Yoking wishfulness to vast expenditure - Harper and Conservatives Alter Gun Registry

Goonie · May 17, 2006

Yoking wishfulness to vast expenditure

May 16 2006

The gun registry and the Kyoto Protocol are, at least in one respect, twins. They both illustrate the uselessness of piety pretending to be policy, of half thought mixed with full-bore emotion substituting for a rational response to a perceived public problem.

Kyoto is a great empty house of wishful thinking. Some countries that have signed on have done less than those that did not. Canada has done less than the U.S., for example, though the U.S. Congress universally voted it down during the Clinton years, while Canada touted its signature on the accord as being in itself a great Boy Scout badge of international and environmental do-good-ism.

And then there's the gun registry. Whatever the gun registry was supposed to do, beyond raising a cloud of vague righteousness that something was being done, what has it specifically done for places like Toronto, say, with its year of the gun?

Where real gun crime exists, it almost always is handguns, stolen, smuggled, and unregistered, that are causing havoc.

Where's the registry in that picture? And today Sheila Fraser pounded a few dozen more 9-inch nails into the coffin of the gun registry. That other response to a problem which over the five years of its life has been an epic catalogue of unimaginable expense, was going to cost $2 million net and cost $1 billion instead.

She told us of computer systems whose costs ballooned, amounts in the tens of millions not recorded, and even more damning, added that the information these wonderful systems so expensively collected can either be (a) incorrect or (b) incomplete, and at a press conference that the data cannot be relied on. So it can't be relied on; its information is incomplete or incorrect, and it costs more than the tar sands.

Well, not the tar sands.

In the early days of this program, it was all so simple. We had then Justice Minister Allan Rock standing to tell the country, "All that we're asking of firearms owners is to fill out two cards and mail them in."

A few postcards and a postage stamp. And we get a billion dollars?

Who was the mailman? Wile E. Coyote?

The gun registry accomplished negatives, however, by the bucket load. A cost overrun that yet will make "Ripley's Believe It or Not", antagonized whole swatches of harmless citizens, from duck hunters to farmers, who found themselves hectored and harassed to fill in its unreliable forms, pay its useless fees, or wind up listed as criminals if they did not.

Now, Kyoto is not a registry, but it has the same impulse at its centre, vagueness of intention surrounding an amorphous good cause. The science is contentious, regardless of what the propagandists of global warning will tell you. It is advocacy-driven and as much a lobby as General Motors.

As Kyoto is globally, the gun registry is for us nationally, a perfect parable of yoking wishfulness to vast expenditure to appease wistful public sentiment. Whatever that sentiment, it urges politicians to just do something. In both cases, they did. Kyoto eight years on is a hollow piety, and the gun registry is a compound of excess, uselessness, annoyance, and the most highly capitalized piece of policy pointlessness since the Newfoundland government 20 years ago spent $27 million to fund a science fiction dream of growing cucumbers out of the East Coast granite.

Keep the gun registry? Only if they open a museum for monumental illustrations of how to waste public money. And in that museum, the registry will occupy the same place in public policy that the private sector has long ago given the Edsel. For "The National", I'm Rex Murphy.
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An example of one of Rex Murphy's pieces. I am always delighted to either listen to or read his thoughts. There are times that I do not agree with him, but I always appreciate the thought he appears to put into his beliefs--something lacking with a lot of people.

The Conservatives under Harper did not scrap the gun registry, but it is serious altered. Thoughts and opinions?

Can anyone guess my position?

edit: Yes I could have put a neutral fact laden article up, I just felt like spicing things up a little. Please do not be utterly offended at the fact I used an opinion piece. If you disagree, please say so.

Pasi Nurminen · May 17, 2006

Well without invoking every Western Canadian stereotype out there (Harper's from Calgary IIRC), it's hard to judge the man. The Gun Registry was a Liberal failure and with a minority government and an election in 2008 Harper can't do squat and is stuck trying to appease anyone and everyone.

The only minority governments with balls are the ones that fail, quickly.

Eran of Arcadia · May 17, 2006

It is probably worth reminding people that just because human-caused global warming exists doesn't automatically make the Kyoto Protocols a good idea. We can't get caught up in it or say that the only possible reason to oppose it is disbelief in global warming or a desire to profit.

Che Guava · May 18, 2006

Gotta love Rex

Pasi Nurminen said:

Well without invoking every Western Canadian stereotype out there (Harper's from Calgary IIRC), it's hard to judge the man..
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He actually was born & raised in Toronto, and moved to Alberta to go to university.

The Gun Registry was a Liberal failure and with a minority government and an election in 2008 Harper can't do squat and is stuck trying to appease anyone and everyone.
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I don't thin that Harper is really trying to please everyone, it just makes more sense to fix what you have instead of getting rid of it completely. I mean, we already spent a cool billion on it, wouldn't it be a greater waste to just pull the plug? No, Harper is too much of an economist for that....

All Harper is doing is stalling until conditions are right for an election. he managed to get his budget pushed through witht he help of the Bloc, i don't think he'll put anything else really seriouson the table until he's sure he can win a majority

IglooDame · May 18, 2006

Che Guava said:

I don't thin that Harper is really trying to please everyone, it just makes more sense to fix what you have instead of getting rid of it completely. I mean, we already spent a cool billion on it, wouldn't it be a greater waste to just pull the plug? No, Harper is too much of an economist for that....

All Harper is doing is stalling until conditions are right for an election. he managed to get his budget pushed through witht he help of the Bloc, i don't think he'll put anything else really seriouson the table until he's sure he can win a majority
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Setting aside my pro-gun bias, it would seem to make more sense to fix the program rather than chuck it completely, but it does make one wonder exactly how a program like that could derail THAT badly?

Che Guava · May 18, 2006

Good point. I don't really know the ins and outs of the system, but it would have to be reeeeeaally f'd if they couldn't reform it at all.....

El_Machinae · May 18, 2006

It was so badly derailed, partially because no one wanted to comply. I have NO idea how they spent building a system no one was using, though.

To me, it makes sense to get people to register if they want to, and criminally punish those who don't register later. If all new weapons were registered (easy enough to do, by law), then eventually the ratio of registered weapons would increase.

Che Guava · May 18, 2006

El_Machinae said:

It was so badly derailed, partially because no one wanted to comply. I have NO idea how they spent building a system no one was using, though.

To me, it makes sense to get people to register if they want to, and criminally punish those who don't register later. If all new weapons were registered (easy enough to do, by law), then eventually the ratio of registered weapons would increase.
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Exactly. I think we have to view the gun registry, in its current form or a modified version, as more of an investment that probably won't show any dividends for at least a few years.

IglooDame · May 18, 2006

Che Guava said:

Exactly. I think we have to view the gun registry, in its current form or a modified version, as more of an investment that probably won't show any dividends for at least a few years.
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...if at all.

Che Guava · May 18, 2006

IglooDude said:

...if at all.
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Oh, hush you, we need at least some gun control!

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Yoking wishfulness to vast expenditure - Harper and Conservatives Alter Gun Registry

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Yoking wishfulness to vast expenditure - Harper and Conservatives Alter Gun Registry

Goonie Lonely End of the Rink

Pasi Nurminen Deity

Eran of Arcadia Stormin' Mormon Retired Moderator

Che Guava The Juicy Revolutionary

IglooDame Enforcing Rule 34 Retired Moderator Supporter

Che Guava The Juicy Revolutionary

El_Machinae Colour vision since 2018 Retired Moderator

Che Guava The Juicy Revolutionary

IglooDame Enforcing Rule 34 Retired Moderator Supporter

Che Guava The Juicy Revolutionary

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