[BRIEF NOTE] On the defeat of the Conservative effort to end the long-gun registry

[rfmcdonald]

Last week I mentioned the Conservative government's efforts to close down Canada's long gun registry by--among other things--bashing Toronto and MPs who changed their mind on the issue. They lost.

By a margin of 153-151, MPs voted to keep the registry, a controversial program decried by opponents as a costly, ineffective intrusion on law-abiding gun owners while applauded by advocates as an essential tool for police officers that saves lives.

The vote caps weeks of backroom drama — and high-level arm-twisting — as opposition MPs who opposed the registry were brought onside by party leaders to ensure its survival.

Just weeks ago, it appeared the registry was dead as Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner had the backing of Liberal and NDP MPs for her private member’s bill that would end it.

But six NDP MPs who backed Hoeppner’s bill changed their minds, along with several Liberal MPs. Another six NDP MPs backed the Conservative push to scrap the registry Wednesday, producing a nail-biter of a vote.

Me, I think it's a good thing. Keeping the registry is clearly a good thing, by my lights and by others'.

The 15-year-old registry, brought in by the former Liberal government in 1995 in response to the killing of 14 women at Montreal’s L’Ecole Polytechnique in 1989, has long been opposed by the Harper government.

A handgun registry centralized under the RCMP for the first time in the 1950s and was expanded to include the requirement to register shotguns and rifles by the former Liberal government.

The long-gun registry has been a lightening rod for controversy since its inception. In rural Canada, it has been particularly unpopular among hunters and farmers, but it has support in cities, particularly from police and victims groups.

Critics of the registry brand it a wasteful attack on law-abiding firearms owners, like hunters and farmers.

Supporters of the registry say it has contributed to public safety by cutting down the number of spousal killings and suicides and it is an important tool for police when they respond to calls. The RCMP reported recently that compiling a registry of the 6.5 million rifles and shotguns has been a cost-effective and useful crime-fighting tool.

This also marks one of the first times that Canada's opposition parties--the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Québécois--have united to defeat a major initiative by the Conservative government. Hopefully, there will be more to come.

In the end, as John Geddes' noted at his MacLean's blog, the Conservative initiative was all show for its base. How do we know this? Because its approach is fundamentally inconsistent.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews [responded] to opposition MPs in Question Period on the gun registry. Toews repeatedly stressed that even though Conservatives want to scrap the long-gun registry, they continue to support licencing gun owners and registering restricted weapons, such as handguns. Why is registering rifles and shotguns unacceptable, but those other aspects of the firearms regulatory system are just fine? Toews objects to the long-gun registry on grounds that “criminals don’t register their guns.” But the bad guys don’t apply for licences or register handguns either.

Here's to hoping that the Conservatives' show will be challenged all the more often as this year continues.