Fall 2010 - Parliament has resumed in Ottawa. While the riding was consumed with getting the harvest off, we began by dealing with issues that very directly affect the people of south west Saskatchewan.

The gun registry has been a sore spot for many years. This summer, leading up to the vote on Candace Hoeppner’s bill to set aside the long gun registry, the national media fixated on the issue for a month. Interestingly, most of the mainstream media took the position that the registry should be set aside. They highlighted the polls which proved that Canadians both rural and urban want the long gun registry shut down. They pointed out that over 90% of police officers believe it is ineffective and a waste of taxpayers’ money. None of that swayed the Opposition parties who once again voted as a block.

We have now had the vote and lost it by two. We will continue to work to eliminate the gun registry. The really aggravating thing is watching rural MPs such as the Liberal Agriculture critic Wayne Easter and their rural affairs critic Mark Eyking standing to support the gun registry. I’m not sure what it would take to get Ottawa’s Ralph Goodale to actually support his own constituents on an issue any more. Even after his demotion from Michael Ignatieff he still does what it takes to curry favour in Ottawa.

Jack Layton let his caucus vote freely only after he had coerced enough of them that he was sure they were going to win the vote in the House. Interestingly NDP members who faced challenges from the Liberals changed and voted for the registry, while those who are electorally threatened by Conservatives stood to support it.

Peter Stoffer, the Halifax NDP MP probably suffered the biggest hit in credibility as he had been a vocal opponent of the registry for years and just folded his cards.
Gilles Duceppe had his usual bizarre approach – suggesting that because Parliament had voted that we should now forget the issue. I assume that means that he will apply the same principle and abandon separatism since that has been voted down twice.

That was not the only issue that directly impacted taxpayers. Last week we had a vote on Bill C-308, a Bloc bill that would let people qualify for up to one year of Employment Insurance after only working 45 days. It would have cost workers $7 billion a year in higher EI premiums and would have driven those premiums up 35% in one shot. We obviously opposed it.

The Bloc and NDP will never have to take any responsibility for fiscal decision so they supported it. The Liberals fell apart. The morning of the vote Ignatieff said that the bill was ‘fiscally irresponsible’. Normally when a leader speaks like that it means his party will be saying ‘no’. But that’s not what happened. That same morning his appointed EI critic contradicted him. When it came time to vote – it was chaos. A few Liberals voted with us against the bill. The leadership couldn’t decide what to do.

Ralph Goodale, still smarting from his demotion to Deputy Leader, and David McGuinty, the new House leader, sat and didn’t even vote. Iggy actually ran out of the chamber and did not vote. In the meantime, the majority of his caucus members rebelled against his leadership and voted for the bill. They had four separate positions on a $7 billion dollar bill that would have driven up EI premiums by 35%. This is the height of irresponsibility for a party that claims to be interested in governing.

This is also a clear indication as to why the coalition must never become a reality.