Mr. Speaker, this morning at the subcommittee on private members' business, the Liberals, Bloc and NDP revealed that they have a strategy to jointly and secretly kill efforts to repeal the long gun firearms registry. Their strategy is to make Bill C-391, the private member's bill that repeals the long gun registry, non-votable.
The three parties are well aware that all government MPs support this bill, along with enough opposition members to gain a majority in the House, so their solution was to kill it at an in camera meeting of the subcommittee by making it non-votable.
This morning the committee met in open session. The opposition members did not read the notice and did not realize that the meeting was open. Therefore, they stated openly that they have no basis under the Standing Orders to do what they are doing and deemed the bill non-votable. When it was revealed the vote was taking place publicly, they halted in mid-vote forcing the meeting to close its doors to the public.
The NDP and Liberal backbenchers who claim to want to end the registry can still stop this unparliamentary action by telling their leaders they do not want the bill to be killed in secret and in silence.