Bill C-19 (Historical)

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to remove the requirement to register firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted. It also provides for the destruction of existing records, held in the Canadian Firearms Registry and under the control of chief firearms officers, that relate to the registration of such firearms.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Long Gun Registry Debate

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today in this House I was speaking to Bill C-19 and I referred to and used the name Adolf Hitler. While the references to the gun registry and what this evil guy did to perpetrate his crimes are very clear, it was inappropriate to use his name in the House and I apologize to anybody it may have offended.

Report Stage

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity I have to share a few words on Bill C-19.

No other issue raises people’s blood pressure in my riding as much as the long gun registry does. This is an important issue in my riding, Tobique—Mactaquac.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise today. It is especially interesting to follow my colleague for Cariboo—Prince George. He has given us a nice history lesson on how we got to where we are today from 1995. Here we are 17 years later still dealing with this issue. Hopefully we will be done dealing with it very soon.

I also want to give a tremendous amount of credit to my colleague, the member for Yorkton—Melville, who has carried the lunch can on this for a number of years. He is a tremendous advocate on behalf of our heritage activities in the country.

I will focus my comments on three major areas based on information and feedback from my riding since I started running for office back in 2004. I have heard this in every election and on every weekend. It is about public safety, respect for our traditions and protecting taxpayer dollars.

It is important to put this into context and I will provide a little background on the riding of Tobique—Mactaquac.

To look at some of our western ridings, it is not one of the biggest, but it is somewhere around 17,000 square kilometres, so it is a fairly large riding for Atlantic Canada. It extends along the border with Maine in the U.S. It has a tremendous amount of traditional industries such as farming and forestry as well as tourism, which includes hunting and fishing. In this riding there are a lot of outfitters, guides and people who entertain sports and come in at various times during the year for hunting and fishing. This is an important aspect in my riding.

I did a poll a number of years ago and I received about 1,400 responses back. Of the constituents of Tobique—Mactaquac, over 90% said that we had to get rid of the long gun registry. I did another poll recently. Again, those numbers are staggering, still up over 90%.

I am not in denial of the challenges that violent gun crime presents to people. It is an issue. At the same time, I can point to two instances a couple of weeks ago of armed robberies in two small community stores in my riding. The people came in with a handgun. At the end of the day, people were scared and intimated. However, mandatory minimums for serious gun crimes are about that. This is what our legislation is intended to do. This is why we put those policies in place for, not a gun registry that unfairly targets the folks who are in our traditional industries.

On the other side, we have also invested in policing, helped communities with their policing and crime prevention strategies to help our youth understand that it is important they stay away from gangs. Also, our flagship representation and bill going through now, the safe streets and communities act, is very important in addressing some of those issues.

Bill C-19 is a pretty simple bill. First and foremost, the new legislation would remove the need to register non-restricted firearms such as rifles and shotguns. This provision is directed at all the farmers who need to protect their livestock, all the sportsmen and women who hunt wild game and all the other rural residents who use long guns to make a living. However, as it has been emphasized here a number of times, I do not think we want to forget that individuals will still need to have valid licences to possess a firearm.

We have had a number of people come to our offices to talk about the process used to obtain a licence, and it is onerous. There is a number of hours of training. Some people in my riding provide the training to those folks. They go through the background checks that are required to determine safety. The bill would preserve these public safety aspects, but it would strike a balance with what gun owners need. Owners of non-restricted and shotguns would no longer have to register these firearms. That is great news to all the long gun owners who have waited so long to see this registry eliminated.

At the same time, owners have talked to us about their personal information. I am pleased to say that clause 29 of the bill also includes the destruction of the records related to the registration of rifles and shotguns. Unless the data is destroyed, there is still a long gun registry and there is still the ability for someone to come down the road and recreate it. It is important for us to ensure that those records are gone.

The second point is about respect. I want to refer to a committee that I put together back in 2006 to talk about the long gun registry. It was interesting how the folks on that committee started it out as a long gun registry committee, but then decided they wanted it to be called a public safety committee. They wanted to address firearms legislation from the standpoint of the proper controls of licensing.

Some of the people on that committee were Mr. Cormier from Saint-André, who does training and gives the course to long gun owners; Mr. Kierstead, who is the coach of the national shooting team; Bill Ensor and Ray Dillon, sport guides in the region of my riding; a doctor who was a gun enthusiast; Mr. Ray Tibbits, a member of a local gun club, who respects and teaches our young kids in the proper use of firearms; and Mr. Dale Clark, former president of the New Brunswick Trappers and Fur Harvesters Federation. Those people had great input to where we could go with the bill.

