Conservative government plans to abolish the federal long gun registry took a major step forward Feb. 7 when MPs voted to send the bill to final debate without amendment.
By a vote of 152 to 131, with all opposition members present voting against, the House of Commons rejected opposition proposals to gut the bill.
It will now go to final debate and Commons vote before being sent to the Senate. The government has limited the final debate to two days, just as it cut off debate on the opposition amendments.
Read Also
Canada says Australia has re-opened market access for beef and beef products
Australia has lifted a 22-year-old ban on the import of Canadian beef and beef products, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
The bill could be out of Parliament and into law by the end of February if the government keeps it as a scheduling priority.
On Feb. 7 before the vote, Alberta Conservative MP Rob Merrifield had the last word.
“It is time to treat our rural people with the respect they deserve,” he said. “We must do the right thing, which is to vote against the long gun registry so it will no longer be there. This legislation will correct once and for all an injustice that was done to the rural people of this country.”
Opposition MPs used debate Feb. 6 and 7 on a Commons committee report calling for approval of the bill to repeat arguments that ending the registry would add to gun crime, hurt police work and increase the likelihood of suicide and domestic or gun violence.
They also complained that the Conservatives, through time allocation, had stifled democratic debate over an important issue.
Government MPs rejected the dire opposition warnings. Rural Ontario MP Larry Miller, chair of the Commons agriculture committee, said public opinion surveys in his Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound riding show overwhelming opposition to the registry.
He also challenged the argument that the debate was being stifled.
“I have been at this for 16 years,” he said in a question to Green Party leader Elizabeth May. “How much time for debate does she really think we need? Would 17 years do it?”
May said Miller’s constituents were properly opposed to a bad law that offended rural gun owners but there is a better option than simply abolishing the registry.
“I believe we could have come to a middle ground where we could all agree to keep the registry and law enforcement tools while removing the elements that unfairly stigmatized law-abiding gun owners,” she said.
Through their votes, Conservative MPs disagreed.
