In what has become an all too familiar practice for world leaders when times get tough at home, the Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, is blaming the US for a record number of murders in Ontario’s largest city. In 2005, there have been 78 murders in Toronto, with over half the result of gun violence. Naturally, there can be but one cause in a situation like this…why it’s America of course. America is exporting violence to the streets of Canada. That makes perfect sense, in fact why not blame America for every murder committed everywhere in the past 230 years?

Martin, along with the mayor of Toronto, argue that the easy availability of guns, some of which have been illegally smuggled in to Canada from the US, has led to the high murder rate. In fact, the mere existence of guns has been known to drive gun owners, gun shop owners, soldiers, policemen, gun manufacturers and distributors into mad demon possessed killing rages. In fact even seeing a gun will drive a person to kill, or so the story goes according to the prime minister.

So why is Martin blaming America for the tragedy of gun violence in Canada? Because Canada isn’t the heaven on earth, Canadian officials would have us believe. Because Canada faces real problems of poverty, unemployment and cultural permissiveness and criminal victimization, which are fertile grounds for criminality. Its much easier for Martin to place blame on America, rather than own up to the fact that their country faces real problems requiring real solutions. This sentiment was echoed by, Toronto security analyst, John Thompson, calling Martin’s position a “cop out.” As Thompson noted, Canada has a gang problem, not a gun problem. For politicians like Paul Martin, a Mussolini in training, its much easier to distract the electorate, especially in the run up to an election, with phony assertions of blame rather than recognize Canada’s real problem issues.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/12/27/canada.crime.ap/index.html