Tory MP says she's close to having support to put an end to controversial registry

C1

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

5 Comment(s)

OTTAWA - A Conservative MP says she's close to having enough opposition support to kill the long-gun registry in a vote on her private member's bill Wednesday.

Candice Hoeppner says she has commitments from eight Liberal and NDP MPs to vote in favour of legislation that would end the decade-old registry and destroy existing data in the system on about seven million shotguns and rifles.

"I probably have eight (opposition) members who have indicated they'd support the bill," the Manitoba MP said yesterday.

A parliamentary vote in favour of Bill C-391 on second reading Wednesday won't make it law, but will send it to the next stage of legislative approval and make it that much more difficult to derail at a later stage.

Repealing the long-gun registry would still leave registration of hand guns and restricted weapons intact, and rifle and shotgun owners would still require gun licences.

While massive cost overruns led to the long-gun registry costing taxpayers almost $1 billion through 2005, according to Auditor General Sheila Fraser, the ongoing cost of the long-gun portion of the registry system is modest -- between $2 million and $5 million annually.

That's led some critics of the registry cost overruns to question whether it makes sense, now that the budget has already been blown, to scrap the costly system.

Private members' bills are traditionally free votes in the Commons, meaning MPs don't have to toe the party line. However every Conservative MP in the minority government is expected to support killing the gun registry, and the Tories have also targeted a number or rural opposition ridings with ads and flyers in a bid to influence the local MP's vote.

MP Dominic LeBlanc, the Liberal justice critic, accused the government of "playing political games" to divide rural and urban Canada and pit region against region. Still, he insisted that votes on private members' business should be free.

"What I can tell you is the leader and I, as justice critic, have continually supported -- as do the police chiefs across the country, as do many provincial attorneys general -- the gun control registry," said LeBlanc. "It is an important part of public safety."