For the fourth election in a row, Conservative leader Stephen Harper is promising to abolish the long gun registry if elected.
But he is making it clear the Conservatives need a majority in the next Parliament to do it.
An attempt in the last Parliament failed by two votes in the face of combined opposition, although it was a private member’s bill and not a government bill.
On April 4, prime minister Harper used a visit to an Ontario farm in southwestern Ontario to make the promise again.
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“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.”
Harper also announced that he would create a hunting and wildlife advisory panel “to ensure that government decisions are based on sound science and balanced advice.”
It will include representatives of hunting and angling groups and Ducks Unlimited to advise government on endangered species laws, conservation and wetland protection. Harper said the registry will remain as long as opposition MPs control the House of Commons.
“Only a majority Conservative government can be counted on to scrap the long gun registry,” a Conservative party statement quoted him as saying.
On April 3, the Liberals unveiled a platform that promised to retain the registry with reforms that include making a first offence punishable with a fine and not a criminal charge, making the form simpler and abolishing fees for licenses.
Ontario Conservative MP and House of Commons agriculture committee chair Larry Miller said April 4 the registry is a constant issue in his Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound riding, the second-largest cattle producing riding in the country.
“Tweaking it will not work, will not satisfy people,” he said.
In the large rural riding of Lamb-ton- Kent-Middlesex three hours south, Conservative MP Bev Shipley was in the middle of explaining the differences between western Conservatives and Ontario Conservatives – the former more free market anti-government and the latter more middle-of-the-road – when he stopped himself.
“I guess the only issue my voters are really radical about is the gun registry,” he said.
