Nunavik orgs get three-year head-start on gun law

MONTREAL — Nunavik’s compliance with the new federal firearms act is “more or less under control,” says Sandy Gordon of the Kativik Regional Government.

Nunavik’s regional government and Nunavik’s Inuit birthright organization, the Makivik Corporation, started more aggressively and earlier than other Inuit regions to make sure residents would be ready by Jan. 1 for the new rules and regulations affecting firearms use.

“We’ve been on this for three years,” Gordon said. “It was hard to understand the act, but we’ve done our best to comply.”

During this time Gordon, director of KRG’s renewable resource department, travelled throughout Nunavik, offering firearms safety courses — the first step towards obtaining a licence.

“We visited every community before the end of the year,” Gordon said. “There’s been a lot of compliance to take the courses and to meet the safety requirements.”

At the same time, Makivik Corporation’s local income tax workers pitched in to make sure graduates of the safety courses actually applied for their licence before the New Year’s deadline. Usually hired to help beneficiaries complete their tax forms, these workers were also trained how to complete applications for firearms certification.

The result of these combined efforts is that most subsistence hunters and trappers in Nunavik have already sent in the required paperwork for their licences.

“We’ve done around 1,000 applications in all the communities,” Gordon said. “Gun registration will be up to the individuals who will have to register their firearms.”

The deadline for firearms registration is Jan. 1, 2003.

Delays cause ammo problems

But, while federal government officials in the South are trying to process an avalanche of applications, many Nunavimmiut are waiting to receive their licence.

“The waiting period is a mystery,” Gordon admitted.

And this delay may prove to be an inconvenience to hunters who need a licence in order to buy ammunition.

Both the cooperative and Northern stores in Nunavik say proof of application for a firearms licence isn’t enough, and that their staff won’t be selling ammunition to anyone who can’t show them a licence.