Hard target
Cyril Doll - Monday,13 March 2006
Western Standard
When the federal government announced Feb. 15 it would begin dismantling the unpopular long-gun registry, it was surely welcome relief to 2.3 million Canadian gun owners. Taxpayers should have been elated, too. Ever since the Liberals made the registry law in 1995, its price tag has ballooned from initial projections of $2 million to nearly $2 billion--or more. The day after the announcement, Public Security Minister Stockwell Day hinted that the numbers he's seen are higher than anticipated.
The Tories' determination to eliminate the registry became policy at the party's 2005 convention, and was part of their recent election campaign platform. But their ability to do so may be limited. With a minority government dependent on three opposition parties that have all backed the registry in the past, the odds of passing a law razing it don't look great.
That leaves Prime Minister Stephen Harper with few options. He could try pushing it through in the next budget bill, expected in March--risking a non-confidence vote. Or the cabinet could take a page out of the Liberals' book of tricks and pass order-in-council regulations that would, in effect, whittle down the registry to something less intrusive.
The new government has assembled a committee to oversee changing the registry. It includes Day, MP Garry Breitkreuz, a longtime registry critic, and Justice Minister Vic Toews. Tory insiders say that if the registry can't be scrapped altogether, it could be adjusted to track the 176,000 Canadians with firearm convictions, or the 15,000 applicants who have been denied firearm licenses in the past--rather than keeping files on the 2.3 million law-abiding gun owners currently targeted. The Toronto-based Canadian Shooting Sports Association estimates that such a change could save taxpayers $78 million per year. "Now that we've seized the beachhead and captured the gun, there's absolutely no reason why we can't turn it around," says Tony Bernardo, CSSA's executive director.
Bernardo means the 51 built-in regulations contained in C-68, the registry bill. The Liberals designed the law to give government the power to restrict who can be issued a firearms license, as well as regulate other inconspicuous matters, such as the right to "the keeping and destruction of records" from shooting clubs. "There is no reason that stuff can't be changed without it going back to the House," Bernardo says. "Certainly the Liberals gave the Conservatives all the tools they need to change this." For instance, it costs roughly $90 million a year to operate the registry. In 2002, more than $500 million was spent on fixing computer errors and paying staff to process registration forms, according to the auditor general's report. An order-in-council that eliminated background checks for all gun owners, restricting them instead to those owners with criminal records, could slash costs.
There are limits on how much the new government can do to make life easier for law-abiding gun owners. Currently, police have the right to search the homes of owners of more than 10 firearms. Since that provision was written directly into the law, the Tories can't alter it without going to Parliament. The same goes for changing the varieties of firearms that were made illegal by the Liberal government. "We realize as gun owners we can't be saying get rid of the firearms act, we have to be--and I hate the word pro-active--but we have to offer something in its place," says Ed Hudson, secretary of the Saskatoon-based Canadian Unregistered Firearms Owners Association, a group that has fought the registry for years.
There's a small chance Opposition MPs could be persuaded to back more significant reforms. On Feb. 20, Bloc House leader Michel Gauthier said his party would keep the Conservatives in power for a "good while" as they dismantled Liberal-built centralization policies. And the spate of gun violence in recent years bolsters the Tory case that registries can't stop criminals shooting people. Canada has had a handgun registry in place since 1974, but, according to Statistics Canada, 66 per cent of homicides in 2002 were committed with handguns, compared to 27 per cent in 1974.
Getting parliamentary support for a Tory campaign promise to redirect money away from the gun registry to more law enforcement, especially if it's directed at the provinces, might tempt the Bloc, provided it didn't include a wholesale dismantling of the program--something leader Gilles Duceppe has opposed in the past. Otherwise, the Tories--facing a choice between coming up lame on promises to reform gun laws, and breaking a commitment to democratic reform by employing Liberal-style order-in-council end-runs--could find the registry issue results in a much greater cost than they anticipated.
