Senator Richards: And it is done by urban Canadians who don’t understand what rural Canadians do, or who they are.

My rifles were used for hunting an age ago. Though I no longer hunt, they are my keepsakes from years gone by. However, they are in the crosshairs of a new and earnest regulation. It is a regulation that hopes to mitigate crime, but it refuses, in many cases, to direct its focus on those who would commit them.

I want to believe that Bill C-21 means well, but it is a bill that is arrogant in assumption, and concocted by many people who have never owned a weapon, have never used one, have never scouted for moose or deer, have never set up a moose stand in the rain or have never waited on a rut mark until dark. These are extremely important abilities and valuable knowledge for any rural Canadian — White, First Nation, French or English.

To depart from my speech for a minute, if you are a rural Canadian and live in the Maritimes, or anywhere in rural Canada, you probably know about running a river, which means that you take a canoe down the river in early spring for fiddleheads. Then, you head down with your rod and fish trout. You wait for the salmon to come in June, and then the grilse follow the salmon. Next, you fish for the big trout later in the summer. By then, you are scouting for moose and setting up your moose stand. Then, in November, when it becomes cool, you are hunting deer. This tradition has gone on for as long as I have been alive, and for centuries before that. This is a tradition that urban Canadians don’t understand regarding regulations for guns.

I refuse to say that their intentions are malicious, but perhaps they’re ill-conceived. Many who will be exploited by this law — those who will be scrutinized — have done nothing to deserve such scrutiny. I would agree that it’s fine if it were to stop the great majority of crime and murder, but I am not convinced that it will. More regulation will seem to do so — and that is what this law not only proposes, but also desires. It fits the pattern of Canadian oversight that is often both rigid and ineffective. More regulation is the new and treasured opioid of the masses.

Why are people writing to me about these laws? Why are they so angry about this bill? It is because they are being lectured, once again, by a government that assumes and presupposes a superior moral nature against certain members of its own citizenry, and acts with uppity condescension toward so many who have done no wrong, suspecting them — without evidence — of things they would not do, while being unable to stop those who will continue to do wrong despite the regulations they continuously and tiresomely propose.

This bill targets only those it feels comfortable in targeting.

Senator D. Patterson: Hear, hear.