Apr 12
6
21-Gun Salute!: Rod Taylor
With the successful passage of Bill C-19, Ending of the Long-Gun Registry Act, Mr. Harper’s Conservative government has delivered on a long-standing promise and they deserve credit for completing this task.
There will always be naysayers who equate guns with violence and who think that a focus on punishing criminals as a regressive approach to crime; in their opinion such an approach is lacking compassion and narrow in perspective. The opposite is true and those arguments have been made many times in many different ways. The NDP’s knee-jerk resistance to C-19 was as predictable, boring and tiresome as its stance on most other issues of consequence. “If it moves, shoot! If it keeps moving, regulate it!”
For today, anyway, I say “Bravo!” to Candice Hoeppner and Vic Toews who have kept pushing this bill in spite of the broken-record objections of their critics. And a tip of the hat to Stephen Harper for keeping his promise on this issue, at least.
Now back to the budget and the notion many of us share: that a “Conservative” government should actually be pushing to achieve a debt-free Canada, which would mean getting out of deficit much more quickly than we are. A golden opportunity was missed on budget day—to establish a realistic pension plan for MPs, one that would be fair to taxpayers and hard-working citizens. But that is a topic for another day. Today we thank those who have worked so hard to cut the wasteful spending on the registry and we raise a toast to common sense and perseverance. Well done!
Rod Taylor is the deputy leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.