It was an astronomically costly, convoluted, and extremely controversial effort from its outset.
Now all remaining information in the long-gun registry database in Canada will be scrapped, in spite of a Quebec protest to keep its portion of the federal registry. The federal government had previously destroyed the personal information and data of the long-gun registry of all long-gun owners except for information related to Quebec residents. This destruction of this information was on hold while the Quebec provincial appeal proceeded through the courts.
“Long guns” are considered to be rifles and shotguns.
The Supreme Court today ruled 5-4 that the province of Quebec cannot have access to, or keep, the information on long gun owners in the province,
Canada has always had stricter controls on firearms than the United States.
Since 1934 for example all handguns (classed as “restricted” firearms, have had to be registered, and automatic firearms have been banned since 1977 (except for those grandfathered by collectors..these can no longer be sold or transferred unless to another grandfathered collector)
All owners of any firearm, or those wishing to acquire a firearm, must pay for and pass a classroom course, a thorough police background check, and several other requirements ending in themselves being “registered” before obtaining the Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) which must be presented whenever buying a firearm or ammunition.
For purchase or ownership of a handgun (restricted) additional courses must be passed. There are three classes of firearms, non-restricted (long guns) restricted (several types including all handguns), and prohibited,(ie banned) including several types of handguns and all automatic firearms,
Following the 1989 shooting deaths of several female students at Montreal’s Polytechnique University, the federal government began discussions on requiring the registration of all firearms, ie, long guns.
The law contained serious criminal charges for failure to register long guns along with costs to owners to register their guns.
Long gun owners, collectors, hunters, target shooters complained bitterly that as completely law-abiding citizens, who themselves were “registered”, they were now being treated as potential criminals and punished for the actions of a single madman, and would have a serious criminal record for not registering their hunting gun.
After revisions and years of acrimonious debate, Bill C-68 was passed in 1995.
By 2000, massive cost overruns were being rumoured, and eventually claims of costs of up to 2 billion and rising were alleged. In addition the registry’s effectiveness as a tool for public safety had always been hotly contested and could never be proven.
In 2011, in an equally controversial move (contested by those favouring the long –gun registry) the Conservative government voted to scrap the registry through Bill C-19.
((A 2014 challenge to C-19 by a women’s advocacy group in Ontario was denied with the judge ruling that “there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that the Registry had been of any measurable benefit to women and that statistically, rates of firearms-related violence had been following a trend downward before the Registry and had not changed after the Registry had been withdrawn.”))
Quebec immediately challenged the 2011 scrapping of the registry saying it wanted to keep the information pertaining to gun owners in Quebec.
The challenge first went throught the Quebec Court of Appeal which upheld the federal government postion, after which Quebec appealled the ruling to the Supreme Court
Today the Supreme Court in its 5-4 judgement for the federal government, ruled that the destruction of long gun registry information by the federal government is lawful under the Constitution, and that Quebec has no right to the information.
Three Quebec-based judges on the high court were among the dissenters.
In the high court 5-4 ruling, the majority wrote, “to some Parliament’s choice to destroy this data will undermine public safety and waste enormous amounts of public money” but “to others it will seem to be the dismantling of an ill-advised regime and the overdue restoration of the privacy rights of law-abiding gun owners. But these competing views about the merits of Parliament’s policy choice are not at issue here.”
The three Quebec-based judges on the Supreme Court were among the dissenters.
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