PUBLICATION:             GLOBE AND MAIL 

DATE:                         TUE FEB.10,2004 

PAGE:                         A20 

CLASS:                       Editorial 

EDITION:                    Metro DATELINE: 

WORDS:                     698 

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The gun registry is a test of Martin's democracy

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From the beginning, skeptics (some would call them realists) wondered whether Prime Minister Paul Martin's ambitious plans to democratize Parliament would bear up under the vicious cut and thrust of day-to-day politics. Would Mr. Martin's reforms -- greater power and independence for parliamentary committees, more free votes in the House of Commons -- endure even if they occasionally made life miserable for the government? Or would they collapse the first time it appeared that a high-profile policy or law would be overturned with the help of liberated Liberal backbenchers?

Last week, as he addressed the Commons the day after the Throne Speech, Mr. Martin boldly claimed the first case. "I have no doubt that some votes may not go our way," he said. "But it is my firm belief that from debate comes strength and from dispute comes clarity." Well said.  Now skip forward to today and consider the growing dispute within government ranks over a looming vote on spending for the National Firearms Program, popularly known as the gun registry. In a CBC Radio interview Sunday and again in an interview with this newspaper yesterday, Government House Leader Jacques Saada made it exquisitely clear that any "line-item" vote that threatens the existence of the registry itself will be considered a "whip vote" -- a matter of confidence in the government. In other words, Parliament will not be allowed to block most or all of the estimated $110-million the registry is expected to cost this year. Only if the purpose of the vote were to "improve" the gun registry (which might include some spending reductions but not a crippling one) would a freer vote be allowed.

However, Roger Gallaway, the Martin-appointed parliamentary secretary for democratic reform, says that's simply not on. He insisted yesterday that the standards guiding which votes are "whipped" and which are free are very clear. "The question is [whether a line-item vote on the gun registry is] a confidence matter. And clearly, I say to you it is not."

Mr. Gallaway noted that, in December of 2002, the Commons voted to reduce spending on the National Firearms Program by $72-million. "And it went unopposed by the government," he said. "If you follow the logic, we ought to have had an election in 2002."

Asked whether a threat to the survival of the registry itself might tip the balance in favour of a full confidence vote, Mr. Gallaway was categorical. "We're not talking about a budget, or an appropriation, or a Throne Speech. We're talking about what is a justifiable expense within a department or program. Whether that is reduced by $1 or the whole amount . . . this is simply a rebuke of a program, not a rebuke of a government."

Yesterday, House Leader Saada compared the gun registry with the policy of official bilingualism. "Let's say you have a line item which kills all programs having to do with implementation of official bilingualism in Canada. This would of course jeopardize a fundamental policy cornerstone of the government, and this would not be a free vote."

But Mr. Gallaway, who supported the gun registry when it was launched in 1995 but grew critical as costs ballooned, argued that the registry can in no way be considered a fundamental government policy. "The NFP was not a plank in the 1993 election," he said. "This was [just] a bill." He added that he believes a line-item vote on the registry, expected within six to eight weeks, will be a test case for Mr. Martin's democratic-reform plan. "It's a very fundamental issue."

Two conclusions may be drawn from this debate. First, it's not surprising that the government whip and the secretary for democratic reform are so soon at loggerheads. They serve two fundamentally different purposes within the government. Second, if we are to take the Prime Minister's words at face value, Mr. Gallaway clearly makes the stronger case. Let the gun registry's defenders make the best possible argument for its survival. Then let Parliament have its way. That would be a signal -- stronger than any speech -- that democratic reform is real.