Update On Ontario Restricted Transfer Times

I submitted a online complaint to Ombudsman, and have now sent letters to my MPP, The Premier, The Solicitor General, The Minister responsible for Red Tape Reduction - Parm Gill, and my federal MP (Conservative).

It's mostly framed around the concept of imagine buying a car today, and having the MTO complete the ownership transfer next year.
 
cptseawolf said:
I submitted a online complaint to Ombudsman, and have now sent letters to my MPP, The Premier, The Solicitor General, The Minister responsible for Red Tape Reduction - Parm Gill, and my federal MP (Conservative).

It's mostly framed around the concept of imagine buying a car today, and having the MTO complete the ownership transfer next year.
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Yes that is a great way to put it. Also suggestion ways to speed it up like batch processes where possible would be good points to make. Even though it will put some peoples transfer ahead of others for some purchases, overall it will get EVERYONE done quicker.

Like a car sale, In reality the purchase has been made and effectively ownership has been transferred via that contract to purchase. The only role of the CFO in this is a safety check, to ensure that each person is properly licensed / validated and has not been put on an order to not have guns etc. so they can approve the transfer of registration to the new owner allowing the purchaser to take possession of their property that they own through the contract to purchase.
 
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cptseawolf said:
I submitted a online complaint to Ombudsman, and have now sent letters to my MPP, The Premier, The Solicitor General, The Minister responsible for Red Tape Reduction - Parm Gill, and my federal MP (Conservative).

It's mostly framed around the concept of imagine buying a car today, and having the MTO complete the ownership transfer next year.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever get any political traction on this without a reason.

The new PAL processing times *immediately* greatly accelerated when I pointed out that it would look pretty bad for the CFP if an applicant had submitted an application as a married person, and the wife signed off, but between the time that was signed, and the one-year processing time (2021) the marriage broke down. The documents would have been accurate at the time, but due to bureaucratic delay, important vetting that they insist is necessary to keep people safe, wasn't done.

Like, a lot can happen in the space of a year, and the CFP is operating off old information when approving a PAL.

But what is the issue in this case?

Could you have handguns shipping to dead RPAL holders? And/or shipping to old addresses, and picked up by the new occupants?

One thing that has been suggested is "batch approvals" where they approve all open transfer requests for a given RPAL when the first one arrives. The CFO(Ont) has declined to consider this. Why? One of the points of the transfer mechanism is to avoid straw purchases. If somebody suddenly starts buying 50 guns. Well, why not look ahead? Why approve 49 transfers, and then on the 50th they say "No, this is too much!". 49 have already gone out.
 
Gindryden said:
Yes that is a great way to put it. Also suggestion ways to speed it up like batch processes where possible would be good points to make. Even though it will put some peoples transfer ahead of others for some purchases, overall it will get EVERYONE done quicker.

Like a car sale, In reality the purchase has been made and effectively ownership has been transferred via that contract to purchase. The only role of the CFO in this is a safety check, to ensure that each person is properly licensed / validated and has not been put on an order to not have guns etc. so they can approve the transfer of registration to the new owner allowing the purchaser to take possession of their property that they own through the contract to purchase.
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Yes I did talk about batch transfers and other measures that other provinces have implemented to speed up the transfers. Here is my letter below.

Ontario Chief Firearms Office –
Excessive Restricted Transfer Times

Reference: Letter from Ontario CFO to All Ontario Businesses, 28 June, 2022

1. As you may be aware the federal government made an announcement and tabled new legislation at the end of May/beginning of June to look to cease the sale and transfer of handguns in Canada. Subsequently, they have now also effective 19 Aug 22 banned the importation of new handguns into the country.
2. As a result of the above measures the sale of handguns in Canada has skyrocketed and as a result all Chief Firearms Officers, especially Ontario have come under an increased workload. As per the attached reference, in the initial 10 day period following the federal government’s first announcement 60,000 restricted transfers were generated and 19,000 of those were to persons living in Ontario. Since then the Ontario CFO’s office has been insisting on processing the transfers in the order they were received, instead of looking to see if the license holder has other pending transfers from later dates (many of us have purchased multiple firearms from dealers across the country), and approving all pending transfers at once. This is a measure that other provincial CFO’s have implemented in order to efficiently reduce the number of transfers sitting in the queue. This allows the vetting process to be done only once for all pending transfers to an individual instead of for each transfer individually.
3. Furthermore, the latest information I have received from the CFO’s office is that at the time of this letter they are still processing transfers from approximately 2-3 June 22. This means they have taken over 3 months to process transfers initiated at that time. They continue to get approximately 500 transfers a day, while only processing about 500 a week. At this rate if a person was to buy a handgun today, the transfer would be processed by the CFO’s office approximately this time next year. Imagine purchasing, and paying for a new car and the MTO’s office being unable to process the ownership transfer for a year. This is the exact reality legal firearms owners in this province are living with today. I myself purchased, and paid for a handgun on 24 June 22. Estimates of when I will receive approval for the transfer is around February of 2023 at best.
4. I am very interested in what this Ontario government is doing to reduce these ridiculous wait times, and implement changes to ensure the CFO’s office can process restricted firearm transfers in a timely manner.
 
TechnologyReady said:
Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever get any political traction on this without a reason.

The new PAL processing times *immediately* greatly accelerated when I pointed out that it would look pretty bad for the CFP if an applicant had submitted an application as a married person, and the wife signed off, but between the time that was signed, and the one-year processing time (2021) the marriage broke down. The documents would have been accurate at the time, but due to bureaucratic delay, important vetting that they insist is necessary to keep people safe, wasn't done.

Like, a lot can happen in the space of a year, and the CFP is operating off old information when approving a PAL.

But what is the issue in this case?

Could you have handguns shipping to dead RPAL holders? And/or shipping to old addresses, and picked up by the new occupants?

One thing that has been suggested is "batch approvals" where they approve all open transfer requests for a given RPAL when the first one arrives. The CFO(Ont) has declined to consider this. Why? One of the points of the transfer mechanism is to avoid straw purchases. If somebody suddenly starts buying 50 guns. Well, why not look ahead? Why approve 49 transfers, and then on the 50th they say "No, this is too much!". 49 have already gone out.
Click to expand...

I like that and will be incorporating it into my communications with government.

I've already talked about the impact on small after a contact at one of the auction houses said they had to invest in new safes to hold the stock because of the slow approvals.
 
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