BADDECK, N.S. – The Liberal Women’s Caucus is partnering with Liberal Public Safety Critic Mark Holland to tour the country to shore up support for the life-saving gun registry and to put pressure on Jack Layton’s NDP to side with police officers and victims – not Stephen Harper – by voting to keep the registry.
“Police forces and victims groups across the country have been unanimous in their support for keeping the gun registry,” said LWC Chair Maria Minna. “As the critical vote in the House of Commons nears, we’re going to rally as many supporters together as possible to tell Stephen Harper that he is wrong, wrong, wrong to scrap the gun registry.
“Michael Ignatieff – unlike NDP Leader Jack Layton – has taken a principled leadership position in favour of saving the gun registry,” said Mr. Holland. “Mr. Layton could have done the same. He had a choice – to stand with police officers and victims, or stand with Stephen Harper – and he chose Mr. Harper.
The RCMP gun registry evaluation report that the government finally gave to the Public Safety Committee yesterday – after every attempt was made to cover it up – strongly and explicitly recommends maintaining the registry. It reports that long guns are involved in nearly 70% of gun-related deaths and that women are overwhelmingly the victims of long-gun-related homicides.
“The Liberal Women’s Caucus is showing a united front and to get out into the communities that will be affected by Stephen Harper’s dangerous decision to put lives at risk,” said Liberal Status of Women Critic Anita Neville. “It is an outrage that the government sat on this report for so long while the Prime Minister continues to go around deceitfully telling Canadians that the registry is expensive and doesn’t work. We intend to make sure Canadians know about this.
The Liberal caucus worked together to bridge rural and urban concerns and save the gun registry with a set of proposals – praised by both police and victims groups – that would ensure first-time failures to register firearms would be treated as a simple, non-criminal, ticketing offence, instead of a criminal offence; fees would be permanently eliminated; and the registration process would be made much simpler.
“We challenge Jack Layton to look into the eyes of the families of gun victims and tell them why he didn’t save the gun registry when he had the chance,” Mr. Holland concluded.
