Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 23/02) - Calling the firearms act "draconian," NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi refused to give territorial support to helping residents register their firearms before Jan. 1, 2003.

Saying that language and technology issues made it difficult for people in smaller communities to get information about firearms registration, Deh Cho MLA Michael McLeod asked Kakfwi if he would consider allowing people to use government phones and Internet access.

"I don't believe we can sit down and stand idly by," he said.

Kakfwi responded with a categorical no, saying "this government is not spending any money or any resources to assist the federal government in getting people to comply with their legislation."

Although Kakfwi did pledge to petition the federal government to upgrade its firearms services to the North, he slammed the firearms act, calling it "a bad piece of legislation."

Kakfwi won support from Wolverine Sports manager Dale Johnston, who said the firearms act is a federal concern.

"The federal government put the legislation in, they should be ensuring that they have the proper tools in place to assist people from becoming a criminal," he said.

People in 95 per cent of NWT communities don't have access to firearms certificate training, Johnston estimated. Without that access it's impossible to get a firearms acquisitions certificate, and without an FAC it's impossible to register firearms -- and, Johnston says, a majority of NWT residents will not.

Even Yellowknife residents didn't have access to firearms training for several weeks this fall.

Canadian Firearms Centre offices in Hay River and Yellowknife closed earlier this year, leaving the NWT and Nunavut completely without CFC representation.

Residents have to either register online or via the centre's toll-free phone number.

Complicating matters, a number of aboriginal peoples are refusing to register firearms. Archie Catholique, chief of the Lutsel K'e First Nation, won't register his rifles because he says treaty peoples have a right to own a weapon. Catholique said only about 40 per cent of people in Lutsel K'e have registered, adding that aboriginal groups are considering court action to eliminate the registration requirement for treaty peoples.

But, he said, the territorial government should help communities like Lutsel K'e with education on the registration process.