FIREARMS FACTS - UPDATE

BEWARE!  OLD REGISTRATION FORM ENVELOPES

WILL NOT GET THROUGH TO GUN REGISTRY

June 7, 2003

NOTE #1:  The following e-mail message was received from a concerned firearm owner by Garry Breitkreuz, MP on June 7, 2003. 

I was one of the 25,000 folks who mailed in a letter of intent.  In it, I asked for more forms because I had misplaced the ones they had originally sent.  No new forms came. No confirmation of reception came either.  I know they got my letter too, because I had sent it via Canada Post's Express Post with the signature confirmation option.

 On Friday May 30th I bit the bullet and sent in my registrations.  Luckily, I had found my old forms and the pre-addressed envelope that came with them.  I sent them via Express Post (again, with signature option) so I could confirm their delivery.  The girl at the post office said the envelope would be at its destination by the afternoon of Monday, June 2nd.

I checked the status of the package on Monday afternoon and it had not yet been delivered. I checked again on Tuesday but it was still not yet delivered.  On Wednesday the 4th I checked and it was STILL not there so I called Canada Post.  They informed me that it was "On hold" in Ottawa and could not be delivered.  The clerk told me to check to make sure I had addressed the envelope correctly.

I called the CFC.  They  told me that the older, pre printed envelope I used HAD THE WRONG ADDRESS on it.  It was P.O. Box 9815, CSC-T, Ottawa, Ontario K1G 6P9.  She said it should have gone to Box 1200, Miramichi, NB E1N 5Z3.  She said the Ottawa address was only good up until the end of last year.

I asked her if the mail would be automatically forwarded from the Ottawa address to the Miramichi one.  She put me on hold to check with her supervisor.  After a minute she came back on the line and told me that THE MAIL WOULD NOT BE AUTOMATICALLY FORWARDED !!!!

So now I am stuck with my registrations being held in limbo at a mail depot in Ottawa.  I have called Canada Post to re-direct my envelope to the PROPER address, and will stay on them to ensure this gets done -  BUT HOW MANY OTHER people are in the same boat as I am and don't even know it?

Lastly - Austin says "the bulk" of people who put in letters of intent have received confirmation or new forms. I didn't, and none of my other stubborn friends who snailed theirs in have either.  I think he is full of [Expletive deleted] (Even more than usual).

PS  The problem is further compounded by the fact that many folks probably did not put return addresses on their envelopes out of concerns for security, even though the envelopes themselves gave no indication of their contents.   Another Catch-22 brought about by the complexity and over breadth of the Firearms Act!