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I submit that the principled answer to that question is: “No.”

For many years, as we worked to help develop the conservative movement into something that was strong and capable enough to gain the confidence of Canadians and ultimately form government, we were also working on important issues as an effective opposition.

Abolishing the gun registry was very important to many of us because we felt it was grossly unfair for long gun owners to be forced to submit their personal information to a government database. The privacy implications, the potential for abuse of the information and the enormous cost of building and maintaining the database were all reasons that we insisted the long gun registry had to go.

We said that Canadians should not have to worry about their personal information being shared without their permission or knowledge, or about it being stored insecurely.

Similarly, we fought against Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which dealt with “hate propaganda,” because of its harmful effect on freedom of speech and because of its potential for abuse by unaccountable government bureaucrats.

Those principles are every bit as important today as they were when we were fighting against laws that were enacted by Liberal governments.

We said that websites should not be shut down over non-violent speech and that unaccountable bureaucrats should not be allowed to disrupt the lives of innocent Canadians.

Ultimately, both the long gun registry and Section 13 were repealed due to the efforts of grassroots conservatives who were fighting for important principles of freedom and democracy.