FIREARMS
FACTS UPDATE
FIREARMS CENTRE ADMITS THEY DON’T KNOW HOW MANY GUN OWNERS CHANGED
ADDRESSES
OCTOBER
5, 2004:
BREITKREUZ'S ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT REQUEST
Please provide copies of: (1)
Reports for each province and territory and for each year since January 1, 1999,
the number of times the holders of firearms licences (FACs, PALs, and POLs) have
changed their address, and (2) Reports showing the problems the CFC is
experiencing keeping firearm licence addresses up-to-date and what the CFC is
doing to effectively address these problems.
NOVEMBER 2, 2004 – “WE KNOW NOTHING” REPLY RECEIVED FROM
CFC - File: A-2004-0030
(1)
We have no such reports.
(2)
Section 15 of the Firearms Act requires: “a chief firearms officer who
issues a licence to an individual shall attach to it the condition that the
individual shall report changes in the individual’s name or address to a chief
firearms officer within 30 days after the change.”
The
Canada Firearms Centre (CFC), through ongoing quality assurance, are ensuring
addresses reflected in the Canadian Firearms Registration System are valid.
CFC is also encouraging clients to maintain accurate address through
communication tools, licences registrations and the Canadian Firearms Centre
(CFC) Website. In order to assist
with this, CFC has implemented a website that allows a client to make changes to
their address. CFC has also
increased client service at the Call Centre to accommodate clients who are
calling in changes to address.
NOVEMBER 9, 2004: BREITKREUZ COMPLAINT TO INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
Given
the vast number of Canadians who move every year, it is simply not believable
that the CFC has no reports on this major weakness in their program.
Statistics Canada’s Mobility Status reports show that approximately 40%
of Canadians over the age of 14 change their address over a five year period.
This means that it is quite possible that 40% of licenced gun owners or
about 800,000 gun owners could have changed their address within the last five
years – some more than once. Given
that one the fundamental demands of the Canadian Police Association in 1999 was
that firearms program be able to tell police on patrol where the registered guns
are, then the failure of the CFC to keep very close track of the current
addresses of licenced firearm owners constitutes a major deficiency in the
program.
The CFC stated in a response to a previous ATI request
(CFC File: A-2003-0040 – See Below) that “Re-registration
into CFRS was the main effort used to validate information during transition
from the RWRS.”
But in response to another ATI request (CFC File: A-2004-0016 – See Below) the
CFC stated that as of July 20, 2004, there were 316,837 individuals that still
had to re-register their restricted and prohibited firearms. So how can the addresses of the licenced gun owners possibly
be up-to-date? How can the
government be ignoring such a huge problem by failing to prepare even one
report? Have they not prepared a
report for the Commissioner of Firearms or for the Minister of Public Safety?
Are they deceiving the Canadian Professional Police Association as well
as Parliament?
We made our current ATI request for a very specific reason.
We need to know the total number of licenced gun owners who have reported
a change of address in the last five years.
If that number is less than 40% then not only will we know there is a
problem, we will know the extent of it. Even
if your investigation finds no reports, then it proves that either they are
deliberately deceiving Parliament (again) or they are incompetent.
MANY
GUN REGISTRY ADDRESSES MAY BE UP TO 5 YEARS OUT-OF-DATE
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Article436.htm
GUN
REGISTRY NON-COMPLIANCE AS OF JULY 20, 2004
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Firearms%20Registered2004-08-18.xls