I think the commissioner understood very clearly the intention of the legislation, and it's not the commissioner's role to determine policy. That's the role that we as parliamentarians have, and we bring various points of view to Parliament in order to pass that legislation.
Some of the CFOs are under more direct provincial control. Some are under federal control, such as in Manitoba where I said we wouldn't enforce the Firearms Act on the registry, and they then had to appoint a federal CFO as opposed to a provincial one.
What was quite astounding was that in the clear face of the spirit of the legislation, CFOs essentially said they were not going to respect that. They were going to demand the same information through a different vehicle, by attaching conditions to a licence, jeopardizing people's livelihood. It was quite astounding that a government regulator in the face of the legislation would say this is not what they were going to do. They were going to accomplish the same end through a different means. That's disrespectful of Parliament.
I think the commissioner saw that very clearly, and he issued a letter to all serving CFOs across Canada telling them they didn't have the authority to make the keeping of anything resembling the long-gun registry a condition of a gun shop's business licence.
As I indicated earlier to the NDP member, a general power to attach conditions to a licence cannot grant authority to specifically fly in the face of a specific legislative provision. I think that's what is very troubling about this particular case.
Even though I believe the regulation is redundant, I think it does give, not only additional clarity to the intent of the law, but the right for business shop owners to stand up when a CFO comes into their shop and say, “Look, I have this regulation here. This is what it says, and what you're telling me is directly contradicting this regulation.” It provides that business owner with a measure of protection.
As I've said, if the business wants to keep that information for its own purpose, whether it's a warranty purpose or tax purposes or whatever purposes, that's their business. If a province wants to regulate that business, they can bring forward legislation or appropriate regulations to require the keeping of that information. That's the business of the province. But they can't go on the back of the Firearms Act, which clearly prohibits the collecting of that information. It cannot be used.
The federal Firearms Act is criminal legislation. This gets back to the point here. In fact, it's a criminal statute. If a province wants to regulate it as property and civil rights, they can do that under section 92 of the Constitution Act and deal with it in that way.