I know I am getting to the top of the hour, but I will quickly note that the previous bill, Bill C-68, and the long gun registry did not respect our traditional pursuits and did not respect seniors, who were being harassed by the long gun registry, and other seniors who might have had their long guns handed down to them through the generations. They were being harassed by police forces and the long gun registry, which is just despicable.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-19, an act to eliminate the long gun registry in Canada. Under Canadian federal law, the registry will cease to exist potentially after this week, that is, after the Senate has had its chance to deal with it, but it is pretty clear now that the Senate will deal with it in a very prompt fashion.

I represent a riding where firearms are very important, where firearms for many people represent a necessity for subsistence living, where firearms represent a cultural way of life, where firearms are used extensively and 99.9% of the time for the correct purposes, when hunting, trapping and carrying on an outdoor lifestyle.

When the gun registry was introduced years ago, there was very strong opposition to it, but there was strong opposition as well to the licensing provisions, to the educational provisions and to the safe storage provisions. There was a general feeling that gun owners, people who use their guns for legitimate purposes, were being hard done by. I agreed with that.

I agreed with the Fort McPherson elder who told me he did not want to become a criminal because he was continuing to do what he had done before. I agreed with that. We should not make criminals in Canada out of respectable citizens. We should do everything we can to avoid giving criminal records to Canadians for issues that are not that important, for issues that may be bureaucratic. For example, people may simply be unable to register a gun, unable to store it properly, all the different issues that surround the use of any kind of implement.

I was always in favour of getting the criminal charges out of the long gun registry. However, even in 2000 I said there is a value to any registry, whether we register dogs or cars or some other possession. Whatever we register has a value to the person registering it. That person has security in that his or her possession is filed in an appropriate fashion with an authority that can direct attention to that particular instrument, whether it be a car, a dog or a gun, whether it has been mislaid, has been stolen, or has been used by someone else in an inappropriate fashion. A registry is a useful tool for those people who want security with their possessions.

Over the last four months since my constituents have heard the argument about the data, the gun owners are starting to wake up to the fact that there is a reason they want their guns registered. There is a reason that a law-abiding citizen would like to know that his gun is identified in a legal registry, so that if it is stolen, if it is misplaced, if it is mishandled by someone else, that gun will not be put under his name, and that gun will be recognized for what it is. If that gun is sold to someone else, the legal gun owner has a way of tracking that record. People are coming to me with that issue.

I asked the government in June what it would do with the data. When the Conservatives proposed to take long guns out of the criminal registry, which is exactly what the government is doing, I asked what the government would do with the data it has collected which people have invested in giving to the government? That is what people do when they register their implements. They invest their time, their effort and their thoughts in putting it into a registry. What will the government provide for those people who want a registry?

Perhaps it will fall into the hands of the provinces, territories, municipalities, whatever government agency decides to provide a registry for guns. That makes sense. We have a great example of that. Quebec has said it wants to provide a registry and under the law there would be no criminality with a registry. There cannot be. The Criminal Code is driven by the federal government, this Parliament, not the Quebec legislature.

When the Quebec government establishes a registry in which its citizens can partake, it will have the opportunity to do what it wants with it. That is the way of this land. That is the way the law works. That is the way we take care of things in this land. Cars are registered with the provinces. Dogs are registered with municipalities. We have a process of registration at the provincial and territorial level. Since 2000 I have been an advocate of a provincial registry because there are more purposes to a registry than establishing criminality. There are many more purposes to a registry than that.

Safe storage is still covered under the existing Criminal Code. It will still be a criminal offence if people do not store their guns safely.

However, I am having trouble establishing what is considered ownership within the existing Criminal Code once the registry is removed. How do we determine what ownership is when we have removed the legal registry of guns? How do we determine which gun belongs to which person, and which person did not store the gun properly and should have a criminal record? If someone says that it is not his or her gun, will we say that because the gun is in that person's home, then that person must own the gun? Is that the way it is going to be? Did the Conservative government do any work on this legislation?

When the Conservatives started talking about the data, it was ministers of the government who said the information could not be shared because it would be against the Privacy Act. Does it go against the Privacy Act? Is that what the Privacy Commissioner said? The Privacy Commissioner said no and all of a sudden the government changed its tune and said now that it is ineffective, inefficient, does not work, is not correct and was not made up right. That is the direction the government took.

