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Gun owner takes shots at fee system

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JOGGINS - Roger Van Snick wants to be a law-abiding citizen but he says the Canadian Firearms Centre is making it difficult.

"I wasn't keen on it when they set it up five years ago, but I paid the fees because I didn't want to break the law," he said. "Now that it's time to renew my registration and my wife's, I'm finding out that we have to pay but others who registered at the same time we did don't have to. "That just isn't fair. Why should some of us have to pay and others get an extension?"

This isn't the first time the gun registry, located in Summerside, P.E.I., has been unfair, Mr. Van Snick said.

"When they first came out with the regulations, they charged me and my wife $45 each to get the permit that registered us as gun owners. We had to go into Amherst to get the papers and the pictures. We had to fill them out on our own and send them in.

"Then a week after we did that, they brought people into the community to help register them and take their photos. To add insult to injury, they only charged them $10 for the same thing that cost us $45. That wasn't fair. We had to fight to get the $70 more that we paid back, but eventually we did get it. Now this is happening and it isn't right. It's just another example of the waste this gun registry has been."Mr. Van Snick said he knows at least four people who were given three-year extensions when they received their renewal notices. They won't have to pay to renew their registrations as gun owners until 2008.

"They get an extension and I get a bill for $120 to pay my wife's and my registrations," he said. "Why didn't I get an extension like they did? It should be that we all have to pay or none of us has to pay."

He has taken the matter to his MP, Bill Casey, a longtime opponent of the gun registry. The member for Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley said he has learned that more than 44,000 Nova Scotians received bills in their renewal notices from the firearms centre while just over 32,000 in the province were given extensions. "This is just crazy," Mr. Casey said. "It's like they're running a raffle to see who should and shouldn't pay. It's not right to run a raffle to see who has to pay this tax, and that's what it is, a tax on gun owners."

The MP said he has also learned that the centre opted "for this lottery because they simply don't have the manpower to handle all the renewals that are now coming up, now that the five years is up and it's time to renew the licences." "They can't go back to government to get more money to hire the necessary staff because they know if they did, the country would howl in protest because of the millions that have been wasted on it already.

"This is just another example of how ill-conceived the gun registry was and how unorganized the department continues to be. This is just another reason why (it) should be scrapped."

Attempts to reach a spokesperson for the Canadian Firearms Centre were unsuccessful.