The number of restricted firearms across Canada rose more than 82 per cent while Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in power, with the sharpest increase after the Conservatives formed a majority government.

The increase is found in calculations made by iPolitics from statistics found in several reports of the federal Commissioner of Firearms, which released its 2014 report last month.

One of the biggest increases was in Alberta, where the number of restricted guns rose 140 per cent between 2005 and 2014, the last year for which numbers are available. The slowest rise was in Quebec, where the number of restricted guns rose only 28 per cent over that time period.

Overall, the number of restricted firearms such as semi-automatic rifles and handguns registered in Canada rose from 398,876 in 2005 under former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin to 726,705 in 2014, the last year for which numbers are available.

However, the sharpest rise in restricted weapons came after the Conservatives formed a majority government and after they ended the requirement to register non-restricted firearms in 2012. The number of registered firearms rose 25.6 per cent between 2005 and 2010 but jumped 45 per cent between 2010 and 2014.

Overall, the rate of restricted and prohibited guns per capita rose 19 per cent across Canada between 2012 and 2014, with the highest increase in Nunavut (37.8 per cent) followed by Manitoba at 29.7 per cent and Alberta at 28 per cent.

While restricted firearms are on the rise, there does not appear to be a corresponding increase in the number of Canadians with firearms permits.

Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, says the big increase in the number of restricted firearms across Canada is cause for concern.

“At that rate, by 2020 we’ll have doubled the number of restricted weapons in this country than we had in 2009,” Cukier said. “That signals some real issues around licensing and screening practices and how rigorously the requirement that somebody demonstrate a legitimate need for having a restricted (weapon) — how rigorously that provision is being enforced.”

Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, says the number of restricted guns may have risen but it hasn’t been accompanied by an increase in the level of gun crime. If there are more guns, it is because recreational shooting has become more popular, he says.

“Shooting as a sport is growing significantly, it has been for a number of years,” said Bernardo.

In an interview with iPolitics, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he was unaware just how much the number of restricted guns in Canada had risen. He said the government plans to take a closer look at the number of guns in Canada.

“We’re going to obviously be looking at all of the statistics of this kind,” Goodale said. “We want to be an evidence-based government making sound decisions on the basis of hard facts. All of those statistics will be reviewed. I’m anxious to see what external commentators have to say about it and how they analyze those mega stats, what it means in precise policy terms. I haven’t got that analysis yet but I will be looking at it.”

The government is particularly interested in the question of illegal guns in Canada as well as the relationship between guns, gangs and illegal drugs, Goodale said.

“We are concerned about the illegal movement of guns and will obviously be looking at that – especially cross-border smuggling and to what extent that has contributed to the growth of the problem,” Goodale said. “We’ll also be putting into place a really important campaign undertaking and that is the guns and gangs task forces that will take a little time to get that rolling because it has to go through, obviously, fairly detailed negotiations with provincial governments.”

Illegal guns aren’t part of the statistics collected by the federal Commissioner of Firearms.

While they are on the rise, restricted weapons account for only a fraction of the guns across Canada. In 2011, the last year that statistics were available before the Conservative government ended the reporting on non-restricted firearms, there were 7.1 million non-restricted guns in Canada – up 9.4 per cent since the Conservatives came to power.

That same year there were 531,735 restricted firearms and 197,024 prohibited firearms like fully automatic rifles, most of them grandfathered in the hands of those who owned them when the rules were changed to make them prohibited.

Between 2005 and 2014, the number of prohibited weapons across the country dropped 15.4 per cent. However in Quebec, the number dropped 42 per cent – particularly after the Quebec government enacted Anastasia’s law in 2008. The law, named for 18-year-old Anastasia DeSousa, who was killed during a shooting rampage at Montreal’s Dawson College in 2006, is one of the reasons Quebec has some of the toughest gun control laws in Canada.

Alberta was the only province where there was an increase in the number of prohibited firearms, rising four per cent.

While every province is up, the smallest increase in restricted firearms was in Quebec where they rose by 28.4 per cent between 2005 and 2014. The next smallest increase was 30.3 per cent in the Northwest Territories followed by 34 per cent in New Brunswick.

