Zero action

To follow up on one of themes of last week's Blogger Battle Royale which is echoed in the Hill Times, let's take a closer look at how the Cons handled the long gun registry before their wedge politics on Bill C-391.

Since taking office, the Cons have introduced three government bills which would have had the effect of repealing the long gun registry. And as the governing party, they've had full control as to when the bills would be debated and voted on.

Bill C-21 was introduced in June 2006. It then sat in limbo until a year later when it was debated at second reading, three days before the end of the spring session of Parliament in 2007. The Cons then prorogued Parliament before the fall sitting, killing the bill.

The same legislation was reintroduced as Bill C-24 in November 2007 - at a time when the Libs were actively rolling over at every opportunity. This time, the Cons didn't even bother bringing the bill forward for debate before they chose to pull the plug and call an election in 2008.

Finally, the Cons introduced Bill S-5 into the Senate as an apparent April Fool's joke on their constituents in 2009. And once again, it was never even debated before Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament again.

So in all their time in office, after introducing three bills to pretend to be taking action, the Cons have never so much as bothered to bring a government bill on the gun registry up for a vote.

With that in mind, readers can judge for themselves whether Harper and company actually want the registry gone, or simply want to grandstand about it while preserving it as a fund-raising tool. But I'd think the evidence points strongly toward the latter.