(Update: Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland's motion was delayed and is expected to be made in the House on Wednesday.)
The Ignatieff Liberals are redoubling their efforts to save the long-gun registry, introducing a motion in the House of Commons this morning to keep the registry intact.
Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland devised the motion — that the House should not proceed with the Conservative bill to destroy the registry — as a way to circumvent the Harper Tories' efforts.
After he presents it, his motion will eventually have one hour of debate in the Commons and then it will be voted on; if it passes, the gun registry will live another day.
“I think they (the Conservatives) are losing the information campaign right now,” says Mr. Holland, noting that police have come out strongly in favour of the usefulness of the registry.
However, he said he believes that there is some foot-dragging on the part of the government on this bill:
“I think the real issue here is they are much interested in playing politics with this as long as they can maybe even into a next election,” said Mr. Holland. “They are far more interested in that than actually scrapping the registry.”
Meanwhile, if Mr. Holland’s motion fails, the House will vote on Manitoba Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s private member’s bill to abolish the controversial registry.
That bill has been in the committee after it passed second reading last November with the help of eight Liberal MPs and 12 New Democrats.
This has been a highly contentious piece of legislation, especially for the Liberals who brought in the gun registry under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien — and at considerable political cost.
Since the November vote, opposition leaders have been working on their members who supported the government to change their votes on third and final reading.
In fact, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he he will whip the vote, meaning that any of his MPs who do not vote with him will face discipline.
It is usually not the practice for a party leader to whip a vote on a private member’s bill.
It appears the NDP will not whip their members, but they are hoping some acceptable amendments will come out of the committee that could change their members’ votes.
Still, if the 12 NDP MPs support the government, the registry will die.
Now, this could all be rendered moot by the machinations of the Liberals — if the Holland motion passes, then the registry will survive.
In the Commons during Question Period Monday, Ms. Hoeppner accused the opposition of “political game-playing” with her bill.
"The NDP, Liberal and Bloc coalition joined forces and passed a motion that would keep the wasteful and completely ineffective long-gun registry intact,” she said.
“This motion (the Holland motion) proves that when it comes to the long-gun registry, this coalition is more interested in political games than representing their constituents.”
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews replied:
“The choice is now clear, even to the member for Malpeque (Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who voted for the bill on second reading, but appears to have changed his mind and will vote against it), they either vote to keep the long-gun registry or they vote to scrap the long-gun registry.
“No more political games by members … the constituents deserve better.”
