NEWS RELEASE

October 7, 1999 For Immediate Release

EVIDENCE PROVES FIREARMS REGISTRY GETTING WORSE NOT BETTER

"ATI Requests from the Minister’s own department prove she has lost control of firearms file."

Yorkton – In response to claims made to the media by the Minister of Justice that the firearms registration system "is getting better all the time", Garry Breitkreuz, Firearms Critic for the Official Opposition, released more evidence to the contrary. "Access to Information (ATI) Requests from Minister McLellan’s own department are proving to be her downfall. Her false and misleading statements no longer hold up to serious scrutiny," stated Breitkreuz. "The evidence speaks for itself:
  1. In a June 1st, 1999 recommendation, the Minister’s hand-picked User Group on Firearms revealed that the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC) system was only producing "upwards of 1,000 to 1,500 entries per day" but needed to be producing 4,750 licences per day and 7,000 registrations per day to meet the Jan 1, 2001 deadline.
  2. In a November 30, 1998 report to the CFC, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that the Central Processing Site would receive a minimum of 504,238 firearms registration applications in the first six months of operation. As of September 15, 1999, only 160,773 registration applications had been received.
    3.
  3. A response to an ATI Request dated September 29, 1999 (on Volume of Work Statistics and Performance Measurement at the Central Processing Site in Miramichi, NB) revealed that the error rates in firearms registration forms and licence applications are running at "approximately 80%". A report prepared for the Dept. of Justice by PricewaterhouseCoopers on November 30, 1998 predicted only a 20% error rate.
    4.
  4. Two separate reports produced by the Department of Justice reveal that between May 31st and September 15th, the total backlog of firearms licence applications to be processed almost tripled. On May 31, 1999, the backlog of licence applications was 20,512. That backlog had increased to 79,291 as of September 15, 1999.
  5. A "Communications exercise" conducted by the Canadian Firearms Centre on January 14, 1998, revealed that: "Weaknesses" in the registration system outnumbered "Strengths" - 27 to 15 and "Threats" outnumbered "Opportunities" – 24 to 18.

"Look at the signs Madame Minister," advised Breitkreuz. "Things are getting worse – not better. Only bureaucrats struggling to save their own jobs or politicians scrambling to save their own seats could ignore this mounting body of evidence that all is not well in la-la land!"

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For copies of the ATI Requests, please call:

Yorkton Office: (306) 782-3309

Ottawa Office: (613) 992-4394

e-mail: breitg0@parl.gc.ca