NEWS RELEASE
April 16, 2002
For Immediate Release
HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE A WORD THAT
COMES OUT OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT?
“On
April 5th they wrote that 4 million guns were registered.
On April 8th they reported only 3.3 million!”
Yorkton – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP
and Official Opposition Critic on Firearms and Property Rights, released two
very confusing documents he received from the Justice Department - documents
he obtained under the Access to Information Act. “On April 5, 2002, the department sent me a report saying
they had registered 4,002,555 guns since December 1, 1998. Then on April 8th, they sent me another report
saying they had registered only 3,308,515 guns during the same period,”
reported Breitkreuz. “Does
anyone working for the Justice Minister have a clue what they are doing? I almost feel sorry for the new Minister whose credibility
depends on such incompetent staff.”
Confusion
at the Canadian Firearms Centre isn’t new as the following chronology
clearly shows:
1. On September 22, 2000, Justice Minister Anne McLellan
stated in writing: “More than 1.6 million firearms are
registered.”
2. On October 28, 2000, the Department of Justice stated
on their website: a total of 1,869,495 “Firearms Known to Police.”
3. On January 20, 2001, the Department of Justice stated
on their website: a total of 1,855,000
“Firearms Known to Police.”
4.
On March 10, 2001, the Department of Justice stated on their
website: a total of 2,016,000 “Firearms Known to Police.”
5.
As of November
22, 2001, the RCMP stated in writing: “There
were a total of 1,431,731 distinct firearms registered since December
1998.”
6
As
of January 10, 2002, the Department of Justice stated in writing: “The
total number of firearms registered: 1,924,126.”
7.
As
of March 11, 2002, the Department of Justice stated in writing: “Firearms Registrations
Issued by Province – Grand Total: 4,002,555 – From 1998-12-01 to
2002-03-11.”
8
As
of March 23, 2002, the Department of Justice stated in writing: “The
total number of firearms registered: 3,308,514 – From December 1,
1998 to March 23, 2002.”
“The
first evidence we got that something was going wrong was on January 20, 2001,
when the Justice Department bureaucrats started rounding off the number of
guns they had registered,” reported Breitkreuz.
“The problems became more obvious when the department stopped posting
the registration statistics on their website in April of 2001.
Then on November 22, 2001, the RCMP reported more than half a million
fewer guns registered than the Justice Department had reported on their
website eight months earlier,” he said.
“Now, they report a difference of almost 700,000 registered guns
between two reports issued less than two weeks apart.
How can anyone believe any reports issued by the Justice Minister’s
bureaucrats?” asked Breitkreuz. “What
must police on the streets think about this billion dollar firearms fiasco
that their chiefs and union executives negotiated with the Liberals?"
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