The federal government’s campaign to kill the long gun registry and its records has been dealt a legal setback by a Quebec court.
On Sept. 10, Quebec Superior Court justice Marc-André Blanchard ordered Ottawa to preserve gun registry data for the province and turn it over to Quebec within 30 days.
Although federal legislation was approved in April to kill the registry and destroy 16 years of data on long gun owners, Quebec has vowed to establish its own registry and demanded that Ottawa turn over collected records for registered gun owners in the province.
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A series of court injunctions has stopped Ottawa from destroying records from Quebec.
Blanchard, in a judgment that will provide ammunition for incoming Parti Québécois premier Pauline Marois and her determination to show Quebeckers that they should leave Canada, said the gun registry was a federal-provincial program and Ottawa cannot unilaterally destroy the data.
Federal public safety minister Vic Toews likely will appeal the decision, even as federal opposition parties said he should accept the court judgment.
“I am disappointed with today’s ruling and will thoroughly review the decision,” Toews said in a statement. “The will of Parliament and Canadians has been clear. We do not want any form of a wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry.”
However, all political sides in Quebec insist there is a provincial consensus that the registry has been useful in fighting gun violence and should be preserved, at least for the province.
New Democrat and Liberal MPs agreed.
NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin said the federal Conservative government has no right to block Quebec’s plan to create a provincial gun registry, using collected data as a base.
“Today’s court decision shows how the Conservative government has failed in its responsibility to protect public safety and ignored thoughtful proposals from the NDP to allow provinces to keep the data, if they wish,” she said in a statement issued from her Parliament Hill office. “The Conservatives have a decision to make: either respect the court’s decision or waste taxpayers’ money appealing this through the courts. New Democrats believe these records are an important public safety tool.”
She accused the government of politicizing the gun registry issue.
Toews fired back with a strong hint that the decision will be appealed.
“The NDP has consistently said that if given the chance they would try and use this data to target law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters,” he said. “Our Conservative government will continue to fight against any measures that needlessly target law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters.”
Toews insists that with the end of the federal registry, the database must be destroyed because “the records are the registry.”
He says provinces have the right to create their own gun registry but not with information from the old program.
