Earlier this week, the Liberal Government tabled Bill C-71 – An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms. Having taken the time to review the legislation, Larry Miller, Member of Parliament for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, strongly opposes the bill and has deemed it as an attempt to create a backdoor firearms registry.

"This legislation is typical of Liberal Governments throughout history when it comes to firearms," said Miller. "Leave the criminals and gangs who commit crimes with firearms unharmed but criminalize law-abiding hunters and sport shooters."

One of the most problematic aspects of the legislation for Miller is a new system of record keeping for transfers of firearms. Under this legislation, all transfers, including those for non-restricted firearms such as long guns, will be issued a reference number by a "registrar".

"What they are doing here is creating a registry without actually coming out and saying that it's a registry. What do registrars do? They maintain registries. Throughout this new system, every single transfer will be tracked and the data will be stored," said Miller. "The long gun registry was wasteful and ineffective and did nothing to combat gun violence."

In the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals promised to tackle the issue of illegal firearms and gang violence. Bill C-71 will not achieve these goals.

Miller continued: "It boggles my mind why the Liberals are hell-bent on bringing forward measures like this when their time is better spent on getting illicit firearms off our streets and preventing them from coming over our border. Criminals don't take the time to get a reference number from the Government when they want to buy a gun. I will be actively fighting against this legislation and will be standing up for law-abiding firearms owners."

For more information on Bill C-71 please visit; http://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=9710291.

source: media release, MP Larry Miller