Wendy Cukier

Wendy Cukier -- B.A. (Brock); M.A.; M.B.A. (Toronto); Ph. D (York); DU (HC) Laval; LLD (HC), Concordia; M.S.C. -- was a professor of Information Technology and the Associate Dean, Academic, Faculty of Business, Ryerson University (her current employment status is somewhat up in the air - see below). She is also possibly the most irrationally hoplophobic gun control advocate in Canada. In her support of gun control, Cukier has been author to numerous anti- gun rights works. Cukier is also the President and co-founder of the Coalition for Gun Control and on the Board of the International Action Network on Small Arms.

Cukier placed 54th on the list of "101 people who are screwing up Canada (and 10 who are not)" in February, 2007.

History

Cukier's involvement in gun control began following Gamil Gharbi (AKA Marc Lepine)’s shooting rampage in 1989 at École Polytechnique in Montreal. Since then, she has been an ardent supporter of gun control measures of all sorts, including Bill C-68, which spawned the ineffective Canadian gun registry.

Anti-gun advocacy

Cukier's usual modus operandi is a combination of misleading non-facts, argumentum an hominem, and blatant attempts to shut down any opposing debate. Examples include:

2006: Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced changes to the long gun registry that would include an amnesty for rifle and shotgun owners. These were to be the first steps towards fulfilling the Conservative government's election promise of scrapping the registry altogether. Cukier's responses would be laughable under other circumstances:

• "They will try to use the fact that there was mismanagement in the past as an excuse to dismantle a system that's currently working very well and is cost effective."
• "The only reason they would proceed to dismantle a system that is working as well as this one is to pay back the gun lobby."
• "It's true that rifles and shotguns aren't used today as frequently as handguns in murders, but that was not the case 15 years ago, and one of the reasons why murders with rifles and shotguns have declined so precipitously is because of the stronger controls on them."

2006: Sharon Gregson, a longtime NDP activist, who had just been granted a permit to carry a concealed handgun in the U.S. had written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking why she can't have the same right in Canada. Among Cukier's responses were:

• "It's an absurd comment. It's completely contrary to Canadian traditions. It has no basis in fact, and for someone who is associated with schools to be making those comments is particularly alarming, especially a woman."
• "There is no evidence whatsoever that arming women makes them safer. In fact, the evidence is quite the contrary, that more guns results in more deaths and injuries."
• "I don't think we need to have a wider debate about carrying concealed weapons and handguns for self protection. It runs contrary to Canadian traditions and it certainly runs contrary to Canadian law."

These statements in spite of the facts that a) there are plenty of facts to support Gregson's assertions, b) all credible evidence says the opposite of what Cukier claims and c) there are NO Canadian laws against debating the wisdom of gun (or any other) laws in Canada.

2007: An open letter to the Coalition for Gun Control from Andrea Hannen of the CSSA was met with a similarly sneering response.

Bullying probe

In December 2015, it was announced that Cukier was to be named as the first female president of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. In September 2016, however, it was announced three days before she was due to begin the job that the appointment had been cancelled following revelations regarding Cukier's behaviour in her previous post at Ryerson University:

	According to a series of internal emails, as well as interviews with former staffers, the long-time Ryerson executive was accused of fostering a “toxic” work environment where some employees felt demeaned, overworked and disrespected. The allegations originally came from an anonymous email account that claimed to represent the views of about 15 staffers in Cukier’s office, when she was Ryerson’s vice-president, research and innovation. The accusers also claimed they were frequently “coerced into” working overtime without pay, and spoken to disrespectfully by Cukier, which in some cases caused people to weep in the office. One email to the human resources department claimed the worker had to miss a dead family member’s visitation because Cukier made the employee work. The emails show that in August 2015, after the group of employees threatened to leak their allegations to the media, Ryerson hired an external investigator to interview people from Cukier’s office and produce a report on any problems with the workplace culture. According to one former staffer who spoke with the Star on condition of anonymity, the report was delivered to the office verbally last January, at a meeting attended by Cukier and other managers. By that time Cukier had already been announced as the next Brock University president, which was revealed in December 2015.
— Toronto Star, Sept. 2, 2016

