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| Liberal core voters now the only supporters... - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 at 10:32 |
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EDMONTON JOURNAL Newspapers around the country ran headlines declaring "Free vote may kill gun registry," pegged to a letter sent by Sarnia Liberal MP Roger Gallaway to constituents on Jan. 19. I had seen the letter, all two lines of it, three or four days before the news broke. It was nowhere near that certain. Gallaway had suggested "Under the reforms being instituted by Mr. Martin it may be very well that the Firearms Program will die of 'financial malnutrition'." If the PM implemented his promised democratic reforms before Parliament voted to authorize the registry's budget for the coming year, and if the PM decided the registry estimate would be a free vote, and if enough freed-up Liberal members voted against the appropriation of funds, the registry might die for want of money. Yeah, yeah, and if the moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars. I admire Gallaway's courage. He was one of the few Liberal MPs willing to disagree publicly with Jean Chretien while Chretien was prime minister. He is not a backbench trained seal. And he is now both the parliamentary secretary to Government House Leader Jacques Saada and the MP charged by the prime minister with stewarding democratic reforms through Parliament. When Gallaway speaks on the subject of free votes, then, you would think he was speaking from authority. But under Chretien, Gallaway was not only just a brave speaker, he was sometimes an impetuous one, sounding off before thinking or before he had consensus from his caucus colleagues. Old habits appear to die hard. Even though he is now a senior parliamentary secretary in the Liberal government, Gallaway appears to have been merely speculating when he forecast that the cabinet would permit a free vote on the registry's funding and when he guessed as many as 50 government MPs might side with the Conservatives to cut off funding and permit the registry to wither on the vine. Gallaway's immediate boss, House Leader Jacques Saada contradicted him, as did the prime minister. Both insisted the registry's budget vote would not be up for a free vote. It would be "whipped," and it would be a confidence vote, meaning the government would consider itself defeated if the appropriation failed, so it would be enforcing party-line discipline in the vote -- no free vote, Liberal MPs would vote as they were told and they would be told to preserve the registry. Why? Two reasons: The Liberals continue to delude themselves about the efficacy of the registry, and the registry plays well with core Liberal voters. Increasingly, though, it plays well only with those voters and no one else. Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who is back in charge of the registry, continues to insist a majority support it. Monday, McLellan claimed in the House of Commons that "We should not lose sight of the fact that Canadians are committed to gun control." Actually, most Canadians may like the vague notion of gun control, but they are increasingly opposed to the registry. Last week, pollsters Ipsos-Reid revealed that just 43 per cent of Canadians favour retention of the registry. That's down from a high of over 80 per cent in some polls in 1998. For the first time in Ipsos-Reid's surveying, a majority (53 per cent) called for the registry to be scrapped. The "Canadians are committed to gun control" delusion was not McLellan's only one, though. In the same breath she also insisted the Liberals had been "absolutely clear, year after year, in terms of what the firearms program cost." Huh!? Does she honestly expect anyone -- anyone at all -- to swallow that after the Auditor General's scathing report on the registry's costs? After the Auditor General labelled the registry the worst cost overrun ever investigated by her department? After the AG identified at least $200 million in registry spending that had never been reported to Parliament (approximately one-third of the total at that time) and after she withdrew her auditors from the registry investigation because the books were so convoluted and dishonest not even her bloodhounds could make sense of them? The real reason Liberals like McLellan continue to cling to the registry farce can also be seen inside the Ipsos-Reid poll numbers. "Older Canadians are more likely to want the federal gun registry to be dumped than the younger ... Men are also more apt than women to want ... (it) scrapped (58 per cent of men vs. 46 per cent of women)." Rural Canadians are more in favour of ending the registry than urban Canadians, Canadians outside central Canada are more in favour than those in Ontario and Quebec, and those without university degrees want the registry dumped more than those with degrees. In other words, the registry remains popular only with younger, university-trained, female voters in big cities in Central Canada. But those voters are the Liberal base. So the registry also remains popular with the Liberal government, even if all other Canadians long ago came to see it for the sham it is. |