Scrapping gun registry has taught Tories nothing

Having prevailed over those who fervently support the retention of the national long-gun registry, the federal Tories now run the risk of morphing into their nemeses.

Not that the government is about to reverse itself on the registry, but its approach to selling Bill C-30 — the new lawful access legislation — is quite reminiscent of how the gun registry has been defended.

Certainly there are parallels between the two pieces of legislation, in terms of the potential privacy violations, the potential vulner- ability of huge databases of personal information and the potential impact on lawabiding citizens.

But the parallels go even deeper in the manner in which the defenders of both pieces of legislation are appealing to emotion rather than reason.

Just like the gun registry was, and is, so consistently linked to Marc Lepine’s massacre of 14 women in Montreal — a tragedy the registry could not have prevented — the Tories are hoping to establish an emotional link of their own by naming their bill the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act.

A lesson learned, perhaps, for supporters of the gun registry. I assume we can look forward to the Protecting Women From Homicidal Misogynists Act from some future government.

No doubt, the registry was intended to pose an obsta- cle to would-be murderers, just as Bill C-30 might well prove helpful in catching purveyors of child pornography.

But as we saw with the registry, and as critics fear we will see with C-30, the impact went well beyond the intended targets and had a considerable impact on law-abiding citizens.

In fact, in both instances, we see significant government intrusion with very weak justification.

A peer-reviewed study published last October confirms that the gun registry was unnecessary. It found “no significant beneficial associations between firearms legislation and homicide or spousal homicide rates.”

As it concerns Bill C-30, critics have noted that the government has failed to provide convincing examples of cases where these new sweeping powers were needed. Even if the status quo is in need of improvement, a strong case can be made for changes that don’t go nearly as far.

When Public Safety Minister Vic Toews declared that the opposition “could either stand with us or with the child pornographers,” there was justifiable outrage, but also a failure to notice that Toews was echoing the sort of rhetoric employed by defenders of the gun registry.

Toews was certainly more explicit — no one on the pro-registry side has gone so far as to declare, “you can stand with us or stand with those who murder women.” That sentiment, however, has been implied many times.

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett came close with her statement marking the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada on Dec. 6, 2011. Bennett declared that the Tories were “choosing to put the interests of fringe gun lobby groups ahead of victims of gun violence” — in other words, you can stand with the gun nuts or stand with the murdered women.

This sentiment was widespread on Dec. 6, when, for example, organizers of memorial ceremonies for the victims of the Montreal massacre told Conservative MPS to stay away. The week before, a survivor of the massacre said the Tories would have “blood on their hands” if they scrapped the registry.

Of course, one can certainly pay respect to the victims and oppose violence against women while still concluding that the registry was useless and unnecessary. But to acknowledge that means surrendering emotion as a tool.

In the end, though, per- haps the emotional rhetoric has been so overplayed that it’s lost its potency. The elimination of the registry seems to have caused barely a ripple across the country, and the Tories are certainly finding that emotional rhetoric has failed to ward off a major backlash against C-30.

Given all these similarities, it is little surprise then that the first major poll on Bill C-30 finds the highest levels of opposition right here in Alberta — the same province where opposition to the gun registry was always the strongest.

The Tories deserve credit for putting an end to the gun registry, but unfortunately, it seems they’ve learned nothing in the process.