PUBLICATION:
The
DATE:
2004.12.11
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial/Opinion
PAGE:
11
BYLINE:
DOUG BEAZLEY,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GUN
REGISTRY THRIVES, EVERYTHING ELSE WITHERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
national gun registry dodged another volley from the firing squad this week. A
Conservative-sponsored motion to deprive the registry of a $96-million stipend
was voted down in the Commons by a wide margin, thanks to Liberals closing
ranks.
In
thought, word and deed, the Paul Martin administration has turned out to be
nothing but a morbid outgrowth of the Chretien regime - a tiny
minority-government boil on the old man's backside, distinguished only by the
current prime minister's feeble grasp of campaign politics.
Just a year ago it was Martin promising open votes in the Commons, and attacking the registry as "one of the worst examples of government run amok." Now his backbench is back to behaving like sheep - and as for the registry, the Grits' peculiar attachment to that billion-dollar sinkhole remains as passionate as ever.
The
registry is a fiscal millstone, doomed to perpetual cost-overruns and a marginal
impact on public safety. This week's Commons vote proved the registry is also a
political drag on the Liberal party: they'd probably love to get rid of it, if
they could do it without alienating their base of urban support east of
The
registry provides political security, the only kind Martin and company seem to
care about. From their perspective, the registry doesn't have to work - it only
serves to stand as a symbol of their "commitment" to "safe
neighbourhoods," one of those "absolute priorities" the PM is
always braying about.
Other,
more tangible priorities can go hang as far as this government is concerned.
Take a glance at the newly released annual report of the Standing Senate
Committee on National Security and Defence, and you'll get a clear picture of a
government-security apparatus still adrift in the fog of Chretien-era blithe
indifference.
Start
with the obvious:
Our
ports are wide open, riddled with organized crime and inadequately policed. Few
containers are inspected for contraband or worse - terrorism experts say the
softest target for a dirty-nuclear attack on a North American city would be a
container facility, since the vast majority of port traffic is never screened by
the authorities.
Airports
still aren't examining all checked baggage. "Transport
All
of this should matter to Albertans, because even if we never experience a
homesoil terrorist attack, we have to cope with the carnage caused by firearms
smuggled up from the States and sold on our streets. Lax security at Coutts and
the
As
for the military, Martin's commitment to repair was as oversold as the rest of
his agenda. After losing 30% of its budget between 1988 and 2000, the Armed
Forces got a modest budget boost in 2004 - just enough to cover new missions to
Martin's
promised an added $3 billion over the next five years - less than a sixth of
what analysts say the Forces need to restore equipment, training and troop
levels. And the Liberals continue to push the idea of a "peacekeeping"
military - as if any military could keep peace anywhere without the training,
numbers and equipment to fight an all-out war. "Peacekeeping" is, and
always has been, a Liberal code word for running an army on the cheap.
"At
the most practical level," the Senate report concludes, "a nation has
a responsibility to defend its citizens from physical harm - that is the very
essence of nationhood. The first national imperative is the same as the first
human imperative: survival."
That's
common sense.
But
when you're running a Liberal minority government, political survival trumps
all. So the gun registry thrives - while our army, ports and customs services
wither away.