Muskoka Outdoors

Stephen Harper’s Conservative’s came very close to changing who was in the sights of Canada’s long gun laws yesterday. In a close 153 to 151 vote, Parliament voted down Hoeppner’s private member bill to abolish the long-gun registry.

The narrow loss is unfortunate, but as I prepare my firearm for an upcoming grouse hunt, I realize life will still continue as usual.

Criminals will still acquire, and use, illegal long-guns un-touched or harassed by the expensive database.

Many Liberal and NDP MP’s will live under a facade that a registered firearm creates a magic shield around gun owners to protect them from harm.

The safety measures that pro-registry factions so proudly toted during the time period before the vote, existed well before the gun registry was implemented. The paperwork and reference checks have remained virtually unchanged – save the extra column for a registration number.

This meant that the RCMP could check and deny any application for a Canadian to own a long-gun under the old system. Safe firearm storage and long-gun transport requirements were already significant portions of the gun safety courses. Any mature gun owner would know this. To bad the ‘experts’ from the Liberal, NDP and various other activist groups neglected to understand or mention this.

After this vote, money will continue to be spent on securing, implementing and tracking the various aspects of our long-gun registry. Money that could be spent on new police officers, firearm detection methods (in public areas like our porous border), medical science, the deficit, poverty and education.

As Saturday approaches, I will find myself wandering south of Dad’s cabin in search of grouse. Life will have returned to as it should be.

However, I suspect this after-vote reprieve will be short lived.

I predict that many of the same people who want to usher in a ‘gun-free’ country will soon want to vote in a measure that dictates, to me, that I can not use the woods to make my own meal anymore.

Life after that – will be difficult to take.

The Globe and Mail and CBC news sites have reported that RCMP Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak will leave his gun registry position for some french language training. Both articles suggest that this is a muzzling attempt by Harper’s Federal Government before a serious debate about scrapping the gun registry moves forward in debate.

Once you get past the fact that the CBC is against anything Harper does, and reports as such, this is a hype over matter issue.

Marty Cheliak will still get a sweet pay check at the end of each day. Some french language training might be seen as break from the the long-gun registry and dealing with the names on that list. I mean, I could name 10 Canadian citizens (plus myself) who are on that list and who work to contribute positively to Canadian society. It must be tough finding all of us who have registered their guns and have our addresses listed on this ‘crime-reducing’ registry.  At the click of his fingers, Marty Cheliak could send officers to ‘visit’ farmers, hunters and other law-abiding, rural citizens to ensure our guns are locked up and not being used in any crimes.

Meanwhile, back in the real world (strangely overlooked by urban Liberals, NDP and the CBC), the criminal element could care less if the long-gun registry gets scrapped or not.

Why? Because their names are not on the list.

Press Release: The announcement earlier this week by federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff of a ‘new’ approach on firearms demonstrated the ongoing inability of the Liberal Party of Canada to either understand or acknowledge the profound failure of the long gun registry, and the public support for its demise.

“Repeated public opinion polls have clearly shown that the public do not support the system. Mr. Ignatieff’s woeful attempt to tinker with the long gun registry and sell his proposed changes as a panacea that will fix all of the problems that plague the badly flawed long gun registry is an affront to Canadians, and in particular to trained, licensed, law abiding farmers, hunters and recreational shooters. It’s a case of way too little, way too late,” said Greg Farrant, O.F.A.H. Manager of Government Relations and Communications. “By insisting that his caucus vote against Bill C-391 on Third Reading, he is highlighting the division that exists within caucus. By denying Liberal members a free vote on a private members’ bill, he is forcing MPs who supported the bill on Second Reading to betray their conscience and abandon their constituents.”

The suggestion that streamlining the registration system, waiving fees and treating a first time failure to register as a non-criminal ‘ticketing’ offence will solve the problem is not only insincere, but naïve. The proposal to make first time persons charged with possession of an unregistered firearm simply a summary non-criminal offence is neither new nor earth shattering. Section 112 of the Firearms Act already makes it a summary offence to possess an unregistered firearm. The offender is issued an appearance notice for a ‘regulatory’ offence, much the same as failing to wear/have a lifejacket when in a boat.

