Remembering Bill C68
A message from O.F.A.H. Executive Director Mike Reader
Angler & Hunter Hotline - July 2006

If tenacity pays off soon, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will fulfill his promise to the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters – and his election promise to all Canadians – to table legislation that will cremate the long gun registry once and for all.

Although the long gun registry isn't dead yet, it appears that the eulogy has already been prepared. It can be found on chapter four of the Auditor General's Report.

Let me summarize the registry's eulogy in just one word: incompetent.

Incompetence is what taxpayers can clearly read between every line of the Auditor General's report. It categorically and undeniably confirms what the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters has said and lobbied tenaciously against for years.

A registry full of holes

While gun owners were not the least bit surprised that the Auditor General discovered millions of mismanaged dollars in developing and maintaining the gun registry, what is disturbing is the fact that our worst nightmares about the registry's inaccuracies and security infringements have come true.

Quite frankly, the incompetent gun registry – that "feel-good" federal program designed to make Canadians feel safe – is putting lawful gun owners like you and I, the general public and especially front-line police officers, at risk.

As the National Post's federal correspondent Don Martin put it: "a database which demands a high degree of reliability to have any law enforcement integrity is still firing off low-calibre information."

In reporting on the Auditor's findings he pointed out that, "half of the most dangerous types of firearms did not make the transfer from an established handgun registry to the new firearms registry."

Nails in the registry's coffin

The list of chronic operation failures, contract anomalies, mismanaged budgets, accounting conspiracies, privacy and security infringements, and just day-to-day bureaucratic incompetence surrounding the gun registry, could go on forever.

That's why your Federation does everything it can to influence politicians and the media, and expose the registry for what it really is – again, incompetent. Finally, the media is listening and evidently the government is trying to do something about it.

On May 17, the Prime Minister's office invited the O.F.A.H. to be part of its announcement that, for all intents and purposes, has temporarily gutted the gun registry. Having just met with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day a month before, we would have loved to have heard him say that the gun registry is officially dead. But the reality is, a minority government needs support from others.

It is encouraging, however, that this new government is moving quickly on this gun registry issue, and Stockwell Day's announcement is clearly a step in the right direction. As the minister mentioned, their prompt action on this issue is credit to the individuals and organizations, including the O.F.A.H., that have kept it in the forefront. We never gave up.

O.F.A.H. tenacity prevails

As I think back to the days of our "stick to your guns" fundraising dinners, our backing of a constitutional court challenge, our marches on Parliament Hill, O.F.A.H. meetings with the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, not to mention mountains of letters, press releases and petitions that pour out of our office nearly every day, it astonishes me to think how far we have come in fighting against the long gun registry.

Even when some people said gun owners were wasting their time – that the gun registry would never die – this Federation accepted that as a challenge to work even harder.

Bill C68, its transformation into law and, hopefully, its upcoming repeal, will go down in history as the biggest, most important issue that your Federation ever tackled. We did it for our members with the benefactors being gun owners and concerned taxpayers everywhere.