41st Parliament, 1st Session

Edited Hansard • Number 076
Wednesday, February 8, 2012

STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Firearms Registry

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, it has taken many long years but, finally, law-abiding firearms owners can see the end in sight.

For some 18 years, I have been defending the interests of law-abiding gun owners in Canada. The long gun registry has been targeting the wrong people, and not the criminal use of firearms. Responsible long gun owners would no longer be forced to expose their names and addresses in a computer database that has been hacked by criminals over 300 times by the RCMP's own admission. The registry data must be erased.

Today, it is estimated that fewer than half the guns in Canada are actually in the registry. Moreover, the data is riddled with errors and omissions. Front-line police officers refuse to rely on it when answering domestic calls because it can get them killed.

With the registry gone, we would be able to focus our tax dollars on more effective crime control. One witness at the Bill C-19 hearings hoped:

"Bill C-19 will serve as a memorial of sorts, a tombstone marking the final resting place of wrong-headed policy-making."

Amen to that.

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For the audio version of Garry's statement, click here