No, it's like Fox News. SunTV is extremely right-leaning. Telling them that they're the MSNBC of Canada would probably be a good way to start a fight. If you told them that they were the Fox News of Canada, they'd probably take it as a compliment.
To be honest, Sun Media, and especially this so called "news" channel they somehow got the CRTC to put on our basic channel list of cable and satellite carriers, is worse than FoxNews. They don't even bother with the Alan Colmes or Juan Williams-types of weak liberals for an alternative opinion; and they never did even bother to put the reporters and other resources in it to establish a real news channel. Each program is just a succession of Sun columnists and conservative think tank hacks talking to other hacks about the news. It's not only propaganda....it isn't even interesting propaganda to watch. But, since all cable or satellite subscribers have to pay to keep these "small government" conservatives on the air, they can keep on broadcasting even if no one is watching!
Dalton McGuinty is a bit of a slippery weasel, IMO, and it's hard to get him to actually condemn or defend anything. If you look at his quotes in the article, you'll notice that he's very careful to not actually come out and defend the actions.
And it's to be expected, since fence-sitting is an art perfected by the Liberal Party up here. And it has worked well for them....at least up till now.
I used to hate the Liberals for the way they can shift and morph, depending on the political mood of the time. Federally, back in the days of Pierre Trudeau - starting in the late 60's, Canada was in a very socialist mood, and Trudeau's Liberals (and actually the previous Liberal Administration also) responded by stealing every major policy initiative of the Party of the left - the NDP. In the mid-80's, when Canada was being influenced by the claimed successes of free wheeling capitalism in the Reagan/Thatcher days, the Federal Liberals dumped any excessive ideological baggage to move to the right of a corrupt and discredited federal conservative government.
But, to be honest right now; after seeing how polarized and dysfunctional politics in the U.S. has become in the last 20 years, I'm concerned about the way the same process is happening in Canada...as our Conservative parties are becoming U.S.-style corporate mouthpieces with right wing social agendas, while the federal NDP, and the provincial parties are seeing the vacant middle ground as their opportunity to morph into a corporate-friendly Democratic Party. In another 10 years, if present trends continue, I wouldn't be surprised to see all of the Liberal Parties gone, and in their place, the U.S. kind of two party political class that is more concerned with donations and future job opportunities from the rich and powerful, then they are with the interests of the majority of voters.
However, as the article notes, the leaders of the two opposition parties condemned what happened, including the leader of the NDP, a left-leaning (or in the American spectrum "extreme socialist"
) party that is by no means "pro-gun".
Just a point of clarification, although the NDP has been left on virtually every issue, gun control is one that polarizes the Party between rural and urban constituents. Farmers and rural dwellers in general, see it as an unnecessary burden for them, as many live out in the middle of nowhere and miles away from their neighbours. The odds of gun crimes in the countryside are very low. But the Chiefs of Police association who lobbied for the registry, argued that sawed-off guns are a big factor in urban crime. Since most city folk do not own guns (even the numbers of hunters are in steep decline), the big city NDP constituencies were strongly in favour of the registry. And that's why when it came up for a vote in Parliament, the NDP had to allow a "free vote" because they couldn't come to a general consensus. This was a very unusual action by a Party that tries to speak with one voice on every issue in Parliament.