July 14, 1999                                                                                                                                     For Immediate Delivery

LICENCING MILLIONS OF GUN OWNERS FALLING FARTHER BEHIND SCHEDULE
"They’re only licencing 290 per day and need to be at 18,000 a day to meet the legal deadline."

Yorkton – The news just doesn’t get any better for the government’s highly controversial gun registry. Today, Garry Breitkreuz, Official Opposition Firearms Critic, released results of another Access to Information Request which shows the government is falling farther and farther behind in its task of licencing millions of responsible gun owners. "The performance at the Canadian Firearms Centre is truly pitiful. I almost feel sorry for the more than 1000 bureaucrats who have to implement this politically-motivated monstrosity," said Breitkreuz. "The government will soon have to admit they bit off more than they can chew."

Breitkreuz obtained a copy of a secret report prepared for the Canadian Firearms Centre by PricewaterhouseCoopers which says the government planned to receive 389,781 firearms licence applications in the first six months. The Justice Department’s most recent response to the Saskatchewan M.P.’s Access to Information Request reveals the Canadian Firearms Centre has only issued 36,886 Firearms Licences in 127 working days. "That works out to about 290 licences per working day," commented Breitkreuz.

"Depending on whose estimates of the number of gun owners are closer to the truth, the Department of Justice will have to increase their production to between 8,000 and 18,000 per day to licence the millions of responsible firearm owners before the deadline of January 1, 2001. The longer they wait to increase production the more licences per day they have to issue. And, the more overworked they are, the more errors they’ll make," stated Breitkreuz. [See response to Access to Information Requests and Calculation Worksheet attached]

"When these facts are made public, the Department of Justice spin-doctors will attempt to dupe the public and the media once again by claiming they have more than 400,000 gun owners licenced," Breitkreuz predicted. "This is misleading because this number includes all the Firearms Acquisition Certificates (FAC) issued since 1979. However, each of these FACs has to be renewed. In fact, in this most recent access request, the Justice Department admits that more than half of the licences they have issued since February 23rd have been FAC renewals."

"As of the end of March this year, the government had wasted $216 million on this ill-conceived scheme. They have close to 800 bureaucrats working on the federal registry and 300 more working in a special, separate registry in the Province of Quebec – paid for with federal dollars, of course. A senior official recently reported that the $65 million budgeted for this year has already been spent and they have gone to Treasury Board for another $150 million. That must be why they invoked Cabinet secrecy to hide this year’s budget from me," revealed Breitkreuz. "No wonder the police are making plans to withdraw their support for such a colossal waste of money that will do absolutely nothing to improve public safety. The police say the information being collected so far is useless because it is riddled with errors. This is the most expensive garbage collection system in Canada."

-30-

For more information, please call:

Yorkton Office: (306) 782-3309
Ottawa Office: (613) 992-4394
e-mail: breitg@parl.gc.ca

 

RESPONSE TO ACCESS TO INFORMATION REQUEST A98-00258

Received at the office of Garry Breitkreuz, M.P. in letter dated March 29, 1999

SECRET
Date: March 8, 1999
Canadian Firearms Centre
Department of Justice (DOJ)

All numbers reflect status to February 23, 1999

Request (c) The number of firearm owners that have been licenced by the Canadian Firearms Centre since December 1, 1998, including FAC applications which were issued Licences.

DOJ Response: 14,193

 

RESPONSE TO ACCESS TO INFORMATION REQUEST A99-00015

Received at the office of Garry Breitkreuz, M.P. in letter dated July 9, 1999

Departmental officials advise that during the period February 23, 1999 to June 6, 1999, 22,693 firearms owner licences were produced by the Canadian Firearms Centre (10,796 who applied under C-68 and 11,897 who applied under C-17).

 

TOTAL FIREARMS LICENCES ISSUED IN FIRST SIX MONTHS

36,886 – Between December 1, 1998 to June 6, 1999 [290 per working day]

Note: Total of both Dept. of Justice Access Requests noted above

 

GOV’T ESTIMATE OF LICENCE APPLICATIONS IN FIRST SIX MONTHS

389,781 – Between December 1, 1998 to May 30, 1999 [3,168 per working day]

Note: Estimated in "Secret" report prepared for gov’t by PricewaterhouseCoopers

 

CALCULATIONS WORKSHEET

By Garry Breitkreuz, MP – July 14, 1999

 

(1) 127 Working days between December 1, 1998 and June 6, 1999

(2) 36,886 Firearms Licences issued in 127 working days = 290 Licences per working day

 

(3) A secret PricewaterhouseCoopers report prepared for the Dept. of Justice estimated

389,781 licence applications would be received in first 6 months (123 working days)

– that’s 3,168 licences per working day.

Note: "Review of CPS Capabilities vs Service Level Expectations – Final Report – Nov 30/98"

 

(4) 372 working days remaining to issue Firearm Licences before deadline of Jan 1, 2001

Note: PricewaterhouseCoopers used 201 working days/year in a Secret report for Dept. of Justice titled "Review

of CPS Capabilities vs Service Level Expectations – Final Report – Nov 30/98"

 

(5) Number of Responsible Firearm Owners in Canada – Between 3 and 7 million

(6) Number of Licences to issue per day before deadline of January 1, 2001

 

Important Note: An Access to Information Request revealed that on August 15, 1996 a Research Officer in the Canadian Firearms Centre wrote a memo to his boss on the issue: "Estimating the volume on the Canadian Firearms Registration System during the seven year implementation period." He reported: "Based on several polls, including the Angus Reid 1991 survey of 10,000 households, the Department of Justice calculated that approximately 7 million guns are owned by 3 million gun owners in Canada. There is a possibility of error in any sampling survey or collection of surveys, and there is a possibility of under reporting as some survey respondents may choose to conceal the fact that they have firearms." This confirms what Reform MPs, polling experts and responsible firearm owners have been telling the government since 1994.