Ottawa area Liberal MPP showed his complete lack of understanding on these issues will ill-thought out comments this week.

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If you ever needed proof that Liberals don’t understand gun crime, gun control or gun policy beyond using it to scare people, Stephen Blais is walking proof.

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The MPP for Orleans in Ottawa stood up to try and make a point this week on guns and judges getting tough on crime and utterly failed.

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The Liberals at Queen’s Park have been trying to make hay out of the fact that Premier Doug Ford appointed two people who used to work for him to the panel that vets lawyers seeking judicial appointments. Imagine that, the party that won the election appointing people who philosophically agree with them to advisory roles in the government.

This is a complete non-scandal because not only does every party do this, but they should do this. You advance the agenda you were elected on by relying on those who agree with you to get things done.

No matter that the previous Ontario Liberal government did this or that the federal Liberal government that Blais supports does this, he and his party want to make this an issue.

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On Wednesday though, Blais decided to go a step further and point out that Matt Bondy, Ford’s former deputy chief of staff who is now chair of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee, is also registered to lobby for a gun manufacturer.

“How can we believe the Premier’s tough-on-crime stance when he’s asked the guy who sells the guns to appoint the judges?” Blais asked during Question Period.

And with that, he showed everyone that he knows absolutely nothing about guns.

Bondy is indeed a lobbyist for a gun manufacturer, a company out of Kitchener called Colt Canada that only makes and sells weapons to the Canadian military and law enforcement. In fact, Colt’s only reason to exist with their facility in Kitchener is so that Canada has a secure domestic supply of rifles and other small arms for the Canadian military.

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If Blais walked into his local gun store he wouldn’t be able to buy anything from Colt Canada. They make some fantastic firearms, but they do not sell into the retail market.

Nor are they guns found in the hands of criminals on the streets of Ottawa. No one is doing a drug deal with a C7 rifle, a C20 sniper rifle or Colt’s EAGLE single shot grenade launcher.

These are products designed for and sold to the Canadian military and police services across the country.

Colt produces the guns used by the guys who arrest the bad guys with guns.

But why let the truth get in the way of scaring people?

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Doug Ford has expressed his frustration with judges and justices of the peace giving light sentences or letting repeat violent gun offenders out on bail for years now. This isn’t a new thing for him, he’s been saying this since before he was elected premier.

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But now that he’s appointed two people who used to work with him, and who agree with his judicial philosophy, to the panel that screens judges and the Liberals, the NDP and much of the media are losing their collectivist little minds.

Why?

It’s not because Liberals don’t appoint like-minded people when they are in office, it’s that they do it and claim they are all being non-partisan and neutral when in reality, they aren’t. Ford is being upfront in what he wants.

“I’m proud to go out there and tell the people who are seeing violence in their homes, violence on the streets, violence in our subways, that we’re going to get judges that are actually going to keep these criminals in jail,” Ford said in response to Blais’ bizarre question.

Ask the public what they care about, it isn’t lobbyists, it’s keeping criminals behind bars. That’s something Blais’ Liberal Party has been against for years.

blilley@postmedia.com

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