Long-gun registry faces the axe in Parliament

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This article was published 02/03/2012 (5268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Hoeppner is fired up that her government’s long battle to do away with the federal long-gun registry could soon be over.

The Harper government recently received approval from the House of Commons to scrap Canada’s contentious long-gun registry.

Hoeppner has championed Bill C-19, which would abolish the registry, along with Public Safety Minister Vic Toews since it was introduced to the House last year. It replaced Bill C-391, a private member’s bill Hoeppner introduced in 2009 which was defeated in a September 2010 vote in the Commons.

Bill C-19 was passed by MPs by a vote of 159-130 following a lengthy debate on Feb. 16. It must still be approved by members of the Senate.

Hoeppner said she was “really satisfied” with the outcome of last month’s vote.

“Obviously because of the work I did on this bill personally, but on behalf of law-abiding gun owners in Canada who have been criminalized for the past 15 years, it was both satisfying to win a majority government and then be able to see this bill passed,” she said.

Hoeppner, whose federal riding includes the RM of Cartier and a portion of Macdonald, said she doesn’t expect there to be any problems with the bill being passed by members of the Conservative-led Senate.

“We have a majority in the Senate and some great senators there helping to shepherd the bill through,” she said. “The Liberal senators will have an opportunity to look at it and oppose bill, but it will pass and reach royal accent.”

One of the more contentious components of Bill C-19 is that it calls for all records of the current long-gun registry to be destroyed.

Hoeppner said destroying the records is important to ensure the registry will not be reinstituted at a later date.

“Quebec has indicated that they would like the information to start their own registry, but we have been very clear that we will not be passing that information to any other level of government,” she said.

Hoeppner said she maintains that the registry has been ineffective and a waste of taxpayers’ money despite support for it from a number of groups including law enforcement officials.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has indicated that officers consult the registry an average of 10,000 times a day.

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