Canadian Firearms Registry
The Canadian Firearms Registry is the gun registry of Canada, requiring the registration of all restricted and prohibited firearms in the country. It is managed by the Canadian Firearms Program of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as part of the RCMP's responsibilities under the Firearms Act.
The registry was introduced by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 1993 and implemented by successive justice ministers Allan Rock and Anne McLellan. The net annual operating cost of the program was originally estimated to be $2 million.
Originally, the program required the registration of all non-restricted firearms but this requirement was dropped on April 6, 2012, by the coming into force of Bill C-19. Bill C-19 also mandated the destruction of the non-restricted records of the registry as soon as feasible. The province of Quebec immediately filed a request for an injunction to prevent the destruction of the data. A temporary injunction was granted by the Superior Court of Quebec on April 5, 2012 to prevent the data for Quebec residents from being destroyed until legal arguments could be heard. On March 27, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Quebec v Canada that the destruction of long-gun registry records was within the constitutional power of Parliament to make criminal law, denying the Government of Quebec's legal challenge and allowing for those records to be destroyed.
History
Canada had a gun registry during the Second World War, when all people were compelled to register their firearms out of fear of enemy subversion. This registry in Canada was discontinued after the war; however, all handguns have been subject to registration since 1934. In addition, fully automatic firearms have been prohibited since 1977. A Firearms Acquisition Certificate was required to purchase any firearm since its implementation in 1977, although additional restrictions applied for handguns and fully automatic firearms. To obtain an FAC, no training was required until the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and Test program was created as a prerequisite in Bill C-17 in 1991. This formal training, once common in families and even schools, has been credited with the marked reduction of accidents involving the improper handling of firearms. Under bill C-17, and subsequent legislation and/or orders in council, short-barreled handguns and those firing.25 ACP and.32 ACP ammunition, and all handguns with a barrel length under 105mm, with the exception of certain guns typically used in shooting competitions, were added to the list of prohibited firearms. In addition, a large reclassification of firearms was made to place many firearms with certain cosmetic and functional characteristics into the category and registration of 'restricted' or 'prohibited' firearms. Some classes of these firearms have also been subject to grandfathering provisions of the law to owners and collectors, including some limited allowances of willing/gifting certain prohibited firearms to a family member to preserve them for historic value as pre-1945 collectors pieces.The École Polytechnique massacre—a mass shooting incident on December 6, 1989, in which Marc Lépine used a Mini-14 rifle to shoot 28 people, including 14 women killed, before committing suicide—sparked a substantial rise in activism to tighten Canada's gun licensing and registry legislation. The first steps toward the Canadian long-gun registry began under the federal Progressive Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Kim Campbell. It was the child of former Conservative Senator Nathan Nurgitz, who wrote then Prime Minister Campbell requesting all guns be registered.
- May 1990 - Justice Minister Kim Campbell introduces Bill C-80, which improves the FAC screening process, defines safe storage, bans some military weapons and large-capacity magazines, but, notably, does not ban semi-automatic rifles such as the Ruger Mini-14, register non-restricted firearms, or control the sale of ammunition.
- November 1990 - In an almost unprecedented turn of events, because of opposition in Kim Campbell's own Conservative caucus, Bill C-80 fails second reading and is sent to a "Special Committee."
- November 1990 - February 1991 - The Special Committee on Bill C-80 conducts hearings.
- March 1991 - Parliament prorogues and Bill C-80 dies on the order paper.
- April 1991 - Student activists from l'École Polytechnique, along with family members of the victims of the massacre, police organizations, health care professionals, organized labor, and others banded together with the existing Canadians for Gun Control organization to form the Coalition for Gun Control. The Coalition holds its first national press conference in Ottawa with representatives from the Canadian Police Association, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Victims of Polytechnique, the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, and others calling on the Government to reintroduce gun-control legislation.
- May 1991 - Justice Minister Kim Campbell unveils Bill C-17, a revised version of Bill C-80. The first witness, the Minister of Justice, argues that the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General do not need to conduct extensive hearings but should send the bill back to the House of Commons for third reading. Gun organizations push for hearings in an effort to weaken the bill. Gun-control advocates push for hearings in order to strengthen the bill. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women storms the hearings, arguing that women have the right to be heard, and the bill is subsequently sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General.
