Canada – -(Ammoland.com)- The Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association ( CSSA ) on Saturday, May 30, 2015, was everything we anticipated it would be: uneventful, sedate, quick, yet filled with information about what we’ve accomplished in the past 12 months. It’s a good list.
CSSA’s Executive Director, Tony Bernardo, announced that the House of Commons passed Bill C-42, the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, the previous day. The bill is now before the Senate. All indications are that the Senate will deal with Bill C-42 very quickly – meaning this should become the law of the land well before the federal election this October.
Bill C-42 is an important piece of legislation. Ridding licensed Canadian firearms owners of the additional layer of bureaucracy better known as an Authorization to Transport (ATT) is huge. As the CSSA has long maintained, if citizens are deemed safe enough to own a firearm and keep it in their homes, surely time has proven that they can also be trusted to safely transport them to and from the shooting range.
The Opposition would have you believe that the streets will now run red with blood. If those bureaucrats aren’t filling out forms and sending us another useless piece of paper, they are claiming there is nothing stopping law-abiding firearms owners from mass murder and hunting ducks with machine guns.
It’s a ludicrous position and Trudeau’s Liberals and Mulcair’s NDP know it’s untrue.
Firearms owners also can no longer be instantly criminalized because their firearms licenses expire. A six-month grace period will ensure that good and decent Canadian citizens aren’t sent off to prison because of paperwork infractions.
That is common sense – well, to everyone but Trudeau and Mulcair, anyway!
Then there is the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision that rids Quebec of the long-gun registry. That is another huge win, and we thank the Harper government for steadfastly and tenaciously fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of Quebec gun owners. Now they too can live under the same law as the rest of Canada – just as they should.
All of these are big wins for the CSSA and all Canadian gun owners. They aren’t the only ones, but they are arguably the most important ones reported at the AGM. There are many more things occurring on the legislative front that will be announced as they happen.
Membership in the CSSA continues to grow at an amazing rate. In just three short years, we have more than doubled our membership. The CSSA, as of Saturday, May 30, hit 23,007 members! This is the highest membership number in our history and one of which to be very proud. It must also be noted that these are 23,007 FULL members. The CSSA doesn’t have “associate members” or “insurance-only members” so our membership numbers cannot be artificially inflated.
While a financial summary for the CSSA was distributed at the AGM, the fully audited financial statement – all 23 pages – is available upon request by any CSSA member. The CSSA is in a very positive financial position, and its future looks bright. We aren’t going anywhere. You can rest assured that we will continue to fight, as we always do, for the rights of each and every Canadian firearms owner.
Canadian Shooting Sports Association Awards
Mr. Steve Torino, President of the CSSA, also announced three awards at this year’s AGM. The first award, the John Holdstock Memorial Award, was created in honour of the man whose motto and continual exhortation to gun owners was simple: The world is run by those who show up.
John Holdstock was a dedicated firearms enthusiast who learned to shoot in Saskatchewan by helping keep the gopher population in check. From there, he went on to compete in the 1974 Pan Am Games. He maintained a blog called Total Recall but was probably best known for his “alerts” used to inform other firearms enthusiasts, hunters and anglers. John also served on CSSA’s board for many years.
The 2015 John Holdstock Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to Canada’s firearms community went to Dr. Gary Mauser. For those of us in the firearms community, Dr. Mauser needs no introduction. He is one of the few Canadian academics to perform quality research in study after study about Canada’s firearms laws, their effectiveness or lack thereof, and is a constant voice for reason that has not wavered for decades.
From his website:
Gary A. Mauser is a Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Business Administration and the Institute for Urban Canadian Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. His interest in firearms and “gun control” grew out of his research in political marketing. He has published two books, Political Marketing, and Manipulating Public Opinion and more than 20 articles. For the past 15 years, Professor Mauser has conducted research on the politics of gun control, the effectiveness of gun control laws, and the use of firearms in self-defence.
Next, the award for Regional Director of the Year went to Pat Doyle from Alberta. Over the past three years or more, Pat Doyle has worked almost every single Alberta gun show and public event on behalf of the CSSA. Over that time, he has sold dozens and dozens of memberships, raised thousands of dollars in donations for the CSSA’s efforts and has represented the CSSA tirelessly and professionally. Pat is dedicated, selfless and always there when you need him – an exemplary example for all gun owners.
The CSSA President’s Award went to Dave Arrowsmith for his commitment and dedication to the CSSA. Last year, he revamped the entire safety course program – from schedules and delivery of courses to recruiting and implementation. This past year, he personally raised $10,000 in course fees for the association, signing up over 100 members in the process and donating $10,001 of his own money to the CSSA.
The reason for the funny number? Dave wanted to say he donated OVER $10,000 to the CSSA! He may be the largest individual donor the CSSA has ever had.
As you may know, the CSSA elects one third of its board members every year for a three-year term. This is an excellent way of ensuring the retention of the association’s corporate memory as well as ensuring there is always a board majority to help new board members get up to speed with everything we’re doing.
Gerry Gamble, Herb Stone, Dr. Judith Ross, Norm Gardner, and Jack Wallace were all re-elected to their positions on the Board of Directors. This year’s election brought one new member to the CSSA’s board, Mr. John Evers. John is a knowledgeable and welcome addition to our very impressive Board of Directors.
Finally, there was a draw for a fine firearm at each CSSA AGM.
“Larry” was the winner of the gun draw, and he is now the proud new owner of an ATA – CY Synthetic Camo Shotgun 12 ga x 3.5 “28″ w/5 Choke tubes. Only 52 tickets were available for this fine firearm, and those who bought multiple tickets were – as you can imagine – saddened by their loss, while at the same time happy for Larry’s win.
A very special THANK YOU goes out to Phil O’Dell of O’Dell Engineering for donating this shotgun! Thank you Phil!
For those of you who were unable to make it to the AGM this year, we hope we will see you next year. It is an excellent opportunity to meet those people you’ve “known” for years on the Internet and finally sit down face-to-face and brainstorm with them. If you can make it next year, we wholeheartedly encourage you to do so.
As John Holdstock said so often … “The world is run by those who show up.”
About:
The CSSA is the voice of the sport shooter and firearms enthusiast in Canada. Our national membership supports and promotes Canada’s firearms heritage, traditional target shooting competition, modern action shooting sports, hunting, and archery. We support and sponsor competitions and youth programs that promote these Canadian heritage activities. Website www.cdnshootingsports.org