Equally misleading is the assertion that in 2009 the long gun registry was consulted by police 11,000 times per day. Based on the RCMP’s own figures, in 2003 the registry specific inquiries represented 8.2 percent of the total queries to the Canadian Firearms Registry Online (CFRO). By 2008, the number of inquiries specific to registered firearms represented only 2.4 percent of the approximately 3.5 million inquiries into the database. Using ‘hits’ as the defining statistic is misleading since the registry is consulted each time an officer does a background check for non-firearms occurrences.

“Persistent support for the badly flawed long gun registry is the hallmark of the Liberal party, which ignores the findings of the Auditor General of Canada, who noted in her 2002 report to Parliament that the government at the time could not demonstrate that the system they created helped to prevent crime and save lives,” said Farrant. “The registry has been subject to horrific cost overruns, personal privacy has been threatened by repeated breaches of the CPIC system, and cost/benefit analyses have been hidden from the public. Instead of denying the obvious, Mr. Ignatieff continues to defend the indefensible and force members of his caucus to fall in line.”

With over 100,000 members, subscribers and supporters, and 660 member clubs, the O.F.A.H. is the largest nonprofit, charitable, fishing, hunting and conservation-based organization in Ontario, and the voice of anglers and hunters. Visit www.ofah.org for more information.

*Press Release is copied with permission from OFAH.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister has given Canadians another extension on registering our “long-guns”.

According to the CTV News website, Toews says,

“The extension covers licenses and registration certificates for long arms, such as shotguns and hunting rifles. We’re giving people an opportunity to bring themselves into compliance with the law. We feel that the RCMP and other police forces have better things to do than to harass hunters and trappers and farmers for not registering their long guns.” Entire Article Here

Fees to renew firearms licenses will also be waived for a year.

It would be nice if we could stop getting extensions and put an end to the costly program. It’s costly because the program, that cost over $1 billion dollars, allows the police to access a list that has MY name on it and not the handgun-slinging gangster. A 2007 stat from Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics says that,

There are nearly 7 million registered long-guns in Canada. Yet of 2,441 homicides recorded in Canada since mandatory long-gun registration was introduced in 2003, fewer than 2 percent (47) were committed with rifles and shotguns known to have been registered. (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics).

Divide $1,000,000,000 by the average salary of a Canadian Police Officer (at least according to this site) at $51,000.

This equals approximately 19,607 MORE police officers.

As part of the course to become a legal long-gun owner (yes there was one already in place before the new costly legislation), we were to taught restrict access to infants and guests. This was obvious. The current legislation requires trigger locks. Although they are a pain and easily circumvented by criminals, they do add an extra level of nuisance to the curious eye. I would argue that someone intent on committing suicide, could just as easily find the key or use bolt cutters. Suicide was a key argument to the registry.

A law is a law. Until it gets changed, you have some time to become compliant to the legislation. Although, I doubt gang members are even worried about it…

Earlier this week, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (O.F.A.H.), along with the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (C.S.S.A.) and other organizations representing firearms owners across Canada, became aware of an apparent breach of confidentiality involving information contained in the firearms registration system.

This breach strongly justifies earlier calls to scrap the system, as proposed in Bill C-391, currently before the House of Commons.

Ekos Research, a private sector polling company, was contracted by the Canadian Firearms Centre (C.F.C.) to conduct a survey of firearms owners across Canada, and was provided with personal information about firearms owners by the C.F.C., in an apparent breach of privacy and confidentiality. Worse still, the Minister of Public Safety, who is responsible for the C.F.C. and its parent body, the R.C.M.P., was not consulted prior to the release of the information.

“The fact that the C.F.C. would provide highly sensitive information identifying individual firearms owners to an outside polling firm is a travesty,” said Greg Farrant, O.F.A.H. Manager of Government Relations and Communications. “For years, licensed, law-abiding firearms owners have pointed to repeated abuses and breakdowns in what is supposed to be a highly confidential system. When the Liberal government created the system under Bill C-68, they insisted that a violation of this nature would not occur, despite being warned by the firearms community and Opposition members at the time that the potential for serious abuse existed. We hope that this will finally convince Opposition Members in Parliament of the need to scrap the system by supporting Candice Hoeppner’s Bill C-391, which simply proposes to repeal the long gun portion of the firearms system.”

