Recreational Firearms Community
of Saskatchewan
Greg Illerbrun-Bringing You The Facts

 
October - 2001
Greg Illerbrun, SWF Provincial Firearms Chairman

In spite of the fact that the Federal Government’s licensing and registration scheme continues to fail miserably, they continue to throw money at it.

Consider this – the government estimates there are approximately 2.3 million firearms owners, in spite of the fact that their estimates in the past suggested there was 5 – 7 million firearms owners. With failing compliance rates, they had to do something, so they commissioned a phone poll of firearms owners. Now everybody knows that you should not tell a stranger over the phone that you own firearms, but the government needed lower numbers to show a high compliance rate…well you get the picture. In spite of these highly massaged numbers, the government still admits 300,000 people (their numbers) have not complied with licensing. Anyway you look at it its an utter disaster.

So how does the government  address this failure, while it starts a new program to make registration free. Keep in mind that the old statistics suggest there are 20 million firearms in Canada to register.  Do you suppose a new poll is coming? Bet on it!

Get this – The Justice Minister used Order in Council to reduce the fee from $18 to $0.  Remember, Order in Council was to be only used in emergency situations when there was insufficient time to put it before Parliament.  Do you think that the fee reduction justifies the use of Order in Council? What will the Justice Minister use Order in Council for next?

The decision is yours to make.  The Recreational Firearms Community (RFC) of Canada recommends no one register any firearms early. The Canadian Firearms Center (CFC) has a perfect track record on extending all their initiatives and I’ll bet registration is free until the December 31, 2002 deadline. Even if it is not, worst case scenario is it will cost you 18 whole Canadian dollars or 11.61 US. Not a big price to pay for freedom, while the firearms community explores all the options.  We urge you to do your part and spread the word.

Opposition continues to grow against this legislation with the Saskatchewan Command of the Royal Canadian Legion voting unanimously against it at their recent provincial convention.  Add to this the fact that Alberta’s Municipal Police have recommended that the Alberta RCMP be replaced by a Provincial Police Force that would be more responsive to local issues.  Sound familiar? Both the SWF and SARM have asked for the same thing.

While Ottawa seems to have a bottomless pit of money for C-68 , they are cutting budgets in almost all other departments since the September 11 terrorist action.  The latest cut is 6% off the top of the police budget – effective immediately.

Somebody really needs to define priority to the Federal Liberals.  They enact a billion-dollar registry scheme after 14 unfortunate people were killed in Montreal; however, there is nothing in the legislation that would have changed the events in Montreal even if the bill had been in place prior to this most unfortunate event.  Now, they are enacting legislation to deal with the tension after thousands die at the World Trade Center.  Legislation that once more removes more of our freedoms while doing little to address known terrorists. They have already admitted that they will be seizing accounts of innocent people, to which I say “good investigating.” A large majority of terrorists are already known to the authorities; so why are we not focusing our attention there? The terrorists legislation also allows them to hide specific documents from public scrutiny, something that they already do pretty well under cabinet secrecy, but I guess they intend to usurp a little more power. Imagine that!  Do you suppose we will ever find out what C-68 cost?

Hang in there – Procrastinate on registering, spread the word, and as always….

Never Forgive – Never Forget
 
 

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