Mr. Speaker, I want to share with the House the frustration that one of my constituents has experienced with the new gun registry.
Louis Carew is the owner of CMP Sports in Fort Nelson, B.C. He writes about the hoops that he must now jump through just to continue to sell firearms, hoops that cost him 25% of his Christmas sales.
First, he orders a firearm and gets a reference number from the supplier who has to wait to get a number from the firearms department in Miramichi, New Brunswick.
Second, the government sends him a reference number in the mail.
Third, when he sells a firearm his customer needs a TAN number for which he is charged $25, and again there is another wait. This fee is charged for each new and used firearm purchased.
Fourth, the customer needs an FAC number that has gone up from $10 to $50 plus $200 to take a course. “The amount of government bureaucracy and the wait over the phone is unbearable”, he concludes.
This debacle has cost taxpayers and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars. Would it not make more sense to invest these precious tax dollars in police officers?