PUBLICATION:              Edmonton Journal

DATE:                         2004.05.24

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  Opinion

PAGE:                         A14

COLUMN:                  Lorne Gunter

BYLINE:                     Lorne Gunter

SOURCE:                   The Edmonton Journal

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McLellan deaf to western voices: Edmonton MP listening to central Canadian gun-registry zealots

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Anne McLellan's bus signs claim she is A Strong Voice for the West. The deputy prime minister and Edmonton MP, though, seems to have more in common with urbanite central Canadians, at least on the subject of gun registry.  The fact that Canada still has a gun registry is mostly McLellan's doing.

  Who favours the bloated, inefficient, useless, intrusive, bureaucratic nightmare that is the federal gun registry? The western Canadians McLellan insists she so staunchly defends in Ottawa? No.

Friday, Roger Galloway, a Liberal MP from southern Ontario who favours scrapping the registry, called its remaining advocates "a bunch of zealots." Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson reported the registry's remaining defenders are mostly "urban, leftish and ... female MPs."

And McLellan.

In a COMPAS poll, done last week for the National Post and Global National, a majority in every western province agreed the registry had done nothing to curtail crime in their communities.

You might think an MP who boasts about her commitment to westerners would heed those results and push for an end to the registry. Instead, McLellan prevented the cabinet from adopting changes which might have made the registry more palatable to the very westerners to whom she insists she is so devoted.

Albina Guarnieri, the associate defence minister, travelled the country during the first three months of this year, collecting advice from legitimate gun owners. She presented her recommendations to cabinet last month.

Guarnieri apparently urged the decriminalization of the registry -- failing to register would have become a ticketable offence, like speeding. There would have been no fees for acquiring a gun licence or for registering a gun. And guns in one's possession not already registered would have to be registered only when sold or given away. She sought to ease transportation regulations for lawful owners who have to seek police permission to carry their gun, locked inside a case, in the locked trunk of their car.

Earlier this month, JMCK Polling of Calgary released a survey of nearly 1,600 Canadians. It found 61.6 per cent wanted the registry scrapped immediately. Another 15.1 per cent "somewhat" agreed, for a total of 76.7 per cent. Almost 92 per cent of Albertans wanted to see an end, 82 per cent of British Columbians and nearly three-quarters of Saskatchewan and Manitoba residents.

Did these results prompt McLellan to side with the westerners she claims to stand up for in our nation's capital?

Of course not. McLellan chose instead to side with the five per cent of Ontarians and 7.6 per cent of Quebecers who argue vehemently against shutting down the registry, or changing it.

Moreover, Guarnieri learned McLellan would be announcing changes to the registry last Thursday from television newscasts she heard on Tuesday, even though Guarnieri had done all the legwork.

According to a source close to Guarnieri, she and McLellan became locked in an impassioned battle -- Guarnieri fighting to ease many of the most onerous aspects of the registry, McLellan pushing to keep the registry exactly as is. Guarnieri was not invited to the meetings when the final changes were agreed upon.

According to my source, McLellan preferred to side with Justice Department bureaucrats, anti-gun lobbyists and central Canadian urban MPs in their efforts to "make guns so difficult to own, (Canada) becomes gun-free."

Thursday, McLellan made changes so minor no one applauded, except perhaps the registry's hard-core fans who had feared major changes might be in the works. Those who had thought Guarnieri would win major amendments in cabinet -- or who had felt Guarnieri promised them major changes -- were bitterly disillusioned by the skimpiness of McLellan's announcement.

Failing to obtain a firearms owner's licence or to register a gun is still a criminal offence. Gun owners indicted for failing to register -- most face only summary charges -- still face a longer minimum prison term (five years) than armed robbers (two years).

All guns must be registered, not just those that are sold or willed to new owners. And gun collectors are still subject to warrantless searches of their homes to look for unregistered guns, while the homes of 130,000 Canadians barred from owning guns because of their backgrounds of violent behaviour are off limits without a warrant.

Even the one big change promised by McLellan -- a $25-million cap on registry expenses -- is bogus.

In February, Irene Arsenault, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Firearms Centre, announced that Ottawa's firearms program was going to cost $133 million in the 2003-04 fiscal year, instead of the $113 million originally forecast.

Arsenault also disclosed that $116 million of the $133-million total represented the direct cost of administering the registry and licensing program.

Then Thursday, McLellan insisted the annual cost of the registry could be capped at $25 million because operating costs have never been more then $48 million in any one year and would be $33 million this year.

In other words, McLellan's spending cap is just more Liberal mist and fog: It sounds good, but it's probably meaningless and undoubtedly so convoluted no one will be able to decipher the books until the auditor general is called in.

lgunter@thejournal.canwest.com