Transfer certificate or Registration needed for transport?

[RangeBob]

This question comes up from time to time. Personally, I wait until the certificate arrives in the snail-mail.

• The criminal code says you must be able to produce the registration certificate "on demand" by a peace officer. If the police officer believes that's the paper certificate and you don't have it, then you get arrested.
• Since the paper certificate is easily faked, police with access to any form of communication (voice phone, radio, computer) check with the CFRO database because it's not the paper certificate but the database that indicates that you are a 'holder' of a registration certificate. Certainly the opposite is true: if you have the paper certificate in your hand, but the database says that certificate has been revoked, then you are not the 'holder' of a registration certificate according to the law.
• When the LGR ended, the Ontario CFO Wyatt declared that the registration was the certificate number. He then said that make/model/serial/pal/date had to be recorded in his log books for non-restricted firearms sales, but not the registration certificate number which no longer existed for non-restricted. This registration certificate number appears on your transfer paperwork. The minister of public safety told the CFOs they were not to record make/model/serial in the log books, the CFO said his interpretation was the law required it, and the conservatives clarified the law.
• If you phone the CFO's office and they say you can go, then in court you'd have the defence of "Officially Induced Error". But you still get arrested, spend $ in court, and it still could go either way.

The CFO's office routinely send ATTs via email.
Maybe they can send registration certificates by email, although I've not heard of anyone getting one.

[sltoronto]

The CFO's office routinely send ATTs via email.
Maybe they can send registration certificates by email, although I've not heard of anyone getting one.

CFO approves transfer, Transfer Notice is generated and can be sent by CFO either by e-mail or snail mail to seller and/or buyer, but
registration certificates are printed ONLY by CFC in Miramichi and sent out by snail mail ONLY ..
it's done in weekly batches (similar to printing of R/PALs)

[IJ22]

The CFO's office routinely send ATTs via email.
Maybe they can send registration certificates by email, although I've not heard of anyone getting one.

Sure, I get my Notification of Transfer by email all the time.

The difficulty I have with being told I must keep my gun at home is that there is nothing in the law that creates an exemption for being in possession of a restricted firearm without a registration certificate as long as I just bought it and brought it home while I wait for a registration certificate. The way I see it, the NoT either IS a registration certificate, or it IS NOT a registration certificate. It's binary, there is no grey area. You're either fine taking your gun to the range, or you're already breaking the law by having brought your gun home. The CFP and CFO have a lot of discretionary powers, but inventing conditional registration certificates is not one of them.

I'm not going to bother digging one up now, but I'm pretty sure even the NoT says "you may now take possession....". It doesn't say you can only bring it home, and why would it, it's a possession document, not a transport document.

[RangeBob]

The way I see it, the NoT either IS a registration certificate, or it IS NOT a registration certificate.

The NoT is not a registration certificate.

The question is whether the NoT, which has the registration certificate number on it, is proof that you are the "holder" of a registration certificate.
Since in order to have a registration certificate number you must have a registration certificate in the CFRO database. The number is proof of, and the index to, a valid registration certificate for you and that gun (thus you are the holder in that sense), you just don't have it in your hand yet (which is holder in another sense).

The next question is if you can convince a cop of that, and then if you can convince a court of that.
It's probably cheaper & easier to wait.