Inuit hunters welcome scrapped gun registry

“Having a firearm license in the North, especially where we live off the land and need to protect ourselves from wildlife, never made any sense,” said one Nunavik hunter on the passage of Bill C-19, which will scrap the federal gun registry. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Hunters in Nunavik and Nunavut are cheering the end of the federal long-gun registry, which was passed in the House of Commons earlier this week.

Members of Parliament passed the controversial Bill C-19 Feb. 15 in the House of Commons, with 159 in favour and 130 opposed. Once the bill is approved in the Senate, gun owners across Canada will no longer have to register their non-restrictive firearms.

Paulusie Novalinga, the president of Nunavik’s Anguvigaq Hunters and Trappers Organization, said the registry “hurt a lot of people.”

“Having a firearm license in the North, especially where we live off the land and need to protect ourselves from wildlife, never made any sense,” Novalinga said.

With the firearm registry in place, many Nunavimmiut hunters would have been considered criminals, he said, because they simply avoided the process to register their guns.

Many unilingual Inuttitut speakers had trouble registering their weapons in English in French, added Novalinga, who acquired his firearms were acquired before the registry went into place in the mid-1990s.

The registry has only been an unnecessary expense to taxpayers ever since, he said: “If a criminal wanted to commit a crime [with a gun], they would do it anyway.”

In a Feb. 16 news release, Nunavut’s Inuit organization also applauded the move, saying the Firearms Act never took into account the realities of life in Nunavut.

“Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. fully supports the safe use of firearms in Canada, but when the Firearms Act first came into effect in 1995, it hindered the ability of Inuit hunters to put food on the table,” said James Eetoolook, NTI’s vice-president.

“Firearms are essential tools used by Inuit to hunt for food and provide for our families.”

But Eetoolook pointed out that a firearm license is still needed to purchase ammunition in Nunavut.

For that reason, Eetoolook called the bill’s passage “only half the battle,” since the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement is supposed to guarantee Inuit the right to hunt without any form of license of permit, as does the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

That’s been upheld since July, 2003, but only through an interim injunction issued by the Nunavut Court of Justice, which stopped the enforcement of the registration and licensing provisions of the Firearms Act against Nunavut Inuit who use firearms for hunting purposes.

NTI says it will continue to work with the federal government to have Inuit rights under the NCLA permanently recognized.

“The best firearms regime in Nunavut will be one specifically tailored to realities in Nunavut,” Eetoolook said. “When it comes to firearms, one size does not fit all in Canada.”

Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq called the bill’s passage Feb. 15 “an important day for Northerners,” adding the registry “treated northern hunters like criminals for far too long.”

All but two New Democratic Party MPs voted to keep the registry, including Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington.

Senate hearings are expected to take several weeks before Bill C-19 is passed into law.

Once that happens, RCMP officials will begin deleting information in a massive database that provides details to police on what types of firearms registered gun owners possess.