The government does not do legislation very well when it does not have the answers to start with. It is terrible in creating legislation. The government is not fit to legislate and that is the case with this bill. It has not looked at the issues. There is no document that shows how the Criminal Code will interact with other elements when the registry is removed. I ask government members to show me a document or any information that has been shared with members of Parliament on that issue.

I supported the bill introduced by the member for Portage—Lisgar. It was a blunt instrument but it was what my constituents wanted and it was not in the shape that this bill is in. This bill is a mess. The government has not done a good job with it. It is reacting. It is not doing it correctly. It has left out many important elements, which we have pointed out by way of many amendments and the government has chosen not to listen. This is a government that does not listen. It does not want to do things right. It does not want to do its homework. It is a government that acts emotionally and without regard for the due process of legislation. The government is not getting any more approbation from me on its legislation.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as one of the few members of the House who was actually here on that fateful day way back in the mid-1990s when the then justice minister, Allan Rock, introduced this gun registry, I can tell members that while it has been a long and frustrating journey over the years, I am pleased to see that this wasteful and ineffective gun registry is finally going to be put to rest. It is only fitting that something as costly and ineffective as the long gun registry act will rightly end up in the archives somewhere, hopefully never to be opened again.

I remember the debate back in this House in 1995 when the then justice minister, Allan Rock, brought in that bill. The Liberals, over and over again, tried to defend their action with arguments that were so incredible and hypothetical that there was not an ounce of credibility, at the end of the day, to any of their arguments about how the firearm registry would immediately start saving lives in our country.

The fact is that after all this time there is not one single shred of credible evidence clearly showing that the gun registry saved a life in this country. That was the big argument the Liberals made when they brought the bill in. They did not have any data or any information: it was all hypothetical, rhetorical and without credibility.

The fact is that we were right back then. I was a member of the Reform Party. We fought the bill long and hard, day after day, until the Liberals finally brought in closure. Gee, did they do that? They brought in closure on the bill, it went to vote and, since they had a majority, it went through.

However, as it turns out these many years later, we were right. Our arguments have all been borne out over the years. We were the ones who were credible in what we said, and it has been borne out that the Liberals simply were not.

Here we are, 16 or 17 years later, after probably spending somewhere around $3 billion in total on the gun registry, and it has yet to be demonstrated with any credibility whatsoever that the registry saved a life in this country.

What we can demonstrate is that the gun registry act has unfairly and unjustly targeted law-abiding Canadians who hunt and shoot and use guns for other sports-related activities. They are the ones who have paid the price, not the criminals who are out there with illegal handguns and illegal long arms, committing crimes, shooting people and each other. They have not paid a price because they have never had to register their guns, nor would they ever intend to.

It has been the law-abiding hunters and farmers who have been paying the onerous price of having to adhere to this ineffective and expensive long gun registry, and the taxpayers have been paying the bill for it.

Therefore, I am delighted to rise today to contribute to report stage debate on Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act. I love the sound of that title. Our government's longstanding commitment to law-abiding citizens is one step closer to fruition today, making this a great day for Conservatives and, indeed, a great day for Canadians.

The reasoning behind the bill is very simple. The Conservative government does not support a piece of legislation that treats law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters like criminals. We could never support that. No politician in their right thinking could support a bill like that, yet we have had to live with it for 16 to 17 years.

This policy is as wasteful and ineffective as one can imagine. We have called it the long gun registry. It has cost Canadian taxpayers a ton of money, billions of dollars over the years, and has been shown to be completely ineffective. It has not fulfilled the promises the Liberals made in trying to defend the gun registry bill when they introduced it.

The money could have better served Canadian citizens funding other initiatives and other programs, including more law enforcement personnel, new crime prevention techniques, rehabilitative treatment in prisons, or victim support systems. From these things we could have seen some constructive results and seen that the money had not simply disappeared into some black hole called the gun registry. These types of programs are just the tip of the iceberg in protecting our communities.

In light of the significant monetary investment made in the gun registry, it would be reasonable to expect high returns in the form of crime prevention from it, but this has not been the case. As I stated before, there has not been a single statement, argument, fact or piece of data presented over the course of this entire debate that has conclusively proven that the long gun registry has stopped a single crime or saved a single life in this country since the day it hit the floor of this House. There is not one argument that has come from the other side that could show that. There is lots of rhetoric, lots of maybes, lots of possibilities, but not one single factual argument or statement.

