Credits: Andre Forget/QMI AGENCY
TORONTO – Ontario wants to make sure gun buyers are properly licensed, Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur says.
The province will review new regulations tabled by federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews Wednesday before commenting further, she said.
“But for us, it’s very important to make sure that those who are buying firearms or handguns, that they have the permit to use it,” Meilleur said. “We want to keep our community safe.”
Toews says his proposed regulations would prevent provinces from setting up a back door gun registry, similar to the national database abolished by the federal Conservatives.
Ontario continues to collect and keep information on gun purchasers in ledgers held by individual sellers, insisting it is not the same as a national registry, which is accessed through a central database.
PC Leader Tim Hudak said voters in the federal election clearly indicated that they did not want a national long-gun registry – “a wasteful bureaucracy that took money out of justice.
“I do worry that some of the cheerleaders of that program, including our own Premier (Dalton McGuinty) here in Ontario, will try to bring in another registry through the back door,” Hudak said.
Meilleur said it is not fair to suggest that Ontario’s actions are creating another version of what the federal government ended.
“We are following the Firearms Act which gives the authority to the chief firearms officer to request information … when a dealer sells (a) firearm,” she said.
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