| NOTE:
Versions of this Canadian Press story ran in the following papers: Regina
Leader Post, Windsor Star, Ottawa Citizen, Kingston Whig-Standard, Winnipeg
Free Press, Charlottetown Guardian, Kitchener Waterloo Record, New Brunswick
Telegraph Journal and Halifax Daily News.
PUBLICATION: CANADIAN
PRESS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Police ready to register their guns, even if Firearms Centre says they're not -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTTAWA (CP) _ The country's two largest police associations say their members are ready, willing and anxious to register their guns with the Canada Firearms Centre immediately. They say they're at a loss to understand why police registration under the Firearms Act has been delayed for another year, especially since the delay has been attributed to them. The Sept. 30 implementation date was quietly postponed this summer _ the second deferral in nine months _ by an order in council from the federal cabinet. The regulation demands that all public agents register their weapons, including both service weapons and those seized, found or turned in. It's now scheduled to come into force in November 2006. "I don't know why they chose . . . to delay it, but it wasn't something from the police community,'' said Vince Westwick, a lawyer with Ottawa Police Services who handles advocacy on weapons issues for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Westwick said he hasn't heard of a single police force asking for a postponement. David Griffin, executive officer of the Canadian Professional Police Association, was equally emphatic. "What's going on? Why is this being delayed?'' Griffin said in an interview Tuesday. "The reality is that from an investigative standpoint, we may have (seized) firearms that are not properly in the system that could be linked to other investigations and other crimes. So the sooner we get that information on the system, the better.'' Both Westwick and Griffin sit on the advisory board of the Canadian Firearms Centre. Yet their message stands at odds with that provided by federal officials when the latest deferral was announced Aug. 31. "Delaying implementation until Oct. 31, 2006, gives everyone affected by the regulations more time to become familiar with the changes and put the necessary processes in place to comply,'' said the Special Bulletin for Police No. 65 issued by the centre. The centre's director of communications was more explicit. "We're talking in the tens of thousands (of officers) and each police force has to have as many guns as officers, and probably more,'' Irene Arsenault said last month. "We've been asked to defer that a bit so they'd have time to set everything up.'' A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said the deferral was to "ensure compliance and be responsive to the feedback.'' On Tuesday, the centre changed its tune, but not completely. A new computer system being developed for next year is "the key factor'' in the delay, said James Deacon, director general of policy and communications for the centre. Asked why this wasn't explained from the outset, Deacon hewed to the line on police unreadiness. "Some of the police agencies we've spoken to have indicated that some more time would be useful to them,'' he said, but could not name any. And if that was indeed the centre's rationale, why not start processing some of the largest forces now? "We are ready to go, no problem at all,'' said Sgt. Nathalie Deschenes of the national RCMP headquarters in Ottawa. Indeed, said Westwick, police across Canada went through this debate 12 years ago when the Firearms Act was being drafted and there was talk of exempting them. The police chiefs decided collectively that they should be included. "It's a further check on the system to make sure all firearms are registered. And second of all, (the association) didn't think that it sent out a good message for the police to be exempted from a system that they were asking others to participate in.'' The Canadian Forces, however, were exempted. All other public agents were initially supposed to be in compliance by December 1998. The law was subsequently amended in 2004, with the police regulation to take effect last January. It was deferred to September, and now until next November. Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz said the centre has fallen into a familiar pattern of the Liberal government: "They want to blame their problems on other people.'' The Liberals promised the long-gun registry would cost taxpayers just $2 million when they introduced it in 1995. But the price has skyrocketed past $1 billion and been the subject of scathing criticism from the federal auditor general. Just before last year's election, the Liberals promised to cap the registry component of the program at $25 million annually. Now, said Breitkreuz, staff at the centre are so overworked they've held lotteries for free licence renewals. "They just can't handle what they've got and they're afraid to hire more people because it's already seen huge cost overruns,'' said the longtime registry critic from Yorkton, Sask. "This fiasco keeps getting bigger and bigger. They've got a tiger by the tail and they don't know how to handle it.'' |