This is because the guns used in crimes are primarily ones that have come into Canada illegally for an express criminal purpose. These types of guns are never registered, to the surprise of some of my colleagues over there. Criminals do not register their firearms; they do not register their hand guns.

This results in the registry being nothing more than a list of guns owned and legally used by Canadian citizens. We will not find a single gun in there that has been registered by a criminal or someone who brought the gun into Canada illegally for the purpose of committing a crime.

The fact of the matter is that the long gun registry does absolutely nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It never has and never will. People who smuggle illegal firearms into this country do not care about the long gun registry. Criminals in this country, the people who buy these illegal guns, do not care about the long gun registry. People who commit crimes with these firearms, these handguns, do not care about the long gun registry. That is the fact. We are able to present that fact, and it is credible when stated. The opposition has never been able to disprove it with facts, only with rhetoric and hypotheses.

It is outrageous that hardworking Canadians have had to fund, with their taxes, such a useless expenditure that has done nothing to make them and their families safer. They have had to fund this over the last 16 to 17 years.

Last May Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to keep our streets and communities safe, and we heard that. We told them that we would do it. They said “Yes, we believe you”. They elected a strong Conservative majority government, and we are fulfilling that promise to Canadians.

We have been focusing on these issues. We created the safe streets and communities act as a start to fulfilling our promise to Canadians. Unfortunately, the opposition parties have consistently chosen to ignore the facts and argue against the reforms and initiatives the government has worked for to keep our streets and communities safe. They would like to see the government continue to pour money down the drain of the long gun registry, instead of using it where it is needed most, for the protection of our families.

Our government has strongly and consistently opposed the previous Liberal government's $2 billion gun registry because it is wasteful and ineffective. Furthermore, we are committed to keeping our promise to Canadians and removing all traces of the long gun registry. If provincial governments choose to pursue their own registry, they are free to do so but we are not going to help them. We will in no way assist with setting up other registries, because they are a clear waste of public money and time and an obvious attack on law-abiding citizens.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand in this House to speak in support and in favour of the legislation that we are debating today, which is the ending the long-gun registry act.

Today, we are speaking on behalf of Canadians in rural and remote parts of this country who have been unfairly burdened and targeted by the simple and legal act of owning a firearm and a long gun. Who are these Canadians? These are our friends, families and the people I represent in my constituency. These are responsible, law-abiding individuals who use rifles and shotguns to hunt, either for sport or for sustenance or for both. These are athletes who participate in sharp-shooting events, like the biathlon and skeet shooting, and who are internationally recognized for their impressive conditioning and their precise skills. These are also hard-working farmers who are protecting their livestock and their livelihood in the same manner that their ancestors did and have done for generations in the past.

For many of these individuals, their rifle and their shotgun are tools of their trade. Each of these people who own firearms had to undergo the proper steps to obtain a valid firearms licence before acquiring a gun. These include passing the required Canadian firearms safety exam, as well as undergoing the proper background checks to ensure they are eligible to own a firearm.

The current long gun registry adds an unnecessary and, frankly, a useless layer of red tape to this process. It also carries with it the uncomfortable stigma that makes these long gun owners feel like they are criminals. What we are doing is putting more burden onto legal long gun owners while having zero impact on criminals themselves.

I wonder if the opposition members who are yelling at me right now are really trying to convince Canadians that gang members and organized crime groups will go through the steps required to register their firearms. It is not likely. What conclusion can be drawn from this? This long gun registry is a waste of time and money.

I will take a moment to say that our government is not against investing in effective measures that make a dent in real criminal activity. Quite the opposite is true. We are proud of what we have done to strengthen our police forces. We have committed $400 million to the police officer recruitment fund to assist provinces and territories in hiring additional police officers in order to correct the dismal trend of low recruiting numbers that we saw under the failed leadership of the previous Liberal government. Do members know that the Liberals actually took the unprecedented step of shutting down the RCMP training depot? That goes in the wrong direction. The $400 million was a significant federal contribution to the policing costs in this country in helping the provinces and territories in their efforts to recruit new police officers and make our communities safer.

In that way, since 2009, our government has allocated funds for another 1,800 police officers to be hired across the country. We are also investing in policing through our partnership with the provinces and territories in the first nations policing program. To help encourage new recruits, our government has also provided crucial funding for RCMP cadet allowances and for improvement to the infrastructure at the RCMP training academy depot division.

