The Conservatives are issuing ads in the ridings of eight Liberal MPs who previously voted to end the long-gun registry, after Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff announced that all caucus members must vote to save the contentious program.

The move comes as one Tory MP apologized for a Tuesday news release that compared Canadian police chiefs to a cult and seemingly urged Liberal MPs to beat Ignatieff "black and blue."

Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz said he did not personally write the release issued under his name.

"I want to apologize for the language in the news release. It was over the top," he told The Canadian Press. "I don't know how that got out of here."

However, the release was still on Breitkreuz's website as of almost 12:00 p.m. ET.

It angrily attacked Ignatieff's decision to require all Grit MPs to vote against the third-reading of a private member's bill to scrap the registry, may have served the opposite purpose as was intended.

P.E.I. Liberal MP Wayne Easter, one of the eight MPs the Tories are targeting, called the release "a tirade that's unbecoming of a member of Parliament."

Breitkreuz is quoted in the release as saying the Liberal leader is "a bully who may well be committing political suicide."

"With tactics like this, I doubt he'll be missed on either side of the House," the release said. "His true colours are showing and, if his caucus has any integrity, those colours should be black and blue."

Harper spokesperson Dimitri Soudas said the release was "in poor taste and inappropriate."

"Mr. Breitkreuz has apologized. What Mr. Breitkreuz should have said is that Michael Ignatieff once again turned his back on rural Canadians by clearly stating he still supports the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry," Soudas told The Canadian Press.

As Tuesday was April 20, or 4-20, the annual marijuana protest day, Easter questioned whether Breitkreuz may have taken in too much of the pot smoke that rose over Parliament Hill from protesters.

"Was he out there talking to the wacky tobacco groups or something? I think he must've got too much of that smoke up his nose and it affected his brain."

On CTV's Power Play, Tory MP Shelly Glover made it clear that Breitkreuz's press release did not speak for the Conservative party.

"That is not the government's position," Glover said on CTV's Power Play.

"It certainly isn't my position. I have a tremendous respect for chiefs of police and for police officers across this country, and if it were not for their valiant efforts to protect citizens we would not have the country that we have, we would not be as safe as we are -- so it is an unfortunate thing that has happened."

Although The Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Canadian Association of Police Boards all support the registry, Glover said there are just as many police officers who see the registry as "ineffective and wasteful."

When pressed to provide names of officers who would like to see the long-gun registry abolished, however, she only mentioned Delaney Chisholm, the chief of police in New Glasgow, N.S., a town of 9,455 residents.

The ads

In one Tory radio ad, aimed at Ontario Liberal MP Anthony Rota, the party's caucus chair, constituents are urged to phone their MP and demand that the registry be scrapped.

"Plans to scrap the wasteful long-gun registry are now in doubt," the radio ad intones. "The reason? Local member of Parliament, Anthony Rota, has been ordered by Liberal boss Michael Ignatieff to vote to keep the registry."

Some Liberal and NDP members voted with the Tories when a private member's bill came up for second reading in November. Bill C-391 would scrap the registry if passed on its third and final reading. It would also destroy the registry's records on about seven million shotguns and rifles.

Liberals who voted for the bill in November weren't punished.

Ignatieff has proposed some reforms to the registry, such as seeing first time offenders fined, instead of criminally charged, which may make the registry more palatable to rural MPs.

The vote is expected to take place in May.