NOTE:
Versions of this article also appeared in the Regina Leader Post,
Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Victoria Times Colonist, Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen,
Windsor Star, Kingston Whig-Standard, Calgary Herald
PUBLICATION: National Post
DATE:
2004.08.25
EDITION:
All but Toronto
SECTION:
Canada
PAGE:
A8
BYLINE:
Tim Naumetz
SOURCE:
CanWest News Service
DATELINE:
OTTAWA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More
than 700,000 gun owners still not registered: Revealed in federal documents
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTTAWA
- The government admits more than 700,000 unregistered gun owners have yet to
comply with registration provisions of the Firearms Act more than 18 months
after the initial registration deadline. As of last month, 406,834 holders of
gun possession licences had failed to register their long guns with the Canada
Firearms Agency, say documents obtained by Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz
under the Access to Information Act.
The
documents say a further 316,837 gun owners have failed to re-register or dispose
of their handguns under the controversial law, Mr. Breitkreuz said yesterday.
The
documents disclose that, even according to government estimates, at least one
million firearms remain to be registered following the Jan. 1, 2003,
registration deadline, which was extended by six months to encourage compliance.
"It is simply not credible for the
Liberals to claim that their billion-dollar registry is of any value whatsoever
to police when it is missing so many guns," Mr. Breitkreuz said.
A
total of 1,561,329 individuals have received gun registration certificates, with
6.9 million firearms registered, the documents indicate. The documents say there
were 1,968,163 firearms licence holders as of January.
Despite
the government's attempt to deflect criticism of the gun registry shortly before
the June election campaign, Mr. Breitkreuz signalled he is unwilling to give up
his nine-year battle against the Firearms Act.
"These
numbers only reflect the gun owners and guns that are captured in the
system," he said. "There are upwards of a million gun owners who never
bothered to get a firearms licence, including more than 300,000 owners of
previously registered handguns."
A
further 78,563 applications to register long guns or re-register handguns were
still being processed in July, the documents say.
While
the Liberals did not include changes to the gun registry as part of their
official election platform, Anne McLellan, the Public Safety Minister, and Reg
Alcock, the Treasury Board President, announced several changes in May.
Rejecting
a recommendation to take the registration provisions out of the Criminal Code,
Ms. McLellan and Mr. Alcock instead eliminated the $25 registration fee and said
the cost for the registry portion of the Canada Firearms Centre would be capped
at $25-million annually.
The
total cost of the program is about $113-million yearly.