Those are all worthy investments to our front-line law enforcement.

Another key piece to the puzzle of reducing crime, and another area worthy of investment, is our efforts to prevent crime before it happens. These investments include supporting community-based crime prevention programs that help at-risk youth make smart choices and avoid criminal activity.

In 2010 alone, our government funded hundreds of community-based crime prevention programs through the national crime prevention strategy, which had an impact on the lives of tens of thousands of at-risk youth. These investments are making a tangible difference in the lives of at-risk youth, and we are proud to support the efforts to steer them in the right direction. Every youth who decides to go to school instead of joining a gang has taken a positive step in the right direction toward success instead of violence and guns.

We make no apologies for these investments because we know that the cost of crime to victims and to our society is far greater.

According to a Department of Justice study, the cost of crime, including everything from property damage to emotional impacts on families and victims, is estimated at nearly $100 billion on an annual basis. In the face of this statistic, we stand firmly behind our decision to invest in effective crime prevention and in appropriate reforms to the law and justice sectors.

What we will not do is allow our scarce resources to continue to be funnelled into an ineffective measure like the long gun registry. We will not focus our efforts on laws that are not having an impact on reducing actual crime.

We know that most homicides committed in Canada do not involve rifles and shotguns. We know that, in 2006 alone, three times as many homicide victims were killed with a handgun, not a rifle nor a shotgun. Again, in 2009 we saw that handguns were used more frequently than long guns in homicides. Two-thirds of homicides committed in 2009 were carried out with handguns, not rifles nor shotguns.

To add to the evidence against the effectiveness of registering long guns, we have seen that in the cases where long guns were used for homicide, the vast majority of these firearms were unregistered.

It is obvious that the long gun registry is not worth the billions of dollars that have already been spent on it. It is nothing more than a bureaucratic database with dubious benefits.

In a time of fragile economic recovery, the money that is currently being spent could be better diverted to more effective programs that prevent gun crime and protect our police officers and our public. That is money that could be better utilized in our efforts to strengthen our border enforcement and crack down on the illegal smuggling of firearms that cross the U.S. border, which is where most firearms that are illegally smuggled into Canada come from.

In order to fix what is wrong and make it right, we must take action to finally abolish the long gun registry. The legislation before us today would eliminate the need for law-abiding firearm owners to register their long guns.

For those who argue that this move would weaken our gun control legislation, I reply that it does nothing of the sort. Rather, it would free up resources to be reinvested in programs that actually work.

We will also ensure that all of the data currently listed with the Canadian firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officer will be destroyed to respect the privacy rights of millions of Canadians who have complied with these requirements.

Just as important is what Bill C-19 would not do. It would not remove the requirement for Canadians to apply for a licence in order to own and use a long gun or any other type of firearm. They would also continue to face a requirement to undergo background checks and pass the standard Canadian firearms safety course.

In addition, Bill C-19 would not make any changes to the current requirement for owners of restricted and prohibited firearms to register these firearms through the Canadian firearms program.

Bill C-19 strikes an appropriate balance between the effective licensing measures and the responsible checks and balances that protect citizens and our law enforcement officers. I therefore call on all hon. members of this House to support the rapid passage of Bill C-19.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate Bill C-19.

Once again, the Conservatives are showing their narrow ideology in trying to eliminate the Canadian firearms registry. This registry is strongly defended by our police forces and by the majority of Canadians, but this government is choosing once again to ignore reality. It continues to reject all the recommendations by the opposition parties and the provinces, showing utter contempt.

The arguments in favour of this bill are not very convincing, while there are many arguments against the bill that are backed by data and by groups that work in protecting Canadians. The Conservatives' three main arguments—that the registry is expensive and ineffective and it violates the rights of hunters—do not hold water.

Yes, the initial cost of the registry was exorbitant, but it has already been paid for by Canadian taxpayers. Abolishing the registry will not bring back the money that has already been spent. In addition, today, the government is refusing to even give the provinces the data when they are the ones that paid for it. The provinces will therefore have to once again spend taxpayers' money to recreate a registry that already existed. In short, the Conservatives are once again making the provinces pay, just as they are doing with Bill C-10 and Bill C-25 and just as we saw recently with the proposed changes to increase the age of eligibility for old age security benefits.

