PUBLICATION:        The Ottawa Citizen

DATE:                         2003.03.24

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  Editorial

PAGE:                         A12

SOURCE:                   The Ottawa Citizen 

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MPs, unmuzzled: Liberal opponents of the gun registry should keep speaking out

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By all appearances, Jean Chretien is so determined to quash any opposition in the Liberal ranks to the government's gun-control registry that he's threatening a snap election and booting recalcitrant MPs from caucus if they vote against spending more money on the ill-fated project. Our advice for those few Liberals who won't surrender their principles in the face of such bullying is to stick to your guns, you may save Parliament.

The gun registry has been a demonstrably disastrous undertaking. It was supposed to cost $2 million, but instead has hit taxpayers for $700 million and is projected to climb past

$1 billion. Yet Mr. Chretien continues to promote it as part of his "legacy." Indeed, only three months after MPs rejected a government request for a further $72 million to pay the registry's accumulating bills, Mr. Chretien intends to force another vote tomorrow for $59 million in extra program funding. And this time he's threatening to make the vote a matter of confidence in his government, meaning a loss could trigger an election.

Mr. Chretien seems to regard the gun-registry vote less as a matter of principle and more as a test of prime ministerial machismo. That would explain his reported threat to expel from caucus any MP who fails to vote in favour of the funding. Last week's caucus meeting was reported to be so emotionally charged that some MPs were reduced to tears. "He reduces members to crying and pleading for their rights. There were lots of teary eyes in the room," said one MP.

Equally troubling is the idea that Mr. Chretien is willing to send Canadians to the polls if he doesn't get his way on this matter. British Prime Minster Tony Blair didn't make it a question of confidence in his government when he held a parliamentary vote on whether Britain would go to war. Yet, our prime minister would force an election if he's thwarted on one of his pet projects. As Sarnia-Lambton MP Roger Gallaway, one of the half-dozen Liberal MPs critical of the registry, observed, "It's a very sad day where the only way a government can hang together is to intimidate its members ..."

The Liberal gun-registry critics -- who in addition to Mr. Gallaway include MPs John Efford, Lawrence O'Brien and Joe Comuzzi, along with Senators Anne Cools and Herbert Sparrow -- are to be applauded for resisting the prime minister's pressure tactics. So too is Nepean-Carleton MP David Pratt, who's challenged the government's refusal to support the United States in the Iraq war. They are among the few Liberal parliamentarians willing to confront the prime minister on matters of principle.

While our parliamentary system requires party discipline to be effective, the system is ill-served by members who don't insist on sufficient independence to represent their constituents' interests and their consciences to critique the government's more ill-thought policies. The actions of these few MPs and senators are a welcome sign that representative government is not a forgotten concept within the ranks of Canada's "natural governing party."