Ottawa, Ontario – Cheryl Gallant, MP for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, has formally written to the Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Vic Toews, requesting the creation of a Firearms Experts Technical Committee. This committee would be tasked to deal with issues relating to the regulation of the Firearms Act, including the reclassification of firearms.
“I am concerned that our record of accomplishment is being undermined by civil servants in your department or the RCMP who unfortunately have retained some of the attitudes of the old Liberal administration and the contempt for Canadians that led to the long-gun registry and Bill C-68,” stated MP Gallant.
Since 2010, the RCMP has reclassified seven firearms to prohibited status. All of these reclassifications occurred without real public notice or public consultations. Two of these firearms had been sold in Canada for over 20 years.
This is not the first time an independent expert technical committee has been proposed to oversee the regulations on the Firearms Act. In 2000, Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan created an advisory group on firearms following the RCMP’s attempts to use the extreme provisions contained within the Liberal Firearms Act, Bill C-68, and declared pellet guns and BB guns as firearms and had them added to the Long Gun Registry.
“We must not allow what the long gun registry was ultimately meant to do to occur by other means. The time has come for a permanent committee with the technical expertise to oversee the regulation of firearms in Canada and restore common sense to the regulations,” concluded MP Gallant.
Download the Petition for Transparency in Classifying Firearms