The apparent release of information to Ekos, which occurred in violation of government policy, and without the knowledge and approval of the Minister, who in any case would not authorize the release of such information, is the latest in a long line of procedural gaffs and financial disasters associated with the ill-fated long gun registry, which has cost Canadian taxpayers almost $2 billion to date.

“We are profoundly concerned that an apparent violation has occurred, which has provided a private business with information that is supposed be closely guarded. The government has referred this matter to the Privacy Commissioner for a ruling on whether the Act has been breached, an action we strongly support. It is inexcusable that information of this nature should be made so readily available. The timing of this action is highly suspect, given the apparent source of the information, and the fact that Second Reading of Bill C-391 to scrap the long gun registry is scheduled in the House of Commons next week,” said Farrant.

With over 100,000 members, subscribers and supporters, and 660 member clubs, the O.F.A.H. is the largest nonprofit conservation-based, fish and hunting organization in Ontario and the voice of anglers and hunters. For more information, visit www.ofah.org.

*Muskoka Outdoors Take: You may be wondering why this is a big deal. I suppose it is not IF the information gathered about the firearms is not released to the wrong people. Potentially, the big deal is, that addresses of gun owners have been taken from a ‘secure’ database located with the RCMP. Gun owners were told their information would be private and secure. It’s possible that firearm owners could now be targeted by any criminal idiot who ‘accidentally’  gets access to our information.

Further proving he is ‘Out of Touch’ with solutions to gun crime and Canada’s current restricted weapon legislation, Dion stated (in Quebec) that he would ban assault weapons from Canada. The Toronto Star quotes Dion as saying,

“Military assault weapons have no connection to hunting or sport shooting, and serve absolutely no purpose in our society. No one outside of the military needs these weapons and we would all be safer without them in Canada,” Entire Toronto Star Article Here

There are ALREADY strict controls and regulations regarding prohibited (and restricted) firearm use that the owners of these weapons must follow.  Taking a quick look at the Canadian Firearms Act for these type of weapons, you will read an example of the measures that must be taken JUST to transport prohibited/restricted weapons.

The regulations read,

An authorization to transport that takes the form of a condition attached to a licence must:

(a) identify all of the firearms to which the authorization to transport applies; and

(b) specify

(i) the period for which the authorization to transport is issued,

(ii) the places between which the firearms to which it applies may be transported, and

(iii) the reasons for which the firearms may be transported between the specified places.

CONDITION

4. A chief firearms officer who issues an authorization to transport shall attach to it the condition that the firearm be transported by a route that, in all the circumstances, is reasonably direct.

This is something the law-abiding owners are to do when transporting their prohibited/restricted firearms. These are the ONLY people that an assault weapon ban will impact. Not Criminals.

That’s really effective Mr. Dion. The criminals will appreciate that your proposed legislation has no impact on their activities.

Criminals could care less about bans and firearms laws. There are already laws (like the example above) in place to protect regarding the Canadian Public.

Perhaps, Mr. Dion, should ban alcohol from Canadian society?  One could argue that it has no apparent value or use. More people are killed from alcohol related deaths than firearm related deaths.

In 2005, MADD Canada reported that,

“In 2005, it was estimated that 3,226 individuals were killed in motor vehicle crashes in Canada. MADD Canada estimates that at a minimum 1,210 of these fatalities involved impaired driving. Moreover, in MADD Canada’s opinion, the 1,210 figure is a conservative estimate, due to the underreporting that results from the inability to test surviving impaired drivers and reliance on police reports.” Entire MADD article here

Contrast that with an article in the CBC about gun deaths in 2005,

“It says that 816 people — 767 males and 49 females — died of firearms-related injuries in Canada in 2002, the most recent year examined in the study. This represented 2.6 deaths per 100,000 population…” Entire CBC article here

It seems the safety of Canadians may be better served by looking at alcohol related deaths.

If you want to protect Canadians from gun crime put more money into law enforcement and have the guts to pass and ENFORCE laws that target gun criminals.