Canadian Firearms Registry

The Canadian Firearms Registry (French: Registre canadien des armes à feu) is the gun registry of Canada, requiring the registration of all restricted and prohibited firearms in the country. It is managed by the Canadian Firearms Program of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as part of the RCMP's responsibilities under the Firearms Act, 1995.

The registry was introduced by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 1993 and implemented by successive justice ministers Allan Rock and Anne McLellan. The net annual operating cost of the program was originally estimated to be $2 million.^[1]

Originally, the program required the registration of all non-restricted firearms but this requirement was dropped on April 6, 2012, by the coming into force of Bill C-19.^[2][3] Bill C-19 also mandated the destruction of the non-restricted records of the registry as soon as feasible.^[4] The province of Quebec immediately filed a request for an injunction to prevent the destruction of the data. A temporary injunction was granted by the Superior Court of Quebec on April 5, 2012 to prevent the data for Quebec residents from being destroyed until legal arguments could be heard.^[5] On March 27, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Quebec (AG) v Canada (AG) that the destruction of long-gun registry records was within the constitutional power of Parliament to make criminal law, denying the Government of Quebec's legal challenge and allowing for those records to be destroyed.