Producer Robert Filkohazy was finishing seeding on his Hussar, Alta., farm when he heard the news he had been waiting to hear for the past decade.
The Conservatives said they are killing the long gun registry and offering a one-year amnesty for those who have been breaking the law by not registering their rifles.
“I was not a supporter of the long gun registry and I don’t believe I know anyone who was,” he said May 19 two days after public safety minister Stockwell Day made the announcement.
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“I’ve always supported the handgun registry and I have handguns but the long gun system was an expensive failure.”
The registry will be transferred to the RCMP. Day stressed that a system of handgun controls will be maintained.
“We are keeping the handgun registry, keeping all the provisions for safety, keeping the registry for prohibited and restricted weapons and individuals must still follow the regulations on storing firearms and also on taking the safety course,” the minister told his critics in the House of Commons.
However, because it is uncertain if legislation to kill the long gun registry would be approved by a minority Parliament, the government chose to act through a regulatory change – announcing a one-year registry amnesty and an end to licence renewal fees with refunds to those who have paid to renew licences.
Day said he will introduce legislation within weeks to formally repeal the long gun registry. He also announced that $10 million will be stripped from the registry budget.
Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc Québecois, along with Ontario and Quebec provincial governments, denounced the government move, although some Liberals like Ontario MP Paul Steckle likely were quietly pleased since he voted against his own Liberal government on the issue.
The Conservatives were aided by the latest review of the gun registry program by auditor general Sheila Fraser.
Her May 17 report concluded that by March 31, 2005, the 10-year cost was $946 million. By now, it has exceeded $1 billion.
She said that while the Canadian Firearms Centre has improved, there was an egregious breach of parliamentary rules in 2003 and 2004 when gun registry spending exceeded parliamentary budget approvals but was not reported.
Instead of reporting it to Parliament and asking for more spending authority to cover a $39 million spending over-run in 2003, bureaucrats and some ministers agreed to hide the spending by not reporting it until the next year. In 2004, it was reported to Parliament but not in the firearms budget.
Fraser called that an affront to Parliament’s ability to control spending.
Fraser also reported that the database of registered gun owners is incomplete and unreliable and that the government has not assessed how effective the gun registry has been in reducing gun crimes.
“This final volume of the auditor-general’s saga of Liberal mismanagement, of waste and scandal is a painful conclusion to their 13 years in power,” treasury board president John Baird told a news conference May 16.
Some of the strongest criticism of the move to end the registry came from the Liberals who accused the Conservatives of violating parliamentary rules by deciding to ignore an existing law without repealing it and of killing a program that worked.
“Why would the government want to dismantle a firearm control system that ensures the safety of Canadians and saves lives in Canada?” demanded former Liberal justice minister and Montreal MP Irwin Cotler.
