NOTE:  Versions of this article also appeared in the Regina Leader Post, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Victoria Times Colonist, Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, Windsor Star, Kingston Whig-Standard, Calgary Herald

PUBLICATION:              National Post

DATE:                         2004.08.25

EDITION:                    All but Toronto

SECTION:                  Canada

PAGE:                         A8

BYLINE:                     Tim Naumetz

SOURCE:                   CanWest News Service

DATELINE:                 OTTAWA

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More than 700,000 gun owners still not registered: Revealed in federal documents

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OTTAWA - The government admits more than 700,000 unregistered gun owners have yet to comply with registration provisions of the Firearms Act more than 18 months after the initial registration deadline. As of last month, 406,834 holders of gun possession licences had failed to register their long guns with the Canada Firearms Agency, say documents obtained by Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz under the Access to Information Act.

The documents say a further 316,837 gun owners have failed to re-register or dispose of their handguns under the controversial law, Mr. Breitkreuz said yesterday.

The documents disclose that, even according to government estimates, at least one million firearms remain to be registered following the Jan. 1, 2003, registration deadline, which was extended by six months to encourage compliance.

"It is simply not credible for the Liberals to claim that their billion-dollar registry is of any value whatsoever to police when it is missing so many guns," Mr. Breitkreuz said.

A total of 1,561,329 individuals have received gun registration certificates, with 6.9 million firearms registered, the documents indicate. The documents say there were 1,968,163 firearms licence holders as of January.

Despite the government's attempt to deflect criticism of the gun registry shortly before the June election campaign, Mr. Breitkreuz signalled he is unwilling to give up his nine-year battle against the Firearms Act.

"These numbers only reflect the gun owners and guns that are captured in the system," he said. "There are upwards of a million gun owners who never bothered to get a firearms licence, including more than 300,000 owners of previously registered handguns."

A further 78,563 applications to register long guns or re-register handguns were still being processed in July, the documents say.

While the Liberals did not include changes to the gun registry as part of their official election platform, Anne McLellan, the Public Safety Minister, and Reg Alcock, the Treasury Board President, announced several changes in May.

Rejecting a recommendation to take the registration provisions out of the Criminal Code, Ms. McLellan and Mr. Alcock instead eliminated the $25 registration fee and said the cost for the registry portion of the Canada Firearms Centre would be capped at $25-million annually.

The total cost of the program is about $113-million yearly.