Saturday, October 09, 2010

On matters of conscience

Following up on the last point in this post, let's go one step further as to how to maximize the chances of passing Charlie Angus' gun registry bill. While I'll maintain my take that putting pressure on the Cons generally has to be part of the picture, it's also worth noting how that pressure should be applied.

After months of lectures from the Cons about how private members' bills should be subject to individual decisions how to vote, it shouldn't be enough for a single Con spokesperson to purport to speak for the entire party in rejecting any improvements to the long gun registry. Instead, there's every reason to call attention to each individual MP - particularly those who have focused on the gun registry personally - to explain whether they plan to vote against a bill that will eliminate many of the concerns about the registry. And to the extent the Cons vote to keep the registry in its current form, that should offer a strong reason why voters shouldn't take either the party or its MPs seriously in pretending to want to do anything about it.

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