Posted on 10/26/2004 5:14:44 PM PDT by 45Auto
The cash-strapped federal gun registry will miss out on more than $46-million in fees from gun owners this year by giving away 770,000 free licence renewals so that bureaucrats can catch up on their paperwork.
Those firearms owners who were randomly chosen by the Canada Firearms Centre for the free extensions of up to four years should receive their notices in the mail next week.
The unusual move is to head off an expected deluge of applications to renew licences -- which are normally valid for five years -- as the fifth anniversary of the original Jan. 1, 2001, firearms registration deadline approaches.
"In order to comply with that specific deadline under the new firearms act there was, of course, a flood of applications close to the deadline," said Thomas Vares, a spokesman for the firearms centre.
"We're now in the window of that expiry date for maturation of licences," he said.
The gun registry faced a rotating feast-or-famine cycle every five years unless something was done to level out the load, Mr. Vares said. "To ensure that we are able to process these applications in an orderly fashion and offer service to Canadians by being able to settle with them in a timely manner, at random we set up a system that extends certain people's licences for an additional maximum of four years.
"It sort of avoids a big crunch and backlog."
But Garry Breitkreuz, a Saskatchewan Conservative MP and one of the gun registry's harshest critics, said the decision to confer free licence renewals "is another example of poor planning by the Liberal government," which should have anticipated the renewal glut.
"Did no one in the Liberal braintrust ask themselves what they were going to do when all these firearms licences came up for renewal in five years?"
David Tomlinson, a member of the National Firearms Association's executive committee, said he suspects the automatic renewals are part of an effort to reduce costs in the short term so that the CFC does not have to ask the government for millions of dollars to cover its ongoing expenses.
"Every spring, they ask the government for $115-million to pour down the black hole of badly run gun control, so this year they will be able to ask for a number that's a little smaller," he said in a telephone interview from Edmonton.
"This had nothing to do with reducing a workload, and everything to do with lowering operating costs. They painted themselves into one hell of a corner."
The free renewals, which normally costs $60, will affect the majority of registered possession-only gun owners.
Of the 1.3 million people registered with a "Possession Only Licence," 770,000 of them will get a break on the application. The 700,000 people registered with a "Possession and Acquisition Licence" will not be affected and will have to apply for a renewal as regularly scheduled.
There are about 7 million guns registered in Canada.
Gun owners in British Columbia, Alberta, Northwest Territories and the Yukon who are receiving free renewals had their notices and stickers mailed out this week.
money and confiscation is correct.
there should be dancing in the streets.
This is like being told you're going to get nailed up the tailpipe followed by the perp tossing you a jar of Vaseline. What the hell are you supposed to do then? Jump for joy?
Registration and confiscation of firearms is still the biggest, most insidious assault on liberty ever devised by the Leftists.
Just shows you how NOT to go about an issue.
Do you want to know how much I'm taxed here in Canada? Makes Massachussets look like a capitalists dreamland.
I'm sorry. I used to have a lot of respect for my Canadian brothers; many units fought well in WWII. I guess most of those guys are gone now - replaced by several generations of those who think government exists to give them free everything. Trouble is, someone's got to pay for these "freebies". I know there is a core of loyal conservative Canadian patriots - just that they are in a distinct minority.
Good heavens - this program just lost 23 times what its entire costs were initially estimated to be. This takes bureaucratic bloating to a whole 'nother level.
The Liberal Canadian Government has money to waste on the gun grab but nothing for modern submarines. Parley
Spend some time in Calgary.
That's very true. Our cultural future depends as much on your next president as your own future. Many of us had enough of liberalism and soft communism. Bush is on the right track of saving our culture. Lots more needs to happen but at least he's done somethings that other politicians wouldn't dare even look at.
FOUR MORE YEARS!
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