NDP joins call for ban, wants tighter border against gun smuggling Jan 20, 2008 04:30 AM
Louise Brown Staff Reporter With two Toronto bystanders shot dead in one week, the New Democrats are calling for a cross-border political summit to tackle "the ongoing crisis" of illegal handguns crossing into Canada.
Standing near the Chinatown East grocery where clerk Hou Chang Mao was killed by a stray bullet Thursday while stacking oranges outside, federal NDP Leader Jack Layton yesterday joined Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller in urging an absolute ban on handguns.
Layton also wants federal funds committed to pay for more police on Canadian streets, and better witness protection and youth prevention programs.
"Mr. Mao is the third innocent person to be killed by stray gunfire if we include Jane Creba (the Boxing Day shopper killed in 2005)," said Layton during a press conference with NDP politicians from Ottawa, Queen's Park and City Hall.
John O'Keefe, 42, was killed by a bullet last weekend as he walked past the Brass Rail strip bar on Yonge St. near Bloor.
"We need a cross-border summit," said Layton, "to develop an action plan to stop illegal guns from coming across the border."
Canada should spend less money at the border fighting terror and more on curbing the illegal handguns that have been streaming in from the United States since we shifted the border focus, said NDP justice critic Joe Comartin.
The Windsor MP said his city is a major corridor for Midwest biker gangs that are exploiting the change of focus to smuggle across handguns – along with cocaine and heroin – that are sold to Ontario street gangs in return for drugs that they smuggle back to the U.S.
"These special investigations units at the border have seen their resources for traditional crime depleted by up to 50 per cent because of the focus on terror," he said.
Bilateral talks are needed with U.S. politicians "to discuss how to ramp up enforcement and stop the smuggling," Comartin said. "We are in a crisis of gun smuggling, mostly by organized crime on both sides of the border."
A cross-border summit on gun control should address the loose identity checks at some big gun shows in the U.S., Comartin added, where gun dealers skirt state laws restricting sales to residents of that state. Such gun shows often provide biker gangs with the illegal handguns that end up on Canadian streets, he said.
In Chinatown East at Gerrard and Broadview, shop owners were still grappling with the aftershocks of Mao's death and said some customers were staying away.
Hong He Shi, manager of the Fu Yao grocery that employed the victim for two years, said through an interpreter – Layton's wife, MP Olivia Chow – that he hopes police will take care of gun crime. He said the store's business this weekend was cut in half, and staff morale was not good.
Down the street, the Pearl Court restaurant was down by about 20 per cent, said manager Raymond Chan.
"People still might be scared to come, maybe English-speaking customers who make up about 60 per cent of our business," he said. "Or maybe it's just too cold today. This is a safe neighbourhood."
Marilyn Churley, former New Democrat MPP in the riding, said she has lived nearby for 25 years and passed the Fu Yao store "hundreds of times."
"We don't want people to be scared to come to these shops and restaurants – this neighbourhood was devastated for weeks during the SARS crisis (in 2003)," said Churley, who'll make a second attempt to win Beaches-East York riding in the next federal election.