While Nunavut had the smallest number of restricted firearms in the country, it registered the highest increase, going from 132 to 339 – a 156.8 per cent increase.

Alberta was next at 140.6 per cent increase, followed by Manitoba where the number of restricted guns jumped 104 per cent.

Goodale’s home province of Saskatchewan had a 91.6 per cent increase in restricted guns during that time period.

Bernardo says the jump in the number of restricted firearms in Alberta during the 2005-2014 period can largely be explained by the oil boom.

“This kind of makes sense if you think about it. What’s happened here is with the big boom in population in Alberta, people were coming from other provinces to Alberta to work.”

Bernardo says the number of restricted guns is also rising because the RCMP has classified “dozens” of guns as restricted or prohibited – guns his association doesn’t feel meet the criteria for a restricted weapon.

“The problem is that the people who wrote this stuff did it politically – they had no technical knowledge at all. They went through the book and they looked at the book and if it looked scary it got put on the list.”

Cukier, however, says the opposite is true. Over the years, as new firearms hit the market, the Harper government didn’t update the orders-in-council necessary to declare new models restricted, she says.

“The RCMP have been arguing that there are a number of firearms that are currently sold as unrestricted weapons or restricted weapons that in fact should be prohibited…because they have the features of military assault weapons or were selling sniper rifles as unrestricted weapons because the orders-in-council lists have not been updated for a very long time.”

“We would argue quite the contrary – there are more guns that should be classified as restricted and prohibited.”

Cukier also questions whether proper checks are being done before allowing people to buy restricted guns.

“You’re supposed to have to demonstrate that you need it for your livelihood, typically police and security guards (or) that you are a collector and you have a bona fide collection and you can demonstrate knowledge and expertise that suggests that it is a collection and not just a stockpile (or) you’re a member in good standing of a gun club.”

“Those are the three reasons why you are supposed to have access to a restricted weapon and there is supposed to be a fair amount of rigor applied in ensuring that the criteria that were set out are met.”

Another problem is that one third of the guns used in crimes in Canada are legal, registered guns. If there are more restricted firearms in Canada, there are more guns to make it into the hands of criminals, she argues.

“When handguns are recovered in crime, probably two thirds of them are smuggled guns originating in the United States. But a third of them are guns that were diverted from legal sources, meaning they were misused by their legal owners, they were sold illegally or they were stolen and entered the illegal market that way.”

“There is no doubt that legally owned restricted weapons are a major source of illegal weapons in Canada. So, if we’re seeing significant growth in the supply of restricted firearms it stands to reason that will also be fuelling the illegal gun market.”

Cukier is also concerned about the possible impact of the rise in the number of restricted guns in Canada the rate of suicides and the use of guns in domestic violence. However, she says one of the challenges in determining the full impact of the number of guns in Canada was the Harper government’s decision to suppress studies about the impact of guns on everything from crimes to suicide.

Cukier said her group would like to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government repeal Bill C-42, which was passed by the Conservatives, saying it eroded controls on firearms. The coalition also wants the government to upgrade the list of firearms to include those they believe qualify as military style assault weapons, and increase rigour in the licensing process and reintroduce controls on the sales of firearms such as the requirement for stores to keep a record of guns they have sold.

“That’s gone now. So Canada has weaker controls over the sales of rifles and shotguns than say, New York State. You can go and you buy 15 Ruger mini 14’s like were used at Polytechnique and there’s no record kept of the fact that you purchased those guns, let alone there’s no registration certificate that shows that you’re the legal owner of those guns but there’s not even a record kept in the store.”

“In 1989 they at least had a written record of who bought the Ruger mini 14 that was used at Polytechnique so there is a huge vacuum in the tracking of gun sales which means that we are no longer in compliance with our international obligations to help combat the illegal gun trade.”

Bernardo, however, doesn’t want to see the changes introduced by the Conservatives overturned. If anything, he would like to see the rules simplified so that law- abiding gun owners don’t find them facing charges.

“What we would like to see is leave us alone for a while. We’re not committing any crimes. Crime is going down, murder is going down. Everything is going along as it is supposed to. Don’t fix it when it’s not broken.”

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