Garry Breitkreuz, M.P. Yorkton-Melville

News Release

For Immediate Delivery

May 27, 1998

JUSTICE DEPT. SAYS FIREARMS WILL BE CONFISCATED WITHOUT COMPENSATION!

"Canadian Bill of Rights guarantees are being violated by the government," declared Breitkreuz.

Ottawa – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, released a copy of a letter sent to a firearms dealer by the Department of Justice declaring that on October 1, 1998 part of his firearms inventory would be confiscated without compensation. "This is a direct violation of the Canadian Bill of Rights which states that every individual has the right to ‘enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law’," explained Breitkreuz. "The Bill of Rights doesn’t say the government can run roughshod over the property rights of millions of responsible firearm owners or thousands of legitimate firearm dealers and gunsmiths, but that is exactly what they are planning to do."

The letter Breitkreuz released was signed by Kathleen Roussel of the Canadian Firearms Centre, a new agency within the Department of Justice which will spend $133.9 million this year launching the new registration system for all rifles and shotguns. The letter states, "As you are aware, short-barrelled handguns (105 mm or less in barrel length) as well as those handguns which chamber .25 or .32 caliber ammunition, will be prohibited October 1, 1998. Firearms which are in a dealer’s inventory are not considered grandfathered and will therefore be subject to confiscation as of October 1. There is no compensation scheme planned at this time for dealers or individuals whose handguns become prohibited on October 1, 1998 and are confiscated or turned in."

"What the Department of Justice official failed to explain is that the government is banning approximately 558,000 legally-owned, registered handguns - almost half of all restricted firearms now registered in Canada," Breitkreuz clarified. "Unregistered firearms owned by the real criminals will be exempt from the government’s confiscation without a compensation scheme. The government has yet to explain why these registered handguns are so dangerous that they had to be banned but so safe when registered to responsible firearm owners that they can keep them until they die," stated Breitkreuz.

"Now the government’s real intentions are crystal clear. Once firearms are registered, they will ban the ones the Minister thinks are dangerous without any proof at all and then confiscate these firearms from law-abiding gun owners without compensation. This is exactly why millions of hunters, farmers, collectors and sport shooters fear registration and why the Justice Minister’s own User Group on Firearms is meeting with her today."

"The government is trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want to ban registered firearms, which are not a threat to public safety, and yet they still want to deny the owners of this legally owned property compensation for their loss. Anyone who owns property in Canada should be very concerned by this precedent. The Canadian Bill of Rights and English common law is on the side of gun owners and they will win their compensation claims in court. The government should come clean with Canadians about how much these court cases and compensation claims will cost taxpayers," concluded Breitkreuz.

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For more information please contact
The Office of GarryBreitkreuz, M.P.

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309
Ottawa: (613) 992-4394