So How Will Stephen Harper Get Rid of Our Police Agencies?

As debate over the gun registry is heating up, and the Liberals may 'whip' if necessary, what is Stephen Harper going to do? Usually he just fires someone. Of course he did this with Marty Cheliak, but the police in Canada appear to side with him and not the self imposed dictator.

As the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Conference convened in Edmonton on Sunday evening, an absent RCMP Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak was honoured for his work as the director general of the Canadian Firearms Program. Toronto police chief William Blair, the association president, presented the award in absentia to Cheliak, who is on leave from the national police force.

"He made the program work and I cannot overstate the enormity of his contribution to helping all of us in law enforcement and all Canadians understand better the value of that information," Blair said during the presentation. The award follows Cheliak's removal as head of the program by RCMP Commissioner William Elliott. Cheliak originally was supposed to present a report on a national firearms strategy at the conference, but was told by the RCMP that he would no longer be attending.

And the police association is also in support of the mandatory long-form census.

The plan to scrap the long-gun registry is not the only policy of the federal Conservative government that is causing consternation at Canadian police agencies. The Canadian Association of Police Boards (CAPB) approved eight resolutions when its members met in New Brunswick last week, including one that calls on the government to restore the mandatory long-form census.

The association recognizes “that police agencies throughout Canada depend on reliable, comprehensive demographic statistical information provided by Statistics Canada to establish policing priorities and to determine policing services for their communities,” the CAPB said in a statement released Monday.

Will we see attack ads against the police now, with accusations that they are "just visiting"? The Cons have to do something to counter the public relations campaign planned by the Canadian Association of Police Boards.

And a reminder that guns really do kill people: