Janice Tibbetts, Ottawa (Canwest News Service) – Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has asked the federal privacy commissioner to investigate whether the RCMP abused the personal information of gun owners by handing their names over to a pollster to use for a survey.
“This use of long-gun owners’ personal information was offensive and inappropriate,” Van Loan said in a statement Thursday.
The Conservatives have pledged for years to abolish the contentious long-gun registry for rifles and shotguns, created by the former Liberal government as part of a 1995 gun-control package passed in the wake of the Montreal massacre, in which 14 women were shot dead.
Van Loan seized on the RCMP’s move as evidence that the fears of gun owners — that their personal information would be abused — has come to fruition.
“Conservatives and law-abiding Canadians have consistently warned the Liberals that the long-gun registry would be misused in this manner,” he said.
Van Loan added that the government still intends to kill the registry. A bill was reintroduced earlier this year after it died in the last Parliament. Police and victims’ groups support the registry.
Van Loan’s spokesman, Chris McCluskey, confirmed the minister asked the federal privacy commissioner to investigate, after learning the RCMP had given information on gun owners to the polling firm EKOS, so it could conduct a survey. The poll was commissioned by the RCMP to measure public satisfaction with gun control.
Van Loan said the ministry was not consulted about conducting the poll — and it would never have approved it.
“Contrary to policy, the minister of public safety was not asked to approve the polling,” said the statement. “The government expressly disapproves of what occurred.”
A spokeswoman for the office of Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said it does not appear “on the surface” that the Mounties violated the Privacy Act.
“This would not necessarily be considered a disclosure of personal information under the act, because the research firm is considered an ‘agent’ of the RCMP,” Anne-Marie Hayden wrote in an e-mail.
The contractor, in this case EKOS, would have the same obligations for protecting personal information as the department that commissioned the work, she said.
“All that said, however, we have not had an opportunity to examine this issue in depth.”
Hayden said the office found out about the issue through an inquiry from an unspecified MP’s office.
She said the privacy commissioner’s office has contacted the RCMP for more information.
Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak, who heads the RCMP firearms program, told the CBC that about 1,100 gun owners across the country responded to the poll. He also said the information obtained by EKOS will be destroyed or turned over to police once it’s analyzed.
The scrapping of the Long Gun Registry (”LGR”) was one of the few segments of the CPC platform that I wholeheartedly supported. It is unfortunate that, after 3+ years in power, this registry still exists, albeit only backed by an anemic budget. It is more disappointing that when questionable conduct regarding the LGR is brought to light, the best Van Loan can do is try to heap scorn on the RCMP and the Chretian Liberals.
Apparently the concepts of responsible government and ministerial responsibility are lost on Van Loan.
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It is way past time for this useless make work project for the east coast to be eliminated.
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RCMP in hot water after releasing gun owners’ info
Elizabeth Thompson, SUN MEDIA
24th September 2009
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan is calling for an investigation after a pollster was supplied with information from Canada’s firearms registry to carry out a public opinion poll.
In an interview with Sun Media, Van Loan said his office is looking into the incident and he plans to ask Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart to examine whether Canada’s privacy laws were violated.
“There are real concerns about the nature of the information that was turned over, whether that was appropriate and the nature of the questions that were being asked, frankly. We aren’t dealing with anonymous individuals, we’re dealing with a very specific narrow population so the intrusiveness of the survey is a matter of concern to us.”
Van Loan said the poll also confirms the fears of some gun owners that gun registry information could be misused.
“When the gun registry was originally instituted, one of the concerns of gun owners was that their privacy rights would be invaded, that there would be this kind of intrusiveness. Now they see it actually happening. That further advances their concerns.”
Van Loan said his office began getting phone calls late last week from angry gun owners upset that private information contained in the gun registry had been handed over to the Ekos polling firm.
The minister says he is also bothered by some of the poll questions.
“Questions that you would expect that they would already know. Do you own a gun, why do you own a gun — things like that.”
Van Loan said the Canadian Firearms Centre commissioned the poll to survey gun owners without consulting his office.
“It’s particularly unusual when the stated policy of the government is pretty clear. We want to get rid of the long gun registry. So spending $80,000 in researching it right now seems a little bit wasteful and the price itself of the survey seems quite high, too.”
Van Loan said he has ordered that all agencies under his responsibility get his office’s approval before commissioning future polls.
The RCMP, which oversees the Canadian Firearms Centre and Ekos, did not return Sun Media phone calls. Earlier this week, the RCMP told the CBC that the pollster was acting as an extension of the force and all the information gathered from an estimated 1,100 gun owners will be destroyed after it is analyzed or turned over to police.