End to gun registry in sight

News — 01 November 2011

By Ally Dunham

On Tues., Oct. 25, 2011, Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, put forward Bill C-19 to the House of Commons, to abolish the long-gun registry.

With a majority Conservative government, Kenora District MP Greg Rickford says the bill will pass.

“There are some procedural mechanisms available to the opposition at Committee to try and make it (debate) go longer, but even then, under majority circumstances, we (Conservatives) have the ability to ensure it won’t be filibustered,” said Rickford.

City of Dryden Mayor, Craig Nuttall weighed in his opinion on the abolishment of the registry by saying, “I think it’s great. It should have been done a long time ago.”

Although this bill is very similar to Bill C-391 that was tabled in 2009 by Candice Hoeppner, the Conservatives then held a minority government.

“What’s different in this than what was in the private members bill (C-391) is to provide for the destruction of all records pertaining to the registration of long-guns in the Canadian Firearms Registry and under the control of the chief firearms officer,” said Rickford. “Except if you owned a restricted or prohibited weapon. They will all remain in the registry.”

John Rafferty, MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River says he’s surprised this addition is in the bill.

“One of the things I know the Conservatives were concerned about was that the police chiefs were unhappy with the bill. They will be even unhappier to see this, so I’m a little surprised that this is in there,” said Rafferty. “There’s something that goes against the grain here. Here we’ve got billions of dollars spent of taxpayers money, and it’s a little ironic that the government would say ‘The wasteful long-gun registry’ and then they’re going to burn a couple of billion dollars of taxpayers money. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

The Conservatives have restricted debate on the bill, which has already seen first reading in the House of Commons, in order to speed up the process.

“This bill will be fair and reasonable in allocation of debate, but we’re not letting it drag on forever,“ said Rickford. “We consider this an important part of our platform, and by introducing it as government legislation, it speaks to the desire we have to take care of this matter and move on.”

Rafferty says he needs to talk with his constituents before making a decision to continue to support the new bill with its additional clause.

“I’m going to spend as much time as I can talking to people in my riding and talking about this issue to see what they think. The whole issue of burning the records may not be an issue for people in my riding.”

Rickford says the Conservatives would like to see Bill C-19 pass sooner than later and hope that by Christmas or shortly into the new year, they can pass the legislation, abolish the registry and “move on”.

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