Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews waves before a Public Safety and National Security committee at Parliament Hill in Ottawa March 18, 2010. (ANDRE FORGET/QMI AGENCY)

OTTAWA — Proroguing Parliament earlier this year will make it easier to scrap the controversial long gun registry, says Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Toews said Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s bill to abolish the gun registry didn’t die on the order paper as government legislation did because it is a private member’s bill. It now heads to committee and a final vote in the House of Commons before going to the Senate.

That’s where prorogation will help the bill overcome its final hurdle, Toews said on CTV’s Question Period.

“Prorogation helps us to restructure the Senate committee which will enable us to have an easier time through that Senate committee in terms of getting Candice Hoeppner’s bill through the Senate.”

The Conservatives have often complained in the past that Liberal dominated Senate committees were stalling or rewriting their crime and justice legislation.

Toews said his only concern is that NDP and Liberal MPs who initially voted for Hoeppner’s bill will change their minds.

Friday, Toews announced another one-year extension in the amnesty for long gun owners who have yet to register their weapons.

While the Conservatives want to get rid of the long gun registry, Toews said they support a strong licensing system.

“The issue is who has these firearms. The registry does nothing to deal with the issue of who is entitled to own firearms.”

Nor do police officers simply rely on the registry to determine whether there are guns in a home, Toews added.

“That would be careless of a police officer. I have never heard a police officer say that they would simply check the registry and if there was no gun on the registry approach the house as if there was no firearm there.”

However, Liberal Bob Rae said police chiefs tell him the long gun registry is useful and can save lives.

“People can have long guns. There’s no objection to having long guns. It’s just a question of whether we have to register them. We register dogs, cats, bicycles, cars. We register all kinds of things. It’s a little odd that we wouldn’t register guns.”

NDP MP Paul Dewar questioned why the government hasn’t brought in its own legislation instead of relying on a backbench MP’s private member’s bill and why they haven’t moved to crack down on handguns flowing across the border and into Canadian cities.