Senate kills long-gun registry

OTTAWA – The Conservative government vowed during its 2011 election campaign to eliminate the longgun registry.

On Wednesday evening the bill to officially end the registry — Bill C-19 — had its final vote in the Senate, leaving only a signature from the Governor General needed to officially kill the registry.

By a vote of 50-27, senators approved Bill C-19, marking the last political hurdle needed to kill the registry.

A few Liberals rose to vote in favour of C-19, including senators Charlie Watt and Lillian Eva Dyck. Each received applause from the Tory benches when they had their names called during the vote.

Anne Cools, who sits as an independent member of the Senate, also received applause when she voted and a few jabs from the Liberal benches, where she sits.

“It’s called democracy,” she said during the vote.

There was no such applause for Tory Senator Elaine Mccoy, who voted against the bill.

The vote was quieter than the one that took place last month when C-19 passed its final vote in the House of Commons. There, the public gallery was packed with onlookers. On Wednesday, five people sat in the public gallery of the Senate to watch the vote.

Watching the vote on the floor of the Senate was Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner, who had originally pushed to end the registry.

“We are all counting the hours until the moment comes when lawabiding Canadians will no longer have to register their long guns,” Hoeppner said earlier in the day in the Commons.

“We are grateful that we are going to be able to follow through on our commitment and end the long-gun registry once and for all.”

The federal law will end the requirement for lawful gun owners to register their long guns, and it relaxes rules around selling or transferring guns — that last point being a point of concern for Liberal senators when they reviewed the bill at the committee stage.

Gun licences for individuals will still be required, and the registry for restricted and prohibited firearms such as handguns will be maintained.

Gun control has been ferociously debated in Canada for decades, particularly since the Ecole Polytechnique massacre of 1989, when a gunman shot and killed 14 women with a rifle. That prompted the Liberal government of Jean Chretien to tighten gun controls and create Canada’s first mandatory long-gun registry in 1995.

But the battle over the long-gun registry is not over. On Tuesday, Quebec Justice Minister Jean-marc Fournier announced he would challenge in Quebec Superior Court the constitutionality of Bill C-19.