Gun Registry and Data Destruction

Paul Daly July 3, 2013

My holidays have been delayed, much to my frustration! But on the plus side, I was at my desk for the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision in the gun registry appeal: Canada (Procureur général) c. Québec (Procureur général), 2013 QCCA 1138.

I criticized the decision in an oped for the Montreal Gazette yesterday. Here is a taste:

The court of appeal’s neglect of “cooperative federalism” led it to these two errors. Despite its admonition that the principle is an important “interpretive tool,” it did not use it. Properly applied, the principle would have pointed toward a narrower interpretation of the scope of the power to repeal legislation and of the power to destroy data in the original Firearms Act. The legal course consistent with this principle would have been to delete the records in the registry gradually, rather than in one fell swoop, or even better, to send them to the provinces.

These errors of law should be corrected by the Supreme Court. Permission to appeal will be sought by Quebec, and the country’s highest court ought to grant it in order to rectify the flaws in the reasoning of the appeal court.

My previous posts on the case (in reverse order) are collected below:
 
http://administrativelawmatters.blogspot.ca/2013/03/some-thoughts-on-oral-argument-long-gun.html
http://administrativelawmatters.blogspot.ca/2013/03/more-on-unconstitutionality-of.html
 
http://administrativelawmatters.blogspot.ca/2012/09/data-destruction-and-public-law-part-ii.html
 
http://administrativelawmatters.blogspot.ca/2012/09/data-destruction-and-public-law-part-i.html
http://administrativelawmatters.blogspot.ca/2012/05/why-abolishing-long-gun-registry-is.html

This content has been updated on June 11, 2014 at 09:46.