Media contact:
• Beth Ward, Executive Director, YWCA Muskoka, telephone: 645-9827
MEDIA
RELEASE
MPs Playing Dangerous Politics with Women’s Lives says YWCA Canada
Calls for Honouring the Montreal Massacre and Preserving the Gun
Registry
Toronto,
November 4, 2009
–No
greater impetus should be needed for the retention of gun control in
Canada and the defeat of Bill C-391 than the looming shadow of the
20th anniversary of the 1989 murders of 14 women at
L’École Polytechnique says YWCA Canada, the nation’s oldest and
largest women’s multi-service organization.
“What is
often lost in the complaints of gun owners against the registry is
that on the evidence, gun control saves lives. 88% of Canadian women
killed with guns are killed with a shotgun or rifle. Rifles and
shotguns are the guns most often used in domestic violence
and suicide,” says Paulette Senior, CEO of YWCA Canada.
Statistics prove the case. Police services in Canada check the
registry 9400 times a day.
The registry has the strong support of the Canadian Association of
Chiefs of Police who state forcefully:
“Gun laws save lives.” It’s true.
· In 1991, more than 1400 Canadians were killed with guns.
Now it is fewer than 800.
· The rate of murders with rifles and shotguns dropped by
more than 78% from 1991 to 2007.
·
Murders of women with guns plummeted from 85 in 1991 to 32 in 2004.
·
Suicide rates, particularly among youth, have also
declined.
“The
gun registry was established in response to the killings at L’Ecole
Polytechnique. Twenty years later some MPs seem to have lost sight
of that event,” says Marlene Gorman, Executive Director of YWCA
Sudbury. “Right now, when police get a call about violence in the
home they can check in advance whether a rifle or shotgun is
present.”
“I
worry about Aboriginal women, who surely must have a right to
protection,”
says Lyda Fuller, Executive Director of YWCA Yellowknife. “I’m
asking rural and northern MPs to think about the safety of
Aboriginal women and about rates of teen suicide before they vote
today.”
Polls have shown that while only half of gun owners oppose the law,
77% of people living with a gun owner support it.
As
the nation’s largest provider of shelters for women, YWCA Canada
urges decisive defeat of
Bill
C-391.
-30-
For
further information on YWCA Canada and its Member Associations, or
to set up an interview with:
Paulette Senior, CEO of YWCA Canada,
contact Laura Tilley, Communications & Marketing Manager at
416.962-8881 x 233.
Sudbury: Marlene Gorman, Executive Director, YWCA Sudbury at
705.673.4754
Yellowknife: Lyda Fuller, Executive Director, YWCA Yellowknife at
867-920-2777
About
YWCA Canada:
YWCA Canada is the country’s oldest and
largest women's multi-service organization. With 33 Member
Associations
operating in more than 400 districts and communities across the
country, our
Turning Point Programs for Women™ - which
address personal safety, economic security and well-being
– reach out to 1 million women and girls in nine provinces and one
territory. YWCA is the largest national provider of shelter to
women, serving 25,000 women, children and teen girls, including
6,000 fleeing domestic violence, each year. We are
the largest provider of literacy, life skills, employment and
counselling programs in the country, and the second largest provider
of childcare services. YWCA Canada is a member association of the
World YWCA which unites 25 million women and girls worldwide and
spans 125 countries. For more information about YWCA Canada and our
Member Associations, visit
www.ywcacanada.ca.
