Federal Government Closes Firearms Loophole

Regulation prevents collection of data for backdoor registry

PETERBOROUGH, ON, July 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Once again, the Harper government has demonstrated its support for the legal, law abiding firearms community by enacting a regulation that eliminates the need for retailers to collect specific data as a condition of their licence, as mandated in Ontario and other jurisdictions by the Chief Firearms Officer.

"The OFAH applauds the move by the government to close an obvious loophole in the Firearms Act that is being used to force lawful businesses to collect data that could be used to build another form of long gun registry," said Greg Farrant, OFAH Manager of Government Affairs & Policy. "The actions of some CFOs violated the spirit and intent of Bill C-19 that ended the badly flawed long gun registry and left open the possibility of provincial registries being created using the information collected. Despite an attempt by the government to resolve this issue without resorting to the introduction of a new regulation, it became necessary to do so when the cooperative approach failed to resolve the matter."

The passage of the regulation will in no way hamper retailers from keeping their own records for the purposes of inventory and warranty, but eliminates the need for them to do so in order to continue operating their business. The passage of Bill C-19 and scrapping of the registry means that information contained in the ledgers previously kept by retailers should be destroyed, along with the records in the national registry maintained by the Canadian Firearms Centre.

"To require retailers to continue to keep this information is contrary to the Act. The destruction of the long gun registry clearly involves all records, not just those held by the federal government.  The failure to do so in a timely manner not only contravenes the legislation and the will of Parliament, but leaves the door open for the resurrection of another registry in the future. This is unacceptable, and we strongly support the government's move to resolve this in a timely fashion by passing a regulation that provides certainty," added Farrant.

With over 100,000 members, subscribers and supporters, and 675 member clubs, the OFAH is the province's largest nonprofit, fish and wildlife conservation-based organization, and the VOICE of anglers and hunters. For more information, visit www.ofah.org and stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

SOURCE Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters