Garry Breitkreuz, M.P. Yorkton-Melville

News Release

Breitkreuz Fights Gun Registration Regs. with Common-sense Bill

For Immediate Delivery

November 7, 1997

Ottawa -- In response to the Liberal government’s introduction of 62 more pages of gun control regulations, Garry Breitkreuz, M.P. for Yorkton-Melville, re-introduced his Firearms Law Sunset Act. "These regulations suffer the same problem as the bill that authorized them - no one knows whether all this bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo and spending of hundreds of millions of our tax dollars, will improve public safety, reduce the criminal use of firearms, or save lives," said Breitkreuz.

Peter MacKay, M.P. for Pictou-Antagonish-Guysborough, Nova Scotia, House Leader and Chief Justice Critic for the Progressive Conservative Party seconded Breitkreuz’ bill. "Issues of justice and public safety transcend partisan party lines. These regulations are not about public safety - it’s just another tax," said MacKay.

Bill C-68 was 137 pages long and so far the government has introduced 131 pages of regulations. "My Firearms Law Sunset Act would bring some much needed sense to this confusing mess of laws and guarantee that scarce tax dollars will only be spent on gun control measures that actually work," Breitkreuz explained.

"My sunset law would require the automatic repeal of any gun control measure five years after it is implemented unless it can pass a public safety test administered by the Auditor General for Canada which proves the measure is both cost-effective and is achieving it’s stated objective of improving public safety. I believe all laws we pass in this House must be cost-effective at achieving their stated goal, whether it’s the Firearms Act or the Canadian Wheat Board Act. Sunset provisions are the only way of guaranteeing that legislation is revisited by Parliament to extend it if it is working, or to repeal it if it’s not," stated Breitkreuz.

"My first choice would be to repeal C-68 as proposed in Bill C-236 introduced by my colleague, Darrel Stinson, MP for Okanagan-Shuswap. If we can’t repeal Bill C-68 right now, passage of my bill would at least make sure that the ineffective measures it imposes on Canadians and the hundreds of millions of dollars it wastes are re-directed to real crime-fighting measures like putting more police on our streets and highways."

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For more information, please contact:

Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.