PUBLICATION:
The
StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
DATE:
2004.01.14
EDITION: Final
SECTION:
Forum
PAGE:
A8
SOURCE:
The StarPhoenix
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Admit
failure of gun policy
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It
would be a huge mistake for Prime Minister Paul Martin to think that tinkering
on the edges of a gun registry that's alienated so many Westerners will save him
from Jean Chretien's legacy.
Many
voters west of the Manitoba-Ontario border -- particularly those on the Prairies
-- saw Chretien's hard-headed pursuit of legislation designed to humiliate,
intimidate and criminalize recalcitrant but otherwise peaceful gun owners as the
ultimate in Central Canadian arrogance.
For
a democratic government to be perceived as legitimate, the laws it passes must
be demonstrably beneficial, workable and ultimately acceptable to those to whom
it applies. The gun registry failed on all accounts.
While
Martin has convinced himself that the problem simply is with the registry's
billion-dollar overexpenditure, he must be reminded that we wouldn't even know
about that fact were it not for the diligence of Yorkton-Melville Conservative
MP Garry Breitkreuz and Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
The
greatest damage hasn't been from the huge costs -- estimated to top a billion
dollars -- or the relatively high rates of non-compliance and attempts at
sabotage by those who knowingly filed faulty applications.
The
real fallout has been the public impression created that Ottawa is so out of
touch with Canadians outside of the Shawinigan to Windsor corridor that it
considers it acceptable to ram through a law that a majority of provinces oppose
and refuse to enforce.
This
is not to say the rest of lawful, gun-owning Canadians oppose gun control.
Canada has had a strict gun regime for decades and has never had the gun culture
that pervades the United States.
Yet,
when Martin was asked if eliminating the registry was an option he didn't
hesitate.
"No,
it's not," he said. "Let me be very clear, we are committed to gun
control and we are committed to the registration of weapons."
If
that's the PM's immovable position, one thing is clear: Like his predecessor,
Martin doesn't recognize the difference between controlling the unlawful and
dangerous use of guns and criminalizing their legitimate and safe ownership
without unconscionably invading the privacy of gun owners.
Those
in the Prime Minister's Office may believe that Canadians had become so tired of
Chretien's ready willingness to pit regions against one another that they'd buy
whatever goods Martin proposes to sell.
Canadians
are an understanding and forgiving people. They'll wait and hope for a logical
explanation about drug raids and bogus Liberal memberships that have become a
staple of the nightly news out of B.C.
They
might even buy the supposition that there isn't enough money in the till to pay
for Martin's pledge to municipalities. And they might live with the notion that
the military can't be brought up to snuff as fast as we were led to believe.
We
may even swallow the theory that the over-riding need to save medicare means
we'll have to forgo the Innovation Agenda, forestall modernizing the economy and
postpone rebuilding Canada's infrastructure.
After
all, health care has become the cowbird of Canadian public policy. The
insatiable appetite of this adopted offspring increasingly gobbles up a greater
share of public expenditure while all other legitimate programs are left to
wither, starve or die.
This
has happened, by the way, with little public debate and completely without
leadership from various levels of governments. Like the songbirds duped by the
cowbird, they unquestionably throw everything they have at the one offspring
they believe, because of its very size, must be the most important.
However,
if Martin proves to be unwilling, unable or spineless to do the right thing
about a clearly failed public policy such as the gun registry -- one that has
driven deep wedges in the country -- it will only exacerbate the alienation that
has become the Liberals' legacy to Canada.
As
forgiving as Canadians are, we aren't idiots. Another four years of simmering
resentment and a pizza Parliament after the next election could make Martin's
38-year dream of moving into 24 Sussex Drive his living nightmare.
Steven Gibb, Gerry Klein, Les MacPherson, Sarath Peiris and Lawrence Thoner collaborate in writing SP editorials
"Democracy
cannot be maintained without its foundation: free public opinion and free
discussion throughout the nation of all matters affecting the state within the
limits set by the criminal code and the common law." -The Supreme Court of
Canada, 1938