The Conservative government has to come clean on the real reasons behind its plan to destroy more than seven million records in the federal long-gun registry or risk the public image of “scorched earth” to appease hard-line gun owners who have been a staunch source of electoral and financial support through four elections, says pollster Nik Nanos.The question of why Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) government is not satisfied with simply terminating the registry under a bill it is steamrolling through the Commons—and why they would go so far as possibly having to even burn old computer tapes or CD-ROMs—has taken flight after prominent human rights expert Paul Champ speculated the government wants to satisfy the large element of long-gun owners who fear confiscation of their firearms once the Tories lose power.
Michel Drapeau, a former Canadian Forces colonel who is now a lawyer and expert on privacy laws and the Access to Information Act, told The Hill Times he was “shocked” the government intends to destroy records that are part of Canada’s history.
Liberal MP John McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.), whose party introduced the Firearms Act and the registry the law established in 1995, said destroying the records goes “beyond the pale.”
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.) told the Commons last week the government intends to destroy the registry’s vast and likely complex records on long guns to prevent the NDP from attempting to “reinstate” the program should it win power in the next election. Only three NDP MPs finally voted in favour of a Conservative MP’s bill that proposed scrapping the registry in the last Parliament.
Despite splits in all three opposition parties over the gun registry then, a majority of Liberal, New Democrat and Bloc Québécois MPs combined to defeat Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s (Portage-Lisgar, Man.) private member’s bill. NDP House Leader Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) told reporters last Friday that despite the NDP division, the party might bring the registry back if it forms government.
“There is no question we are strong supporters of the registry. We believe in fact it accomplishes a good deal in providing safety, first to our frontline people, to our police, and then more generally to the community as a whole, so there is no question we would give serious consideration to giving it back,” Mr. Comartin said.
Critics pointed out, however, that even if the Conservative government terminates the provisions and requirements to register rifles and shotguns—while maintaining a long-established registry for handguns and prohibited firearms—it would be impossible for the RCMP to be able to use the outdated records as a reliable and safe way to start anew.
The new government, through the RCMP, would have to confirm the information and begin establishing a new registry virtually from ground zero. That led Mr. Champ and others, including Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) and Mr. Drapeau, to conclude the real goal is to placate gun owners who want no record of their rifles and shotguns left in government computer warehouses.
Mr. Nanos said the image of government record destruction could be harmful to the Conservatives.
“I think for the Conservatives, they really need to clearly articulate why they believe that the records need to be destroyed, because I think on the face of it, some people could have the impression that this is a bit of a scorched earth policy in terms of the gun registry, that the Conservatives not only don’t want to have a long-gun registry, they want to create an environment where it will be difficult to have another one, or very onerous and difficult to have another one in the future,” Mr. Nanos told The Hill Times.
He added, however, that he believes the only long-term political damage for the Tories would be a spike in firearm homicides or long-gun crimes once the registry is terminated.
“The only way this could potentially damage the Conservatives in the long run is if somehow the number of gun-related crimes increases. That’s really the only vulnerability to the Conservatives.”
Recent news from Statistics Canada showed that a range of indexes for firearm crimes and death involving long guns has declined steadily over the past decade—including spousal homicide by long gun and suicide involving rifles and shotguns.
Mr. Nanos said the speed with which the government is moving on the legislation should have been expected.
“There’s really no choice for the Conservatives in terms of canceling the long-gun registry,” Mr. Nanos said. “It’s also not surprising that the Conservatives would move very quickly on this, so that come the next election there is as much distance as possible between the memory of canceling the long-gun registry and when voters return to the polls. It’s a much better strategy for them to do this now than do it in a year or two when the election clock will be ticking again.”
Mr. Drapeau, though, said the concept of a government destroying its own records out of political motives is unsettling.
He objected to the government’s use of an override clause, in Bill C-19 terminating the registry, to prevent Library and Archives Canada from preserving the records for future historians and researchers.
Mr. Drapeau, who is a historian who recently co-wrote a tome on military law with Federal Court Justice Gilles Letourneau, said he’s “shocked.” The records are “part of our history. It’s part of our makeup, it’s part of our culture, it’s part of making us the way we come,” he said.
“This is what they used to do in the former Soviet Union—wipe out portions of history, or in East Germany and so on, and in China. I find that from a democratic standpoint, let alone an archival standpoint, this is without precedent, and a very, very serious event in the life of a nation, and we spent $2-billion for it [creating the registry].”
Mr. McCallum said destruction of the registry records could bridge divisions within the opposition parties over whether the requirement for long-gun registration should continue.
“I think this burning of records is critical,” he told The Hill Times. “The opposition parties had both pro-registry and anti-registry in them, and I think this burning of records is bringing those two groups together to a degree, because I think that’s beyond the pale.”
Mr. McCallum noted Quebec, which claims its taxpayers have contributed $500-million to the creation of the national firearms program, is threatening legal action to safeguard registry records on the gun owners in Quebec.
“I think Quebec taxpayers, for example, were partly paying the money to acquire these records and if the government of Quebec wants to proceed with this, I think it’s utterly wrong for the government to refuse to give those records to Quebec,” he said.
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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