Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.
Yorkton-Melville		 News Release

Government Says Gun Registration No More Complex than Income Tax System
"User Group on Firearms says gun registry will have 50% error rate and black-market sales will increase."

For Immediate Delivery

May 5, 1998

Ottawa

Ottawa Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, released a letter leaked to him by the User Group on Firearms - an advisory group of gun owners organized by former Justice Minister Allan Rock back in 1995 to help implement the gun registration system. In the letter dated April 23rd, the User Group on Firearms has taken the unprecedented step of asking for a personal meeting with Justice Minister Anne McLellan to address what they call "critical issues" which if left unresolved, "will result in the failure of the flagship of Bill C-68, being universal registration."

The damning letter goes on to outline a number of critical issues which include:

  1. Gun registration forms are so complex a minimum 50% error rate is predicted and will quickly destroy the registration system;
  2. Increasingly difficult regulations will result in an alarming reduction in the number of legitimate firearm dealers and will increase black-market transactions of all types of firearms;
  3. Firearms banned by Bill C-68, owned by firearm dealers, will be confiscated on Oct 1, 1998;
  4. Confiscation of newly-banned firearms will expose the government agenda that registration is the first step in confiscation; and
  5. The hiring and training of thousands of volunteers to help identify firearms is at serious risk and the verification process will fail if issues are left unresolved.

"When I raised the issue in the House yesterday, the Justice Minister responded by trotting out another bogus poll on how much public support there is for gun registration," said Breitkreuz. "Which begs the question, why is the government still paying for biased public opinion polls three years after Bill C-68 passed?"

"The User Group on Firearms also alerted the Minister of the fact that her own bureaucrats are keeping her in the dark about these critical issues," said Breitkreuz. "McLellan’s officials are experts at keeping the public and Parliament in the dark about the cost and effectiveness of gun registration - it shouldn’t surprise her or anyone else that her officials are misleading her too. The RCMP and the Justice Department are still arguing over ‘the number of firearms involved in crime’ to the point that the public don’t know who to believe any more," reported Breitkreuz.

"Last night on CBC NewsWorld, Liberal MP Joe Jordan, speaking on behalf of the government said, ‘gun registration is no more complex than the Income Tax system.’ This should finally wake up everyone as to how complex it’s really going to be and how many hundreds of millions of dollars gun registration is going to cost. Maybe the taxpaying public will finally start asking if there’s not better ways to spend their money to save lives and improve public safety."

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For a copy of the User Group letter, please call:

The Office of Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309
Ottawa: (613) 992-4394