Prairie gun enthusiasts fear registry will stay:
Date: Feb 6, 2006 8:07 AM
PUBLICATION: Montreal Gazette
DATE: 2006.02.06
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A10
SOURCE: CP
DATELINE: EDMONTON
WORD COUNT: 161

————————————————————————
——–

Prairie gun enthusiasts fear registry will stay: Harper had promised
during election campaign to abolish the costly system, redirect its
funding

————————————————————————
——–

Many gun enthusiasts says they’re skeptical that Stephen Harper’s new
Tory government will mean the end of the national gun registry.

Al Leander is chairperson of the Canadian Historical Arms Society gun
show committee, which put on its annual get-together in Edmonton on the
weekend.

He says they’re realists and know the Tories will be hampered by being
in a minority situation in Parliament.

Harper has pledged to abolish the long-gun registry and redirect its
cost of $100 million per year toward other crime-fighting priorities,
such as hiring more police.

Leander says the gun registry issue was tops in many people’s minds
during the election campaign.

He says it’s one of the main reasons former deputy prime minister Anne
McLellan was defeated by Conservative Laurie Hawn in Edmonton Centre
riding.

In recent weeks, several municipal police chiefs, including Winnipeg’s
Jack Ewatski, the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of
Police, have said the gun registry is a useful tool for police.

Ewatski said he plans to impress on the new Harper government the merits
of the gun registry.

“Of course they’re going to say that – they’re politicians,” said
Leander.

“When you get up to the position of police chief, it’s a political
position.”

Edmonton Sun