Lets hope it happens as soon as they say.


The bill to end the long-gun registry was back for debate in the House of Commons, but it won't be for long.

Bill C-19 is now at the report stage after being studied by the Public Safety committee. The government gave notice Monday night it will move time allocation, which will limit the amount of time the bill can be debated. A vote on time allocation is likely to happen Tuesday, allowing for one more day of debate at the report stage, followed by two days of debate at third reading.

When the bill was first introduced in the fall the government moved a motion for time allocation and the bill went quickly to committee.

Government House leader Peter Van Loan has said he wants it passed by mid-February.

The House committee finished its hearings on the controversial bill at the end of November but MPs haven't had the chance to deal with it since. The bill was sent back to the Commons with no amendments made by the committee.

The NDP members had tried to make amendments — to maintain registration for some guns, such as sniper rifles — but they were shot down by Conservative MPs who hold a majority on the committee.

Now MPs are trying again to change the bill at its report stage. Ten motions for amending the bill were put forward and seconded by New Democrat, Liberal, and Bloc Québécois MPs as well as Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

Those motions were debated Monday including a proposal by NDP MP Jack Harris to delete the short title of the bill — "ending the long-gun registry act" — because he said it is "inaccurate."

Harris said a separate long-gun registry doesn't exist — there is a national gun registry and long guns are part of it.

Harris suggested the bill should be renamed the "risking public safety act" because "that's in fact what this legislation, Bill C-19 does."

'Playing with lives of people'

NDP MP Charlie Angus said abolishing the long-gun registry would lead to more deaths and violence.

"They're playing with the lives of people here," he said, and he accused the government of lying about statistics on homicide and suicide rates.

Government and opposition MPs accused each other of perpetuating myths related to the registry during Monday's debate.

Conservative MPs made the government's case, including Candice Hoeppner who tried before to eliminate the long-gun portion of the registry with a private member's bill.

Angus originally voted in favour of that bill and later on subsequent votes he sided with his own party. Hoeppner took aim at him Monday and said in response to his comments that he had betrayed his constituents in northern Ontario.

All of the motions being debated propose that various clauses in the bill be deleted.

A range of witnesses appeared at the public safety committee during the five meetings it spent on the bill last fall, including representatives from hunting and sports shooting groups, legal and policy experts, police groups and gun-control advocates.

Destruction of data

The bill seeks to eliminate the requirement for gun owners to register their long guns and other weapons that are not restricted or prohibited. It also provides for the destruction of records that are currently held in the Canadian Firearms Registry, a measure that caught many off-guard when the bill was introduced in October.

Opposition MPs were angry that the government is destroying the data, saying the records should remain intact for police or the provinces to use in the event they want to establish their own registry once the federal one is gone.

The government wants to scrap the registry because it says it is a waste of money, ineffective at improving public safety and preventing crimes and it targets law-abiding gun owners instead of criminals. Getting rid of the registry means getting rid of the information in it, the government has said in defending the move to destroy the data.

About 7.1 million non-restricted firearms were registered in the database as of September.

Long Gun Registry almost dead
By Kris Sims, Parliamentary Bureau

They didn't win all of the battles but the Conservatives are poised to win the war over the long gun registry.

Bill C-19, an act to end the long gun registry, passed one of the final hurdles in the House of Commons Tuesday night after several attempts by the Opposition to amend it.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, angry that debate had been shortened, led the charge along with the NDP, Liberal and Bloc members to make changes. Voting took hours.

The Tories, however, have a majority and eventually squashed all of the efforts.

"When are we going to have a kitchen knife registry? It's this nonsensical crazy ideology that has long targeted the wrong people," said Tory MP Dean Del Mastro. "The NDP acted to mislead Canadians, they designed billboards showing silhouettes of various firearms, they knew they were restricted firearms that had nothing to do with the Long Gun Registry, but they went with them any way."

The New Democrats raised concerns about domestic violence, saying one in three women who are killed by their spouses are killed with a rifle or a shotgun.

The Conservatives maintain the registry was a $2-billion boondoggle created by a previous Liberal government and wrongfully targeted farmers, ranchers, hunters, trappers and sports shooters who have broken no laws.

Two members of the NDP voted with the government to end the registry: Bruce Hyer and John Rafferty from Thunder Bay, Ont.

The bill to kill the long gun registry passed the house 152 - 131 and will now go to the Senate.

More good News not on guns but on citizen's arrest and defend their property (sort of). Castle doctrine would be nicer though

Citizen's arrest, self defence soon to be law
By Kris Sims, Parliamentary Bureau

OTTAWA - The law governing the right to defend yourself and make a citizen's arrest is sailing through Parliament on a calm sea of cross party support.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson appeared at a House of Commons committee Tuesday to discuss Bill C-26 -- the Citizen's Arrest and Self Defence Act -- and faced tame questions from MPs.

"He was defending his own house and property and he still had to hire a lawyer and go to through the court process when he was defending his home and family, how would C-26 make this different?" asked Liberal MP Judy Sgro, referencing one of her Toronto-area constituents who was charged after he defended his home against an intruder.

"The individual who should not be charged and the individual who is acting reasonably to defend themselves and protect their house or their family, we don't want them in court in the first place," Nicholson said.

The proposed federal legislation clarifies when someone is allowed to make a citizen's arrest: They have to witness it themselves, they must act quickly, and they must call authorities immediately.

It also irons out what is reasonable when defending one's self or property without getting bogged down in property law. Courts currently struggle with questions such as, do you really own the property if your home is in a trailer park?

The citizen's arrest portion of the bill is nearly identical to an NDP private member's bill introduced during the last Parliament.

NDP MP Olivia Chow proposed the changes in response to the story of David Chen, the Toronto shopkeeper who was charged with assault and forcible confinement after he chased and tied up a chronic thief who had been ripping off his store for months.

Chen, and two of his relatives who helped him nab the crook, were found not guilty in 2010.