NOTE: Versions
of this article also appeared in The Ottawa Citizen and The Saskatoon
Star-Phoenix
PUBLICATION: National
Post
DATE: 2003.01.16
EDITION: All
but Toronto
BYLINE: Tim
Naumetz
SOURCE: Southam
News
DATELINE: OTTAWA
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Resistance to gun licences highest west of Quebec
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OTTAWA
- Resistance to the federal firearms program is highest in rural Ontario and the
western provinces, new figures on licensing suggest. More than 340,000 gun
owners west of the Quebec border have yet to obtain their firearms possession
and acquisition licences even though the deadline to obtain the licences for
citizens who owned rifles and shotguns expired two years ago, according to
information released by the Canadian Firearms Centre.
The
licences are required in order for firearms owners to register their weapons
with the federal government. That deadline passed on Jan. 1, although Martin
Cauchon, the Justice Minister, has extended an amnesty to June 30. A further
201,000 owners remain to be licensed in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, where
compliance with the licensing portion of the controversial law appears to be
highest.
The
estimates come from comparing the provincial breakdown of owners who have
obtained their possession and acquisition licences as of this week -- 1.9
million -- to the provincial breakdown of a 2000 survey that indicated there
were an estimated 2.46 million firearms owners in Canada.
Quebec
and Ontario account for more than half of the licences issued so far -- 511,517
in Ontario and 501,517 in Quebec. The ownership survey done in 2000 for the
Canadian Firearms Centre put the estimated number of gun owners in each of the
two central provinces at nearly the same figure -- 690,000 in Quebec compared to
700,000 in Ontario.
In
the four Atlantic provinces, only 12,678 of an estimated 280,000 gun owners
remain to be licensed. In the four western provinces, 118,000 firearms owners
out of an estimated 730,000 have not yet obtained their licences to comply with
the Canadian Firearms Act.
The
compliance rate in the northern territories is high, with 18,200 of an estimated
20,000 gun owners now holding licences.
Quebec
has been most supportive of the firearms program, sparked by the 1989 shooting
death of 14 female engineering students at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique.
Ontario and the western provinces have been most vocal in their opposition.