Dear Ms. McLellan:

I sincerely hoped that under your leadership the Department of Justice would start to deal more honestly with the gun control file. How wrong I was! In the past few weeks we have uncovered a number of examples of officials in your department misleading the public. Their actions demonstrate they place your political interests ahead of the public’s interest, particularly, the interests of truth, justice and public safety.

Two and half years after Bill C-68, the Firearms Act, was passed by Parliament, we find out the truth about the number of firearms involved in violent crime and that this information was deliberately withheld from Parliament and the Canadian people. Through Access to Information, I obtained a copy of a letter from the Commissioner of the RCMP which criticizes your department for misinterpretation and misuse of RCMP firearms and violent crime statistics. RCMP Commissioner Murray said in his letter, "The RCMP investigated 88,162 actual violent crimes during 1993, where only 73 of these offences, or 0.08%, involved the use of firearms. We determined that our statistics showed that there were 73 firearms involved in a violent crime compared to the Department of Justice findings of 623 firearms involved in a violent crime." Your officials put out a number 9 times higher than the RCMP. Why?

Not only have you chosen to defend this statistical tampering, but you have also decided to suppress the RCMP’s own interpretation of their firearms data. It is deceitful to use your interpretation in public, in Parliament and in the courts without also presenting the RCMP’s analysis. Everyone has been deliberately misled. How can Canadians ever again trust data produced by your department? I respectfully request that you correct this colossal misuse of statistics and make the whole truth available to the public.

This is no longer an argument for statisticians and bureaucrats. The policy and legislative decisions which resulted from these misleading statistics are now interfering with justice and public safety. The hundreds of millions being wasted on registering guns owned by more than 5 million law-abiding Canadians is diverting resources from programs which would do much more to improve public safety, such as putting more police on the streets.

Additionally, your department recently conducted a public opinion survey in Ontario regarding the "Attitudes toward the Federal Firearms Legislation." Why are tax dollars being wasted on a poll on gun registration two and half years after the Firearms Act became law? If you had received a different response, would you have repealed the law or would you have just kept the results secret?

If you really want to know what people think about registering more than 18 million legally-owned firearms in Canada, I suggest you start by asking honest questions. Firearms registration is the central focus of your gun control bill, yet you failed to ask the respondents if they thought that registering all legally-owned firearms would reduce violent crime. You also forgot to ask if they thought that registration would stop criminals from obtaining and using firearms in their criminal pursuits. Most of the people who own firearms and who actually know what is in Bill C-68, the people who will be paying the hundreds of millions to implement and operate the new law, the people who will be tip-toeing through bureaucratic mine-fields this bill creates, live in rural areas. Yet nearly 80% of the people you surveyed lived in large urban centres. This fact, together with the twisted wording of the questions, makes for a grossly misleading survey.

On Wednesday, February 4, 1998, a letter by Jean Valin, Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Firearms Centre was published in The Ottawa Citizen. In his letter Mr. Valin maligned an honest, well-meaning citizen (Mr. Al Dorans) who had written the newspaper with legitimate concerns about Bill C-68. While Mr. Valin may disagree with some of the facts Mr. Dorans used in his letter, it is Mr. Valin’s job to only explain how the law will work, not defend it by publishing more biased statistics or attacking Mr. Doran’s analysis. One of your political staff can write such a letter on your behalf on your letterhead, but not a public servant on departmental stationary. You are forcing dedicated public servants to do the work your political staffers are paid to do.

Public servants working in your department should only be required to implement your legislation. They should not be required to publicly defend your political party’s highly questionable policies. Whether intentionally or not, your bureaucrats are confused about their role and duties in implementing legislation. You need to get things back on track and quickly before more mistakes are made.

Your reputation and that of your departmental officials is at stake. It can be corrected but not until and unless the way your department is operating is changed. That is your responsibility as Minister. If you come up with good public policy, it will be accepted on its own merits. Deplorable tactics to defend it will not be necessary.

I urge you to do the right thing. Canadians are counting on you. Don’t disappoint them.

Sincerely,

Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.