LETTER: Minister clarifies gun regulations

To the editor:

There has been some confusion in recent weeks about Ontario’s compliance with Bill C-19, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

To be clear, our government is not creating a provincial firearms “registry” and has never intended to.

In addition, Ontario is in full compliance with Bill C-19. While the Act abolished the federal long-gun registry it did not address the issue of business owners maintaining gun ledgers.

Chief Firearms Officers have required that ledgers be maintained by gun business owners since 1978. This has always been in accordance with federal legislation. It is the Chief Firearms Officer’s discretion to require businesses to keep a ledger in their place of business of the firearms they have sold. This did not change with the passage of Bill C-19.

If Federal Minister Vic Toews intends to change this long standing practice of maintaining gun ledgers, amendments will need to be made to the Federal Firearms Act.

The Firearms Act is federal legislation under the jurisdiction of Public Safety Canada. Please address any concerns to Minister Toews, at the following address: Parliament Hill, Suite 306, Justice Building, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6.

Madeleine Meilleur,
Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services,
Ottawa