PUBLICATION:
Edmonton Journal
DATE:
2004.05.24
EDITION: Final
SECTION:
Opinion
PAGE:
A14
COLUMN:
Lorne Gunter
BYLINE:
Lorne Gunter
SOURCE:
The Edmonton Journal
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McLellan
deaf to western voices: Edmonton MP listening to central Canadian gun-registry
zealots
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Anne
McLellan's bus signs claim she is A Strong Voice for the West. The deputy prime
minister and Edmonton MP, though, seems to have more in common with urbanite
central Canadians, at least on the subject of gun registry.
The fact that Canada still has a gun registry is mostly McLellan's doing.
Friday,
Roger Galloway, a Liberal MP from southern Ontario who favours scrapping the
registry, called its remaining advocates "a bunch of zealots." Globe
and Mail columnist John Ibbitson reported the registry's remaining defenders are
mostly "urban, leftish and ... female MPs."
And
McLellan.
In
a COMPAS poll, done last week for the National Post and Global National, a
majority in every western province agreed the registry had done nothing to
curtail crime in their communities.
You
might think an MP who boasts about her commitment to westerners would heed those
results and push for an end to the registry. Instead, McLellan prevented the
cabinet from adopting changes which might have made the registry more palatable
to the very westerners to whom she insists she is so devoted.
Albina
Guarnieri, the associate defence minister, travelled the country during the
first three months of this year, collecting advice from legitimate gun owners.
She presented her recommendations to cabinet last month.
Guarnieri
apparently urged the decriminalization of the registry -- failing to register
would have become a ticketable offence, like speeding. There would have been no
fees for acquiring a gun licence or for registering a gun. And guns in one's
possession not already registered would have to be registered only when sold or
given away. She sought to ease transportation regulations for lawful owners who
have to seek police permission to carry their gun, locked inside a case, in the
locked trunk of their car.
Earlier
this month, JMCK Polling of Calgary released a survey of nearly 1,600 Canadians.
It found 61.6 per cent wanted the registry scrapped immediately. Another 15.1
per cent "somewhat" agreed, for a total of 76.7 per cent. Almost 92
per cent of Albertans wanted to see an end, 82 per cent of British Columbians
and nearly three-quarters of Saskatchewan and Manitoba residents.
Did
these results prompt McLellan to side with the westerners she claims to stand up
for in our nation's capital?
Of
course not. McLellan chose instead to side with the five per cent of Ontarians
and 7.6 per cent of Quebecers who argue vehemently against shutting down the
registry, or changing it.
Moreover,
Guarnieri learned McLellan would be announcing changes to the registry last
Thursday from television newscasts she heard on Tuesday, even though Guarnieri
had done all the legwork.
According
to a source close to Guarnieri, she and McLellan became locked in an impassioned
battle -- Guarnieri fighting to ease many of the most onerous aspects of the
registry, McLellan pushing to keep the registry exactly as is. Guarnieri was not
invited to the meetings when the final changes were agreed upon.
According
to my source, McLellan preferred to side with Justice Department bureaucrats,
anti-gun lobbyists and central Canadian urban MPs in their efforts to "make
guns so difficult to own, (Canada) becomes gun-free."
Thursday,
McLellan made changes so minor no one applauded, except perhaps the registry's
hard-core fans who had feared major changes might be in the works. Those who had
thought Guarnieri would win major amendments in cabinet -- or who had felt
Guarnieri promised them major changes -- were bitterly disillusioned by the
skimpiness of McLellan's announcement.
Failing
to obtain a firearms owner's licence or to register a gun is still a criminal
offence. Gun owners indicted for failing to register -- most face only summary
charges -- still face a longer minimum prison term (five years) than armed
robbers (two years).
All
guns must be registered, not just those that are sold or willed to new owners.
And gun collectors are still subject to warrantless searches of their homes to
look for unregistered guns, while the homes of 130,000 Canadians barred from
owning guns because of their backgrounds of violent behaviour are off limits
without a warrant.
Even
the one big change promised by McLellan -- a $25-million cap on registry
expenses -- is bogus.
In
February, Irene Arsenault, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Firearms Centre,
announced that Ottawa's firearms program was going to cost $133 million in the
2003-04 fiscal year, instead of the $113 million originally forecast.
Arsenault
also disclosed that $116 million of the $133-million total represented the
direct cost of administering the registry and licensing program.
Then
Thursday, McLellan insisted the annual cost of the registry could be capped at
$25 million because operating costs have never been more then $48 million in any
one year and would be $33 million this year.
In
other words, McLellan's spending cap is just more Liberal mist and fog: It
sounds good, but it's probably meaningless and undoubtedly so convoluted no one
will be able to decipher the books until the auditor general is called in.
lgunter@thejournal.canwest.com