Bill to end long-gun registry will destroy data already collected

[Peter Emberley]

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper has acted to kill any attempt by a provincial or future federal government to recreate the doomed long-gun registry.

In a surprise move aimed at putting a bullet in the registry for good, the Conservative government bill tabled Wednesday orders the commissioner of firearms to destroy “as soon as feasible” records related to 7.1 million long-barreled guns collected over the past 15 years.

If passed, Bill C-19 would, as promised, end the legal requirement for owners of rifles and shotguns to register their firearms under a federal gun control law inspired by the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre. It retains the requirement for long-gun owners to be screened and licensed.

But the bill declares that other federal laws that require the preservation of federal records would not apply to gun registry data.

Asked what motivated the destruction of data, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, the lead minister, said the Conservatives want to thwart the ability of any other party, such as the NDP, to reestablish it in the future.

“We won’t have these records loose and capable then of creating a new long gun registry should they ever have the opportunity to do that,” Toews said at an Ottawa Valley farm.

Supporters of strict gun control, including the federal government’s handpicked ombudsman for victims of crime, Susan O’Sullivan, were dismayed at how far the Conservatives are prepared to go.

O’Sullivan, a former Ottawa police officer, said that over the past decade, 71 per cent of spousal homicides involved rifles and shotguns. She urged the government to retain the registry.

Registry opponents like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation cheered the Conservatives’ new plan and urged it to go further to eliminate the licensing of long-gun owners, too.

Gregory Thomas, the group’s federal and Ontario director, warned against any move by provincial governments to establish a long-gun registry of their own.

The Conservative move means once the bill passes, registry information that is currently accessed more than 17,000 times a day by police across Canada will no longer be searchable, nor will its information be transferred to provinces before its elimination.

“For me, this is like payday,” rejoiced Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz.

Although there are divisions within their own ranks over the long-gun registry, the New Democrats and the Liberals denounced the new plan as wasteful, ideological and a divisive move aimed at sharpening an urban/rural split in the country.

Both parties have proposed changes that would have removed registration requirements from the criminal law and made it a simple regulatory scheme.

“The information that’s there is accurate and valuable and useful and the chiefs of police want it, and this government wants to destroy it and burn it,” said NDP justice critic Jack Harris. “A lot of taxpayers’ money has been used to collect this information under the law as it existed.”

Harris and NDP MP Françoise Boivin dismissed any suggestion the Conservatives care about privacy, saying the records can be protected and should be transferred to provinces like Quebec, which has already indicated it wishes to establish a provincial substitute.

“It’s a slap in the face for Quebec,” said Boivin, who said the Conservatives are treating the registry as if it is party property, not an asset that belongs to all Canadians.

“It’s completely stupid, it’s a waste and it’s ideological,” said Liberal MP Marc Garneau.

The Coalition for Gun Control said the Conservatives are turning back the clock “to the days when police recovered a gun and had to search store by store to see where the firearm was sold.”

Dr. Alan Drummond, of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians and an assistant coroner in Perth, said the Conservatives are “conveniently ignoring the clear scientific evidence that rural suicides with long guns are the principal issue in the tragic toll of Canadian firearms deaths. So we will now all be unwilling participants in a social experiment that will undoubtedly place Canadian lives at risk.”

The NDP scoffed at any claim the move is aimed at austerity, saying it saves only about $4 million a year — the amount the RCMP says it now costs to operate the registry.

Yet Toews and Conservatives continued Wednesday to refer to an estimate of the cumulative overall costs for the establishment of the comprehensive owner licensing and gun registration program as a “$2 billion boondoggle,” although the federal auditor general had pegged it at $1 billion over a decade.

Two Conservative cabinet ministers for Quebec, Christian Paradis and Denis Lebel, said the gun data is “useless” and “wasteful.” Paradis and Lebel predicted there would be no political price to pay in Quebec.

“No problem about that,” said Lebel.

The RCMP’s current firearms commissioner declined to comment when asked about how the destruction of data might proceed.

 

Tonda MacCharles     Ottawa Bureau   Published On Tue Oct 25 2011

[Peter Emberley]

Yup. Just make sure the buyer has a valid PAL.

