Sometimes democracy does work.
The old institution of marking ballots to determine who will lord over us has been taking a bit of a beating in recent years. From the debacle of George W.’s first victory in 2000 and the subsequent court proceedings, to our own minority government shenanigans – remember Stephane Dion was almost prime minister – coupled with record lows in voter turnout, there were more than a few pundits and citizens starting to wonder if Lady Democracy wasn’t far from her demise.
But the ole girl got a shot in the arm last week when after decades of protest and marginalization the House of Commons repealed on of its bigger mistakes, the long-gun registry.
It was a big victory for the institution of democracy that put in place what we have to assume was misguided good intentions made in ignorance of the reality of the world Canadians live in. That, or it was pure political opportunism to penalize a minority for the sake of cheap optics.
But the fight is nearly over now, so why be bitter.
The fight though has been a long road, marked with highlights both on the federal scene and right here in Almaguin.
The biggest of these are the scathing reports of Auditor General Sheila Fraser, who repeatedly confirmed that opponents to the bill were rightly justified in their assertions that the registry was a hugely expense, colossal waste of time, energy and money. In 2002 – 10 years ago – the Auditor General’s office first sounded the alarm that the program was well on its way to being $998 million over budget with no end to the bleeding in sight.
Four years later Fraser was back not just with proof that the cost of the beast was out of control, but that it was full of errors and of no use to law enforcement or anyone else for that matter.
Locally we watched our Liberal members fall under the burden of the embarrassment for putting their party ambitions ahead of those of their constituents. First was Andy Mitchell who flushed more than a decade of hardwork down the toilet in what would have been an easy victory over the then-interloper Tony Clement. Mitchell, as many will recall was a Minister of Agriculture at the time of his political demise and lost a nail-biter for his unabashed support of the registry in the face of ever-mounting evidence against its usefulness.
And then there was Anthony Rota who too let his ambitions get in the way, reversing a long-held tradition of Liberal Nipissing members of either not showing for or even voting against the long-gun database. He paid the price this past May and we’re certain has worn out a few steel-toe boots kicking himself for letting Michael Ignatieff box him into the corner.
Those losses and the resulting victories for Conservative candidates are the first signs of democracy working. The larger sign is the way the issue went from polarizing the debate to solidifying the registry as a lost cause in the minds of most Canadians. In the beginning those who opposed the measure were handily branded as scary rednecks in need of being reigned in anyway before their shotguns hanging in the back window of their F-150 went off in a drunken bout of road rage.
That stereotype, thankfully, has for the most part gone to rest where the registry soon will join it.
The gun registry, from the time it first escaped the lips of Alan Rock in 1994 until this day has been a bad law needlessly dividing Canadians. It was a product of democracy, drawn up in knee jerk reaction to a problem we’re certain nobody has a full solution for. And its abolishment is also a product of democracy – a product born out of people not backing down from their principals, education and healthy debate.
The vote in Ottawa has reaffirmed we Canadians still have much to take pride in when it comes to our democracy.