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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.
elizabeth.thompson@sunmedia.ca