It is not known at this time (September 2016) if any action against Cukier was prompted by the investigation. An email in March of 2016 to the employee account from Ryerson’s assistant vice-president of human resources, Christine Sass-Kortsak, said a “number of measures” had been taken to address issues raised by the investigation, but did not say what they were. Ryerson’s director of communications, Michael Forbes, said the school would not comment on specific human resources issues. He added, however, that school management takes such matters seriously.

Ryerson, meanwhile, has suggested that Cukier may return to the Toronto university’s Ted Rogers School of Management.

Financing

Before	After
And just who the hell paid for all that work?

Cukier has received over $600,000 in funding from:

• 2010 “Direct, Guide, and Train for Research”, Social Policy and Research Council of British Columbia ($3,750)
• 2010 “DiverseCity: The Toronto Leadership Project”, Maytree Foundation ($44,500)
• 2010 "Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage: Building the Talent Pool and Skills for Tomorrow”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) ($24,869)
• 2010 “Promoting Diversity in Leadership: An Integrated, Ecological Approach”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) - Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) ($20,000)
• 2010 “Toronto Police Services Human Rights Charter”, Toronto Police Services Board ($151,050)
• 2008 “Developing Fact-Based Corporate Strategies to Support Diversity in the Workplace: A Focus on the Financial Services and ICT Sectors”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) ($179,911)
• 2008 "DiverseCity Counts: Visible Minority Representations in Leadership Roles in Toronto”, Maytree Foundation ($177,900)
• 2008 "European Market Analysis for SpeechBobble Inc.”, MITACS-NCE ($15,000)
• 2015 According to Ontario’s public salary disclosure database, Cukier was paid $289,784.04 for her role as a Ryerson vice-president in 2015.

At least she was able to afford some work on her face (see images). No word on if a boob job was included.

Quick facts

Some facts on Wendy Cukier (from September 2010):

• Cukier ILLEGALLY received nearly $400,000 in grants, from then Justice Minister Allan Rock's office, to act as a government lobbyist...lobbying the government. Both Cukier and Kim Doran are currently under investigation for this.
• Cukier's firm Telecon Consulting has large contracts with the RCMP, several police departments and provincial governments, on IT services involving the Federal Firearms Centre.
• Cukier's recent book, "Global Gun Epidemic," has been panned for fabrications of facts, including referencing models of firearms which don't exist.

Some other tidbits of information:

