Less than a day after the House of Commons voted on legislation that would end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, the federal Conservative government is moving on another of its key rural promises.
Public safety minister Vic Toews is expected to announce Tuesday that legislation will be introduced abolishing the long gun registry.
He will be accompanied at a news conference in rural eastern Ontario by fellow southern Manitoba Conservative Candice Hoeppner, who has campaigned against the registry since her election in 2008.
Like its aggressive agenda to get the CWB legislation through Parliament within months, the Conservatives are expected to limit debate on the registry issue.
The party and its Reform party predecessor have opposed the long gun registry since its creation in the mid-1990s, arguing that it does little to fight crime but targets “law-abiding farmers and hunters” who refuse to register.
In the May election campaign, prime minister Stephen Harper used a speech on a southern Ontario farm to promise that a majority Conservative government would abolish the registry.
A private member’s bill tabled by Hoeppner came within several votes of winning in the last Parliament. It was defeated only after anti-registry rural Liberals were ordered by their leader to oppose it.
Hoeppner and the Liberals say that the issue helped defeat at least three rural opposition MPs.
The Quebec government opposes the federal policy and has announced it will create a provincial registry.
Montreal Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia asked Monday in Parliament if Ottawa would co-operate in creating the Quebec registry.
Toews said no.
“Provincial governments are free to proceed as they wish, but we will not assist in setting up another registry,” he said. “Records held by the Canadian firearms program will not be shared with the provinces.”
