Juno News - Gun owners planning ‘integrity march’ on Parliament Hill

00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:07.820 Well, we know that since Justin Trudeau was elected,

00:00:10.720 gun owners have been a group that the Liberals feel they can go after with impunity.

00:00:15.960 And there are a lot of things that play into this that we've spoken about in the past.

00:00:19.800 The media not understanding guns, a lot of politicians not wanting to get in and have these discussions.

00:00:25.280 But for the most part, any time I've spoken about firearms on this show,

00:00:30.000 the volume of response it gets is huge.

00:00:33.380 And not just from gun owners, but people that say,

00:00:36.100 yeah, you know what, I guess I didn't actually know how ubiquitous gun ownership was in Canada.

00:00:41.280 So it is important that people know that gun owners are here.

00:00:44.820 They're a part of the country.

00:00:46.200 They're not posing any problems.

00:00:47.680 And hopefully get the politicians to stop picking on this group,

00:00:51.260 to use a term that sounds trite, just because they feel it's politically advantageous to do so.

00:00:56.540 Well, one of the big firearms groups in Canada, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights,

00:01:01.560 is hosting a big march on Parliament Hill, a march in Ottawa, that's coming up on September 12th.

00:01:08.380 It's called the Integrity March.

00:01:10.280 We'll talk about what exactly they hope to achieve with this with Rod Giltaka,

00:01:14.400 the CEO and Executive Director of CCFR, who joins me on the line now.

00:01:19.040 Rod, good to talk to you.

00:01:19.900 Thanks for coming back on the show.

00:01:21.880 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:01:22.960 So what's the point of this?

00:01:24.400 So the point of this is we don't seem to be getting the proper focus on this conversation.

00:01:32.500 Taking guns away from millions of Canadians is a big deal.

00:01:35.560 It's a big problem.

00:01:36.980 So we hope to show Canadians that maybe aren't familiar with what gun owners look like,

00:01:42.460 who gun owners are, which is basically your neighbours and the people in your community.

00:01:46.740 We also want to bring some attention to our issue, because it's very difficult to get your message out in any long format,

00:01:55.640 long enough to explain what the issues are on mainstream media.

00:01:58.520 And of course, they're biased against us because they're getting a paycheck from the people that want to confiscate the guns.

00:02:04.300 So we're trying to get a little bit more national attention of what we're doing.

00:02:07.760 And we also want to be there and accessible to mainstream Canadians.

00:02:11.940 This is something that I find to be so important, the idea of normalizing gun ownership.

00:02:17.660 And for a lot of people, they were raised with guns.

00:02:20.500 They know what they are.

00:02:21.480 It's not a political thing for them.

00:02:22.960 It's just a way of life.

00:02:24.320 And then you get similarly, even people on the quote unquote right that grew up in cities like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver,

00:02:31.100 they've never been around it, they've never been exposed to it.

00:02:34.180 And when confronted with that, you have two options.

00:02:37.100 You can either say, all right, I'm going to learn a bit more about this,

00:02:40.240 or the alternative that I think a lot of people in the media do,

00:02:43.600 dig their heels in and say, no, I don't like guns, I don't want to be around them.

00:02:47.500 How do you educate people with a march?

00:02:50.580 I mean, it's one thing to say, yeah, we're here, but the media could just as easily say,

00:02:54.380 oh, they're just, you know, angry and bitter and all of that stuff.

00:02:56.860 Well, what we're hoping to do is have gun owners come from across the country

00:03:01.400 and hopefully more from the general area, right?

00:03:04.460 So people don't have to drive for four days.

00:03:07.620 But like I said, be accessible to media.

00:03:09.940 So if the media is really curious, they can come down and they can talk to us.

00:03:13.100 We're going to be there.

00:03:13.840 We're going to be conducting interviews.

00:03:15.360 We're going to have film crews there recording the entire event ourselves.

00:03:20.660 And again, we just want to be available.

00:03:23.180 And hopefully some pictures will come out, even if it's minimal media coverage.

00:03:29.320 At least there'll be some footage being shown.

00:03:31.840 And Canadians will see who these terrible gun owners are. 0.93

00:03:34.420 They're the mechanic that works on your car or the lawyer that prepared your will or the doctor in ER.

00:03:39.300 We're just regular Canadians.

00:03:41.220 So we just have to do something because the persecution against gun owners is unprecedented.

00:03:46.880 I know predicting numbers on a new event, something that has never happened before, is always difficult.

00:03:52.600 So I'll ask the question in a bit of a different way here, Rod.

00:03:55.920 What do you think would constitute a success for turnout?

00:04:00.180 Well, I'm not a fan of hyperbole.

00:04:02.380 So I'm not going to say, you know, we're getting 2.2 million gun owners out because that's a total number of gun owners in the country.

