When Stockwell Day is done expounding on the huge increase in unreported crime (relying on long form census data as his evidence) he and the prime minister my want to explain how it is their government's pledge to abolish the long gun registry is unanimously opposed by Canada's police chiefs.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police voted unanimously on Monday to endorse a new national firearms policing strategy. In doing so, the association committed to publicly pushing the need for the National Firearms Registry — the long-gun portion of which the Harper government has vowed to abolish.
Not a single hand was raised in opposition to the strategy when Toronto police chief and CACP president Bill Blair called it to a vote at the organization’s annual conference in Edmonton, Chief Blair said. The room was packed with senior officers from police forces across Canada, including the RCMP.
“The information contained in that registry is invaluable to us,” Chief Blair said following the vote. “We believe in its retention. We need to ensure that we educate all Canadians and our parliamentarians on the importance of its retention.” The registry is accessed about 11,000 times a day by police officers across Canada, he said.
link: Police chiefs vote to endorse national firearms strategy
For that matter, the police chiefs have some issues with the census too.
The plan to scrap the long-gun registry is not the only policy of the federal Conservative government that is causing consternation at Canadian police agencies.
The Canadian Association of Police Boards (CAPB) approved eight resolutions when its members met in New Brunswick last week, including one that calls on the government to restore the mandatory long-form census.
The association recognizes “that police agencies throughout Canada depend on reliable, comprehensive demographic statistical information provided by Statistics Canada to establish policing priorities and to determine policing services for their communities,” the CAPB said in a statement released Monday.
link: Police take on Harper over census - The Globe and Mail
I'm looking forward to reading how it's the Liberals who are soft on crime while the government rationalizes away what must be an unprecedented rebuke from the heads of Canada's law enforcement agencies, including its own RCMP.
