The MP aiming to kill the long-gun registry wrapped up her three-day visit to Whitehorse by stopping at the everyman's coffee shop – Tim Hortons – this morning to talk government and guns.

Candice Hoeppner, the Conservative member of Portage-Lisgar, a rural riding in Manitoba, said she is not a gun owner, but tabled her private member's bill last fall (Bill C-391, an Act to amend the Criminal Code and Firearms Act to repeal the long-gun registry) to represent the wishes of her constituents.

Hoeppner told the Star she is targeting other rural ridings – some whose MPs have supported her bill like Yukon's Liberal MP Larry Bagnell and others "whose MPs haven't been so clear” – in an effort to maintain support and attract others to vote for her bill when it comes for third and final reading on Sept. 22.

But winning hearts and minds on the matter of scrapping the long-gun registry in Yukon's capital is not a difficult task.

At one table in the busy Second Avenue coffee shop sit three middle-aged men who agree that the gun registry is doing nothing to combat crime or stop criminals.

And one gentleman in particular views the long-gun registry as yet another unnecessary intrusion by government into people's lives.

However, Hoeppner's ultimate goal, at least as far as the Yukon is concerned, is to win the heart and mind of Bagnell, who twice voted in support of Bill C-391. Bagnell is now faced with either toeing the Liberal party's line and voting against the bill, or standing with his constituents, the majority of whom want to see the long-gun registry dead.

"I've been offering as a compromise for Larry is that he would just sit out the vote because it would help me to end the registry,” said Hoeppner.

"And I think he could tell his constituents, ‘Listen, my not voting did help pass the bill,' but he also would be able to say to his leader and his party, ‘I didn't vote against what you wanted me to vote.'”

The trouble for Bagnell started in April, after Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told the Canadian Police Association his party would oppose Hoeppner's bill and he would whip the Liberal caucus to fall in line.

Bagnell is one of eight Liberal MPs to support Hoeppner's bill in the House of Commons on first and second readings. One independent MP and a dozen NDP members have also sided with Hoeppner, but unlike Ignatieff, NDP Leader Jack Layton – a supporter of the long-gun registry – is allowing his caucus a free vote, what is generally allowed by all parties when their MPs are faced with supporting or denying a private member's bill.

When Ignatieff visited Whitehorse in August, he said the Liberal party is against abolishing the registry "because every single police chief that I've talked to says they need it as a matter of course.”

Not so, according to Hoeppner.

"I have the Calgary Chief of Police (Rick Hanson) very vocally supporting the bill and the people of Calgary, I believe he's reflecting their opinions .... Edmonton police officers and I think the people of Edmonton support it, I know in Winnipeg they support ending the registry,” she said this morning.

Since Ignatieff's April declaration, Hanson has been a staunch critic of the gun registry in print and radio media. Police opposition to the registry in Edmonton and Winnipeg has come not from those forces' brass, but from former and active front line officers.

Three weeks ago, the Canadian Police Association unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the registry. But Hoeppner points to a straw poll by Edmonton police officer Randy Kuntz (who admitted his poll was not scientific) in which 90 per cent of more than 2,600 police who responded favoured ending the long-gun registry.

Another survey conducted by the RCMP queried 408 police; 74 per cent indicated the registry assisted them in the field.

To date, Bagnell has said, "he may not have a choice” when Bill C-391 comes for third and final reading, but the Liberal MP continues to sidestep direct questions on which way he will ultimately vote.

"Right up to the very end, I need to know what my options are right up until the (vote) unfolds,” Bagnell told the Star Wednesday from Yellowknife, N.W.T., where he joined Ignatieff on his cross-country tour.

"That's the way things happen; you never know how things are going to unfold, but it doesn't look like there will be any options for me.”

Last week, during an appearance on The Current, Bagnell told the CBC radio program's guest host, Nancy Wilson, that he had not asked Ignatieff if he could simply skip the vote.

Asked by Wilson, if he thought of, "... just not show(ing) up,” Bagnell responded that he had not explored that possibility.

More than a week later, Bagnell has yet to determine if that is an option.

"I haven't asked Michael Ignatieff (if I can skip the vote),” he said Wednesday.

Next week, Hoeppner will take her anti-gun registry campaign to northern Ontario, where she is losing NDP support from the likes of MPs Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) and Glenn Thibeault (Sudbury), who announced this week they would switch their votes to oppose scrapping the registry.

Hoeppner claimed that Carol Hughes, NDP member for Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing (northern Ontario) has gone the other way and now supports ending the long-gun registry, but the Star could not confirm that as of press time early this afternoon.

Hoeppner said she would continue her campaign right up until the 11th hour, because she believes MPs like Bagnell will "be sitting (in the House of Commons) thinking, ‘What am I going to do?'

"As I said, I do feel sorry for him, but at the same time I do have to say, ‘Listen, we're members of Parliament; we're elected to do a job, and if you can't take the job or take the heat on an important issue, well, maybe you're not the right man for the job.'”

More than 100 people attended an event with Hoeppner on Wednesday evening put on by the Yukon Fish and Game Association. See outdoor columnist Murray Martin's take on the meeting in Friday's Star.