00:04:08.260 Well, not gun owners, but licensed gun owners.

00:04:11.380 I'd like to get 1,000 people there.

00:04:13.100 1,000 people is a big crowd.

00:04:15.620 And one of the other things I'd like to do is contrast that to our political adversaries.

00:04:20.600 So let's say the spin doctors for protection from guns, you know, they had their national day of action.

00:04:27.140 You know, there's going to be action across the country.

00:04:28.800 There's like four people in Calgary.

00:04:30.540 Even in their epicenter of Toronto, they probably had 100 people.

00:04:34.180 But yet they tell us relentlessly, ad nauseum, oh, Canadians are overwhelmingly in favor of people like me getting stepped on, my property taken, and then somehow that's going to stop gang shootings or some guy dressed up as an RCMP officer shooting our fellow citizens. 0.96

00:04:51.420 It's ridiculous. 0.95

00:04:52.020 So I want to contrast that.

00:04:54.680 So I'd like to see at least 1,000 people there.

00:04:57.300 How do you keep hopeful?

00:04:59.060 Because I think the one thing when Justin Trudeau won in 2015 and was really aggressively pursuing increased gun control and then got reelected, there were a lot of gun owners.

00:05:09.400 I think probably more than any group or at least as much as some groups that were saying this is it.

00:05:14.420 Like, we're done.

00:05:15.320 And then after the Nova Scotia attack, when that's used as political cover to put forward a gun grab through an order in council, I mean, a march is great.

00:05:24.120 I mean, you need a political change, though, do you not?

00:05:27.440 You do.

00:05:28.260 The easiest way to turn this back is to get a conservative majority elected.

00:05:35.320 But the problem is that I'm, I would say, the second generation of firemen, you know, activists, right?

00:05:42.240 So back in the 90s, all of this stuff happened before, and it will all happen again.

00:05:47.720 We will fight the same fights over and over and over again.

00:05:51.120 So it's great to get a conservative majority.

00:05:53.440 That's what's needed on a number of levels, right, maybe even to save the economy of the country.

00:05:58.080 There's a number of reasons.

00:05:59.660 But as far as gun control is concerned, we need that to turn back the clock at least three months, right, to before this ridiculous gun ban and maybe before Bill C-71 as well.

00:06:11.000 But we're taking legal action against the government on constitutional violations, and we're hoping that maybe we don't have to fight this fight every 20, 30 years like it's happening right now.

00:06:22.880 I want to ask you about the name of it, Integrity March, and the tagline of this, demanding integrity from legislators.

00:06:29.320 Why is that the word that you align or associate with this cause and this march?

00:06:34.780 Well, we named it after our integrity tour way back, which was kind of a political stunt during the election to, you know, just draw attention to the issue.

00:06:43.720 But there's no integrity in Ottawa.

00:06:47.020 And I'll give you an example.

00:06:48.240 This is one of the reasons why people like me, why I'm so frustrated and gun owners are frustrated, is Bill Blair tells Canadians that he is absolutely obsessed with the safety of Canadians.

00:06:58.100 And he'll literally do anything to ensure that Canadians are safe, you know, and that's an interesting thing.

00:07:03.640 And if you if you look at an election promise that the Liberals made back in 2015, it was to spend 350 some odd million dollars on gang guns and gangs, right, trying to get these gang members off the street.

00:07:17.800 Well, here we are five years later, and they have not even spent they have not even allocated that 350 million dollars yet.

00:07:27.040 Look, what's happening now is they're handing out tens of billions in every direction every day of the week.

00:07:32.880 And he's willing to risk, you know, everything, everything that's associated with a gun grab and the billions that that's going to cost.

00:07:40.080 So there's no integrity.

00:07:42.120 He lies on a daily basis to Canadians.

00:07:44.340 And Canadians need to expect more.

00:07:46.340 And I don't know what it's going to take for people to understand that.

00:07:49.280 What is the actual structure of the event going to be?

00:07:52.220 I know it's a march, but it's a new event.

00:07:54.420 We don't have previous years to look at.

00:07:56.300 I know I'm going to be there covering it.

00:07:57.680 But what can I expect?

00:07:58.760 And what can those who attend expect?

00:08:01.800 So as most things that we do at the CCFR, we try to do them differently and better, not always achieving that.

00:08:08.000 But that's the goal.

00:08:08.700 So we are not holding a rally where we have a stage and people listening, you know, to speakers blabbering on for three hours.

00:08:18.180 We just we just didn't want to do that.

00:08:20.200 So the whole event is probably going to take an hour.

00:08:23.420 We're going to meet on Parliament Hill.

00:08:24.480 We have a pipe and drum band to lead us.

00:08:27.200 We're going to have signs.

00:08:28.240 We're going to have PPE.

00:08:30.040 We're going to have everything prepared for everyone.

00:08:32.540 We're going to march off the Parliament grounds down Wellington.

00:08:36.580 We're going to take two lefts and march all the way up Spark Street to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, take two lefts and then end it back at Parliament.

00:08:44.140 So start to finish probably an hour.

00:08:46.660 And we're just going to have we're doing this partially for our own reasons, which are probably not overt, but we're going to we're hoping to get a lot of coverage.

00:08:56.000 We're hoping to unite gun owners and we're hoping that Canadians will see that this is just we're regular people and we don't deserve to be treated like this.

00:09:02.780 We haven't done anything to deserve it.

00:09:05.220 Now, I know in the in the US, we've seen rallies and marches where people are actually armed for them.

00:09:10.980 And I know we have a different system as far as what's allowed and what's not allowed here.

00:09:15.520 But I just want to because I know what the criticisms are going to be to this.

00:09:18.680 This is not a show off your guns march.

00:09:20.820 This is a show off who the gun owners of Canada march are.

00:09:25.460 One hundred percent.

00:09:26.640 Absolutely no firearms at this event.

00:09:29.960 Right.

00:09:30.620 It's that we have a different culture here.

00:09:33.260 And, you know, it's just yeah, it's not the same at all.

00:09:36.440 And, you know, I appreciate you bringing that to my attention, because even in the video that I did, even some of the commentary that I've done so far, people are like, well, no guns.

00:09:44.040 Right. It's like, yeah, absolutely no guns.

00:09:46.500 That's not what we want here.

00:09:47.760 We want we don't want to show Canadians how angry and potentially violent we are, because that plays directly into the stereotype that the mainstream media and the government have been pumping Canadians that don't know the difference.

00:09:59.960 They've been showing they've been telling them, oh, these are potentially violent people.

00:10:03.840 We have to disarm them.

00:10:05.500 You know, they're a detriment to the country.

00:10:07.080 Nothing could be further from the truth.

00:10:08.440 And we don't want to play into that stereotype.

00:10:10.180 So if you're going to show up, wear what you wear at work.

00:10:12.900 You know, I'll be dressed like this.

00:10:14.300 You'll be dressed like that.

00:10:15.780 Somebody's a nurse. 0.98

00:10:17.160 Wear your scrubs.

00:10:18.040 If somebody's a lawyer, wear your suit.

00:10:19.840 You know, just try to represent who we are as the different demographics that occur in Canada.

00:10:25.680 You mentioned PPE earlier, and I have to ask about this.

00:10:29.240 I mean, at the risk of getting too off track here, we know that the government has acknowledged that protests do not spread the virus.

00:10:35.140 So in that case, you're you're covered.

00:10:37.260 But there is going to be a challenge more than you might have at another point in time of people traveling, people wanting to congregate.

00:10:44.880 How are you factoring that into the planning?

00:10:48.360 So we are we're providing PPE for everybody.

00:10:52.320 You know, the whole mask issue has gotten pretty controversial.

00:10:55.480 And as as everything does.

00:10:57.380 Right. And it seems it seems like everything is really polarizing in our society in the last 10 years and getting worse by the day.

00:11:02.480 So what we're saying to to our marchers is bring a mask.

00:11:08.560 We will have hand sanitizer there.

00:11:10.520 We'll have a thousand masks in case someone forgets it.

00:11:13.080 Like it's not if you wear a mask, it's not a show of submission.

00:11:17.080 It's just it's just a show of of of consideration.

00:11:23.120 You're just being considerate to your fellow marchers.

00:11:25.300 Throw the mask on for an hour if you want to protest with masks off after, you know, do your do your own thing.

00:11:31.020 But we just want to take all precautions for the safety of our community.

00:11:34.660 And and kind of that's the way that we're approaching it.

00:11:37.720 What would you like to see come of this?

00:11:40.020 I know earlier you mentioned having some media attention and exposure and show that this group is here.

00:11:45.580 But I mean, in your ideal world, is this the kind of thing that you do year after year?

00:11:49.540 Do you think it's important to have that that single flash of we're here at this point?

00:11:55.040 We won't have any guns in a year.

00:11:56.300 So that's the liberals.

00:11:59.240 This is not you know, it's funny because some aspects of our community are like, well, they're not taking my lever action or they're not taking my pump action.

00:12:06.360 And they couldn't be more wrong because if you look at Australia, it started with handguns.

00:12:11.640 Nobody cared because they didn't shoot handguns.

00:12:13.680 You know, next were semi-autos.

00:12:15.700 Well, I don't care because I don't need a gun like that.

00:12:17.360 Nobody needs a gun like that.