Also, according to the RCMP, abolishing the registry would result in direct savings of only $1 million to $3.6 million. That is what the lives of the thousands of people saved by this registry are worth to the Conservatives. This government claims to want to destroy the registry to save money. To the government, then, a life is worth nothing.This so-called savings is nothing compared to the increased cost of police investigations that will inevitably result from abolishing this registry.

In other words, the Conservatives' main argument for wanting to abolish the registry is simply a ridiculous lie. The annual cost of the registry is negligible and the government could easily cover this low cost if it stopped wasting taxpayers' money on exorbitantly priced military aircraft and the ridiculous promotion of royalty.

The other argument frequently used by the Conservatives to justify destroying the registry is that it is supposedly ineffective. This argument is no more convincing than the others. Police forces consult the registry more than 17,000 times a day and want the registry to be maintained. It allows police officers to plan their operations better when they have to intervene with individuals, which contributes to the safety of our police forces. The registry also helps reduce the cost of police investigations. When a long gun is used in a crime, police officers can easily track the firearm and its user.

The registry has also helped save many lives. Even though the majority of murders are committed with handguns, long guns are used in the majority of spousal murders and suicides in which firearms are involved. Various women's advocacy associations want the registry to be maintained. Year after year, long guns are used in two out of every three murders involving firearms. The registry has helped greatly diminish the number of spousal murders. For example, only a third as many spousal murders were committed with long guns in 2007 as in 1996, despite population growth, which shows the usefulness of the registry.

These long guns wreak even more havoc on Canadian society when we consider suicide. Year after year, close to 60% of firearms suicides are committed with long guns. The registry makes it possible to quickly determine if, for example, a depressed person owns a firearm, which allows authorities to save many lives. The number of firearms suicides dropped from 569 in 2001 to 475 in 2004, proving once again that the registry works.

Since we know that most homicides committed with firearms are suicides, it is of the utmost importance for the government to take action. However, this government is irresponsible and would rather ignore the facts and introduce a bill that will lead to the death of hundreds of Canadians.

The survivors of the various massacres that have occurred in Canada also want the registry to be maintained. The Conservatives say that they are on the side of victims of crime, but they ignore and turn their backs on those victims when they take a stand that does not match the Conservative ideology. These same Conservatives accuse the opposition parties of being against victims.

If, as they claim, the Conservatives are on the side of victims, why are they not listening to them? Why are they making their retrograde Conservative ideology a priority rather than addressing the concerns of victims? This government is illogical: it says that it wants to make our streets safer by imposing repressive bills, but it wants to allow the free circulation of firearms. This clearly shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Conservative ideology.

In addition, one of the main reasons that there are problems with the registry is that the Conservatives did not enforce the legislation. Instead of fining or, depending on the seriousness of the case, prosecuting those who did not register their guns, the Conservatives gave offenders amnesty. Since 2006, this government has been sending the message that the laws pertaining to the registry are not important and that the Conservative government supports offenders. As a result, millions of firearms are still not registered. What credibility does this irresponsible government have when it states that the registry is ineffective, given that it is directly responsible for the problems with the registry? The Conservatives have done nothing but sabotage the registry since 2006. This government claims to want to enforce the laws but, instead, it is sending the message that only the laws that are consistent with the Conservative ideology have to be respected.

Another argument put forward by the Conservatives to justify destroying this registry is that it violates the freedom of firearms users by imposing red tape. That does not stand up either. Only 2 million people have to deal with the registry's red tape out of a total population of almost 35 million Canadians. Why destroy this registry and sacrifice the majority of Canadians to save a very small minority from the administrative irritants of the registry? Should we stop registering vehicles? Now there is a question. Yet there are far more users of vehicles than of firearms. Obviously, vehicle registration does not go against the Conservative ideology, which is modelled on the mentality in the United States.

It is pathetic that this irresponsible government is again trying to destroy the registry. Once again, this government is lying to Canadians in order to justify its actions. Once again, this government is allowing the United States—in this case the powerful gun lobbies—to dictate our country's policies. It is time that this government started to listen to reason and the facts: abolishing this registry will lead to more suicides and spousal murders. Abolishing the registry will complicate the work of our police officers and make it more dangerous.

I could go on for hours, but I know that the Conservatives do not listen to anyone. They refuse to listen to the recommendations put forward by the opposition parties and the provinces. They do not have enough respect for the loved ones of those who take their own lives, the victims of killings and abused women to consider, at a bare minimum, providing the provinces with the data from the registry.

