Ben Gelinas (Postmedia News) – An emotional RCMP Commissioner yesterday vehemently denied reports the director-general of the national firearms program was removed due to Conservative political pressure, calling such claims “fiction.”
It was announced on Wednesday that a new director-general — RCMP Chief Superintendent Pierre Perron — had been named to replace Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak, removed from the post earlier in the week.
Critics charged that Chief Supt. Cheliak was ousted because he was a vocal champion of the long-gun registry, which is supported by a number of police associations, such as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, but unpopular with many Canadians.
The Conservative government is backing a private member’s bill that would scrap the registry. The bill is expected to be debated when Parliament returns in September.
“Marty Cheliak has been removed as part of a normal staffing action by the RCMP. He was in the job on an acting basis. There is absolutely, positively, nothing to the suggestion that there was any political role or interference with respect to this,” RCMP Commissioner William Elliott told reporters in Edmonton said after a Criminal Intelligence Service Canada news conference.
“[Cheliak] is on leave. He’s going to French-language training, a requirement of the job. We have put in an excellent officer to replace him,” Commissioner Elliott said.
When asked about allegations that Chief Supt. Cheliak was moved out because of pressure from the government, Commissioner Elliott went on the defensive.
“They are absolute and positive fiction. Fiction. There is not one iota of truth in that,” he said. “The media and others just made this up. It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not true.”
While the RCMP Commissioner dealt with the fallout
from the gun-registry issue, the political sabre-rattling continued.
Candice Hoeppner, the Tory MP behind bill C-391, which would scrap the registry, said she hopes she can convince opposition MPs to support her bill. Before Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff ordered his party members to toe Liberal line, eight Liberals had supported the bill, along with 12 NDP MPs.
“Canadians who are opposed to the long-gun registry aren’t swayed by all this noise that’s been going on,” said Ms. Hoeppner, who is travelling to NDP and Liberal ridings this summer to speak about the registry. “They remain steadfast in wanting to see the long-gun registry ended, and those are the people that I am counting on to contact and speak with their Member of Parliament.”
A motion from the Public Safety committee to kill Ms. Hoeppner’s bill will be voted upon on Sept. 22.
Meanwhile, one victims’ rights advocate said the pressure is now on NDP leader Jack Layton, whose party will likely have the ability to keep or kill the registry.
“For me, the credibility of the NDP depends on this, because it would be the NDP that would be responsible for the dismantling of the gun-control registry if the bill goes through. Because they can stop it,” said Heidi Rathjen, who regularly speaks on behalf of the student and graduates of Ecole Polytechnique, where 14 women were killed with a long gun in 1989.
Mr. Layton said the Conservatives are u sing the long-gun registry as a “wedge issue” to divide rural and urban Canadians.
“The Conservatives have been completely unwilling to consider any changes at all.
They prefer that this be a political wedge,” he said.
“We prefer that Parliament actually work to try to accomplish good gun control, good registration systems, ones that actually work for rural Canada, and we’re going to keep pressing for that kind of a solution to this problem.”
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