00:12:19.080 But then they came for the lever actions and the pump actions and now, you know, then everybody's screaming blue murder.

00:12:26.140 This isn't this isn't it.

00:12:27.780 And the people that believe that stuff, how confident are you that the liberals are going to stop just before they get to the guns that you own?

00:12:36.120 Like what what indicates at all to you that that it's not going to go all the way when they have the chance?

00:12:41.560 So this is in my mind, this is a one time event.

00:12:44.820 We need this event for other reasons, for our own projects, which will I can't give any details right now.

00:12:53.740 But this is a one time event as far as we're concerned.

00:12:56.260 It's not a yearly thing, but but we need to happen and we need people if they're available to come.

00:13:00.480 I'm glad you mentioned that idea of where the line stops, because I did a video a little while ago called In Defense of the AR-15.

00:13:07.960 And I talked about I mean, a lot of the issues that you and I are very familiar with, you know, about how similar it is to other guns that that are or were non-restricted.

00:13:16.020 And I don't want to rehash that, but I would encourage people to look it up.

00:13:19.300 But I was actually surprised and quite taken aback at an amount of negative pushback I got from gun owners who and I'm sure you see this as well.

00:13:29.100 I'm a gun owner, but or I support gun ownership, but they they they draw a line there and they assume that you're right, that that's kind of the the unanimous line that everyone will respect.

00:13:40.080 And even if you are not a fan of the AR-15 to not realize that there is an incremental force against gun ownership, I think you're out to lunch, quite frankly.

00:13:49.880 You you are. And that's I agree entirely. And we see that in our community.

00:13:56.400 And we've done a lot of work at the at the CCFR to try to unite gun owners.

00:14:00.420 Right. We've taken we have television shows on both outdoor networks.

00:14:04.120 We sponsor commercials to let people know, hey, you know, you think you're going to stop.

00:14:08.220 They're not going to stop. Look at everywhere else that there's been a massive gun grab.

00:14:11.800 It just keeps going because they're always after the next more most dangerous gun.

00:14:17.360 So if they are rid of semi autos of them, now they're after rapid fire.

00:14:20.880 Now, if you notice, Bill Blair has changed his language after the gun ban.

00:14:24.600 He changed it to firearms capable of sustained fire, sustained rapid fire.

00:14:29.720 And so it's not it's not military style assault weapons anymore.

00:14:33.300 It's capable of this. And and even if you look at what the the the rules that came out in the gun ban anyway, they're measuring the lethality of firearms based on jewels, muzzle energy.

00:14:45.240 And now that took a whole bunch of hunting rifles out.

00:14:47.660 Well, they can keep lowering that number and then they can keep looking at sustained rapid fire.

00:14:51.980 And next thing you know, you're facing it.

00:14:54.260 And, you know, it's it's it does the lack of support internally from our community does get old after a while.

00:15:01.640 And it's very frustrating. And I've always in every time it's been brought up, I tell hunters or whoever it is.

00:15:07.740 Right. And somebody that shoots a break action that doesn't care about anybody else's guns. 1.00

00:15:11.280 People like me that work 16 hours a day for years on end and Tracy Wilson and all of our volunteers and organizations like the CCFR.

00:15:19.940 When all of our guns are gone, I'm long gone.

00:15:23.020 I'm way overdue to to move on to back to my career and business development as it is.

00:15:28.120 And you're going to fight this by yourself and be standing there with your gun, fighting it by yourself with no resources like the CCFR.

00:15:35.260 Get involved now. Stand up for your fellow Canadians.

00:15:38.920 Those our guns are no different than any other gun.

00:15:41.360 We haven't done any more crime than any anyone else has done with any other firearm.

00:15:45.240 If you ask the police, the majority of hostage takings and domestic violence are our old hunters with their bolt actions.

00:15:52.600 But I'm not, you know, distancing myself from them. Right.

00:15:55.520 So get involved. Quit the nonsense and and support organizations like ours and marches like the one we're going to have in September.

00:16:02.900 Yeah. If you think the same people that want the AR-15 gone don't also want, you know, your grandpa's single action revolver gone.

00:16:09.380 You're sorely mistaken. Well, September 12th is the rally. No, not the rally, the march, the integrity march.

00:16:15.360 That's right. On Parliament Hill. I have booked my flight.

00:16:18.240 I'll be there and I'm glad you're doing it and I'm very much looking forward to it.

00:16:21.320 Rod Giltaka joining me on the line, the CEO and executive director of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.

00:16:27.800 Thank you very much to you and to your colleague, Tracy, for putting this together.

00:16:32.300 And thanks, Rod, for coming out today.

00:16:34.380 Thanks, Andrew.

00:16:34.880 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - August 11, 2020

Gun owners planning ‘integrity march’ on Parliament Hill

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript