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The long-gun registry was a multibillion-dollar boondoggle. But Trudeau seems intent on going down that road again

Political parties, leaders and governments propose a variety of policy initiatives.  Some never get past the planning stage and others are passed into law.  And some are policy-oriented disasters that stand out due to political miscalculations, economic mishaps and poor communication strategies.

One of the most memorable was the federal Liberals' Canadian Firearms Registry, or long-gun registry, introduced in 1993.  It was supposed to account for all guns in this country, and make our communities safer and more secure.  But it contained a major flaw: only law-abiding citizens would ever willingly register their weapons, while criminals weren't part of the equation.

The long-gun registry was only supposed to cost taxpayers about $2 million, with registration fees used to cover expenses.  The final tally ended up at over $2 billion due to massive cost overruns and multiple government inefficiencies.

Canadians from all walks of life gradually began to realize the obvious: the long-gun registry was a multibillion-dollar boondoggle and had to be terminated.  That's just what the Conservative government did in 2012.

The political lesson from this episode was that no future federal government Liberal, Tory or otherwise should ever propose anything like this again.  And that brings us to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is ignoring history (as usual) and doing something remarkably similar to the long-gun registry.

Trudeau's Liberal government plans to introduce Bill C-71, which would establish background checks into a firearms licence applicant's entire history.  This could include identification of previous criminal records and any history with mental health issues.

Businesses must also keep extensive records of firearm purchases (and purchasers) for two decades and anyone selling a non-restricted firearm like a long gun must verify that the recipient has a valid licence.

Tory MP Rachael Harder recently told the media that Bill C-71 "brings back the useless and ineffective long-gun registry." An e-petition, with more than 72,000 signatures as of April 30, seems to show a growing number of Canadians agree with her.

They're right.  It may not be a carbon copy of the Canadian Firearms Registry but it's pretty close to the type of Big Government that turned off so many Canadians for decades.

I've never owned a gun although I've fired one on a couple of occasions.  But even before I went to a firing range, I've always believed the responsibility of owning a gun belongs to the individual and not the state.

I've met gun owners in Canada and the U.S.  They're decent, honourable and conventional-thinking people.  They believe in law and order, the safety and security of liberal democracies, the importance of protecting families and a person's freedom to own a gun, if he or she so chooses.

In other words, I support gun rights and not gun control.

Unfortunately, the large swaths of gun control advocates are always on the lookout for the next opportunity to push their agenda of government interference in our daily lives.  Even though we've had handgun registration since 1934 and our criminal background checks for firearms purchases are very restrictive, this won't stop their insatiable appetite to restrict our freedoms.

Going after law-abiding citizens, including duck hunters and gun collectors, is a meaningless strategy, however.  The real problem lies with violent criminals, gangs and the illegal black market.  That's who the government should be targeting.

Instead, the government is focused on dividing urban and rural voters, and Eastern and Western Canadians.  If cost overruns follow suit with Bill C-71, which isn't out of the realm of possibility, this government will be in big trouble in next year's federal election, providing the Tories with a huge political advantage.

Do they care?  Not in the slightest.  Policy-oriented disasters are Trudeau's speciality, after all.

Troy Media columnist and political commentator Michael Taube is also a Washington Times contributor, Canadian Jewish News columnist, and radio and TV pundit.  He was also a speechwriter for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


A little over a week ago Election's Ontario announced it would be investigating a complaint filed by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario against the provincial Liberal government and Premier Kathleen Wynne for using taxpayer-funded government announcements to attack their opponents.  The complaint listed 25 events at an estimated cost of "at least $185,000."

"At these campaign style events, Kathleen Wynne or the Liberal Minister(s) accompanying her have made comparisons between their partisan announcements and those of the Leader of the Ontario PC Party.  In fact, these events are designed to draw a comparison between political platforms of political parties not government programs," read part of the PC's lawyer Arthur Hamilton's letter to Election's Ontario.

When former PC MPP Frank Klees told reporters that Wynne had targeted Doug Ford at some of these government announcements, the event total had jumped to 39 and the estimated cost to taxpayers of $292,000.

Although the Liberals were quick to dismiss the complaint as the Conservatives trumping up Elections Ontario's mandatory obligation to investigate all complaints filed, no matter how baseless, there does appears to be some merit to the complaint.  Election day is less than two months away, so it gives the Liberals an unfair advantage — of course, an incumbent government always does have many advantages going into any election since they hold the levers of power and the resources that come with that — in using taxpayer's money to help with the pre-election campaign, especially when the Liberals commit partisan attacks at these events.  $292,000, albeit a drop in the bucket in an overall budget in the billions, is actually a fair amount of money for a Canadian political party's overall election campaign fund.

Oddly, however, the PC's letter completely omitted the seven town hall events Wynne held in the past several months that were touted as a grand tour of the province where the Premier would "practice democracy" by allowing constituents across the province a chance to ask her a question directly.  In reality, the town halls were a pre-election blitz to go to Liberal ridings and host carefully stage-managed events where Liberal-friendly (paid?) hosts interviewed Wynne before opening it up to the floor to attendees.  Attendees had no opportunity to ask follow-up questions and many had their questions left unanswered because of the time limit.

As I pointed out back in early February in the National Post, it appears these so-called non-partisan events also had preferential seating for around a couple dozen people from local Liberal riding associations.  These planted attendees would then give the Premier softball questions about her government's latest goodies for Ontarians.  At the point of the article being published, Wynne was half-way through her cross-province tour (if you can call seven stops in a province as big as Ontario that) and I pointed out that all of the event locations were in Liberal ridings.  In the end, Wynne went to six Liberal-held ridings at risk (University-Rosedale — a newly formed district in traditionally Liberal turf, Brampton Centre, Ottawa West-Nepean, Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, Thunder Bay-Superior North, and one event between two downtown Toronto Liberal-held ridings — Toronto Centre and Trinity-Spadina) and one NDP-held riding, Windsor West, which the last Liberal candidate lost by a slim margin.  That's hardly all of Ontario, and completely ignores rural parts of the province.  Obviously underlying this tour's false pretense of engaging Ontarians in practicing democracy was the self-interest of going to ridings still up for grabs.  And now it turns out, thanks to Toronto Sun's Antonella Artuso's reporting, that this pre-election tour to Liberal-held turf and one Liberal-friendly riding cost taxpayers $209,000.

Perhaps the Conservatives missed out in having a more robust case by not including these questionable town halls in their complaint to Elections Ontario.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.