Canadian Firearm Quotes

Skip down to Quotes updated Dec 9, 2002

Changes/Additions:
Added quotes by Sheila Fraser (Auditor General)

Canadian Firearm Quotes

Allan Rock
Sharon Carstairs
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Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers
Jean Chretien
Joe Jordan
This Hour has 22 Minutes
Ralph Klein
Anne McLellan
Kim Campbell
Herb Gray
Giuliano Zaccardelli (RCMP Commissioner)
Heidi Rathjen
David Collenette (Transport Minister)
Robert Frolic (NWEST)
Sheila Fraser (Auditor General of Canada)

Allan Rock

"I came to Ottawa with the firm belief that the only people in this country who should have guns are police officers and soldiers."

— Allan Rock, Canada's Minister of Justice
Maclean's "Taking aim on guns", 1994 April 25, Vol.107 Issue 17, page 12.

"... protection of life is NOT a legitimate use for a firearm in this country sir! Not! That is expressly ruled out!".

— Justice Minister Allan Rock

"Canadian justice issues, a town hall meeting"
Producer - Joanne Levy,
Shaw cable, Calgary (403) 250-2885
Taped at the Triwood community centre in Calgary, 1994 December.

'So, will his new gun laws - aimed primarily at law-abiding firearms owners - reduce the crime rate even further? Rock is hesitant to give a conclusive answer: "I think it will help. (But) I don't want to overstate it. I don't want to give any guarantees."

— Allan Rock, Ottawa Citizen, 1994 December 1, A3

"It's true that the judgement of what firearms should be prohibited will be decided by the government of the day - and shouldn't it be that way?"

— Justice Minister Allan Rock, the Globe and Mail, 1994 December 1.

Sharon Carstairs

"C-68 has little to do with gun control or crime control, but it is the first step necessary to begin the social re-engineering of Canada."

— Quote by Senator Sharon Carstairs (Liberal) 1996 January 26 - 11th Annual Community Legal Education Associations (CLEA) Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Several people witnessed her saying this, but it is denied by the senator.

Details about this quote from Dave Tomlinson (NFA): Carstairs In Denial
Original posting vol 1 #406 from the Canadian Firearms Digest. Am RFC RED ALERT

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"The fact is that no legal and privately-owned full automatic firearm has been used in any crime of violence in all of Canadian history."

— Charles Moore via Garry Breitkreuz
Cdn-Firearms Digest V2 #444 , 1998 June 17

Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers

``The Federation chose to reject support of C-68, primarily the registration and licencing sections as they posed a substantial waste of scarce resources both in manpower and finances, with no measurable effect on the criminal element.

Saskatchewan police officers do not feel threatened or intimidated by responsible law abiding citizens owning any type of firearm be it rifle, shotgun, handgun, or military rifle; engaging in any activity that does not threaten or affect the peace, good order and safety of our society.''

— Murray Grismer, Saskatoon Police Force, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers
FED UP II Rally, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 1998 September 22

Jean Chrétien

Original quote in French

"pourquoi achèter des carabines à répétition et de l'armement nucléaire -- quand c'est à la maison un enfant peut jouer avec ça"

Translation:

"Why buy repeater carbines and nuclear armament -- if this is kept at home a child can play with it".

— Prime Minister Jean Chretien
French CBC (SRC), Montreal 1997 May 21

As reported in CFD Vol.1 #855

Joe Jordan

"gun registration is no more complex than the Income Tax system."

— MP Joe Jordan (Liberal, Leeds-Grenville) — CBC NewsWorld, 1998 May 4

This hour has 22 minutes

"Guns don't kill people, Cuts to healthcare do!!!"

— "This hour has 22 minutes" CBC / Salter Street Films
1998 October 19

Ralph Klein

"This is about unenforceable registration of weapons that violates the rights of people to own firearms." [emphasis added]

— Premier Ralph Klein (Alberta)
Calgary Herald, 1998 October 9

Anne McLellan

"... we're not interested in confiscating their guns, as long as they are legitimate gun owners, as long as they store them appropriately, transport them appropriately and so on ..."

— Anne McLellan, Minister of Justice
September 22, 1998, Ottawa (FED UP II)

Transcribed from audio recording from Tom Zinck's site: Anne_McLellan_Promise.wav

"This government does not believe that public safety is enhanced by carrying weapons. In fact, it has been a long-standing Canadian government practice to discourage the use of personal defence weapons. Once public possession of one type of weapon is condoned for personal defence, the situation of weapon possession for protection starts to spiral upwards towards more powerful and dangerous weapons."

