Shooting Blanks

In the rush to get to our caucus meeting on Wednesday, I rode in an elevator with two Conservative MPs from urban ridings, both complaining of being whipped to vote against the gun registry. It was hardly a moment of revelation, as we've known for months that Conservatives are divided on the issue. A few hours later, when in a particularly brutal QP, John Baird upbraided the Liberal leader for whipping his team to vote for the registry, I watched a number of government members on the other side stare blankly, knowing that Baird and others had done exactly the same thing with them.This is how it works in Ottawa sometimes: important votes are occasionally whipped in hopes of winning. This moment was particularly hypocritical though because the government is doing exactly the same thing it's accusing it's opponent of. Far from being sublime, John Baird was, in fact, ridiculous that day, and in attempting to embarrass a party leader he created collateral damage among some of his own colleagues.And then yesterday it got decidedly worse. For the first time, police officers and their chiefs held a press conference in Ottawa, asking the Conservative government to maintain the gun registry. Adding clout to the argument was the Canadian Police Association, representing its 41,000 members. This was a powerful response to a Conservative claim that this country's police officials were hypocritical and didn't really believe in the registry. Those at the conference countered back forcefully: "The government argument is not intelligent debate designed to lead to safer communities." The Conservative claim that the initiative is an entire waste of money is a complete misnomer according to those at the press conference, who replied by saying that with the registry itself being used 11,000 times on average a day, the $4 million annual price tag was a clear bargain and a useful tool in crime prevention.Then it got decidedly worse again, when a number of students from École Polytechnique in Montreal, in solidarity with the police, arrived in QP and sat in the gallery. Their very presence cast a pall, as we all recalled that devastating day in 1989, when 28 people were shot by a rifle. MPs craned their necks to see these students observing from the tier above. It became humiliating when Baird etal trashed the registry repeatedly, with virtually no respect being shown to our guests. But - and this is important to understand - numerous Conservative MPs refused to take part in the exercise and sat quietly and in a bit of shame.So, this is what's it's come down to: farmers and hunters against police and women. It's stupid of course because in many ways it's a false dichotomy forced on Canadians by a government of divide and conquer. They're doing their utmost to fully embarrass and malign all rural opposition candidates who say they'll support the registry when the vote comes along, and in so doing they have made words, lies and slogans as lethal to democracy as bullets.Sadly, good Conservative MPs are being whipped, not into a frenzy, but into humiliation, as their party lashes their own. And in so doing, they are portraying farmers and hunters as one-dimensional goons rather than reasoned Canadians who just happen to disagree with the registry.  It's quite something. In one 45-minute Question Period, the government humiliated Parliament, their base, women, police and democracy. A crime agenda that actually denigrates police - quite something. Thankfully, they were only shooting blanks.