One month ago today, between 10 and 20 thousand responsible firearm owners assembled peacefully on Parliament Hill to protest your government’s ill-conceived Bill C-68, The Firearms Act. While the actual number is open to interpretation, everyone, even the RCMP, agrees that this rally was bigger than the one held by law-abiding gun owners four years ago on September 22, 1994.

On the day of the rally, I had eight firearm owners deliver 28,900 Repeal C-68 post cards to your office – 16,600 French and 12,300 English. In the last month, I have received another 7,000 post cards (about half from Quebec) that I’ll be sending to your office. That’s a total of 35,900 responsible firearm owners who sent cards because they couldn’t make it to the rally last month. Yesterday, I introduced another 705 pages of Repeal C-68 petitions with another 16,486 signatures of irate gun owners – about half of these from the Province of Quebec. For those who are keeping count, that’s a grand total of 36,321 signatures on Repeal C-68 petitions from every province and territory in the land that I have introduced in the House so far, this year alone.

While it doesn’t amaze me that so many firearm owners are still so angry with the government that they continue to protest in such strength, it must be very disconcerting for you. Have you ever seen a protest last so long and actually grow in strength over four years? I have news for you, as you implement this politically motivated piece of legislation the opposition will grow even stronger and will spread beyond those who are directly affected by the new laws.

Add to this, the opposition in court and the opting-out of the administration of the new law by the Attorneys-General for Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon and the NWT and even your bureaucrats must be getting the message that you aimed the Criminal Code at the wrong target.

Now that real crime fighting measures are being jeopardized for lack of money – measures such as the fight against biker gangs and organized crime and recruiting and training more RCMP officers – your colleagues around the Cabinet table must realize the huge price they are going to have to pay for pushing Bill C-68 through Parliament without valid research proving the link to public safety and without the public support necessary to make it fly.

Your bureaucrats have no doubt told you that you are now losing the battle in the media. Once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before the general public will be fully aware of the misrepresentations emanating from your department.

They will eventually become aware that the Federal government misled Canadians about:

• the actual number of legally-owned rifles and shotguns there are to register,
• the actual number of responsible firearm owners there are to licence,
• the true costs of implementing the system,
• the actual number of firearms involved in crime as published by Statistics Canada,
• the actual level of public support for gun registration,
• the actual level of police support for gun registration,
• the true costs of forcing gun owners to comply with the new laws,
• the true costs of confiscating arbitrarily prohibited firearms without compensation, and
• the true costs to the economy, to businesses, and to Canadians in jobs lost.

It’s not too late, I respectfully recommend that you go back to the drawing boards and start by working with the full cooperation and support of your provincial partners responsible for the administration of justice in this country. If your predecessor had done his consultations with the provinces properly, instead of rushing ahead on his own, you and your government wouldn’t be facing this dilemma today and more than $200 million (now wasted on the firearm registry) could have used to finance real crime fighting measures.

After five years of working on this issue, I know of no one who is against controlling the criminal use of firearms. But they do need to know that whatever controls we agree on must be cost-effective at: (1) reducing the use of firearms by real criminals, (2) improving public safety and, (3) saving lives. Gun control measures will only be supported by the general public, responsible firearm owners, front-line police officers, and all provincial governments if it can be clearly shown that the gun control measures you propose are more effective than alternative crime fighting measures such as crime prevention programs, more crime investigators and putting more police on our streets and highways.

The proper starting point in this new round of discussions with the provinces, is for the Federal government to fully respect the province’s exclusive constitutional authority to train and licence firearm owners and regulate all property, including firearms. For the sake of the administration of justice in our country, I hope you heed my advice and recommendation. If you think I may be of any assistance, in helping you deal with the challenges ahead of you, please do not hesitate to call.

Sincerely,

Garry Breitkreuz, MP

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The Office of Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.

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