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Garry Breitkreuz

Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative MP for Yorkton-Melville[1] and Firearms Critic, received the 2005 “Shooting Sports Ambassador Award” from the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities (WFFSSA),[2] an organization the NRA helped establish in 1997.[3] Thomas Mason, the NRA’s emissary to the United Nations, is the Secretary of the WFFSSA.[4]

Mr. Breitkreuz is also quoted extensively on the NRA website criticizing the Canadian Firearms Act,[5] and gave an interview to the NRA less than a month after September 11^th, 2001 asserting that “Canada has harboured terrorists while persecuting gun owners.”[6] Gun control groups in the US criticized the NRA for the interview, suggesting the NRA was “unfairly blaming” Canada for the 9/11 attacks,[7] an attribution of fault for which Mr. Breitkreuz’s unsubstantiated remarks provided strong support.

Adopting NRA legislative strategies against gun control, Mr. Breitkreuz has proposed four separate private member’s bills in the House of Commons in defence of property rights, including their inclusion in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Motion 227, tabled on April 21, 2005, which reads as follows:[8]

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should ensure that full, just and timely compensation be paid to all persons who are deprived of personal or private property or suffer a loss in value of that property as a result of any government initiative, policy, process, regulation or legislation.

While the main purpose behind such a bill would seem to be a desire to prevent the federal government from restricting gun ownership, it would have much broader consequences, effectively preventing the legislature and ministries from protecting the environment, in-land fisheries and any other federal action that infringed on property rights such as taxes and levies. In a Charter amendment form, this platform property rights plan would seriously jeopardize provincial anti-discrimination law, work place safety codes, and legislation protecting union membership that could be interpreted to infringe on freedom of contract rights that courts have associated with property rights.