Candice Hoeppner's anti-long-gun registry road tour

Manitoba Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner says she's hitting the road this summer to promote her private member's bill to scrap the long-gun registry.

The controversial bill escaped a final vote this week, after Liberal MP Mark Holland missed his time slot in the House of Commons to move a motion that would have asked the House not to proceed with Hoeppner's proposed law. The debate on that motion is now scheduled for Sept. 21 with a third and final vote on C-391 tentatively lined up for the next day. Many opposition MPs had hoped Holland's motion could have been debated and voted on this week.

Those who follow this issue closely will remember how 12 NDP MPs and eight Liberals helped Hoeppner's bill pass second reading last fall. Several of those MPs are not looking forward to a summer back in the riding being lobbied by opposing sides of the firearms registry debate. A vote before the summer break would have afforded them the opportunity to dodge a prickly issue.

In any event, Hoeppner says she's going to make the most of her summer vacation. Today she expressed relief in having more time to persuade her opponents to stick to their guns.

"I plan as taking as much time as I can to go to different ridings to make sure that constituents in these 12 NDP ridings are aware of what's going on," she says. "I would like see these NDP and Liberals come out very publicly as to what they're going to do. I think each one of their constituents deserve to hear that."

Hoeppner says she's pleased that NDP MPs John Rafferty, Bruce Hyer and Peter Stoffer have communicated their ongoing support for her bill to scrap the long gun registry.

"But you know members like Charlie Angus, Nathan Cullen, Carol Hughes, there are a lot of them that have not been public. So I would certainly would like them to come on record. They don't owe me an explanation, but they owe their constitutents."

As for who would pay for her tour, Hoeppner says she still hasn't worked that out. She says many of the Southwestern Ontario (NDP) ridings in her sights are close to her southern Manitoba riding.

"I basically only have my MP budget so that's what it would be on."