Yesterday, a Quebec Superior Court judge granted a five-day injunction against the Harper government’s attempted early destruction of the long gun registry. You’ll remember that I reported back in December that they were totally going to go ahead and destroy it once the law passed even if the court case was ongoing. Well, the court case has at least another four days now, and the government is disallowed to jump the gun, so to speak.
The Quebec government sought the injunction in court in Montreal Thursday, in anticipation of royal assent for C-19, the Harper government’s legislation to fulfil a longtime campaign promise to scrap the registry.
The injunction granted Thursday applies to the data collected on residents of the province of Quebec, but also covers the accessibility, availability and integrity of the system holding the registry, as well as the equipment and tools that allow access to the Quebec data. That means the federal government can’t take further steps on ending the registry while the injunction is in place. And Quebec can keep adding data to the registry.
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A spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews emphasized the injunction isn’t permanent.“This is an interim order that is in effect until [5 p.m. ET] on the last day of the hearing of Quebec’s application, presently April 13, 2012,” Julie Carmichael said in an email.
“This injunction is temporary and doesn’t diminish our commitment to ending the long-gun registry once and for all. We are disappointed to see that, contrary to the will of Canadians and of Parliament, the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry is still alive.”
Let me reiterate, yet again, that the will of the Harper government is not the “will of Canadians”. Their policies represent at absolute best the 22% of eligible voting Canadians who turned up and voted for them. Let’s not forget why the long gun registry came into being.