Not taken on faith

Gerald Caplan pipes up on the long gun registry weeks after the most recent vote in Parliament actually made the issue relevant. But someone who's still presented as an NDP insider falls into one of the same glaring mistakes as others who dealt with the topic at the time:

hich leaves the NDP, where a full third of MPs broke ranks with party policy and voted to abolish the long-gun registry. It's clear that many NDP loyalists and many others sympathetic to the party were bitterly disappointed both by the number of breakaways and the failure of Layton to rein them in.

So let's see if Caplan can answer the question which seems to have been glaringly ignored by others:

Exactly what party policy requires the NDP to vote uniformly in favour of the long gun registry?

I've already pointed out that the historical position of the NDP was actually primarily against the registry. It surely hasn't escaped attention that some NDP MPs (notably John Rafferty) campaigned on a promise to vote against the registry, with the party offering at least tacit approval at the time. And as an added bonus, I've taken a quick run through the party's most recent set of policy pronouncements - and not only does the policy book presented at this year's convention not mention the gun registry, but the gun registry wasn't even so much brought up as a resolution (in contrast to, say, handgun smuggling, which was at least raised as a point of debate).

Mind you, it would be fair enough if Caplan wants to make the case that the NDP should change its longstanding position allowing MPs to vote their conscience on the gun registry (both as a government bill and a private members' bill) - and the fact that there is some frustration among some supporters is certainly a relevant data point on that question. But I'm not sure one can plausibly make the case that the NDP should rush that kind of decision before the next vote on the bill in any event. And that position would be a far cry from trying to pretend that there's some existing policy that's being violated by an entirely consistent position.

In sum, I'd invite Caplan to provide some of the currently-nonexistent evidence that the NDP's "party policy" is or has ever been what he claimed it to be. But if his main goal is to change the current path of Bill C-391 rather than taking inaccurate potshots at the party he's given column space to speak for, I'd argue that he's far better off pressuring the Cons to actually explain how their unanimously whipped bloc can be squared with a demand for a free vote - rather than criticizing the NDP for the fact that it hasn't whipped its votes in keeping with his every whim.