They do not even have enough respect for our police forces to listen to them when they say that they need the registry. In short, these Conservatives, who always claim that they are tough on crime, are promoting crime by allowing weapons to circulate freely. They are completely forsaking victims by ignoring them. This bill clearly demonstrates the extent of the Conservative's contempt for our constituents. I will continue to stand up for all those Canadians who have been abandoned by this Conservative government.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we now have an ineffective and wasteful registry that has been estimated by the state broadcaster to cost in excess of $2 billion.

Similar to Mr. Rock's comments, another prominent Liberal at the time, Senator Sharon Carstairs, said the following, “The registering of hunting rifles is the first step in the social re-engineering of Canadians”. Can hon. members believe that statement, “the social re-engineering of Canadians?” That is what Adolf Hitler tried to do in the 1930s.

The two statements that I have shared should clearly illustrate why this registry was created. It was not about decreasing gun crime or improving police officer safety. All evidence shows that it has not had any measurable improvement to either issue. When it comes to police officers, those out on the ground, not involved in police politics, many of them in my riding were out putting up signs and that kind of thing in support because they did not support the registry.

The two statements I have shared should clearly illustrate why this registry was created. It was not about decreasing gun crime or improving police officer safety. All evidence shows that it has not achieved any measurable improvements to either issue. The long gun registry is, at its core, solely about an idea that the Liberals of the nineties had that guns were inherently evil and must be taken out of the hands of the general population. Again, who does that sound like?

Our government fundamentally disagrees with this idea. Firearms are tools. The danger is not inherent in the piece of property, but rather the intent in which it is used. This is why we have taken measures to ensure that individuals who are predisposed to committing crimes with firearms do not have access to them in the first place.

This is the most logical route to take. We license individuals such as hunters, farmers and sports shooters, which I am, so they can legally buy firearms. All individuals are screened so that criminals, unqualified individuals and the mentally ill cannot have access to firearms.

However, it is possible for some individuals to fall through the cracks. There are individuals who purchase firearms illegally on the black market for the sole purpose of a committing a crime. For these individuals, there must be a strong deterrent through tough jail sentences, and this is what we are doing. Nowhere in this model is there a logical place for a registry, which essentially amounts to a piece of paper next to a gun.

Let us be clear. Law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters are not the ones out there committing crimes. It is important to focus the very limited resources that exist for crime prevention and public safety on things that actually result in reductions in crime. This is why it is so important to vote in favour of Bill C-19.

The bill would do two key things that would go a long way to both restoring a modicum of sanity to firearms laws in Canada and would also be important steps to focusing our resources where they could be most useful.

First, the bill would eliminate the requirement to register non-restricted and non-prohibited firearms, essentially most rifles and shotguns. This is important because, contrary to the protests of my colleagues across the floor, these firearms are merely tools of the trade for rural folks and people who like to do a bit of hunting on the weekend or during hunting season. They are not the military-calibre weaponry as suggested by the NDP.

I would like to digress for a moment. As I stated earlier, a large reason for the oppositions' steadfast support for the long gun registry stems from the fact that most of the folks across the way have never held a firearm or been around firearms. That is fine, if that is their choice, but they should at least learn the facts.

The member for Papineau posted on Twitter some several weeks back a picture of a firearm he claimed would be non-restricted. It was quite the ominous photo, almost laughable. However, the facts were that the pictured firearm, the Micro Tavor TAR-21, is a restricted firearm.

Not to be outdone, the NDP then purchased billboards and slapped up some scary looking silhouettes of firearms. The only problem was that the pictures of guns it was using were also restricted firearms.

This sort of fearmongering is not helpful. It deliberately distorts the truth and does nothing to improve safety in Canada. The facts are that we are removing the need to register firearms, in large part, used responsibly by responsible people.

We are also providing for the destruction of data contained in the Canadian Firearms Registry pertaining to the registration of long guns. This is important because this information should never have been collected in the first place.

I know there are protests from across the way about destroying the data. The gun registry is the data. We do not get rid of the gun registry, unless the data is destroyed. It has to be done. It is so outdated. We could talk to policemen or women and they will say the same thing.

Let us face the facts. The long gun registry has not been successful. It has been a massive boondoggle. It does not improve the safety of police officers. It has not stopped a single crime or saved a single life. It has cost in excess of $2 billion.

Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Let us stop this and eliminate stupidity from firearms laws in Canada.

