Opposition leaders expect full turnout for gun registry vote

OTTAWA – With the vote on the long-gun registry down to the wire, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton promised Wednesday that none of their caucus members will skip the vote.

"Straight answer to a straight question – yes, they will be there," Ignatieff told reporters, quelling speculation that a couple of his caucus members would sit out the vote instead of changing sides.

"Everybody will be there unless somebody gets struck by lightning," said Layton, who added that the opposition’s bid to save the registry depends on all MPs turning up and voting as anticipated.

"I think everyone knows this is a very important vote."

The opposition parties reaffirmed they believe they have the support to kill Tory backbencher Candice Hoeppner’s bill to end the 15-year-old registry.

A couple of opposition holdouts still have not publicly declared their intentions – New Democrat Niki Ashton and Liberal Scott Simms.

Neither Ashton’s nor Simms’ office returned telephone calls, but both MPs were in Ottawa on Wednesday, according to party spokespersons.

The pending vote is believed to be so close that the parties are keeping tabs on every MP and even Prime Minister Stephen Harper returned to Ottawa on Tuesday night from a United Nations conference to cast his vote.

Hoeppner, who has all but conceded defeat on her bill, has estimated she is one vote short after most of the eight Liberals and 12 New Democrats, who sided with her in an early vote last November, withdrew their support.

Hoeppner, denouncing the opposition vote changers as "turncoats" said that it now be up to their constituents to send a message of repudiation. Only the Tories, she said, can be trusted to keep their word and voters who want to see an end to the registry must help the Conservatives win a majority in the next election, she said.

"As we move forward, that’s the message we’re telling Canadians: we’re consistent," she told reporters on Parliament Hill.

Hoeppner acknowledged she has given up on last minute lobbying, saying that the MPs who have withdrawn their votes for her bill have "made what they’re going to do very obvious."

Ignatieff has whipped the vote, forcing his Liberals to toe the party line.

Layton is permitting a free vote, but he has pressed the registry foes in his caucus to buy into an alternate plan to "fix" the registry, by streamlining the paper work, making it free of charge, and decriminalizing the first two offences by giving warnings and tickets to those who fail to register.

If Hoeppner’s bill fails, the New Democrats plan to introduce a private member’s bill on their "compromise plan."

Layton said he does not know if he can muster up enough support to push the bill through. Ignatieff has proposed a similar plan, but he has not pitched a private member’s bill.

Mark Holland, Liberal public safety critic, called on Harper to give up on abandoning the registry if the vote fails and buy into plans to work out a compromise to unite urban and rural voters who have been divided for more than a decade.

"The prime minister has a responsibility, if this vote tonight goes in favour of the registry, to move forward to work with all members of Parliament on the compromises," said Holland. "Instead of trying to use the gun registry as a wedge between Canadians, he should recognize that after voting for this twice it’s time to move forward."

A coalition of registry advocates was to hold a late afternoon news conference on Parliament Hill to push their position that "the gun gun registry has never killed anyone. Eliminating it may."

Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe dismissed suggestions that the debate was dividing urban and rural voters. He noted that 75 per cent of his Bloc MPs represented villages and rural ridings and they are in favour of supporting the registry along with his urban MPs.

"As far as I know, Calgary is not a rural riding either," he said at a rally with students from Montreal’s Dawson College on Parliament Hill. "So we have to stand up. we have to be there, and all the members of each party, not only have to say they won’t vote with the Tories, but they have to show up to show their solidarity to maintain the registry."