By arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Last week, the federal Liberals wasted no time in playing politics with the deadly shooting at Montreal's Dawson College that took place the week before. Using the incident of the tragic death of anastasia DeSousa and the serious injuries to others to uphold their beloved gazillion dollar gun registry, Liberal MP Lucienne Robillard said that the registry should remain, even if it saves just one life. The rights of farmers, hunters and other law abiding Canadians regarding guns should remain overly restricted in order that one mythical Canadian can remain alive. and damn the cost.
Last Sunday, the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon was held. Forty-one year old Martin Poyser, who was running the half marathon collapsed and died while approaching the finish line. Poyser's death was hardly an isolated incident in the Big Smoke. Martin Poyser became the 4th person to die while running in a Toronto marathon in the past five years.
Surprisingly, or maybe not there was no hue and cry to ban the marathons that are being held in the capital city of the province that once toyed with the idea of banning non pre-frozen sushi based upon a rumour that someone, somewhere in Europe might have gotten sick from eating it.
Of course to the beautiful people, the trendy, marathons are good and guns are bad. Saving the life of just one person is an irrelevant factor when it comes to doing what they want to do. It doesn't seem to matter that four times as many people have died running in organized marathons in Toronto than have died in a hale of bullets in a post-secondary institution during the past five years.
The organizers of the marathon were quick to downplay Poyser's death. We now know for certain that whoever this one person is whose life is worth saving it was not Martin Poyser. according to alan Brookes, the director of the race, there were more than 10,000 people who ran the marathon and half marathon. Brookes was quoted as saying, "I think it's baseball. Life is a game of percentages." That should bring some comfort to Mr. Poyser's family.
The medical director of the event, Dr. Bruce Minnes, rationalized the death by saying that deaths that occur while running marathons are "actually quite uncommon". Now, being a medical doctor, we can safely assume that he spent at least a somewhat significant portion of his life in attendance at post secondary educational institutions. He would surely agree that being shot to death in a post secondary institution by a piece of scum like that which was once Kimveer Gill is also "quite uncommon". In fairness to Bruce Minnes and others involved in the organization of marathons, they are not the ones who are going on and on and on about the gun registry, but you get the point.
More significant than any comments that might have been made by those connected with the Scotiabank run is the absolute silence from the politicians. Where is the Toronto City Council; the body that banned pesticides in order to save lives? Where's Furious Georgie Smitherman, Ontario's Minister of Health, who tried ban sushi in order to save lives based on dubious information (George is probably still resting up from having run the marathon last Sunday)? and more importantly, where are the federal Liberals; the ones who crow that long guns must be registered in order to save just one life? Why aren't they out denouncing marathons and calling for their bans to save what will ultimately be further deaths by some of those who take part in future runs?
The reality, of course is that restricting long guns has absolutely nothing to do with saving even the one life that is so often touted. It is all about ideology. If politicians were really concerned about saving lives, they would move to ban these organized marathons that can expect to see deaths in the future. But, of course they won't and we all know that.
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