Quebec gun registry data handed over to Federal Court

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney and the RCMP complied with a Federal Court order Tuesday, meeting adeadline for handing over all Quebec gun registry data.

Judge LucMartineauhad giventhe government until 10 a.m. to deliver an externalhard drive to the court effectively issuing a vote of non-confidence in government assurances that all the remaining long-gun registry records would be preserved while court challenges continue.

The hard drive waswrappedin abubble envelope and delivered to the Federal Court office in downtown Ottawaat approximately9:15 a.m.The gun records have been sealed, pending the outcome of more legal challenges that now appear destined to take months to resolve.

• Federal Court orders government, RCMP to hand over Quebec gun registry data
• Quebec vows to create its own gun registry despite Supreme Court ruling
• Long-gun registry records destroyed by RCMP under 'a lot of pressure' from Ottawa

Information Commissioner SuzanneLegaultlaunched aconstitutional challenge of the retroactive gun registry provisions buried in the Harper government's latest omnibus budget legislation.

C-59received royal assent late Tuesday afternoon.The lawretroactively grantsamnesty to anyone involved in document destruction, backdating the changes to 2011.

On Tuesday, a Superior Court judge in Ottawa transferred Legault's case to a three-judge Divisional Court panel in Toronto, after receiving written assurances from federal government lawyers that no more documents would be destroyed or shielded from access-to-information requests.

The destruction of disputed records in 2012 ledLegaultto issue a report this spring accusing the Mounties of violatingthe Access to Information Act. The Ontario Provincial Police are now investigating the allegation.

The RCMP destroyed long-gun registry records from every province and territory except Quebec, despite an ongoing investigation by information commissioner Suzanne Legault and a written promise from the public safety minister that the Mounties would preserve the data until Legault's inquiry was resolved.

In a special report to Parliament last month,Legaultasserted that the sweeping, retroactive immunity in the budget bill would capture not just registry data but all records related to the destruction. The budget bill, moreover, backdates the immunity to October 2011 when the bill to kill the long-gun registry was introduced in Parliament.

That amounts to a "black hole" that rewrites history, she said.

C-59 only applies to registry data?

Legaultcalled the retroactive move in the face of an alleged crime a "perilous precedent'' that could be used to retroactively absolve and cover up electoral fraud, expense scandals or other serious crimes.

Not so, government lawyer Robert MacKinnon told the court Tuesday.

The new bill is not meant to capture documents other than the old gun registry data itself, he said a critical point that had not been publicly expressed through several weeks of argument and controversy.

At Dearden's insistence, MacKinnon agreed to put that in writing as part of the agreement to transfer the constitutional challenge to Ontario's Divisional Court, where it may not be heard for months.

In Quebec City, the Quebec government welcomed the preservation of the provincial registry records, but said it will go ahead with its own registry whether or not it ever sees the old, sealed data.

"We will not wait for this data before tabling our bill this fall," Jean-Philippe Guay, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Lise Theriault, told The Canadian Press.

"If the data is available, we'll take it. But we don't know in what shape it will be."

Last March, the Supreme Court ruled against Quebec's bid to take ownership of the provincial registry records, saying in a split decision that Parliament had the power to order their destruction.

That's the one point federal Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney continually stresses.

"The will of Parliament has been clear on multiple occasions; all copies of the obsolete registry are to be destroyed," Blaney's spokesman Jeremy Laurin said in an email Tuesday.

"While complying with the order of the court, we will always stand up for law-abiding firearms owners."