Originally Posted by
Rick911
Its told in the Canada Gazette.
Technically, everyone should be aware of changes of the law consulting the Gazette.
Millions of gun owners in this country do not read the Gazette.
A lot of the changes are in the live FRT only (not specifically named in the gazette), and no one but law enforcement and verifiers knows what's in that.
We've been getting drips of changes on Twitter/Facebook from people who happen to spot a change in the sea of 130,000 or so FRT descriptions.
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Mr. Tomlinson: Another major problem is Orders in Council. One can be charged with violating an Order in Council. Over 30 Orders in Council have been issued since 1998. Some provisions of the law have been changed six times by a series of Orders in Council. A beautiful example that we have found of what the results of that are is a copy of Regina v. Rusk. Mr. Rusk was charged in 1999 with storing his firearms illegally because he stored his guns with his ammunition. His lawyer argued that the guns were not actually with the ammunition, and that the ammunition was a short distance away. They bounced up and down, arguing about the language of regulation number 4. The entire case went through its full length. The judge eventually ruled in favour of the defence. To this day no one, the judge, the Crown or the defence lawyer, is aware that regulation 4 died in 1998, and was replaced by regulation 5 of a different set of regulations with a different title and different wording.
They spent all that time and money arguing about a case based on a regulation that did not exist. As I said, they have issued over 30 Orders in Council. There is no book of Orders in Council. The only way one can keep track of the Orders in Council is to subscribe to Part II of the Canada Gazette. Crown prosecutors do not do that; lawyers do not do that; and judges do not do that and. It is absolutely and utterly impossible for anyone in the entire legal system to be certain what the regulations are.
-- Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Parliament Justice Committee on Bill C-10 (Proposed changes to Firearms Act) 27 Nov 2002