Mr. Speaker, on September 22, 1994 the justice minister addressed a rally on Parliament Hill, promising the 21,000 fed up responsible gun owners “We do not want to take away your hunting rifles or discourage people from the responsible use of firearms for hunting and shooting”.
This week the retired chief of police, Phil Morlock, sent me a sad letter. I will quote:
I have a 16 year old daughter who wishes to hunt this fall. She has passed the Ontario hunter safety and federal firearm licensing courses (97% in both) but the new law says she must also have a Minors Permit.
I phoned the Canadian Firearms Centre where I was informed that they do not have any capacity, staff or mandate to handle Minors Permits at the federal level as that is now the responsibility of the Chief Firearms Officer for each province. I phoned the C.F.O. contact number for Ontario. The answering machine instructed me to leave a message with the assurance that `someone would get back to me'. Someone did call back—from the Canadian Firearms Centre—telling me that they did not have the capacity or staff to handle Minors Permits at the federal level.
If that is not discouraging hunting, what is?