EDITORIAL: Fixing problems we didn’t know existed

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A time-honoured tradition among governments that have run out of steam is to invent problems for them to solve. Meanwhile, they ignore real issues because they have no solutions.

Whenever the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raises the issue of abortion, it’s trying to avert attention from its ineptitude in a desperate attempt to paint Conservatives as misogynists who’d take women’s rights back to the dark ages.

Likewise, when they resurrect gun control, Liberals are scraping the barrel looking for ways to depict Conservatives as gun-toting gangsters. Last week, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced a further ban on guns, adding 324 unique makes and models of “assault-style” weapons to its list of banned firearms.

In 2020, the Liberal government announced it was banning about 1,500 weapons through a forced buy-back program that’s still not up and running. The parliamentary budget officer has estimated the program could cost more than $750 million to implement.

All gun bans do is target law-abiding gun owners who obtain their firearms legally. Those who use guns to commit murder and mayhem on our streets are hardly likely to be concerned about the legality of their weapon.

LeBlanc speculated that guns collected from the ban could be sent to Ukraine. That demonstrates, surely, that this policy was written on the back of a napkin. What would Ukraine possibly do with a mishmash collection of weapons, all requiring different ammunition and many of them decrepit or antique?

Transportation Minister Anita Anand inserted the government firmly into the airline business last week, announcing she was going to meet with their CEOs because she didn’t like a change in Air Canada’s carry-on policy.

Whatever you think of the airline charging lowest-fare passengers for cabin baggage, it’s hardly the job of a minister to tell it how to run its business. Other airlines have similar policies. Travellers have options. If they don’t like Air Canada’s terms and conditions, they can use another carrier.

Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians are plagued by inflation and a housing problem that’s causing hardship, especially for young people. If the government spent more time on those issues and stopped meddling in areas where it has no jurisdiction, this country would be a much better place to live.