PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Conservative party strategists hope the promise to kill the long gun registry will swing a handful of rural seats and help build a majority government.
Southern Manitoba Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner is one of the key players in that strategy.
Late last week, she left her safe Portage- Lisgar seat for a whirlwind tour of opposition-held seats where MPs had promised their voters they would oppose the long gun registry and then voted for its retention when a vote was held last year on Hoeppner’s private member’s bill.
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She is seen as an ideal salesperson: a non-gun-owning mother who represents a rural riding where gun ownership is part of doing business.
Her message this election is trust.
“When I toured some of those ridings before the vote (on the registry) I was careful to give credit to the MPs for the good work they were doing and to urge pressure on them to stick by their promise on the registry,” she said before flying to Yukon, which is held by Liberal Larry Bagnell, and then to several northern Ontario ridings held by New Democrats.
Despite their election campaign promises against the registry, eight Liberal MPs, including Bagnell, followed party orders to support the registry while six rural New Democrats followed their party plea to support the registry, although they were not ordered to do so.
The bill was defeated by two votes.
“My appeal this time will be more personal,” said Hoeppner. “Some of these MPs betrayed their voters. Some of them betrayed me personally after promising to support my bill.”
The Conservatives consider the gun registry a perfect wedge issue in rural ridings. Rural candidates highlight the issue in their voter pitch while noting that the party would keep gun licensing, prohibited weapons rules and mandatory gun safety courses.
“This just is a constant irritant to my voters,” southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Bev Shipley said.
“It is unnecessary, wasteful and ineffective and my voters look to us to get rid of it. It is an issue.”
It is also an issue across rural Ontario and to emphasize the point, prime minister Stephen Harper chose a southwestern Ontario farm as the site for a gun registry announcement.
“We must stop targeting law-abiding gun owners and instead focus our resources on real criminals,” he said in a speech at Wainfleet, Ont.
“That’s why a re-elected majority Conservative government will scrap the wasteful and inefficient long-gun registry once and for all.”
He stressed several times that a Conservative majority would be required to fulfill the longstanding promise. Conservative candidates across the country have picked up the refrain.
Hoeppner said she could not predict whether the gun registry issue would turn seats.
“We’ll know that May 2,” she said. “But I think a lot of those ridings are
close and it is a local ground war rather than part of the national campaign. My argument about whether you can trust those MPs to do what they are promising may have an impact.”
Hoeppner set out an early version of her appeal in the emotional moments after her bill was defeated in the House of Commons last autumn.
“Rest assured Canadians will not forget this betrayal,” she said.
“Those MPs have sent a clear message that their voters have heard and understood – that they don’t have a voice in Ottawa when they thought they did.”
Liberal and NDP leaders are promising to keep the registry but reform it.
It was one of the few rural issues to figure in last week’s English and French leaders’ debates. Opposition leaders saw retaining the registry as one of their anti-crime and community safety promises while Harper described it as an irrational proposal to punish rural farmers and hunters for gun violence that mainly happens in the cities.
