Quick Facts about the Canadian Firearms Program as of March 2007

 

• Firearms Licences and Registration of Firearms
• Individual Licence Refusal and Revocation
• Canadian Firearms Registry On-line
• Affidavits
• Firearms Transfers
• Firearms Exported, Destroyed, Deactivated or Removed

 

Firearms Licences and Registration of Firearms

Of the 1.9 million firearms licences issued to individuals under the Firearms Act, there are:

• 1.1 million Possession Only Licences (POLs)
• 818,796 Possession and Acquisition Licences (PALs)
• 6,378 Minors Licences
  

1.61 million individual licence holders have at least one firearm registration certificate.

There are 4,672 valid business licences - purposes for a business licence include:
retail / wholesale of firearms, manufacturing, auction, display in a museum and gunsmithing.

	Non-restricted	Restricted	Prohibited	All Firearms
Business & Other Organizations	206,290	54,225	40,640	301,155
Individual	6,292,461	378,109	186,389	6,856,959
All Client Types	6,498,751	432,334	227,029	7,158,114

Individual Licence Refusal and Revocation

19,600 firearms licences have been refused or revoked by Chief Firearms Officers for public safety reasons between December 1, 1998 and December 31, 2006.

• 6,706 applications have been refused
• 12,894 firearms licences have been revoked.

Note : Reasons why firearms licence applications have been refused or licences revoked include: a history of violence, mental illness, the applicant is a potential risk to himself/herself or others, unsafe firearm use and storage, drug offences and providing false information.

Canadian Firearms Registry On-line

Law enforcement officers have queried the Canadian Firearms Registry On-line over 6.3 million times since it was launched on December 1, 1998. Over the last quarter, on average 5,800 queries have been made daily (see table below for breakdown by query type).

	2004	2005	2006	2007
Individual Name	1891	2361	3,646	3,092
Address	57	1452	2,297	2,232
Serial number	161	183	257	253
Licence number	88	112	132	153
Certificate number	25	26	27	28
Telephone number	17	23	23	27
Other	29	27	36	32
All Queries	2261	4179	6406	5 817

Note : The Canadian Firearms Registry Online service provides police officers access to firearms licence and registration information in the Canadian Firearms Information System through the Canadian Police Information Centre. This information helps the police to intervene and respond to calls effectively in order to prevent injury and crime, assists in the investigation of firearm-related crimes and helps the police to identify and return stolen and lost firearms to their rightful owners. Toronto Police Services auto-query on address and British Columbia Police Services auto-query on name.

Affidavits

More than 10,000 affidavits have been provided by the Canadian Firearms Registry to support the prosecution of firearms-related crime and court proceedings.

	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007 Q1
Affidavits produced	380	1150	2260	2400	3374	868
% change		203%	97%	6%	41%	N/A

Firearms Transfers

1,461,410 applications for firearm transfers have been completed since December 1, 1998.

• There was a 35% growth in the volume of transfers in 2006

Firearms Exported, Destroyed, Deactivated or Removed

1,127,372 registered firearms have been exported, destroyed, deactivated since December 1, 1998.