The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Niki Ashton denies flip-flopping on the long-gun registry, saying her vote to save the database reflects not a change of heart, but Quebec's desire for its own version of the program. The Churchill MP says she still opposes a national registry but believes destroying existing gun ownership records makes no sense given La Belle Province's request to use that data for its own registry. 'My position didn't change,' Ashton said in a phone interview last week. 'I think it's important to recognize that...provinces that want a registry can do what they want and provinces that don't want a registry shouldn't have it. I don't think it matters to us in northern Manitoba if Quebec has a registry, and I do feel that they should have gotten the records from the federal government. 'We talk about how the registry was a waste of money. If (Quebec wants) to create their own registry, re-creating the records is going to be a waste of money again.' Ashton, a New Democrat running for her party's leadership, said in all of the interviews she has done on the registry, she has 'always said that our part of the country shouldn't have a registry.' 'The question is, how do we make sure that different regions can be respected?' she said. 'Because I feel that just the way that we want to be respected for not having (a registry)... I also think that we need to challenge this idea that it's all or nothing.' Provincial version So far Quebec is the only province or territory to indicate an interest in developing a provincial version of the registry. No others are expected to do so. Ashton said she believes Manitoba should not have a registry 'based on the fact that we don't want a registry,' but her province should not have a say over whether Quebec chooses a different path. She accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of using 'scorched-earth tactics' to prevent Quebec from accessing the registry records. Ashton voted last November to maintain the long-gun registry on second reading of a bill put forth by the Harper government. Unlike earlier versions of the legislation, which Ashton supported, this bill explicitly stated that all records gathered for the long-gun registry would be destroyed. Ashton was absent for the recent third and final reading of the bill that shot down the registry once and for all. The motion carried on the strength of the Conservative majority, but two rural New Democrats from Ontario also sided with the government. Ashton said her leadership campaign travel schedule caused her to miss the vote, which she said she knew would go the Tories' way. 'For me, I made my position clear back in the fall and continued to make it clear all throughout in interviews and any chance that people have tried to pin down where I come from (on the issue),' she added.
