PUBLICATION: The Toronto Sun
DATE:
2004.02.08
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Comment
PAGE:
C3
BYLINE:
LINDA WILLIAMSON, TORONTO SUN
COLUMN:
Second Thoughts
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SINK
HOLE - PM SENDING MORE TAX DOLLARS DOWN THE GUN REGISTRY DRAIN
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Well,
how do you like our new prime minister so far?
It
was quite a week for those of us who complain Paul Martin is the best-known
enigma in Canada.
Now,
after his first throne speech and his remarkable, lengthy, candid appearance
with real Canadians on a special CBC "town hall" program (is it just
me, or was it enormously refreshing to hear a prime minister actually answer
questions articulately?), we know a whole lot more about our PM.
Okay,
most of what we now know remains wrapped in vague platitudes. But at least we
have an idea which issues are - and aren't - Martin's priorities.
Take
the gun registry. Please.
After
a flurry of tantalizing stories following his appointment as Liberal leader and
PM that suggested Martin might finally shut down this wasteful boondoggle - as
part of his attempt to disassociate himself from previous Liberal failures - he
came clean on CBC-TV.
He's
not scrapping it. So there.
As
he oh-so-earnestly told the Alberta woman who dared suggest such a thing, he
believes in the hated, controversial, billion-dollar long gun registry - because
he believes it represents "Canadian values."
But
before anyone could ask what was so Canadian or valuable about wasting tax
dollars and threatening to criminalize every farmer with a rifle in the barn,
Martin stressed there are "irritants" about the registry that must be
dealt with.
It's
a laughable choice of words. "Irritant," I guess, is supposed to cover
everything from the bureaucratic screw-ups that frustrated many would-be
compliant gun owners to the refusal of most provinces to prosecute owners of
unregistered rifles and shotguns. But it's a clear enough signal.
Martin
is not only going to keep the registry alive - and force his cabinet to back it,
free votes be damned - he's going to subject it to the same ongoing cost review
as every other government department. Translation: it'll be filed away until
after the expected spring election, along with all his other hot potatoes, from
same-sex marriage to Maher Arar.
He
also knew exactly what he was doing when he deflected the question about the
registry by enthusing that he and the majority of Canadians believe in "gun
control."
Well,
yeah. We don't believe people should be able to run around with guns
willy-nilly, shooting everyone and everything in sight.
There
are just two problems with this Paulyanna statement: One, people are running
around with guns and shooting up our cities - and two, the gun registry has no
control over them.
Martin
did acknowledge this somewhat when he noted that more should be done to stop gun
smuggling into Canada (hello? isn't this a federal responsibility? a national
security issue?), and police should be given more resources. But of course, he
made no specific commitment to anything. Except the registry.
To
me, that's a clear signal the fight against the registry itself is all but lost.
It's going to continue in some form no matter what (well, unless Canadians force
themselves to vote something other than Liberal this spring ... but that's a
topic for another day). Martin may try to assure us the costs will come down and
the money will somehow be redirected to law enforcement, but let's face it - the
gun registry bureaucracy is a black hole. That money is gone.
But
Martin's position also signals a direction for those of us who are more
concerned with controlling the illegal guns in our cities than a few legally
held long guns in the country.
Police,
crime victims' groups and everyone else who values safe streets (and that
includes, I would hope, the most zealous gun-haters) need to abandon the fiction
that the registry controls crime. They are two separate things, and Martin must
be pushed to admit it.
Never
mind the politically correct line that the long-gun registry is a useful tool
for police - what police really need are new legal tools to use against
gangsters and smugglers who don't register anything. They need the laws already
on the books to be enforced - like the 1995 Criminal Code provision for a
minimum four-year sentence for use of a firearm in a violent crime, which is too
often plea-bargained away.
Average
citizens need to ask Martin what he has against putting criminals who use guns
in prison. Now that's a town hall question - and answer - I'd really like to
hear.