FIRING BLANKS
Date: Sep 26, 2005 8:09 AM
PUBLICATION: The Calgary Sun
DATE: 2005.09.25
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: 50
ILLUSTRATION: 1. photo of ALLAN ROCK 2. photo of ANNE McLELLAN 3. photo

BYLINE: MARIA MCCLINTOCK, OTTAWA BUREAU
DATELINE: OTTAWA
WORD COUNT: 836

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FIRING BLANKS
BLOATED GUN REGISTRY HASN’T SILENCED CRIMINALS

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To many Canadians, the gun registry is considered one of the worst
examples of government waste and mismanagement.

But when the federal government rolled out its gun control program and
Firearms Act 10 years ago, it was touted as the toughest in the world,
designed to reduce deaths involving guns.

With the recent spate of killings — 41 out of the 60 homicides this
year to date in Canada’s largest city have been by bullets — critics of
the controversial gun registry have renewed their argument it’s
targeting the wrong people.

Supporters, for their part, say the law has been effective in reducing
gun-related murders and point to the porous Canada-U.S. border — where
illegal guns are slipping through — as the real problem.

When then-justice minister Allan Rock introduced the Firearms Act (Bill
C-68) in 1995, he promised the cornerstone of the initiative — a
national gun registry — would cost $85 million to implement and $2
million a year to administer, and that there would be a cost recovery
program to defray the expense.

Those goals have never been met in the decade the law has been on the
books.

It wasn’t until 2002, under mounting pressure, the Liberal government
finally promised to cap spending on the controversial gun registry
starting in 2004.

The new law came into force on Dec. 1, 1998, after a series of delays.

It called for all guns owners to be licensed by Dec. 31, 2000, and all
guns to be registered by Jan. 1, 2003.

It also included a four-year minimum sentence for anyone convicted of
using a gun in a serious crime and a $2,000 fine or six months in jail
for failing to register your gun.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan says a major priority of the federal
government now is dealing with the cross-border trade of illegal guns.

In addition to the 270 additional guards being placed at the Canada-U.S.
border, another 11 specialized Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)
agents are being assigned to anti-gun-smuggling duties.

“We are certainly increasing our ability to have an intelligence-led
anti-gun-smuggling approach in this country,” McLellan told Sun Media.

“What we have to focus on is how we collect the best intelligence and
use it and get it back to the front line. It doesn’t help putting a
bunch of new (border guards) along the border.”

While there’s no evidence that more guns are being smuggled into Canada
these days than in the past, McLellan said Toronto’s bloody summer of
gun violence has turned the border into a hot-button issue.

Calls for additional border guards have been matched by demands the feds
amend the Criminal Code to beef up mandatory minimum sentences for
crimes involving guns — an area currently under review by Justice
Minister Irwin Cotler.

McLellan is skeptical that approach will work.

“The minimum sentences that currently exist — and we have more of them
in the area of gun crime than in any area of the Criminal Code — those
aren’t being used by the courts now,” said McLellan, adding she’s
frustrated that prosecutors and defence counsel sometimes negotiate
around the mandatory minimums.

Tony Cannavino, president of the Canadian Professional Police
Association, advocates increased minimum sentences while developing
strategies to fight illegal guns.

“We need those joint task forces like was done in Quebec … if you want
to take care of big problems. It’s like a war,” he said, referring to
the specialized anti-biker squad that cracked down on the Hells Angels
in Quebec.

The CPPA wants the current four-year mandatory minimum sentence for gun
crimes bumped up to five years — 10 years if the gun is fired during a
crime and 15 years if the victim is shot and killed. “At least it would
be a deterrent,” said Cannavino.

While cops across the country access the gun registry an estimated 3,000
times daily, Cannavino said it’s only one tool.

“We need a strong deterrent … that if you commit a crime with a gun,
you’re going to be facing mandatory minimum sentencing … it’s part of
the big message that the party is over,” he said.

The call for tougher gun laws came after the deadly Montreal massacre
Dec. 6, 1989, when lone gunman Mark Lepine went on a shooting spree,
killing 14 women at L’Ecole Polytechnique.

Five years later, Rock insisted his new Firearms Act would implement a
registration system that was both easy to use and “sensitive to the
needs of the firearms community in this country.”

“We’ve taken a significant step in ensuring the safe future of our
children in a civil society,” he said.

Hunters and farmers lobbied against the bill then and continue to do so
today.

Provinces such as Alberta opted out of enforcing it, forcing the feds to
develop a separate bureaucracy to ensure the rules were followed across
the country.

What does Rock make of his brainchild today?

Currently Canada’s ambassador to the UN, he declined to be interviewed
by Sun Media, his office saying he’s restricted from discussing domestic
policy.

During the last decade, the government has backed off on several
initiatives outlined in the legislation, including dumping the $10
registration fee, although licensing fees of $60 and $80 still exist.

Figures released by the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC) show estimated
annual operating costs pegged at $49.5 million by the end of March 2006,
with another estimated $14.6 million for the gun registry.

“The money collected for gun licences and for government training
courses isn’t funnelled directly back into the program. It goes to the
consolidated revenue fund … and we get our allotment,” said CFC
spokesman Irene Arseneau.

Requests by Sun Media for a tour of the firearms centre’s processing
plant in New Brunswick, and an interview with Canadian Firearms Centre
commissioner Bill Baker, were both denied because “it isn’t a good
time.”

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SPENDING MILLIONS

Money that’s been spent on Canada’s gun-control program, including the
gun registry:
1995-96: $12.8 million
1996-97: $26.1 million
1997-98: $50.3 million
1998-99: $130.8 million
1999-2000: $131.2 million
2000-01: $200.3 million
2001-02: $136.6 million
2002-03: $78.2 million
2003-04: $101.6 million
2004-05: $99 million
2005-06: $85 million
Cost Recovery: 1995-95 to 2003-04 — $87.4 million.
Forecast of revenues: 2004-05 — $11million; 2005-06 — $18.2 million.
Source: Canada Firearm Centre

* Recently released figures from Statistics Canada show that in 2003
there were a total of 161 homicides involving guns, down from 165 in
1999.
* The number of homicides involving handguns went up from 89 cases in
1999 to 109 in 2003.
* The number of homicides involving rifles and shotguns declined from 58
in 1999 to 32 in 2003.
* The number of homicides involving sawed-off rifles and shotguns went
from six in 1999 to 13 in 2003.
Source: Statistics Canada