Cyril Doll - Monday,13 March 2006
Western Standard
When the federal government announced Feb. 15 it would begin dismantling the unpopular long-gun registry, it was surely welcome relief to 2.3 million Canadian gun owners. Taxpayers should have been elated, too. Ever since the Liberals made the registry law in 1995, its price tag has ballooned from initial projections of $2 million to nearly $2 billion--or more. The day after the announcement, Public Security Minister Stockwell Day hinted that the numbers he's seen are higher than anticipated.
The Tories' determination to eliminate the registry became policy at the party's 2005 convention, and was part of their recent election campaign platform. But their ability to do so may be limited. With a minority government dependent on three opposition parties that have all backed the registry in the past, the odds of passing a law razing it don't look great.
That leaves Prime Minister Stephen Harper with few options. He could try pushing it through in the next budget bill, expected in March--risking a non-confidence vote. Or the cabinet could take a page out of the Liberals' book of tricks and pass order-in-council regulations that would, in effect, whittle down the registry to something less intrusive.
The new government has assembled a committee to oversee changing the registry. It includes Day, MP Garry Breitkreuz, a longtime registry critic, and Justice Minister Vic Toews. Tory insiders say that if the registry can't be scrapped altogether, it could be adjusted to track the 176,000 Canadians with firearm convictions, or the 15,000 applicants who have been denied firearm licenses in the past--rather than keeping files on the 2.3 million law-abiding gun owners currently targeted. The Toronto-based Canadian Shooting Sports Association estimates that such a change could save taxpayers $78 million per year. "Now that we've seized the beachhead and captured the gun, there's absolutely no reason why we can't turn it around," says Tony Bernardo, CSSA's executive director.
Bernardo means the 51 built-in regulations contained in C-68, the registry bill. The Liberals designed the law to give government the power to restrict who can be issued a firearms license, as well as regulate other inconspicuous matters, such as the right to "the keeping and destruction of records" from shooting clubs. "There is no reason that stuff can't be changed without it going back to the House," Bernardo says. "Certainly the Liberals gave the Conservatives all the tools they need to change this." For instance, it costs roughly $90 million a year to operate the registry. In 2002, more than $500 million was spent on fixing computer errors and paying staff to process registration forms, according to the auditor general's report. An order-in-council that eliminated background checks for all gun owners, restricting them instead to those owners with criminal records, could slash costs.
There are limits on how much the new government can do to make life easier for law-abiding gun owners. Currently, police have the right to search the homes of owners of more than 10 firearms. Since that provision was written directly into the law, the Tories can't alter it without going to Parliament. The same goes for changing the varieties of firearms that were made illegal by the Liberal government. "We realize as gun owners we can't be saying get rid of the firearms act, we have to be--and I hate the word pro-active--but we have to offer something in its place," says Ed Hudson, secretary of the Saskatoon-based Canadian Unregistered Firearms Owners Association, a group that has fought the registry for years.
There's a small chance Opposition MPs could be persuaded to back more significant reforms. On Feb. 20, Bloc House leader Michel Gauthier said his party would keep the Conservatives in power for a "good while" as they dismantled Liberal-built centralization policies. And the spate of gun violence in recent years bolsters the Tory case that registries can't stop criminals shooting people. Canada has had a handgun registry in place since 1974, but, according to Statistics Canada, 66 per cent of homicides in 2002 were committed with handguns, compared to 27 per cent in 1974.
Getting parliamentary support for a Tory campaign promise to redirect money away from the gun registry to more law enforcement, especially if it's directed at the provinces, might tempt the Bloc, provided it didn't include a wholesale dismantling of the program--something leader Gilles Duceppe has opposed in the past. Otherwise, the Tories--facing a choice between coming up lame on promises to reform gun laws, and breaking a commitment to democratic reform by employing Liberal-style order-in-council end-runs--could find the registry issue results in a much greater cost than they anticipated.
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