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Gun registry: No reason to prop it up

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Conservative MPs were hawks who picked apart Canada's rifle and shotgun registry and demanded its abolition while languishing in the opposition benches but have morphed into doves now that they find themselves in power.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is backing off from oft-repeated pledges -- including an unequivocal promise in the party's election platform -- to scrap the bloated and ineffective registry because he doesn't believe a bill to dismantle it would win a vote in the minority Parliament.

But Harper has announced plans to proceed ahead on other controversial fronts where majority support in the fractious House of Commons is far from guaranteed. The opposition is less than enamoured with the government's child-care plan and its plan to rollback Liberal tax cuts to pay for its GST cut, for example, but Harper appears willing to risk defeat in the house to honour those promises.

Harper should show the same resolve in fulfilling his pledge to scrap the registry, which was originally supposed to cost Canadians $200 million but has now cost taxpayers more than $1 billion. An argument could be made such a gross overexpenditure was justified if the registry actually worked to save lives but it hasn't, it doesn't and it won't.

Farmers and duck hunters aren't gunning people down on Canada's streets and the thugs and criminals likely to use weapons to settle drug debts or commit violent crimes like robberies aren't the sort to register their weapons. The registry is ineffective because it targets law-abiding citizens while offering police officers and the general public a false -- and potentially dangerous -- sense of security.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association have endorsed the registry, arguing it provides them information about which households have owners with registered firearms. Unfortunately, that information can also prove valuable to criminals who will target such homes for burglaries.

A former webmaster for the Canadian Firearms Centre went public last week with his concerns that anyone with even a basic knowledge of computer applications could hack into the system and steal the personal information, like home addresses, of registered firearms owners. He called the insecure registry a "shopping list for criminals."

If police truly feel the registry is a valuable tool despite that security risk and despite the fact illegal handguns or unregistered weapons won't turn up in registry searches, they should pay to keep the registry afloat out of their existing budgets because the federal government has spent too much for too little already.

Rather than use his minority status as an excuse to avoid making a decision that might prove unpopular with the urban base he is trying to court, Harper should stick to his guns and honour oft-repeated promises by holding a free vote in the house on a bill to scrap the registry.

By stipulating it will not be a confidence vote, Harper could proceed to his other priorities no matter the outcome. Even though the opposition parties support the registry, individual MPs, particularly those from rural constituencies, do not, meaning a bill to scrap the registry could still be passed despite the Conservative's minority status.

If the bill is defeated, it will be defeated after a debate and a democratic vote.

The issue can be revisited during the next election campaign when Canadians vote yet again for politicians they justifiably expect to honour their promises.