The federal government is trying once again to eliminate the long gun registry.
“There’s a growing consensus the gun registry has been ineffective in reducing crime,” public security minister Peter Van Loan told reporters after the Conservatives tabled the “long gun registry repeal act” in the Senate April 1.
“The problems with crime are quite clearly overwhelmingly with handguns, overwhelmingly with illegal handguns. Long guns in the hands of law-abiding farmers and hunters have not been a source, a major source, of crime.”
Despite two previous attempts that failed in the House of Commons, the last one because it was never called for debate, Van Loan said he hoped other parties would see it as a “non-partisan issue” worthy of support.
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The goal is “to get rid of a registry that’s proving to be ineffective in fighting crime while at the same time has been very costly and burdensome to taxpayers.”
The government hoped it could be a free vote in Parliament, allowing rural MPs from opposition parties to vote for it if their constituents supported the legislation.
Opposition leaders quickly rejected any idea of support for the government. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who has been courting rural votes since he became leader almost four months ago, said he would instruct the Liberal majority in the Senate to kill the bill.
“We won’t pass his (prime minister Stephen Harper) bills,” the Liberal leader told a party gathering in Toronto April 1.
Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland told reporters that Liberals continue to reject an end to the long gun registry.
“Let us be clear, the gun registry is something that we support,” he said. “It’s an important tool that officers use every single day to enforce prohibition orders and to keep officers safe.”
Holland said he understands rural Canadians have concerns with the registry.
“There are legitimate concerns that rural constituencies have with the registry,” he said.
“There are things that need to be fixed. There are administrative problems that are legitimate grievances and we need to deal with those. We need to make those grievances go away.”
In the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois denounced the bill as another affront to Quebec.
“Everyone in Quebec agrees that the gun registry is vital to the integrated and effective fight against crime,” said MP Serge Ménard, a former Quebec justice minister and attorney general.
Van Loan replied: “As for the long gun registry, that is a matter of targeting farmers, law-abiding hunters. That is not where the problem is. The problem is fighting crime.”
The government move to introduce gun registry legislation was partly an attempt to head off a planned April 1 House of Commons debate on a private member’s bill proposed by longtime Saskatchewan gun registry opponent Garry Breitkreuz that was written in a way to end even parts of the registry the Conservatives agree should be kept.
Van Loan said the unusual decision to introduce legislation in the Senate was made because the Senate legislative agenda is less crowded and the bill could be dealt with more quickly than in the House of Commons.
