The much-anticipated parliamentary vote over whether to abolish the long gun registry has been delayed until fall.House of Commons speaker Peter Milliken has ruled that the vote on an opposition-led request from the public safety committee to maintain the registry, in defiance of private member’s bill C-391 to abolish it, will be held Sept. 21 after a brief debate.Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is insisting that the eight Liberal MPs who voted against the registry and for the bill last November must toe the party line and support the registry. That move now focuses attention on 12 mainly rural New Democrats who also voted in favour of the bill.NDP leader Jack Layton, while supporting the registry, said he will follow the tradition of allowing his MPs to vote freely on a private member’s bill.It also is unclear if all the anti-registry Liberals will follow their leader’s order.The 20 opposition MPs who support ending the registry will be under intense pressure during the next three months to stick to their November vote, whatever the party pressure.Veteran Liberal Wayne Easter has been a particular target of Conservative jibes because he has said he will reverse himself and vote to keep the long gun registry, but with Liberal amendments that would make it less onerous for gun owners.The Conservative party will be stirring the pot by calling on voters in those 20 ridings to tell their MPs to stick to earlier promises that they oppose the registry.The main pot stirrer will be Manitoba Conservative Candice Hoeppner, who sponsored the private member’s bill. She vows to travel to many of the opposition ridings to demand that the MPs publicly state their intentions for the Sept. 21 vote.”They don’t owe me an explanation but they do owe their constituents,” she told reporters in Ottawa.
Gun registry vote delayed until fall
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