The Sask. Party is pushing to abolish the long-gun registry, while the Opposition remains opposed. On Thursday Saskatoon Sutherland MLA Joceline Schriemer put forward a motion in the Legislative Assembly to support the federal bill – Bill C-391  –  to stop the program from continuing.

Prior to bringing the motion to the floor of the assembly, Schriemer said she was confident the NDPs would support the motion.

“The Opposition's position has been that they don't support the gun registry,” said Schriemer. 

“The Sask Party has never supported the gun registry and the people in the province don't support the gun registry. There is a private members bill in Ottawa calling for the repeal of the gun registry, so we want the Opposition to join us and send a message to Ottawa that all members of parliament support the bill for repeal, Bill C-391.”

However when the private members' motion was put forward, NDP MLAs “talked out the clock” prohibiting the motion to come to a vote on Thursday.

“We were expecting full cooperation from the Opposition, given their past position of opposition to the gun registry,” said Schriemer, a former police officer. 

She called the NDPs lack of cooperation an “insult” to Saskatchewan people.

“To understand this legislation, we've always had legislation about a prohibited fire arm, which includes automatic, fully automatic and semi-automatic (fire arms), plus machine-gun types. We've always had a restricted fire arm registry which is the hand gun,” said Schriemer. 

“What the long-gun (registry) is, is your hunting rifles, your .22s, your .270s, your shot guns and these are normally used in Saskatchewan on farms. They are used for hunting sport and it's an expensive system. It unfairly penalizes law-abiding fire arm owners and it does nothing to reduce any of the fire arms crimes.”

In the last provincial election, the Sask. Party promised to support the termination of the long-gun registry. The registry was created in response to the 1989 Montreal massacre at Ecole Politechnique where 14 women were murdered. Schriemer said the bill though isn't doing what it was intended to do when it was created in 1995 – stop violent gun crime – and is instead targeting law-abiding fire arm owners.

“The NDP flip-flopped on what they said in the past and seem to be willing to support a program that has wasted billions of taxpayers dollars, negatively affects our law-abiding citizens and has done nothing to reduce gun crime or black market access by criminals,” she said.

Earlier last week, Saskatchewan Justice Minister and Attorney General Don Morgan sent a letter in support of Bill C-391 to the Manitoba MP Candace Hoeppner, who sponsored the legislation.

A final vote on the federal legislation is expected in June.

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Vegreville-Wainwright MP Leon Benoit expressed his disappointment with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's support for the “wasteful” and “ineffective” long-gun registry.

“(He) has once again turned his back on rural Canadians,” said Benoit in a prepared statement.

Benoit said Ignatieff will be “whipping” his Liberal MPs to support the registry – rather than Bill C-391 –  including the eight Liberal MPs who voted for Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s Private Members Bill C-391 at second reading: Scott Andrews, Larry Bagnell, Jean-Claude D’Amours, Wayne Easter, Keith Martin, Anthony Rota, Todd Russell and Scott Simms.

“Michael Ignatieff's definition of 'tough on crime' is to crack down on farmers and duck hunters,” said Benoit.