Canada: "Critics have Milliken in gun registry sights"

[cuchulainn]

from the Kingston Whig Standard

http://www.thewhig.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=25874&catname=Local+News

Critics have Milliken in gun registry sights

By Tim Naumetz

Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 07:00

Local News - The neutrality of Commons Speaker and Kingston and the Islands MP Peter Milliken and future funding for the Liberal firearms program will be on the line when Parliament resumes Monday after its two-week March break.

The Conservative party has promised to question Milliken’s impartiality in the explosive debate over the registry because of scathing comments he made five years ago about firearms owners who were fighting to get the government to scrap the program before it took effect.

Inside the Liberal party, rebel backbencher Roger Gallaway, along with Senator Anne Cools and other caucus members, plan to circulate a letter urging government MPs to vote against supplementary funding for the controversial program later in the month.

And the Canadian Alliance is considering an opposition motion that could force government MPs to take sides in a vote on whether the registry should be suspended.

Adding to the drama, Auditor General Sheila Fraser is to square off against Treasury Board President Lucienne Robillard with evidence that the government ignored strict spending and management controls as the cost of the firearms program mushroomed out of control to nearly $1 billion over five years. Fraser and Robillard are to appear in front of the Commons public accounts committee on Monday.

Milliken’s objectivity is under fire after opponents of the Firearms Act released correspondence they had with Milliken in 1998, when he suggested an armored-car driver in St. Catharines had only “half a brain’’ for urging the government to scrap plans for the registry.

Milliken, then deputy Speaker of the Commons, also said he would “happily’’ vote for legislation to ban firearms.

Milliken’s communications officer, Colette Dery, dismissed allegations that Milliken can’t be impartial when he considers two opposition claims that Justice Minister Martin Cauchon is in contempt of Parliament for his actions over the firearms program.

Milliken wrote the dismissive letters only days after a schoolyard shooting in the U.S. left four girls and a teacher dead and 11 students wounded.

One of the complaints Milliken will judge goes back to Feb. 5, when Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz accused Cauchon of deceiving MPs by withholding a 65-page document prepared by an Ottawa consulting firm that probed management problems at the Canadian Firearms Centre.

The other complaint is from Alliance MP John Williams, chairman of the public accounts committee, who accused Cauchon of contempt of Parliament for distributing spending plans on the program to the media before tabling them in Parliament.

Nova Scotia Conservative MP Gerald Keddy says the views Milliken expressed in the past about gun control may affect his judgment in the debate.

“It calls into question his credibility as Speaker,’’ Keddy said in an interview.

MPs in the past could challenge rulings of Speakers through a vote in the Commons, but the appeal procedure was abolished in 1965 because it was abused by opposition parties. Since the 1980s, however, there have been several instances where MPs have come under fire themselves for questioning the impartiality of the Speaker.

Hamilton-area Liberal MP John Bryden dismisses suggestions that Milliken’s rulings are compromised by past views.

“Peter wasn’t Speaker of the House at that time,’’ said Bryden. “Any one of us who may become Speaker by the election of our fellows obviously has positions on things that have been before the House and may still come before the House. You can’t get away from that, so long as they’re elected from politicians, they’ve got to have view points.’’

Senator Cools questioned the language Milliken used, as well as the implications for his rulings.

“Any citizen is within right and is justified to be concerned about the objectivity, the impartiality, of the Speaker of the Commons as the Speaker is being called to adjudicate important questions of order and privilege involving the overexpenditure of $1 billion on the firearms program.’’

Gallaway and his supporters are still troubled by a ruling Milliken made last month, dismissing Gallaway’s claim that Cauchon was in contempt of Parliament for continuing to fund the firearms program even though the Commons agreed to reduce its spending estimates to zero in December.

In the ruling, Milliken incorrectly said the request for further funding was in addition to money Parliament had already approved for the program for the year. © 2003, OSPREY MEDIA GROUP INC.