Gun registry survives vote

News — 28 September 2010

Kenora MP Greg Rickford expressed disappointment this past week as a bill to abolish the federal long-gun registry was scrapped, Sept. 22.

Following a vote at the House of Commons, the results came back in favor of the registry with a final vote of 153 to 151.

“Fifteen years after this registry has been implemented, the debate was at such a fever pitch and the vote was so close, I believe that the trajectory of this issue lies in our favour, and that is to eventually or ultimately dismantle the long-gun registry,” says Greg Rickford, MP for the Kenora riding.

Many believe that the vote held last week was the third and final reading on Bill C-391 to abolish the long-gun registry, but this not the case. The vote in the House last week followed a debate triggered by a motion put on the table in the House to scrap the private members bill to abolish the registry.

“I think if you were in the House of Commons, on the floor, like I was and saw a couple of the Liberal MP’s crying about their vote and a visibly nervous NDP caucus, it tells you that there were a lot more votes in our favor,” reports Rickford. “As a matter of position, policy and whip, the vote had been engineered to see this fail.”

Rickford feels that this debate was disappointing as it goes beyond the long-gun registry, and goes to credibility.

He also blames the NDP for changing their vote after the second reading, and states, “The NDP mislead on the issue and did an about face on what they told their constituents they were in the process of doing and when their vote counted, they stood down.”

The gun registry was put in place initially to assist the Canadian police forces in awareness of situations before they are put at risk.

“The police said repeatedly that they go into every set of circumstances with certain foundational assumptions about how to treat a scenario,” recalls Rickford. “The hits on the gun registry were mere formalities and those were contrived statements made by the opposition that unfairly held the police position to a great degree of distortion.”

The Conservative MP says this is not the end of the long-gun registry abolishment as far as his party is concerned, and will continue to fight to have the registry abandoned no matter what.

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