• Gun Registry IT contractor CGI funds (that's right--FUNDS) the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, making the CACP a paid corporate lobbyist and putting the organisation into a gross conflict of interest position.
• CGI and fellow Registry IT contractor Honeywell donated heavilly to the Chretien Liberal campaign.
• The $2B Gun Registry was never about public safety at any cost. During their tenure, the Liberals disbanded the Ports Police, refused to arm border guards and attempted to close two RCMP crime labs, all for 'cost reasons.'
• Calgary's Police Chief Rick Hansen, the OPP's Julian Fantino and the majority of rank-and-file police officers have dismissed the Registry as worse than useless.
• The RCMP's 'report' which states that the Registry only costs $4M per year to operate is a blatant fiction. Eliminating the long-gun registry portion of the bureaucracy alone (not licensing, or Restricted/Prohibited registrations) would result in the layoff of about 200 people, the annual wage and benefit costs alone reaching into the tens of millions. Add the costs of IT contracts and planed replacements of legacy computer systems, and the long-gun portion of the Canadian Firearms Centre's operating budget runs FAR higher than the quoted figure. Remember that the Canadian Firearms Centre once claimed $13.5M, IN ONE YEAR, on 'travel expenses.' The Auditor General needs to have a look at the RCMP's accounting procedures.
• Bell-Globemedia (CTV, The Globe and Mail) own CGI. PSAC (fighting to save those 200-odd Registry jobs) funds Rabble. Draw your own conclusions about media bias.
• Like the old (1935 onwards) Handgun Registry, the Long-Gun Registry has the dubious destinction of having never prevented, nor solved a crime. This is why Registry proponents, like Cukier, flog the '11,000 hits per day' statistic, instead. Actually, this is the result of an automated protocol, by which police computers access the Canadian Firearms Centre's computers, on everything from fender-benders, to purse-snatchings.
• According to Canada Customs records, about HALF of the legally-acquired firearms in Canada have never been registered, and many of their owners never licensed--a staggering level of non-compliance.
• The Firearms Centre's database has been accessed by organised crime, leading to break and enters by criminals who have treated the Registry as a shopping list.
• There is a database of the MILLIONS of Canadians legally able to own firearms. These people must also submit to WARRANTLESS 'inspections,' at firearms officers' whims. Yet there is no database of people PROHIBITED from owning firearms, the rights of whom are protected by the Charter against warrantless searches. James Roszko was in the latter category, along with being a repeat violent sexual offender, with a smuggled, UNREGISTERED weapon.
• Gamil Gharbi (AKA, 'Marc Lepine') used a firearm bought under Trudeau's old Firearms Acquisition Certificate regime, which he modified (his clumsiness turning a semiauto rifle into a single-shot weapon) to murder young women in a mysogenistic rage inspired by his wife-beating father. Kimveer Gill did much the same thing, only with the aid of Chretien's new and improved Posession and Acquisition Licensing and registration regime. Gill, however, never bothered to get an Authorization To Transport to bring his guns to that school. And the killers of Jane Creba--members of Kingston's criminal diaspora, living in Jane & Finch, some of whom were on Conditional Sentences--never bothered with either licensing, or registration of their smuggled-in weapons. Here, in Calgary, a career criminal who would have been rotting in jail under Canada's old, 'unenlightened' Criminal Code, shot a bystander's eyes out. Yet the Wendy Cukiers don't like to draw a link between post-Trudeaupian immigration and criminal justice policies and gun crime. (Prior to 1976, school shootings and drug-gang shootings of bystanders were unheard of.)
• Meanwhile, people with no criminal records, who legally acquired firearms under the old FAC system, inherited them, or let their POLs, or PALs lapse have been subject to warrantless searches by the Toronto Police, under Chief Blair (you know, the nice guy behind all those G20 arrests). 'Unsafe storage' (e.g., only one lock on a 'restricted' firearm), or a lapsed license can land you in jail for five years--this is NOT like auto licensing, where you can simply let your license lapse, if you keep your car in the garage. Some of the people visited by Blair's goons have included war vets.
• However, Chief Blair and his boss, David Miller have refused to address the horrendous, and politically-incorrect gang and gun problem, in places like Jane & Finch. While happilly playing the thug with legal firearms owners and peaceful G20 protesters, Blair doffed his uniform and gun to do a kowtowing photo-op with Jane & Finch gangsters. Even though legal gun owners have faced legal harrassment, violent criminals (e.g., the one who shot Jane Creba) are rarely jailed.
• Registration IS a prelude to civilian disarmament. The old handgun registry was used to confiscate <105mm barrelled and .32, .25 handguns, under the Campbell regime. Allan Rock, among others, have stated that they would like to see civilian firearms ownership abolished. And the handgun registry, like its British counterpart, was a response to fears of Communist and Anarchist groups threatening the Capitalist system during the first Red Scare. Licensing and registration were also employed by the Nazi regime to disarm Jews and dissidents.
• While Cukier speaks darkly of the NRA and shadowy funding, she doesn't like to point out the fact that groups such as her Coalition For Gun Control, Project Ploughshares and other anti-gun groups are funded by donations from billionaires like George Soros and Warren Buffet, who have made fortunes off of less than ethical activities, and fear the idea of armed civilians opposed to their business agendas.