The Long Gun Registry Returns?

A recent Order In Council discovered by GunBlog.ca indicates that beginning May 18, the Canadian government intends to require firearms owners to register their non-restricted firearm transfers with the RCMP.

Simply put, the OIC (effectively the Canadian version of a Presidential Executive Order) places a formal coming-into-force date on specific sections of Bill C-71 – specifically, those that will require the sellers of non-restricted firearms to call the Canadian Firearms Centre to obtain a transfer authorization number. In order to obtain this transfer authorization number, businesses will be required to provide details on the buyer and firearm (including model and serial number) while private sellers will be asked for the buyer's license details only - apparently. In effect, we are returning the sale of non-restricted firearms to the same regime in place during the days of the (supposedly) long-dead Long Gun Registry.

However, while the OIC in question is listed clearly on the Order in Council department's website, it is curiously absent from any issues of the Canada Gazette; the formal "newspaper" of government, where all statutes, laws, and regulations are formally announced. To be clear, this means that the OIC in question has been generated, and exists within government, but is being held back from being formally introduced and announced.

To further confuse matters, the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (representing the Canadian firearms industry) met with Public Safety and RCMP officials just 5 days before the OIC in question was produced (on April 29) and were "informed that there was no set implementation date as of yet, and that adequate notice would be given to allow our industry to prepare." Canadian Firearms Program call centre staffers claim to know nothing about any such change, either.

However, on March 1st, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino declared that "very pro-active" firearms legislation was coming this spring, and historically speaking, the Ministry of Public Safety has endeavoured to provide as little notice as possible prior to regulatory changes around firearms; supposedly to prevent last-minute sales, or so-called "stocking up." It would be a departure from the norm for the Minister to communicate changes to industry in a timely fashion.

Finally, adding smoke to the as-yet invisible fire is the recent groundswell of astroturfed support (astroturf being a term for politically manufactured faux-grassroots support) for new gun control measures. This came primarily from a letter penned by anti-gun group PolySeSouvient, which is headed by a former chairperson of the Liberal government's Firearms Advisory Committee, Nathalie Provost - who signed the letter herself.

To summarize, this is what we know:

1. There is an OIC declaring the coming-into-force dates for specific sections of C-71 to be May 18, 2022.
2. There is a new, "very pro-active" firearms legislation package coming shortly.
3. Anti-gun rhetoric has been ramping up in recent weeks.

While all we can provide is conjecture, it appears that the aforementioned legislation package may be slated for release on or slightly before May 18th. That would allow this coming-into-force date of May 18 to be formally announced in the Gazette alongside the new legislation. If this is the case, then we would also expect the legislative package to work hand-in-glove with the new regulations tracking firearm sales. This could take the form of placing new legal responsibilities on the sellers of non-restricted firearms so as to allow the "unregistered" guns to be traced back to a known owner, or it could be a step to facilitate the slow capture of non-restricted, unregistered guns for future prohibition.

Unfortunately, while criminals trading handguns over the border with drones won't be impacted, gun owners across Canada will likely just have to wait and see what this government has in store for us. Again.