lives."

Not only can Trudeau not present one single fact supporting maintaining the long-gun registry, but he refuses to acknowledge any fact that challenges his views.

For example, Trudeau mentions the support of the long-gun registry by the Canadian Association of Chiefss of Police. When asked about the CACP accepting a $115,000 donation from the CGI Group, the company that produces the software for the long-gun registry.

Trudeau suggests that "you're giving me facts that may or may not be true".

Not only is this fact true, but one of CACP's chief ethicists, Dr John Jones, resigned from the group's ethics committee over this and other matters.

With his brief attempt to divert into arguing based on facts falling flat, Trudeau instead reverts back to his disingenuous "dividing Canadians" tripe. What he didn't account for was that he was speaking to a group of urban long-gun registry opponents.

Oops.

Upon being confronted with this fact, Trudeau then attempts to fall back on arguments related to domestic violence. When asked why resources used to fund the long-gun registry aren't used to fund women's shelters instead, Trudeau simply retreats altogether.

Fortunately, the issue of the long-gun registry isn't going to go away, no matter how badly Trudeau and his fellow Liberals would like it to. Justin Trudeau will have plenty of opportunities to use this issue to demonstrate that he is every bit as disingenuous as his father was.