The Liberal government will not revive the federal long-gun registry, but it will support Quebec’s plan to establish its own provincial firearms-tracking system.
“We will not recreate a federal long gun registry,” Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, told CTV News in a statement.
The news comes as Quebec’s Liberal government announced a new bill to build a provincial firearms registry, with every gun in the province assigned a number and entered into a database.
Announced Thursday, the proposed measures would also require firearms dealers in Quebec to institute a tracking system for their weapons.
The system is estimated to cost $5-million each year after initial start-up costs of approximately $17 million, according to Quebec interim Public Security Minister Pierre Moreau. There would be no cost to gun owners for registering a firearm.
Moreau said the registry would help police by providing firearms information when an emergency call comes in.
“If there is a violent situation, they will know and they will be aware of the fact that there is a gun on the premises,” he said at a press conference.
Goodale says Ottawa plans to support Quebec’s plans for a registry.
“Per our commitment, we will work in partnership with the Quebec government to determine how we may best support their efforts,” he said.
Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould said she "looks forward" to discussing Quebec’s proposed gun registry legislation with leaders in the province.
"I will have more to say about that after I have the opportunity to talk with them about what their perspective is," she told reporters Thursday.
Support for a gun-tracking system, be it national or provincial, has been particularly strong in Quebec. In 2009, when a bill to axe the registry was proposed, a Bloc Quebecois MP with swine flu wore a face mask to the House of Commons just to vote against the bill.
That bill later failed after a tight 153-151 vote.
But in 2012, the Conservatives passed the much-debated Bill C-19, which finally axed the long-gun registry and allowed the government to destroy all records of non-restricted firearms.
The Conservatives argued that the registry was an expensive and ineffective effort, while supporters said it was a valuable tool in fighting crime. At the time, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said officers consult the registry more than 10,000 times a day, on average.
Quebec later requested that Ottawa allow the province to keep its own data from the registry, with several provincial cabinet ministers making formal appeals to Ottawa. But the federal government denied the bid, and Harper’s Quebec lieutenant suggested that the province start its own registry.
But Quebec’s firearms data have not yet been destroyed. In June, a Federal Court judge ordered that Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney and the RCMP commissioner hand over an external hard drive containing a copy of all of Quebec’s gun registry data.
The hard drive remains in a safe pending court challenges pertaining to the decision.
Morneau said Thursday that the province is in talks with Ottawa to recover whatever information is left.
Public support for a firearms registry in Quebec has been described as a lasting result of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre of 1989, in which 14 women were killed by a gunman at the Montreal university.
Survivors of the Polytechnique shooting spoke in Quebec’s national assembly on Thursday in support of the firearms registry.
“[This] proves to me that the memory of my classmates are not lost, and I’m very proud of that,” said Nathalie Provost, who was injured in the attack.
Dissenters of the Quebec registry suggest that the initiative won’t increase safety and will simply cost taxpayers money.
“I think Quebecers have concerns right now that go beyond a wasteful firearms registry that essentially is not going to save anybody’s life. It’s not going to solve any crimes,” advocate Shawn Bevins told CTV Montreal.
With files from CTV Montreal
