PUBLICATION:        The Ottawa Citizen

DATE:                         2003.04.04

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  Editorial

PAGE:                         A16

SOURCE:                   The Ottawa Citizen

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Not again

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How many more things have to go wrong with the long-gun registry before the federal government finally admits it has botched this file from the very beginning?

The latest setback came this week as the government withdrew legislation aimed at streamlining administration of the gun registry, in part by transferring responsibility for it from Justice to the Solicitor General's Department. But another reason for withdrawing the legislation is that some Liberal backbenchers have joined opposition members of Parliament in trying to block it.

From billion-dollar cost overruns to administrative nightmares that left officials scrambling to process registration forms by the deadline, nothing seems to have gone right with the registry. Perhaps it's time the federal government stopped trying to fix the program and acknowledged that its very foundation is flawed.