- May-September 1991 - The Legislative Committee hears witnesses on both sides. This time,the Coalition for Gun Control appears with support from health-care, crime-prevention and other experts. Its position is endorsed by over 50 groups and 5000 individuals. The Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women recommends improvements to the bill to counter problems with guns in domestic violence. Both the Canadian Police Association and Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police advocate registration of all firearms. In response to an advertising campaign by the gun lobby, the Coalition issues a joint statement in support of Bill C-17, with additional measures such as registration of all firearms. The statement is signed by hundreds of community leaders, chiefs of police, and violence-prevention organizations and issued to all MPs and Senators. A campaign by the Coalition lands over 300,000 postcards on MPs' desks, calling for amendments to strengthen the law. The Liberal and NDP parties support the position of the Coalition for Gun Control advocating licensing of firearm owners and registration of firearms.
- November 7, 1991 - The House of Commons passes Bill C-17. Members of all four political parties acknowledge the efforts of the Coalition for Gun Control.
- November-December 1991 - The Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs reviews the legislation. Priscilla DeVilliers, whose daughter Nina was killed months earlier, and John Bickerstaff, whose son Lee was accidentally killed by a friend playing with his father's service revolver, testify.
- December 5, 1991 - Bill C-17 passes Senate. Legal and Constitutional Affairs Chair, Senator Nathan Nurgitz, writes to Justice Minister Kim Campbell advising her to look carefully at the regulations and to registration of all firearms.
Bill C-68
The registration portion of the Firearms Act was implemented in 1995 and the deadline for gun owners to register their non-restricted firearms was January 1, 2003. There is disagreement on the percentage of gun-owners who complied with the registry. The Law-Abiding Unregistered Firearms Association estimated that over 70% of all firearms in Canada were never registered. Meanwhile, the Coalition for Gun Control claimed that ninety per cent of all gun owners registered their firearms, representing ninety percent of guns.
Debate on the registry
Initial opposition
Political opposition to the registry, particularly outside of Canada's major cities, was immediate. The provincial governments of Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador also attacked the bill arguing it exceeded the federal government's mandate and arguing that it was too expensive; however the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the registry in Reference re Firearms Act.The Conservative Party of Canada campaigned for many years to repeal portions of the registry related to non-restricted firearms and did so on April 5, 2012.
Cost overruns
The registry again became a political issue in the early 2000s when cost overruns were reported.In early 2000, the Canadian Firearms Program released a report that showed that implementation costs were rising. Major backlogs in registration—largely as a result of firearm owners waiting until the last minute to apply—general increase in costs, fee waivers for early applications, and high error rates in applications submitted by firearm owners were all cited as contributing factors to the rising costs.
In December 2002, the Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, reported that the project was running vastly above initial cost estimates. The report showed that the implementation of the firearms registry program by the Department of Justice has had significant strategic and management problems throughout. Taxpayers were originally expected to pay only $2 million of the budget while registration fees would cover the rest. In 1995, the Department of Justice reported to Parliament that the system would cost $119 million to implement, and that the income generated from licensing fees would be $117 million. This gives a net cost of $2 million. At the time of the 2002 audit, however, the revised estimates from the Department of Justice were that the cost of the whole gun control program would be more than $1 billion by 2004-05 and that the income from licence fees in the same period would be $140 million.
Information technology expenditures were disproportionally high especially throughout the program’s early development. However, the program was not
exceptional compared to other government-run programs with large IT projects. A 2006 report by the Auditor General regarding large IT Projects demonstrates that after more than a full decade of IT projects had passed within the government since its last IT audit, and whereby a TB Framework had been developed for IT, only two of the seven large IT projects assessed met all audit criteria for well-managed projects. When CFP was merged into the RCMP in 2006, IT comprised almost 50% of total program expenditures – the industry standard is 20-30%. By 2009, costs had stabilized to 21-27% of direct program expenditures and were expected to be reduced further within the existing RCMP IT architecture.