So I purchased a stripped lower and I've built the whole lower itself but I haven't got the spare cash right now to get the upper.
At what point do I register a change to the receiver? is it now or once I have the upper in my possession?
The Firearms Act, Criminal Code, and the Canadian Firearms Program did not develop the current rules or operational practices to address the reality you describe. You could call them for an opinion, but you'd have the same amount of luck getting the right answer consulting tea leaves or a bag of old chicken bones.
In the business web services when you register a receiver it asks you to indicate if its a receiver-only, or a firearm (as in whole firearm). If you put receiver-only, many of the data fields get closed out as N/A. If you put firearm, then it asks you the action type, (semi or full-auto or pump, etc), the barrel length, the caliber, the magazine capacity, etc. With a full assembled lower, but with no upper, you can answer some, but not all of those questions.
Note, for the sake of being painfully specific, there are several separate requirements to report to the Registrar which may or may not result in a change of registration.
First, you have to report any modification that results in a change of classification. Its an open question whether the CFP thinks going from Restricted REceiver only to Restricted Firearm is a change in CLASS, or simply an update to the registration records. In any event, once you install an upper, you will clearly trigger this requirement, regardless of whether you intend the installation to be permanent or not.
Second, you have to report any modification
that is intended to be permanent that changes the TYPE, ACTION, caliber or gauge. The TYPE, ie handgun, vs rifle, is determined by the furniture, typically the stock. A full assembled lower has a stock. Second, the ACTION, IE Single, semi or full, is determined by the LPK, which a fully assembled lower receiver has. So regardless of whether or not you have actually finished the firearm, those modifications need to be reported,
if intended to be permanent, or if still in place after 30 days.
In either case, if the gun is ever seized fully assembled, the onus is on the crown to prove that you completed the assembled firearm more than 30 days ago. This will be impossible for them to prove with your help.
That said, several court rulings have determined that a firearm temporarily (undefined period of time) disassembled for maintenance, cleaning, inspection whatever, is still a WHOLE firearm, and people have been convicted for firearms offences that required an accused to be in possession of a whole firearm, despite the fact that the firearm was disassembled, and in some cases even broken.
Once you own all the pieces, and put them together, you have made a whole firearm. Simply separating the upper and lower will not necessarily count, or be viewed as, removing a modification to reset the 30 day notification period. The crown could argue, and easily convince a judge, that the firearm was not "un modified" but was merely disassembled (confused yet?), and rely on precedent already established to claim that its still a whole firearm, and you still have only that initial 30 days to report.
Bottom line, if you want to play it safe, you should hand in your PAL now. Complying with the BS is a mugs game. But to the letter, you should already be calling the Registrar to to tell them modifications you have made. At the end of the day there is no benefit to you whatsoever in having a RECEIVER-ONLY registration. NONE. And don't let them use the excuse that their database isn't configured to describe your firearm accurately. That crappy database is their problem, the law is our problem.
