NEWS RELEASE

February 14, 2003                                                                                              For Immediate Release

WHY DO THE LIBERALS TRUST AMERCIAN HUNTERS MORE THAN CANADIAN HUNTERS?

“Gun registry loses track of 157,339 guns brought into Canada and declared at Customs by tourists.”

Ottawa – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, Official Opposition Critic for Firearms and Property Rights, exposed another failure of the billion-dollar gun registry to do what the Liberals promised it would do.  “We informed them to this systems failure a year ago and they continued on their merry way,” revealed Breitkreuz.  “All they’re really doing is killing an important part of the tourism and outfitting industry in Canada. 

Breitkreuz released documents obtained from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) showing that foreign hunters and sport shooters declared 89,842 firearms in 2001 and another 67,497 firearms in 2002 as they were entering Canada.  The CCRA has no records of the 157,339 firearms ever leaving the country or where they are now.  Last year, the RCMP admitted that the guns declared by foreign visitors were not being recorded in the Canadian Firearms Registry. 

Breitkreuz was quick to point out that the government’s faulty procedures over the last two years have made a mockery of the government’s promise to Parliament in 1995 when Justice Minister Allan Rock said: “Registration will enable us to stop the kind of leakage that now occurs, to reduce the incidence of people illegally selling that which is legally imported.”

“The government and their shills continue to defend the gun registry by saying, ‘All guns start out as legal guns.’  But the fact of the matter is that for the last two years, all any gun smuggler had to do was fill out a Firearm Declaration form at the border, pay their fifty bucks and bring their guns into Canada,” observed Breitkreuz.  “The government didn’t register these 157,339 guns, didn’t track them and doesn’t know where they are today, confirming what everyone already knows: Law-abiding hunters and sport shooters are tourists – not criminals, and neither they nor their sporting arms are a threat to public safety.” 

Despite the fact that section 42 of the Firearms Act only came into effect on January 1, 2003, the reports also show that the CCRA collected more than $6.8 million in firearms fees for the Department of Justice from these mostly American hunters over the last two years.  “It seems the government has imposed these onerous rules on law-abiding foreign hunters and sport shooters for the last two years just for the money,” said Breitkreuz.  “It certainly has nothing to do with public safety.  The Department of Justice cannot produce one shred of evidence to show that these American hunters have ever been a threat to public safety or that their rifles and shotguns have ever found their way into criminal hands.”

“Until and unless the Liberals can produce evidence to the contrary, the government should be making it easier for these tourists to come to Canada – not making it more difficult because of their obsessive paranoia over guns.  They’re choking the life out of an important part of our tourism economy.  They are especially hurting aboriginal business and employment opportunities in the lucrative guiding and outfitting market,” said Breitkreuz.

“The Liberals didn’t enter the guns declared by foreign visitors in the gun registry, but they spent hundreds of millions entering guns declared by Canadian gun owners.  I believe Canadian gun owners can be trusted just as much as American gun owners.  Scrap the registry,” exclaimed Breitkreuz.

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