Ottawa

Vic Toews denies himself

The Public Safety Minister has apparently moved past trying to parse himself to simply denying the official record. Consider this exchange from this morning’s news conference on the long gun registry.

Reporter: The other question I have is maybe I misunderstood you yesterday but I thought you said that you never said what you said in the House which is you can either stand with us or with the child pornographers. Did you actually say?

Vic Toews:  That’s not what I said.  On CBC, you’re with CBC aren’t you?

Reporter: As of like 30 seconds ago.

Vic Toews: They played the entire clip of what I said.  It was very clear what I said.  I’ve explained it on CBC a number of times.

Reporter: I’m talking about what you said in the House of Commons and I heard you say at the news conference yesterday that you didn’t say that.  Did I misunderstand you?

Vic Toews: You just misquoted me again.

Reporter: No I didn’t.  I read your quote.

Vic Toews: I’m not going to argue with you.  What I can say is that what the internet has done is allowed a proliferation of child pornography.  This is an evil that has to be addressed by government.  We are bringing forward a legislative framework which will in fact deal with this.  This is a legislative framework that has been adopted by many leading European countries and simply brings Canada’s approach to dealing with this crime into a legal format that is consistent with those in other European countries.

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