PUBLICATION:              The Toronto Sun 

DATE:                              2004.02.09

EDITION:                      Final 

SECTION:                     Editorial/Opinion 

PAGE:                          14 

COLUMN:                     Editorial 

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GRIT MPS UNDER THE GUN

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Sadly, Prime Minister Paul Martin and his trained Liberal seals are determined to keep their useless, bloated gun registry alive.

Last week, one day after Martin promised Canadians that backbench MPs would enjoy a new era of freedom on Parliament Hill, the same old arrogant Liberal reality returned with a vengeance.

Liberal House Leader Jacques Saada said Grit MPs won't be allowed to vote freely when it comes to the issue of whether more money should be poured down the black hole of the useless federal long gun registry.

Instead, and as usual, they'll have to toe the line and vote in favour of continuing to support this billion-dollar-plus boondoggle with even more of our cash. This despite the fact the registry has been criticized by the auditor-general as a fiscal disaster and was only supposed to cost us, again, according to the Liberals, $2 million.

The political battle over the long gun registry (Canadians have had to register handguns for decades) continues to drain resources, manpower, time and political will away from things that would help police fight urban street crime.

Things like more cops, prosecutors, border patrols, tougher sentences and longer jail terms for those who use a gun in the commission of an offence. Things that have nothing to do with hunting down farmers and hunters to register rifles and shotguns.

The Liberal argument in favour of tying the hands of Grit MPs is apparently that a vote against pouring more money into the gun registry would be a defeat on a money matter and thus an issue of non-confidence. Absurd.

Departmental spending estimates are reduced all the time, without bringing down the government and forcing an election.

If the Liberals won't let their own MPs vote freely on the gun registry, the only logical conclusion is that they're afraid of how those MPs would vote, given that a majority of Canadians (52%) say Martin should scrap the thing, according to a recent Ipsos-Reid poll.

Talk about your "democratic deficit."