baby registry: Canada in brief

Gun registry changes getting a lot of support

The federal Tories got a lot of support on the Prairies to their announcement Wednesday of changes to the federal firearms registry, including the effective elimination of the long-guns registry.


Manitoba NDP Premier Gary Doer welcomed the move, saying the money would be better spent beefing up border patrols to keep illegal guns out of Canada, training and hiring more police officers and building community clubs.


''Those are three better reasons to use taxpayer money than the gun registry,'' said Doer. ''Spending $1 billion on this boondoggle is indefensible.''


Garry Breitkreuz, the Conservative from Yorkton-Melville who has long fought the gun registry, said from his Ottawa office that he feels vindicated.


''After 12 years of working on an issue, finally it's been payday,'' he said. ''I think that we can see now that the final nail in the coffin to the gun registry could be put in soon.''


He said the changes will keep many law-abiding citizens - such as farmers who own and use rifles for little other reason than shooting at gophers - from being branded criminals.


Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced the government is waiving the fees for long-gun owners who renew their firearms licences. And it won't prosecute those who fail to register weapons for the next year.


- The Canadian Press

Midwife sentenced to 1 year of house arrest


VICTORIA (CP) - An unregistered midwife has been sentenced to one year of house arrest after a baby she was helping to deliver died of suffocation in the mother's birth canal.


Amy Marie Labadie, 32, was convicted of a charge of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, stemming from the home birth in Sooke, B.C., two years ago.


Labadie, then a Sooke, B.C., resident and now living in Victoria, offered to help a Sooke woman have a birth at home even though circumstances suggested that the birth happen in hospital.


Labadie is not a registered midwife, citing "philosophical differences" with the College of Midwifes of B.C., a regulatory body that ensures its members are qualified and competent.


The labour went on too long and the baby girl died of asphyxia, or suffocation, in the birth canal, court heard. The infant's parents, Glyse Phillips and Paul Clarkson, were not in court Wednesday.


Crown prosecutor Christine Lowe said they were too overwrought to write a victim impact statement.


Labadie will serve her jail sentence at home under a conditional sentence order, ruled provincial court judge Michael Hubbard.


That order includes a curfew of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. for the first six months of the sentence and an order to stay away from pregnant women.