[Jordan Harris]

Ok so does this mean when I sell/buy a gun I dont need to transfer it?

[Peter Emberley]

Bill killing gun registry is approved

RCMP will begin officially deleting database after Senate holds hearings and makes new law official

 

PART 1

 

The Harper government's controversial bill to end the long-gun registry passed the House of Commons Wednesday, marking the end of a long political battle over one of the most controversial law enforcement measures in recent memory.

"Today's vote marks an important achievement, as we fulfil the promise we made to Canadians to eliminate the long-gun registry once and for all," said Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Almost all opposition MPs voted against the legislation - except for New Democrats Bruce Hyer and John Rafferty, who sided with the government.

The bill passed easily, by a margin of 159 to 130, as the Conservatives used their majority in the House to secure passage of the bill, which now goes to the Senate where the Conservatives also have a majority. The Senate hearings are expected to take several weeks before the bill is passed into law.

Once that happens, RCMP officials will begin deleting information in a massive database that provides details to police on what types of firearms registered gun owners possess.

The quest to abolish the long gun registry - which dates back to the mid-1990s - has been a long-standing goal of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party.

Earlier Wednesday, Opposition leader Nycole Turmel said she had ordered all her NDP MPs to all vote against the bill.

Turmel said she spoke with Hyer and Rafferty, and warned them that any MPs who break ranks will be punished.

"There will be consequences," Turmel said.

In statements posted to their website, Hyer and Rafferty explained that they voted with the government to fulfil long-standing promises to their constituents.

"It's important to stand by one's commitments and to show the people who supported you all these years that you can be taken at your word when the time comes and that their opinions matter," wrote Rafferty.

"I have always held the strong conviction that we must end the well-intended but ineffective and wasteful registration of hunting rifles and shotguns," wrote Hyer.

The mood in the House Wednesday evening was tense, although the outcome was never in doubt.

The public galleries of the House of Commons were packed with staunch supporters and diehard opponents of the gun registry.

After the vote, as members of the Coalition for Gun Control lamented the imminent death of the long-gun registry, a number of Tory MPs feted their victory at a Parliament Hill cocktail party.

Quebec Public Security Minister Robert Dutil blasted the Harper government Wednesday for making the elimination of the registry a festive affair.

"I find this deplorable," Dutil said on his way into question period at the provincial legislature. "Frankly, they have a right to their opinion. We understand. It's their opinion. They promised it. But to go so far as to celebrate . . . is not very adequate."

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae expressed similar sentiments.

"I think that's really inappropriate myself," he said. "I think people have to demonstrate real sensitivity. Everybody has to understand that there are people who have strongly held views on the other side."

Rae said law enforcement agencies will now struggle to keep track of firearms in Canada.

[Peter Emberley]

PART 2

 

"It looks as if our certification process - getting certificates and everything - is actually now less stringent than it is in the United States," he said. "We're going to have to understand what the consequences are and what the effects are."

Nathalie Provost, who survived being shot during the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal in which 14 young women were killed, expressed profound disappointment.

"I never thought Canada would become the state it seems to have become with the Conservative government," she said. "The way we built Canada in the last 50 years is fragile now because of the philosophy of the Conservative Party."

But while thousands of gun owners are pleased to see the legal pendulum finally swing back in their favour, many remain unsatisfied, and will continue to push for a broader rewriting of the Firearms Act.

Allister Muir, a spokesman for the Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association, says Bill C-19 does not go nearly far enough. Muir said he will continue to push for a complete rewriting of the Firearms Act, and would like to see a regime in place that does not criminalize lawful gun owners.

"We're extremely disappointed," he said. "We're still treated worse than criminals under this law."

 

By Jeff Davis, Postmedia News

[Fred Woodman]

http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?mn=2&id=20856&latest=1

its past the House now hopefully a quick trip thru the Senate.

[Richard Breen]

I agree it is a waste of tax dollars

[Fred Woodman]

The sooner the better. Its long overdue. We should have a party the day its done. Thank you Stephen Harper