PUBLICATION:        The Edmonton Sun 

DATE:                         2003.03.22

EDITION:                    Final 

SECTION:                  Editorial/Opinion 

PAGE:                         11 

BYLINE:                     DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN 

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CHRETIEN HAMMERS NAIL IN COFFIN OF DEMOCRACY

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Ironies abound in life. How fitting that in the same week he backed away from joining a campaign to bring democracy to the Middle East at bayonet-point, Jean Chretien was doing his best to drive democracy out of Canada for good.

This week saw what might have been the final and ultimate act of political malice by our morally bankrupt prime minister. By threatening his MPs with expulsion from caucus if they vote no on Tuesday's $59-million appropriation for the gun registry, Chretien has signalled his sickening contempt for the principles of parliamentary democracy.

It is his final manipulation of our traditions, the last slap in the face before this pea-brained plutocrat moves to the cottage for good - and good riddance.

"It kind of makes you feel like a whore," said Liberal MP Roger Gallaway on Thursday. He leads the pack of Grit backbenchers who've publicly criticized the registry, and who were threatened by the PM with losing their right to run as Liberals if they oppose new funding for the program on Tuesday.

"Basically, the message from (the PMO) is, 'Don't try to do your job. If you try to represent your constituents' wishes, you will be fired.

"What we have now is government by Crown prerogative. You do what the King tells you to do or it's off with your head.

"Frankly, I'm frightened for the state of democracy in this country."

It's a good time to be frightened. Let's recap: the federal Liberals introduced a gun registry. This gun registry turned out to be a bottomless black hole for public funding - originally slated to cost around $2 million, it's expected to hit the $1-billion mark by 2005.

Thanks to a combination of ideological blindness, wishful thinking and very bad planning, the cost of the registry was as wildly underestimated as its benefits were exaggerated. The government lied to and misled its own and opposition MPs repeatedly about the registry's true costs. When pressed to explain themselves, cabinet ministers still repeat a threadbare mantra about "Canadian values" and "public safety" with all the sincerity of brainwashing victims.

The registry has been a policy failure on every level: costly, ineffective, wildly inaccurate. Most cops repudiate it. The public supports it only in theory - because government polling asks them to express their opinions about "gun control," not the registry itself. The registry doesn't provide gun control because it can't be trusted. But the Chretien cabinet can't let go of it because they can't admit to having made a $1-billion mistake.

Not yet, at any rate. Because the prime minister is marking time to retirement, he's understandably reluctant to let the registry's flameout end up on his end-of-term report card. The registry has to die because it won't stop bleeding money. But Chretien, peevish and egotistical old crank that he is, would rather defer its death until after his hated enemy Paul Martin takes office. To stick it to Martin, Chretien will waste another $59 million in public money and complete the Commons' transformation into farce.

Chretien and his creatures insist the registry vote is a "confidence" vote, one that would force a snap election if it's lost. This is another lie. MPs turned down cabinet's request for $72 million for the registry back in December - a vote cabinet initially characterized as a confidence vote before it became clear it was going to lose.

Technically, if Tuesday's vote is a confidence vote, so was the one in December. But there was no election call then, and no justification for one now.

Our government institutions have been perverted into a vehicle for the whims of a dimwitted ward-heeler. And don't look to Paul Martin to fix this situation: he's a creature of the party, and a party to its worst excesses. He will only restore the power and dignity of the Commons if he is forced.

The only thing that can force him is a massive split in the Grit caucus during next week's vote. A lot of Liberals are going to have to put their jobs on the line in order to make the Commons work again. Does anyone have the guts?