PUBLICATION:
DATE:
2004.12.09
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial
PAGE:
A12
SOURCE:
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Consign
gun registry to the trash heap of good ideas gone bad
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Liberal
MP Roger Gallaway's decision to drop his current plan to starve the federal gun
registry of funds shows a sense of human decency. His intention to resume the
fight at a later date shows grit, and offers a way out of the quagmire that the
registry has become.
The
maverick backbench Ontario MP showed an appalling sense of timing when he
announced he would force a vote in the House of Commons on Thursday.
To
take such a step only days after nationwide observations of the 15th anniversary
of the killing of 14 young women at l'Ecole Polytechnique in
Gallaway's
decision to force the issue at a later date also shows a sense of tactics. He
did the math on the planned vote, and saw that as things stood, he was headed
for defeat. The Conservatives were prepared to back him, but the Bloc Quebecois
wasn't, and there was precious little support from the NDP or the vast majority
of his own party.
Despite
the colossal waste and inefficiency of the gun registry, the majority of our
politicians are not yet prepared to face facts and start over. It is time for
them to realize that regardless of their feelings -- as well as those of their
constituents -- about gun control, the program is too far gone to be saved in
its current form.
BLOATED
PRICE TAG
The
term "much-maligned" has been attached to recent references to the
program, and with reason. Its skyrocketing budget, endless missteps and ability
to antagonize large numbers of otherwise placid citizens is unparallelled.
Gallaway's
original plan was to block $96 million in funding for the registry. That's 48
times its total projected cost when it opened in 1998; today, it's just a decent
bite out of its bloated billion-dollar-plus price tag.
No
matter: The program is still protected by a government that would rather cling
to a sinking ship than swim to a life raft.
Serge
Menard, the Bloc's public-safety critic, muddied the water recently with the
hopelessly irrelevant observation that just because one has paid too much for a
house does not mean one should set fire to it. The idea is not to burn it down:
To borrow Menard's metaphor, if your house is poorly built, repair it -- even if
that means going back to the foundations and starting again.
A
TAINTED LEGACY
No
government agency that winds up over budget by a factor of more than 500 has the
faintest chance of operating effectively in its original form, even with the
best will in the world. No matter how much is spent, it will collapse under the
crushing weight of its own inefficiency and tainted legacy.
The
Liberals have a chance to do something about this, although it will take a lot
of effort from Gallaway to get them to admit it.
Registering
shotguns and rifles has turned out to be a fruitless and divisive activity.
Homicides
across
As
our use of rifles and shotguns to kill our fellow Canadians has gone down, we
have turned to handguns -- legally required to be registered since the 1930s --
to do the job.
The
registry's failure to produce results, not to mention the sheer fumbling
incompetence on the part of the federal government and its employees, should
have been enough to consign it to the rubbish heap of history long ago.
When the
politicians finally have the opportunity to vote on its future, it is to be
hoped that they will pause to consider how much more effectively that money
could be spent searching for ways to control our murderous tendencies, instead
of wasting it on a flawed program that demonstrably does not work.