Bill C-301

Bill C-301 is a piece of Canadian legislation introduced to the Canadian House of Commons for first reading on February 9, 2009.

The Bill was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Garry Breitkreuz, the Conservative Party of Canada Member of Parliament for the Manitoba riding of Yorkton-Melville.

Bill C-301 was scheduled for debate in the House on Monday, May 25, 2009 but the debate was canceled when Mr. Breitkreuz failed to show up for the debate. According to rules of procedure in the House, that meant his private member's bill fell to the bottom of the priority list. Since MPs had introduced more than 190 private member's bills, and must count on a lottery system to have their bill advanced, this means that the likelihood of the Bill finding its way back onto the agenda in the next session of Parliament is very poor.

Both Bill C-301 and Bill C-391 (which was introduced earlier in May) are currently pending in parliamentary committee. It is possible, in light of constant threats by the Liberal Party of Canada's leader to topple the Conservative government in a confidence vote and trigger an election, that both bills may die on the order paper when Parliament is dissolved for a general election.

Implications

While the Bill touched on several firearms-related issues, such as:

• streamlining of the currently cumbersome ATT regulations,
• combining the Possession Only Licence and Possession and Acquisition Licences,
• changing licence renewal periods to ten years,
• changes to grandfathering dates for 12(6) handguns and
• requiring that the Auditor General of Canada perform a cost/benefit analysis of all Canadian governmental firearm programs every five years,

it was, without a doubt, the provision in the Bill to scrap the multi-billion dollar long gun registry which garnered the most attention in the Canadian media and the most approval and support from Canadian firearm owners' groups.

Reactions

From pro-gun groups

The reaction amongst the community of Canadian firearms owners' groups was almost unanimous on the issue of Bill C-301:

• The Canadian Shooting Sports Association has heartily supported the Bill, saying "The Breitkreuz Bill contains provisions that will not only end the Long Gun Registry, but make necessary changes to the exorbitant costs associated with the Firearms Act by increasing the efficiency of government."
• The National Firearms Association has also thrown its support behind the Bill: "Garry Breitkreuz's Bill 301 is a valiant effort to provide some legislative relief for Canadian taxpayers and the firearms community of Canada."
• The Canadian Firearms Institute while expressing support, was somewhat more taciturn in their response, stating "With an election looming on the horizon the chances of this bill ever passing and being implemented before then are slim to none. Had the government had been serious about abolishing the registry – it would have tabled its own bill."
  They did, however, give credit where they felt it was due: "Mr. Breitkreuz has done his part – now its time for you to step up to the plate and do yours."
• The Dominion of Canada Rifle Association has so far been officially silent on the matter, releasing no official statements either in support or opposition of C-301. The DCRA, however, unlike the American NRA, has historically avoided Canadian gun politics, preferring to limit their scope almost exclusively to competitive shooting sports and safety instruction.
• So far, the Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association (CUFOA) has been the only pro-gun-rights group in Canada to deliver a blistering response to the Bill, with the front page of the organization's website declaring "The Conservatives' Bill C-21, C-24, and C-301 are worse than the Liberals' Bill C-68." Even they, however, reluctantly admitted that "some small improvements can be found in Mr. Breitkreuz's Bill 301." It should be noted that the primary source of CUFOA's criticism is the fact that Bill C-301 does nothing to repeal Canada's mandatory licensing requirement for firearm ownership — an infringement on gun owners' rights to which the CUFOA is unconditionally, and vehemently, opposed.

Gun-grabber hissy fits

As usually happens whenever any governmental representative does anything even remotely in the interests of gun owners' rights, the gun grabbers in Canada went apoplectic.

The Canadian Coalition for Gun Control insisted on referring to C-301 as a "bill to dismantle [Canada's] gun registry and relax controls on restricted weapons (handguns and semi automatic assault weapons) and prohibited fully automatic assault weapons." They also took the time to trot out the ever-fashionable "gun control is a women’s issue [because] they account for a high percentage of the victims of gun violence" canard, pairing it with the ridiculous claim that "while half of gun owners opposed the law, 77% of people living with a gun owner supported it." All of this was, of course, accompanied by the predictable Prophecies Of Doom And Blood In The Streets®.

Text of the Bill

The complete text of Bill C-301, along with coordinating amendments as of 17 March 2009, can be found in this article

Notes

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