This week’s House of Commons vote to abolish the long gun registry represents another milestone in the drive by western Canada’s original Reformers to change the Canada they didn’t like.
Since Stephen Harper won a majority May 2, rectifying Reform grievances has been a key priority, both a reward to the rural and western base that first gave the party life and fulfillment of Harper’s own original Reform agenda.
The Canadian Wheat Board monopoly will be abolished. Check.
The West will get a greater representation in the Commons. Check.
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The hated gun registry, enacted after the first Reform wave of 1993 but a Reform/Alliance/Conservative target ever since, will be gone. Check.
Senate reform has been a tougher nut to crack because real change would require constitutional amendment and that is not going to happen. But even on that file, the government at least is moving on the fringes of term limits and the ability of provinces to hold elections if they want.
It is a remarkable grievance-addressing agenda considering that the majority Conservative government has presided over fewer than 100 Commons days since its election. Mind you, to get the agenda through, House leader Peter Van Loan has resorted to bully tactics — a record use of rules available to cut off parliamentary debate.
He has responded to charges of undemocratic tactics by arguing that debates about those western grievances have gone on for years and it is time to act.
Tommy Douglas, first leader of the New Democratic Party, once told Canadian voters that if they gave his then-small party a strong opposition presence in Parliament, they would “turn Ottawa upside down.”
Give them a majority and they would “turn Ottawa rightside up.”
This clearly is the Reform/Conservative ‘rightside up’ phase.
Coincidently, Douglas was part of the eclectic mix of “reformer” photos that adorned the walls of the original Reform Party caucus room on Parliament Hill.
Setting aside individual political positions on firearms (which range from melt them into ploughshares to everyone has the right to arm themselves) the end of the parliamentary debate was a measure of mercy for those whose vocation is to listen.
The two solitudes had long ceased to talk to each other. Both sides dug in, had their own evidence base and supporters.
There was no hope of consensus on the issue.
The only possible road to resolution was brute power — when Liberals held a majority and then the combined opposition did, they got their way. Now it is the Conservatives’ turn.
If one of the opposition parties defeats the Conservatives in future, it can re-establish a long gun registry if it wants to re-open the debate. Unlike the CWB debate, this vote is not irreversible.
Meanwhile, the gun registry bill now becomes the Senate’s issue and opponents of the government policy will try to make it their last stand. But with the Conservatives now in control of the Senate, their chances of doing anything more than prolonging the ‘debate’ for a few weeks are remote.
For those who have dreamed of being able to carry their unregistered rifle while considering which forward contract they sign outside the CWB, that dream should come true by early spring.
