It' been a long time in coming but Melville Fish and Game League (MFGL) members are celebrating what, in effect, is the elimination of the intensely disliked long-gun registry. And celebrating the demise of the registry perhaps even moreso than local gun owners is Yorkton-Melville MP Garry Breitkreuz, the man largely known across Canada as the registry's fiercest critic.
Last Wednesday, Bill C-19 which calls for the registry's elimination passed third reading in Parliament and now makes its way to the Senate. The Commons vote saw Bill C-19 passed by a 159-130 margin, bolstered by the Conservative government's majority and aided by votes from one Liberal and one NDP MP. The Bill's passage was expected just as it's expected to clear the Senate where the Conservatives hold a majority as well.
For Breitkreuz, who's fought the registry tooth and nail ever since it was introduced in 1995 under the auspices of Bill C-68, the vote to kill the registry was a crowning achievement in his political career that began with his election as a Reformer in 1993.
"I don't very often get emotional but when we had the vote in the House and (Conservative MPs) all stood up to applaud me when I voted, it was a very touching moment," Breitkreuz says.
"We had about 200 people in the (Commons) gallery. They flew in from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland to be there for the vote. It was a real touching moment because they waited just like me."
Scott Brown, president of MFGL, says despite the setbacks over the years to campaigns to abolish the registry, he and other gun owners were confident of the registry's demise because it was such an illconceived and ineffectual piece of legislation.
"It was a matter of principle," Brown says to gun owners' opposition to the registry.
"It was doing nothing to reduce crime in any way, shape or form," he explains, adding instead of targeting criminals, Bill C-68, which mandated the long-gun registry, penalized law-abiding gun owners.
The current possession and acquisition licences - which will eventually be replaced by firearms acquisition licences - are reasonable, Brown says, in that they provide assurance guns will be in responsible hands.
