May 30, 1995 For Immediate Release
INSURANCE COMPANIES SAY, "GUN OWNERS NOT AN IDENTIFIABLE RISK GROUP."
"Rock refuses to provide statistical evidence because he knows it will prove him wrong."
Ottawa - Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, blew another hole in the Liberal government's gun control bill. Breitkreuz uses every opportunity he has in the House of Commons to build his case against Allan Rock's bogus bill. Here is what Breitkreuz said today:
"The legislative measures proposed in Bill C-68 imply that gun owners are a risk to both themselves and to others and thereby a threat to public safety. The Minister of Justice is unable or unwilling to provide empirical evidence to prove that gun owners present a greater risk to themselves, to the people they live with or to their neighbours.
The Library of Parliament has been in contact with the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association and the Insurance Bureau of Canada and has learned that insurance companies do not ask their applicants if they own a gun because they are "not an identifiable risk group".
If gun ownership represented any risk or liability, insurance companies would charge gun owners a higher premium for life, health, disability, liability and property insurance - they do not! How can the Justice Minister say gun owners are an identifiable risk when insurance companies disagree? Unlike the Minister who makes his arguments based solely on emotion, insurance companies make their decisions based on "empirical evidence" because they make their living assessing real risk."
"Rock refuses to do the evaluation recommended by the Auditor General and by the all party committee from Saskatchewan. This fact exposes Rock's charade. His personal public policy agenda can no longer masquerade as public safety," concluded Breitkreuz.
For more information please call:
Ottawa: (613) 992-4394