— Anne McLellan, Minister of Justice
1999 January 13, letter. As seen in CFD vol2 #819:

Kim Campbell

"There are certain things in gun control that have a certain public appeal, but when you're legislating you need to look at the research on what works, what doesn't, and what really has an impact, recognizing you're never going to do away entirely with gun violence,''

"There's no evidence that registering guns reduces the level of gun violence. It's not that I don't think it's something worth doing, (but) it's something you do much later.'' [emphasis added]

— Kim Campbell, Canada's consul-general in Los Angeles
Montreal Gazette, 1999.12.04, Byline: David Gamble "Are we Safe?: . . ."

Kim Cambell is the former Canadian Justice Minister (and for a short while Prime Minister) Progressive Conservative and creator of Firearms Bill C-17 (passed 1991)

Herb Gray

"The statistics requested respecting the number of crimes that have been solved by tracing the firearm back to the registered owner are not kept at this time and are therefore not available."

— Solicitor General Herb Gray
Answering on behalf of the Liberal Government the written question "Since 1934, how many crimes, in total, have been solved using the RCMP's Restricted Weapon Registration System?"

May 17, 1996 News Release of MP Garry Breitkreuz (who asked the question)

Giuliano Zaccardelli

"I don't believe a handgun should be in the hands of anybody,"

— RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli
Calgary Herald, 2001.05.28, Page A2

Said to about 150 mayors, councilors and reeves at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference as part of a response to a question from a small-town Alberta politician who suggested the hundreds of millions of dollars the government has spent on the gun registry would be better used to give the RCMP more resources.

Heidi Rathjen

"No studies have been done to link gun legislation to declining firearms-related deaths,'' says Ms. Rathjen, "but you can draw your own conclusions.''

— Heidi Rathjen, Coalition for Gun Control
as quoted in The Ottawa Citizen - Page A16 - November 18, 1999

David Collenette

"I'm not happy, frankly. Because I think in a civil society we don't need firearms."

— David Collenette, Transport Minister

Admitting he still has concerns about allowing armed RCMP officers [as Canadian sky marshals] on jets.

PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Sun
DATE: 2001.12.12
SECTION: News
PAGE: 3
SOURCE: Parliamentary Bureau
BYLINE: David Gamble

"I believe in a civil society we should do as much as possible not to have firearms in any guise, but obviously they are a necessary function of policing."

— David Collenette, Transport Minister

Transport Minister David Collenette admitted there's a "danger" of innocent passengers getting accidentally harmed by armed air marshals who will fly undercover on some flights to ward off terrorists.

PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen
DATE: 2001.12.12
BYLINE: Mark Kennedy

Robert Frolic

"The gun law system has created a (black) market out there simply because there are so many gun rules in this country," he says. "The profit margin is tremendous . . . You can have all the laws in the world and all the enforcement people behind every bush," he says. "You will never stop these people."

— Robert Frolic
Head of Canada's National Weapons Enforcement Support Team (NWEST).

PUBLICATION: The Hamilton Spectator
DATE: 2002.06.18
SECTION: News
PAGE: A08
SOURCE: The Hamilton Spectator BYLINE: Peter Van Harten

Sheila Fraser

"The issue here is not gun control. And it's not even astronomical cost overruns, although those are serious. What's really inexcusable is that Parliament was in the dark."

"I question why the Department continued to watch the costs escalate without informing Parliament and without considering alternatives."

— Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada

December 3, 2002
AUDITOR GENERAL'S NEWS RELEASE
Chapter 10—Department of Justice—Costs of Implementing the Canadian Firearms Program
Chapter 10 News Release

Audit Excerpts

Program cost estimates have risen from $119 million to over $1 billion

10.27 In November 1994, prior to the introduction of the Firearms Act, the Department of Justice estimated that the net cost of the new Program would be about $2 million. It also estimated that it would take five years to implement. During this period, it said expenditures of about $119 million were expected to be offset by licensing and registration fees of approximately $117 million.

10.28 In May 2000 the Department told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that it had spent at least $327 million on the Program. However, at about the same time the Department informed the Government that it estimated that the cost of development and implementation would be over $1 billion by 2004-05.

The financial information provided does not fairly present all costs

10.48 In our view, the financial information provided for audit by the Department does not fairly present the cost of the Program to the government. Our initial review found significant shortcomings in the information the Department provided. Consequently we stopped our audit of this information that because we did not believe that a detailed audit would result in substantially different findings.

WHYFOR – Canadian Firearm Info