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| HANCOCK UNDER FIRE OVER GUN REGISTRY - Friday, November 28, 2003 at 12:15 |
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PUBLICATION: The Edmonton Sun ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Broyce Jacobs is a Tory MLA and rock-hard rancher from Cardston who went to Brigham Young University and once headed up the Foothills-Little Bow Association of Municipal Districts and Counties. That's the same outfit that brought a resolution to the floor of the recent Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, urging the Klein government to enact a firewall of legislation around the province to protect us from Ottawa. Dave Hancock is a smarty-pants Red Tory lawyer from southwest Edmonton who, ironically, has been leading the charge to head off the intriguing firewall concept. Their worlds are light years apart. But this week they collided on the floor of the Alberta legislature. It wasn't exactly gunfire. But the subject was guns. And specifically what the justice minister is doing to protect legitimate and law-abiding Alberta firearms owners from the Ottawa gun police. Jacobs, who represents the sunny south riding of Cardston-Taber-Warner, posed his questions the day the news broke that the Ottawa Liberals had finally admitted that their flawed and invasive gun registry will, indeed, cost Canadian taxpayers over $1 billion. "I was mortified," Jacobs spat. Hancock, to his credit, called the registry a "massive boondoggle" and a "waste of money." So far, so good. But it went downhill from there. Especially when Jacobs tried to pin the justice minister down on what exactly provincial Crown prosecutors are doing when it comes to gun-registry prosecutions. He specifically raised the question of former legislature sergeant-at-arms Oscar Lacombe, who is in court facing charges of being in possession of a firearm at a public meeting after he showed up at an anti-registry rally with a .22 calibre rifle in a sealed plastic bag. The bolt had been removed from the gun, making it incapable of being fired. Lacombe still remains a very popular figure around the building despite being retired for many years and he regularly attends Remembrance Day ceremonies and other legislature events. What seemed to tick Jacobs off was the revelation that one of Hancock's men was actually prosecuting Lacombe in court despite the minister's claim a few years back that the Alberta government would have no part of federal firearms prosecutions. "Can the minister advise what role provincial Crown prosecutors will play when charges for unregistered firearms are laid?" Jacobs snapped. It was a good question considering Hancock's deeply confusing signals on the Lacombe case. "Alberta has been a leader in this country in fighting the gun registry law," Hancock responded. Sadly, Hancock's rhetoric doesn't match reality. Other than the standard no-hope constitutional challenge before Jean Chretien's hand-picked Supreme Court, the Justice Department's attempts to run off the feds have been minimal at best. "We believe that when people use guns illegally or in the commission of a crime or where they do not follow the laws with respect to storing firearms properly, then we obviously will continue to do what we have always done and prosecute," Hancock said. "But we will not prosecute under the federal gun registry act and where it's clear that a charge relates solely to registration." But he also said he has ordered prosecutors to notify the federal government of gun registry act charges. In other words, rat out folks to the feds. "We will continue to follow our constitutional obligation to prosecute under the Criminal Code when firearms are used illegally," Hancock said, listing offences like "unsafe use, unlicensed use, where you haven't properly obtained a licence, (and) where you're storing improperly." It basically sounds like Alberta prosecutors are going to nail Albertans with almost every offence under the feds' offensive anti-gun laws and tattle on the rest. Of course, Hancock is the same guy who cut the credibility out from under the premier when Ralph Klein made a passionate pitch for the Canadian Wheat Board protesters and then quietly allowed them to be hauled away to an Alberta government jail. "Many of my constituents remain concerned," Jacobs said. And so they should be, considering Hancock's contrary behaviour. |