PUBLICATION:          The Calgary Sun 

DATE:                         2003.06.05

EDITION:                    Final 

SECTION:                  Editorial/Opinion 

PAGE:                         14 

COLUMN:                  Editorial 

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COUNTDOWN TO DISASTER

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It's time for the federal government to toss its ill-fated gun registry where it belongs. On the trash heap.

After pouring more than $1 billion into this bottomless money pit, the Chretien Liberals should cut taxpayers' losses and admit the entire exercise has been a bureaucratic nightmare and a political failure.

Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter cast even more doubt about the viability of this ill-fated scheme yesterday when he admitted an untold number of gun owners' names may have been deleted from the registry after a computer crash. 

Easter said the computer system could not handle the intake as gun owners scrambled to register before the Jan. 1 deadline, which was later extended to June 30.

As the new deadline looms, about one quarter of an estimated 1.9 million gun owners have yet to register their rifles and shotguns.

Earlier this week, Ontario and Nova Scotia joined Manitoba and Saskatchewan in refusing to prosecute gun owners who break the law by failing to register their weapons. Alberta has stated it won't co-operate with Ottawa in prosecuting those who fail to register long guns.

The federal government has bungled this right from the start.

It insisted forcing law-abiding hunters and farmers to register their long guns would cut crime, when logic tells us criminals and those with nefarious intent would have nothing to do with it.

In the meantime, it simply creates a whole new class of criminals.

Rising costs caused by a series of bureaucratic blunders prompted the auditor general to criticize the registry earlier this year as an unforgivable deception of Parliament.

It would have been far more useful to use the vast amounts wasted on this fiasco to beef up law enforcement across Canada.

If, as Canadian Alliance Justice critic Garry Breitkreuz claims, no court in the country will prosecute now, this boondoggle has already failed.

The feds should acknowledge this sad reality and scrap the registry immediately.

Otherwise, the new deadline is simply a countdown to disaster.