PUBLICATION: The
StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
DATE: 2002.05.14
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Third
Page
PAGE: A3
COLUMN: Les
MacPherson
BYLINE: Les
MacPherson
SOURCE: The
StarPhoenix
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Grit's gun registry joke beginning to hurt
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It
was funny when the gun-control geniuses in Ottawa registered a hair dryer as a
firearm. It was funny when they registered an electric soldering gun as a
firearm. It was not so funny when they registered three pump-action shotguns and
a 9-mm pistol to Canada's most infamous gangster.
That
would be Maurice "Mom" Boucher, the Montreal biker boss who was put
away last week for ordering the murders of two prison guards. Boucher was leader
of the Montreal-based Hells Angels chapter blamed for Quebec's bloody biker
wars. His organization was the primary target of Ottawa's new anti-gang
legislation.
Boucher
has all the credentials you'd expect of an infamous gangster. His criminal
record includes a three-year term in prison for armed robbery and two years for
sexual assault. In 1995, he was convicted on a firearms charge after police
found an unregistered handgun tucked into his belt. He served six months and was
still on parole for that offence when a police wiretap recorded him advising
another biker to beat a mutual enemy with a baseball bat. The murder charges for
which he was eventually convicted had been pending since 1998. On top of all
this, he was purportedly running the country's most dangerous criminal
organization.
Even
so, it came out during Boucher's latest trial that when Quebec police raided his
home in the spring of 2000, they found the aforementioned shotguns and pistol,
all duly registered by federal firearms authorities. That they hadn't registered
Boucher's blow dryer and soldering gun is to their slight credit.
With
Boucher's record and his national notoriety, you'd think he'd be the last guy to
qualify for a firearms licence. There is no more recognizable criminal in the
country. How could he pass the requisite security check? What is the point of
spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a gun registry that accredits a
gangster facing murder charges?
No
explanation has been forthcoming. Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, minister
irresponsible for the gun registry, refuses to answer opposition questions about
Boucher's licence. To do so, the minister explained, would violate Boucher's
privacy rights.
It
is a sad day for Canada when the federal justice minister hides behind the
privacy rights of a murdering gangster. Sad, but typical.
By
any objective measure, the Liberal gun registry is a disaster. It can't identify
a notorious gangster. It can't distinguish a blow dryer from a Beretta. Still,
the governing Liberals insist that the registry is working as promised to make
Canadians safer.
The
evidence says otherwise. It cries out otherwise. We were told, for example, that
the registry would cost about $85 million, total. The actual cost is $690
million, so far. Costs are continuing to add up at the rate of about $100
million a year. For that kind of money, you'd think someone would at least read
the applications.
Meanwhile,
the registry has simply lost track of tens of thousands of applications from
harmless duck hunters. They are now vulnerable to criminal charges for failing
to comply. You have to look back to the old Soviet Union to find bureaucratic
bungling on this scale.
We
were told that police personnel would not be diverted to the gun registry. But
161 RCMP personnel have since been so diverted. What are the odds that not a one
among them has ever heard of Mom Boucher?
We
were told that gun registration would not deter legitimate gun owners. But the
regulatory cost of owning a hunting rifle is now up to $279. And sales of
migratory game bird hunting licences are down by a third after nine years of
Liberal gun control. It's as if they set out to out to eradicate hunting. That
might explain why duck hunters have to register while sex criminals do not.
We
were told that gun registry would be secure. And so it is, if you're Mom
Boucher. Otherwise, security has been problematic. RCMP computers containing gun
registration information have been breached more than 200 times. The information
could help criminals identify homes where they could steal guns.
The
error-riddled registry is of less use to police. They don't trust it. They don't
even use it. That's why Quebec provincial police didn't know about Boucher's
legally registered guns until they actually found them. In this case, as in most
others, the registry might as well not exist.
The
same cannot be said of the hundreds of millions of wasted dollars. That money
could have been spent on cancer research or twinning dangerous highways.
Instead, we get cynical Liberal lies and criminals with licensed guns.