Have we learned nothing from the Polytechnique tragedy?

Almost a quarter century has passed since an angry young man killed 14 women with a legally acquired semi-automatic rifle and two 30-bullet magazines at Montreal’s engineering university, the École Polytechnique.

Following the tragedy, the families of the victims, police organizations and public safety experts from across the country successfully fought together to introduce, in 1995, the three pillars of effective gun control: the licensing of all gun owners (akin to driver’s licenses), the registration of all firearms (akin to lifetime vehicle license plates) and a ban on assault weapons.

However, since the Harper government won a majority in 2011, all three pillars have been either weakened or eliminated, to the point that Canada’s gun control laws are weaker today than they were in 1989.

Bill C-19 was proclaimed law in April 2012 and authorized the destruction of the records of all seven million long guns registered in Canada. Three quarters of those records have already been destroyed, leaving only those from Quebec — thanks to the tireless efforts of the provincial government to obtain them in order to create its own registry.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the province’s case. Court procedures protect the Quebec records as well as the long-gun registration itself, which continues to be implemented in the province.

But amid all the recent news related to gun control, the Court’s decision represents the only, and by that we mean the only, positive development in recent years for those interested in smarter gun control.

Indeed, the long-gun registry is by no means the only good gun-control policy undone by the Stephen Harper government.

Barely three months after the passage of C-19, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews quietly removed the requirement for gun dealers to maintain sales records, the main tool for authorities to keep tabs on commercial inventories. The government also eliminated gun show regulations and indefinitely postponed the implementation of international gun markings identifying the countries of origin. According to police and government officials, all these changes facilitate illicit domestic and international trafficking.

Another setback that escaped public scrutiny was a small but critical loophole inserted into C-19. While those seeking long-gun licences must still submit to a screening process, the law no longer requires that a buyer’s license be validated at the time of a purchase or transfer.

In other words, it is no longer the RCMP but vendors and buyers themselves who are expected to police long-gun transfers. That’s right: as it stands, the entire framework to prevent illegal sales to people not authorized to own firearms (including criminals) relies solely on the good faith of the very same people who may profit from them. The government has thus created a loophole that allows dishonest individuals to easily bypass the entire screening process.

Over the years, the third pillar, too — the ban on assault weapons — has been progressively weakened. Since the ban was passed in 1995, the Harper government never bothered to deal with new gun models introduced to the market.

As a result, a growing number of ordinary citizens own powerful weapons designed to kill people, many of which are classified as “non-restricted,” meaning they are subject to virtually no controls. This classification still applies to the Ruger Mini-14 which was used at the École Polytechnique and continues to be sold as a simple “duck gun.”

On this 24th anniversary of the murder of 14 young women, witnesses and families of the victims would have liked to applaud with pride and satisfaction the most recent statistics on gun violence. According to StatsCan, the year 2011 posted the “lowest rate of firearm homicides in Canada in almost 50 years.” Unfortunately, it is hard to celebrate. Those numbers correspond to the last full year in which all firearms were registered and all sales tracked. They are a reflection of successful policies now being dismantled.

Because of the decision of the Supreme Court, Quebecers have at least gained a chance to maintain the trend of declining gun violence. But thanks to the Harper government’s unequivocal loyalty to the gun lobby, the rest of the country may very well be heading in the opposite direction, at an immense cost to public safety.

Heidi Rathjen, Jean-François Larivée and Benoit Laganière are graduates of the École Polytechnique. Larivée was married to Maryse Laganière, who was murdered at the school on Dec. 6, 1989.