Gun control: It's been 30 years since the cole Polytechnique massacre, so if not now then when?

This column is an opinionby Heidi Rathjen, a graduate of cole Polytechnique in Montreal and coordinator of Poly Remembers.She was in a nearbystudyroom when a gunman killed 14 women and injured 14 other people on Dec. 6, 1989.For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see theFAQ.

The modern Canadian gun control movement can trace its roots back to the tragedy at Montreal'scole Polytechnique, and the days following the 1989 massacre when the engineering students launched a nationwide petition calling for a complete ban on assault weapons.

Over the months after the shooting, I sat beside dozens of students in our cluttered boardroom,sustained by vending machine food and coffeewhile we opened hundreds of envelopes and counted thousands of signatures late into the night.

Altogether, we collectedan astounding560,000 signatures.

As we presented them to our elected officials, we were confident that we had done our job and that they would do theirs.

Yet here we are, 30 years later the same students, all grown up with families of our own, including many with sons and daughters attending our very own belovedalma mater still calling on the government to ban weapons that are "basically designed as an instrument of war" with "no sporting use either in the cultural or recreational sense," as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Policedescribes them.

This, despite the fact that polls over the years have continuously shown anoverwhelming majorityof Canadians in support of their prohibition.

Tragically, military-style semi-automatic weapons have become more, not less, accessible over the years, as successive governments blatantly ignored gun manufacturers' tactics of redesigning existing modelsin order to circumventthe minimal controls they're subject to.

Many new modelsof assault weapons henceforth fall into the least-controlled "non restricted" category. The restricted Beretta CX4 Storm that was used in the 2006 Dawson College shooting, for example, is today availableas a non-restricted"long gun."

The greater availability of assault weapons, along with the exponential increase in the number of privately owned handguns, the record number of gun owners and, especially, the loss of critical hard-fought measures (including the mandatory registration of all firearms),indicatethat Canada is losing the battle to the gun lobby.

The Conservatives, patently aligned with the gun lobby, moved full steam ahead when in power todismantle any gun control measuresthey could get away with.

As for the Liberals,theyhave taken only timid steps in the right direction when they had the chance to do much more.

Theyalsobent over backwards to please gun owners, with generous loopholes and deleterious half-measures, and reinforced gun lobby rhetoric by prioritizing the issue ofillegal gangs & gunsat the expense of equally important gun-related suicide, domestic violence and mass shootings, all of which generally involve legally owned guns.

Because of this lopsided dynamic, successive iterations of the typical Conservative/Liberal/Conservativeelection cycle will result inmore and more ground being lost unlessone partytakes bold action on gun control.

Already, Canada is thefifth-worst OECD countryin terms of gun deaths per capita. Instead of comparing ourselves to the U.S., we ought to aspire to emulate countriessuch as members of the EU,as well as Australia and Japan, where stricter controls accompanyfewergun deaths.

So, this is it.

With the 30thanniversary of the Polytechnique femicide comes our gun controlmoment of reckoning. Indeed, if the current government doesn't deliver, we will lose the long battle for gun control. Because if not now, then when?

We are now in the second mandate of a party that was twice elected on a promise to strengthen gun control. Even with a minority government, the unequivocal support expressed by theNDPand theBloc Qubcoisduring the election campaign means thatdemands for stricter controlsare backed by a majority of the members of parliament.

But if we are to win this fight, we need the Liberals to act like New Zealand did in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre: boldly, decisively and without delay.

By the timethat nation'snew ban on assault weaponsand other robust measuresare fully implemented, they will be so entrenched that it will be political suicidefor future governmentsto undo them.

Soif the Liberals act decisively now, eventhoughotherpartieswilleventuallycome to power,the likelihood that these partiescould repeal forthcominggun-controlgains will diminish with the strength of the new measures.

Survivors and families of victims of theworst mass shooting in Canadian historyhave waited long enough. In fact, they have fought long enough. It is time for our government to show some backbone, call out the self-serving arguments of the gun lobby, and pass strict, comprehensive gun laws that are soundly based on the public's right to be safe from preventable gun violence.

• This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read ourFAQ.