Gerard Kennedy

Liberals Release Plan to Rescue Gun Registry and Protect Canadians

Ottawa – The Official Opposition plan released yesterday to guarantee that guns will continue to be registered in Canada is welcome news in Parkdale-High Park, says MP Gerard Kennedy.

“Our streets need to be safe. We have a diverse society but restricting and registering firearms is a point on which all Canadians can agree,” said Kennedy. “Mr. Harper is taking apart the gun registry piece by piece and dividing Canadians for political gain.”

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff unveiled the plan to improve the gun registry yesterday in a speech to hundreds of front line police officers at a meeting of the Canadian Police Association yesterday. Police services access the gun registry 13,000 times a day. Some 7.5 million firearms of all descriptions have been registered by legal gun owners in Canada, despite an administrative “amnesty” by Mr. Harper since 2006 to discourage compliance.

The Liberal Party proposes to maintain the integrity of the gun registry while at the same time better respecting Canadians who use guns for legal uses such as target shooting and hunting. Canadians will receive the benefit of the doubt for forgetting to register the first time by being subject only to misdemeanor offense at that stage, registration fees would be permanently eliminated for the long gun registry and registration processes would be streamlined.

Kennedy notes that he and all members of the Liberal party will be voting against the Harper government inspired and supported private members bill to scrap the long gun registry by MP Candice Hoeppner that will come to a vote in May. Other parties have members who have expressed continued opposition to the registry. After serious initial start ups costs and issue, the gun registry operates today effectively at very modest cost to Canadians.

“There is a lot of hot air in Ottawa about being tough on crime,” said Kennedy. “We need to be tough on the causes of crime and registering guns in Canada keeps us safer and prevents violent crime in the first place.”

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