Cost of gun registration
By Special Correspondent - The Chronicle-Journal
August 31, 2002
With summer waning, Northwestern Ontario hunters are starting to think about unlocking the gun cabinet and oiling up the long arms.
But this fall will mark the last season that Canadians can legally hunt with unregistered firearms. Under Bill C-68 — the controversial Firearms Act — the Canadian government will consider all gun owners who do not register their firearms by the end of this year to be criminals.
With that in mind, I expect the feds will be receiving a mountain of gun registration applications some time about Dec. 31. The tidal wave of paperwork will certainly create more chaos at the already overwhelmed Canadian Firearms Centre.
What’s going to be really interesting, however, is how the government will handle what looks like an epidemic of non-compliance. There has been very little in the news this year about gun owners who failed to license themselves last year being thrown into jail.
You have to wonder what will happen if those same people decide not to register their guns.
Recently, Garry Breitkreuz, the rabidly anti-Bill C -68 Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville, supplied the media with clippings gleaned from several Canadian newspapers. Breitkreuz sees Bill C-68 as a fatally flawed legislation and has spent the last couple of years documenting the sins of a bill he calls a “fiasco.”
What the articles in the media package indicate is that C-68 is creating a defiance of law that’s rarely seen in Canada.
An article from the Prince George Free Press, dated Jan. 7, 2001, quotes a man who is openly defying the government over bill C-68. “Come and get me,” says Phil Hewkins. “I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to bury my guns.”
Breitkreuz says he checked with Mr. Hewkins this summer and found that the RCMP had yet to pay him a call. Yet Mr. Hewkin is knowingly in possession of firearms contrary to Section 91 of the Criminal Code and could face 10 years in jail if the RCMP ever does follow through.
In a more recent article from the Edmonton Sun (March 20, 2002), the non-compliance of a First Nations group to Bill C-68 is the focus. “We’re talking about a law that violates our fundamental treaty rights to hunt or bear arms,” says Greg Ahenakew, Vice Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. “Treaty law is basic law and it comes before the Firearms Act. This is an unjust law passed without our consent.”
In hopes of having Bill C-68 repealed, Breitkreuz has made 267 requests under the Access to Information Act. Here are just a few of the things he’s found out about the ongoing gun registration:
• As of March 23, 2002, the Justice Department has registered 3,308,514 firearms. Every one without the owner’s name on them.
• The RCMP report a 132 per cent error rate in gun registry as of July 2001. Most of the errors are in the description of the firearms.
• The Department of Justice reports there are 222,911 guns in the registry with the same make and serial number. They have also lost track of 38,629 firearm licence holders.
• Last year, the department lost track of 89,820 firearms declared at the border by foreign visitors.
• The RCMP reports 156 known breaches of their computer system known as CPIC since 1995.
And what’s been the cost of gun registration so far?
As of April 24, 2002, registering just over four million firearms will have cost $978,260,000.
Thunder Bay freelance writer Gord
Ellis’s column appears Saturdays on this page.
By Special Correspondent - The Chronicle-Journal
August 31, 2002
With summer waning, Northwestern Ontario hunters are starting to think about unlocking the gun cabinet and oiling up the long arms.
But this fall will mark the last season that Canadians can legally hunt with unregistered firearms. Under Bill C-68 — the controversial Firearms Act — the Canadian government will consider all gun owners who do not register their firearms by the end of this year to be criminals.
With that in mind, I expect the feds will be receiving a mountain of gun registration applications some time about Dec. 31. The tidal wave of paperwork will certainly create more chaos at the already overwhelmed Canadian Firearms Centre.
What’s going to be really interesting, however, is how the government will handle what looks like an epidemic of non-compliance. There has been very little in the news this year about gun owners who failed to license themselves last year being thrown into jail.
You have to wonder what will happen if those same people decide not to register their guns.
Recently, Garry Breitkreuz, the rabidly anti-Bill C -68 Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville, supplied the media with clippings gleaned from several Canadian newspapers. Breitkreuz sees Bill C-68 as a fatally flawed legislation and has spent the last couple of years documenting the sins of a bill he calls a “fiasco.”
What the articles in the media package indicate is that C-68 is creating a defiance of law that’s rarely seen in Canada.
An article from the Prince George Free Press, dated Jan. 7, 2001, quotes a man who is openly defying the government over bill C-68. “Come and get me,” says Phil Hewkins. “I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to bury my guns.”
Breitkreuz says he checked with Mr. Hewkins this summer and found that the RCMP had yet to pay him a call. Yet Mr. Hewkin is knowingly in possession of firearms contrary to Section 91 of the Criminal Code and could face 10 years in jail if the RCMP ever does follow through.
In a more recent article from the Edmonton Sun (March 20, 2002), the non-compliance of a First Nations group to Bill C-68 is the focus. “We’re talking about a law that violates our fundamental treaty rights to hunt or bear arms,” says Greg Ahenakew, Vice Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. “Treaty law is basic law and it comes before the Firearms Act. This is an unjust law passed without our consent.”
In hopes of having Bill C-68 repealed, Breitkreuz has made 267 requests under the Access to Information Act. Here are just a few of the things he’s found out about the ongoing gun registration:
• As of March 23, 2002, the Justice Department has registered 3,308,514 firearms. Every one without the owner’s name on them.
• The RCMP report a 132 per cent error rate in gun registry as of July 2001. Most of the errors are in the description of the firearms.
• The Department of Justice reports there are 222,911 guns in the registry with the same make and serial number. They have also lost track of 38,629 firearm licence holders.
• Last year, the department lost track of 89,820 firearms declared at the border by foreign visitors.
• The RCMP reports 156 known breaches of their computer system known as CPIC since 1995.
And what’s been the cost of gun registration so far?
As of April 24, 2002, registering just over four million firearms will have cost $978,260,000.
Thunder Bay freelance writer Gord
Ellis’s column appears Saturdays on this page.
, but not the politics or the slightly worse than US taxes.
