Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times
If MPs in each of the four federal parties follow through on their stated voting intentions on Bill C-391, an act to scrap the federal long gun registry, it will be the divided NDP caucus that will cause the registry's demise, an outcome that critics say would be bad for both urban NDP MPs and Leader Jack Layton.
The private member's bill is being put forward by Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner (Portage-Lisgar, Man.), and the vote is set to take place at report stage on Sept. 22. The bill passed second reading and was sent to the House Public Safety Committee on Nov. 4, 2009, with the support of the governing Tories, along with 12 NDP MPs and six Liberals, with only the Bloc united in their opposition to the initiative. The second reading vote was 164 to 137
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) previously said, however, that when the bill comes to final reading it will be a whipped vote for his caucus, and all 76 Grit MPs are expected to show up to oppose Ms. Hoeppner's bill. Instead, the Liberals are proposing changes to the decade-old registry, such as making a first-time failure to register a firearm a non-criminal ticketing offence, and eliminating fees for new licenses, renewals and upgrades.
"Michael Ignatieff did take leadership. He worked with his rural caucus, he found a compromise that would work, that I think is a win-win for people on both sides of the issue," said Liberal MP Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.), who voted in favour of Ms. Hoeppner's bill at second reading but will now vote with the rest of his caucus in opposing it.
He said the NDP leader has not shown leadership on this issue, and will pay a political price if the registry is eliminated, which would entail destroying existing data on about seven million firearms in Canada.
"Jack Layton didn't provide the leadership to allow them to find a middle position which they could talk to their constituents about," Mr. Easter told The Hill Times. "The vote certainly undermines Jack Layton's perceived leadership."
Ms. Hoeppner's crusade to abolish the controversial registry, which the Conservatives say is ineffective, wasteful, and a nuisance to law-abiding gun-owners, was struck a double blow last week when the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police endorsed the registry, and then later media reports surfaced that the Harper government has been sitting on an RCMP evaluation of the registry that deemed it both cost effective and an important tool for law enforcement.
Because it's a private member's bill, NDP MPs are allowed to vote according to their conscience. Mr. Layton (Toronto-Danforth, Ont.), who himself opposes Ms. Hoeppner's bill, has asked his justice critic, Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) to try and find a compromise solution within caucus, although several New Democrat MPs have said publicly they will not be changing their votes. George Soule, a spokesperson for the party, however, said internal discussions on the issue are ongoing.
"We have a caucus meeting coming up in September, so a lot is going to depend on that. A lot of our MPs feel pretty dug in but they're also looking for more information. ... We need as much information as possible so that they can make an educated decision. At this point they just haven't gotten all the facts yet," he said.
Conservative MP Shelly Glover (Saint Boniface, Man.), a police officer who is currently on a leave of absence, called the Liberal leader's decision to whip the vote "disgusting," and said she hopes the NDP MPs who supported Ms. Hoeppner's bill last time don't change their minds when the bill comes to final reading.
"Niki Ashton, who is from Manitoba, and Jim Malloway from Manitoba, the NDP candidates that I see most frequently, they have constituencies they need to represent. I really do hope that they do their jobs, which is to represent their constituents," she said.
Ms. Glover said the gun registry doesn't work and that many police officers support it being scrapped.
"To me this isn't about politics, never has been. I was a police officer for almost 19 years. I'm still a police officer on a leave of absence. This to me is about doing the right thing for the frontline police officers. I am really disappointed that it is so politicized because it shouldn't be, it's a pretty straightforward thing. This gun registry does nothing to reduce gun crime, which is why it was created to begin with," she said.
She said she would like to see the money that it takes to run the registry put into hiring more frontline police officers.
A CBC report about the RCMP evaluation of the registry that the government has not yet released said it costs between $1.1-million and $3.6 million to run annually, and according to Statistics Canada the average salary for a police officer in Canada in 2005 was approximately $69,000.
Pollster Nik Nanos said the upcoming vote on the registry definitely puts Mr. Layton in a tough spot, and if it goes as planned it could bolster Mr. Ignatieff's claim to be the only credible alternative to Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.).
"It's going to be difficult from the point of view that Jack Layton for the last number of years has been able to talk much tougher against the Conservative government knowing that the Liberals would be buckling. This is the first time where he will have to bend a bit," Mr. Nanos said. "Michael Ignatieff could come out ahead on this."
Mr. Nanos said for individual New Democrat MPs the political impact of the vote will come down to the urban-rural divide. In the 2008 federal election the Liberals lost a suite of rural Northern Ontario seats to the NDP, and Mr. Nanos said while those MPs could benefit from voting to scrap the registry, their colleagues in urban ridings might not fare so well.
"For the NDP it's just going to make it difficult for them come election time when the Liberal candidate says your party allowed the Conservatives to scrap the gun registry. It's going to be difficult for the NDP in high density urban areas such as Toronto and Vancouver. That's what the NDP basically have to manage at this point in time, what are the repercussions for urban candidates?"
hmacleod@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times
Source: The Hill Times
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