Martin targets gun registry

[Are Be]

Martin targets gun registry
NEWS: A major overhaul is likely as Ottawa begins review, sources tell JANE TABER

By JANE TABER

UPDATED AT 3:20 PM EST &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2004

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OTTAWA -- Former prime minister Jean Chrétien's $1-billion gun registry is under review by the new Paul Martin government and likely will be significantly altered in a move that would appeal to Western Canada.

Among the changes being considered, sources say, is reallocation of some of the resources used to finance the registry to beef up other areas, such as policing or security at borders where illegal guns make their way into Canada from the United States.

A senior government official said yesterday the gun-registry legislation is not "a meaningful law." Most provinces and territories, including Alberta and British Columbia, have refused to comply with the legislation, which came into force last year.

Only one person has been convicted under the new law of failing to register a gun; there are estimates that more than one million guns are not registered.

However, the official said yesterday the review is not expected to recommend killing the registry.

"The question is, is it going to metamorphose into something else. . . . If we're going to spend this money, maybe there is a better way of spending it or siphoning some off to areas which need it."

Albina Guarnieri, Minister of State for Civil Preparedness, is conducting the review.

Prime Minister Paul Martin and Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, a Western Liberal MP who as justice minister in the Chrétien government was one of the key supporters of the legislation, consider the review a priority.

They asked the Mississauga MP and new minister to take on the registry review just after she was sworn in to cabinet last month.

"This is in the spirit of what [Finance Minister] Ralph Goodale announced, that everything in government is under review," Ms. Guarnieri said in an interview yesterday.

Ms. Guarnieri, who is a proponent of gun control, said she is not approaching the review with any "entrenched positions."

"Gun control is much more than a simple registry," she said.

Ms. Guarnieri said she will look at how efficiently public money is being spent and whether "Canadians are getting value for their dollars."

She also expectds to "co-involve" some Liberal colleagues, such as Paul Steckle and Rose-Marie Ur, two MPs from rural ridings in Ontario, who opposed the registry.

In fact, Ms. Ur cried during one particularly emotional caucus meeting last year as she asked Mr. Chrétien to reconsider his edict that Liberal MPs who voted against a request for $59-million more for the gun registry would be expelled.

Many Liberal backbenchers complained that they were rarely consulted during the Chrétien era, saying their role was simply to vote for government legislation.

Now the landscape has changed. Mr. Martin wants to address what he calls the "democratic deficit" and allow MPs a say in legislation and policy.

He has also said he wants to re-engage Western Canada and increase western representation in his government.

Revamping the costly gun registry would be one way to woo the West, where the program is so unpopular that Alberta even launched a constitutional challenge. It lost.

Ms. Guarnieri has expertise in the area of victims' rights and has worked closely with the police on various issues during her 15 years on the back bench.

And she said yesterday that the Firearms Centre, which oversees the registry, has made "some improvements" over the past year.

Ms. Guarnieri said she will work "expeditiously" on the review, hoping to complete it within several months. That means her recommendations would come in time for the federal election, widely expected in the spring.

Last year, the Liberal caucus erupted over the registry after a report by Auditor- General Sheila Fraser, tabled in December of 2002, said that implementing the program will cost more than $1-billion by 2005. When the program was first introduced in 1995, Canadians were told it would cost $2-million after the fees from licences and registration were recovered.

Ms. Fraser criticized the Justice Department for allowing the cost of the program to escalate without telling Parliament.

In a year-end television interview, Mr. Martin said he was concerned about the registry's cost.

"So what's really important is to get those costs, those ongoing costs down," he said, noting that there is a "great deal of good in the gun registry."

"But the basic point that's being made is that in fact we've got to make sure that money is available for health care. It's the number one priority."



© 2003 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

[Are Be]

Martin targets gun registry
ANALYSIS: Why don't the Liberals just kill it off? It's politics, writes JOHN IBBITSON

By JOHN IBBITSON

UPDATED AT 3:21 PM EST &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2004

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OTTAWA -- How do you get rid of the gun registry without getting rid of the gun registry?

Some time this year, the most mismanaged government program in Canadian history (try to think of something else that cost 500 times the original estimate) is expected to pass the $1-billion mark in spending, a year ahead of the Auditor-General's gloomy estimate.

Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan has asked Albina Guarnieri, a minister of state, to review the registry; there is word that Ms. Guarnieri favours making major, though unspecified, changes to the program.

Cynics will suggest this latest review is nothing but a political decoy to shore up support for the Liberals in the West, where the registry is particularly unpopular. Those cynics would be right.

But the truth is, the Paul Martin government absolutely must dismantle the registry, and yet there is absolutely no way it can, and in both cases the reasons are political.

Mr. Martin has launched a review of all government programs, with an aim to ferreting out and eliminating anything wasteful or obsolete. By any rational measure, the gun registry would top the list.

Aside from the accumulated costs, the registry's annual budget is $113-million, and, as often as not, the government has to go back to Parliament for supplementary funding. Within a few years, costs are expected to pass the $2-billion mark.

And for what? Though some police forces use the registry, for example, to discover whether there is a gun in a house where a domestic disturbance is reported, other forces consider the database a waste of money and resources.

Provincial governments are so disenchanted with the program that five refuse to assist with data collection, and eight refuse to enforce the law that makes it a crime not to register a gun.

And though violent-crime rates are falling generally, there is not a scintilla of credible evidence that the registry deters violent crime.

What on Earth would be the point of a search for government waste that failed to target a boondoggle costing more than $100-million a year and achieving nothing? If the registry does not go, then the program review is a farce.

Given the situation, and given the deep unpopularity of the registry in the West and in rural Canada generally, the simple solution would be to close the registry down. And that solution would be politically tempting.

Reversing course on this file would emphatically demonstrate that this new government is not afraid to acknowledge and correct the mistakes of the previous regime. Such a move would increase the Liberal Party's chances in the West, where Mr. Martin fervently hopes to make gains.

Unfortunately, closing down the registry is quite impossible.

For one thing, the decision would represent a political climb-down of unprecedented proportions, more than offsetting potential political gains.

Imagine trying to explain to all those gun owners who registered that they went to the expense and bother for nothing.

The Conservatives would be able to claim that their opposition to the registry was justified, and that the $1-billion spent on the program truly was wasted.

The NDP would use the cancellation as further proof that the Martin government had shifted irretrievably far to the right. Closing down the gun registry just before an election would be the equivalent of handing out sticks to your political opponents and asking them to beat you.

Remember, the registry is as popular in urban and Central Canada as it is unpopular elsewhere. It is particularly popular in Quebec, where Marc Lepine's shooting rampage at the University of Montreal served as a catalyst for the legislation.

Although abandoning the registry would not be the equivalent of giving up on gun control, it would be perceived as such, and the political price in urban ridings and in Quebec would be high.

Finally, shutting down the registry would reveal the fissures within the Liberal caucus, which is seriously split on the issue.

Previous debates within the caucus have reduced MPs on both sides to tears.

Ms. Guarnieri will look for an alternative that reduces the costs and increases the effectiveness of the registry while not abandoning it completely.

(It should be noted that many a report has been commissioned to the same end, to no avail.)

In the meantime, the most the Liberals can hope for is that this latest study puts the issue on the backburner until after the election. Because politically, the gun registry can only cost Paul Martin votes, no matter how he handles it.

jibbitson@globeandmail.ca



© 2003 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.