NDP Leader Jack Layton says that allowing his party's MPs to vote freely on a bill to scrap the long-gun registry does not contradict his own stance: that the registry must be saved.

"My goal is to fix the registry so that it can work for everybody, and that's what our caucus is working very hard to accomplish," Layton told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.

He added that MPs will discuss what to do about the long-gun registry at a caucus strategy meeting in Regina this week.

"I am absolutely not saying, ‘Let's fix it by getting rid of it,'" Layton said.

Parliament is due to vote later this month on Tory MP Candice Hoeppner's private member bill to do away with the long-gun registry, and the New Democrats will decide its fate. The Conservatives support the bill, while the Bloc Quebecois and the Liberals are expected to vote against it.

"What we're doing in our party is what really what needs to happen in the whole country," Layton told CTV's Question Period on Sunday. "That is to build bridges between urban Canada and rural, northern and aboriginal Canada on an important issue."

The New Democrats traditionally allow their MPs to vote however they want on private member's bills. But Layton has been trying hard to convince his caucus to save the gun registry by proposing reforms that would placate angry constituents in rural and northern ridings.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has urged New Democrats to vote against scrapping the registry, saying that "right now they're lined up with Stephen Harper against the police."

The Conservatives have fought to abolish the long-gun registry, despite claims from Canada's police chiefs and the Canadian Police Association that it's a useful tool for law enforcement.

New Democrat MPs have been divided by the issue because many of them hold ridings in northern or rural areas where residents oppose having to register shotguns and rifles.

A dozen of the party's MPs voted in favour of scrapping the registry when Hoeppner's bill came up for second reading last November.

Eight Liberal MPs also voted with the Tories at second reading, but Ignatieff is promising that his caucus will vote against the bill this time. That would mean the Conservatives need NDP votes to do away with the embattled gun registry.

Three New Democrats who voted for the bill in November -- Claude Gravelle, Charlie Angus and Glen Thibeault -- recently said they will vote against it this time.

With files from The Canadian Press