Tories want to destroy the gun registry

Good on Vic Toews, the federal Public Safety minister, who seems to have heard (and heeded) reports in Sun Media that provincial chief firearms officers (CFOs) were attempting to build a new firearms registry via the backdoor.

But forgive me if I keep an eye on Toews. After all, it seems clear to me he was only too happy to let the CFOs get away with their plan until it was uncovered.

Sources inside the government caucus also insist that Toews' original draft bill to eliminate the registry included a clause that would have kept the existing registry data. There was even a provision for transferring registry files to the provinces should they want to create their own registries, as Quebec does.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper and much of the caucus are said to have gone ballistic and ordered Toews to reword the bill to include erasure of the database.

The minister's instincts were initially to keep the registry alive in all but name. So it is vital that he prove his commitment to stamping out all vestiges of registration by following through on his latest letter.

The Toronto court had heard a motion from the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic for an emergency injunction that would have prevented the federal government from destroying long-gun data in a federal registry that's been abolished.

Justice D.M. Brown declined to grant the injunction, rejecting arguments that the destruction would be a violation of the Charter of Rights.

The City of Toronto had supported the motion, though the province did not.

The ruling follows a successful court application by the Quebec government to preserve long-gun registry data in that province.