Quebec’s gun registry a shot in the dark
by Eric Duhaime
When a state’s intervention costs 1,000 times more than expected and has not proven to have saved a single life, the government backtracks.
That’s exactly what has happened after two decades in Canada with the now-infamous national gun registry.
I don’t know what got lost in translation, but believe it or not Quebec’s Public Safety Minister, Stephane Bergeron, tabled Bill 20 last Tuesday to create a brand new provincial gun registry to replace the federal one.
When asked how much this new registry will cost, Bergeron said “a few million dollars,” reminiscent of former federal justice minister Allan Rock’s declaration 20 years ago that the national registry would cost a mere $2 million before it ended up costing over $2 billion.
Quebec has been challenging Ottawa’s decision to rip its registry for months.
The provincial government even went before the Superior Court to recuperate the already existent registry data.
It won its case. Ottawa appealed and the judicial war could go on for another two to five years.
To justify why Quebec is going in the opposite direction from the rest of the country, Bergeron predictably argued that “Quebec is different.”
I never thought that “distinct society” means reproducing our neighbours’ costly fiascos with enthusiasm.
In fact, what is truly different is that not one single politician in the National Assembly stood up to defend farmers and hunters who own a gun — all 125 MNAs support the PQ Bill.
Nevertheless, polls showed that 36% of Quebecers thought it was a good idea to abolish the gun registry.
How come not one single elected official defends the position of over one-third of their constituents?
Why is it in Quebec that politicians are the most opposed to a pedophile registry but also most in favour of a gun registry?
Isn’t it more important for parents to know that their neighbour is a pedophile than for the police to know a person has registered his gun?
Quebec politicians are concerned about the rehabilitation of serial pedophiles but prone to consider unregistered gun owners as criminals.
Go figure.
The Montreal Polytechnique massacre of 1989 has been the event used by our politicians to embrace the idea of a costly and ineffective gun registry.
For the first time since, the brother of one of the 14 women who was shot in that tragedy, came out recently against the registry.
Claude Colgan, brother of the late Helene Colgan, reminded us that it is a criminal that killed his beloved sister, not guns.
It is criminals that we should get tough on, not weapons they employ.
Quebec gun owners are currently trying to organization their opposition.
There are estimates of around 1.6 million guns in Quebec, owned by half a million Quebecers.
Two weeks ago, 250 of them rallied in Drummondville and decided to join the National Firearms Association to lobby their cause.
They might not have a voice in Quebec’s parliament but they have much more on their side: Common sense. Let’s hope they win this David- against-Goliath fight.