Canadians gave this government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all, and that is exactly what the bill before us today would do. I can hardly wait until next week for the final vote. I and the many people I have heard from in the last couple of days are so looking forward to that.

I call on all members of the House, regardless of their party affiliation, to stand up for law-abiding Canadians and support the bill.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud and privileged to once again speak in support of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. I say that with a bit of despair. While I am happy to speak to the bill, after 16 or 17 years this wears on an individual. A couple of opposition members yesterday commented on our not giving enough time for debate on this issue. In my world, 16 or 17 years is a long time. I am hopeful that a week from now the opposition will have come to its senses and will stand in support of this great bill.

I have heard countless times over the past seven years from my constituents that they are concerned about the effectiveness of the registry and the fact that it does not actually target the people it was intended to target. It is simple. The long gun registry targets law-abiding Canadians, not criminals.

My constituents, like many other Canadians, want effective solutions that keep their streets and communities safe. That is why this government is taking concrete steps to try and improve our justice system, and we have been slugged at every step on that road as well.

Bill C-19 is an important piece of legislation that should be supported by all members of the House. The bill before us is about freedom, pure and simple.

A firearm in the hands of a licensed law-abiding Canadian is no more dangerous than any other piece of property. This is why I feel so strongly about the connotation that owning a rifle or a shotgun makes someone a criminal. That must be eliminated.

Before I discuss the bill I would like to review how we arrived at where we are today.

I would like to share with the House a quote from former Liberal justice minister Allan Rock:

I came to Ottawa last year, with a firm belief that the only people in Canada who should have firearms are police officers and the military.

Does that sound familiar? Adolf Hitler, 1939.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. The bill is a clear and straightforward piece of legislation which would bring an end to the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Our government has been very clear with Canadians that we have long opposed the long gun registry. We said we were going to scrap it. We promised during the last election that if elected we would get rid of it once and for all. On May 2 Canadians elected a Conservative government and gave us a strong mandate to continue to carry out the priorities they asked for, including finally doing away with the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

I am proud to say that we are delivering on our promise to law-abiding hunters, farmers, sports shooters and taxpaying Canadians. They will no longer be burdened with this costly, wasteful and ineffective registry. This bill would bring an end to the era of targeting these law-abiding citizens who legally own firearms in Canada. I believe it would help us refocus much needed resources, energy and effort on tackling crime in Canada.

Gun crime prevention is an important issue to me, as well as all members in the House and all Canadians. We should never forget the tragedies that have resulted from the commission of gun crimes in Canada.

However, the long gun registry does absolutely nothing to stop crime. If a deranged person is intent on inflicting harm, a piece of paper will not stop him or her from doing so. Frankly, it is doing nothing to protect our communities. Criminals do not register their firearms. We see the proof of this day after day. We see front-line police officers fighting gun crime on the streets. The criminals they are up against are using handguns, not registered long guns. In some jurisdictions handguns are used in 97% of the crimes and the majority of those, some 93%, are smuggled across the border into Canada illegally. That is a staggering statistic, one which flies in the face of any argument supporting the long gun registry.

The state broadcaster, CBC, has estimated that since it was foisted upon Canadians, the long gun registry has cost in excess of $2 billion. Taxpayers continue to throw money into a registry that is wasteful, ineffective, and most importantly, inaccurate. We heard testimony at committee from front-line police officers that confirmed what we already knew. They said anyone who would bet their life on data contained in any database, let alone one as inaccurate as the long gun registry, is not someone they would want to be partners with. Police officers would rather see time, money and resources go toward apprehending criminals who smuggle handguns and the individuals who use them for committing crimes as opposed to law-abiding citizens who simply like to do a bit of hunting on the weekend.

There are numerous reasons why the long gun registry needs to end and why members on both sides of the House need to represent their constituents' wishes and stand with us to end the long gun registry once and for all.

Officers are on the street dealing with dangerous criminals every hour of the day. We need to listen to what they are saying about tackling crime in Canada and give them useful tools, not ones that put their lives on the line.

I encourage all members across the floor to follow the example of their colleagues from Thunder Bay—Rainy River and Thunder Bay—Superior North and stand up and vote the will of the men and women who elected them. In my riding of Sault Ste. Marie, I represented the will of my constituents, which is in part why I am standing here today as opposed to a member of the opposition who was previously in this position.

When the long gun registry was introduced 16 years ago by the Liberals, Canadians were told that the cost would be in the range of $1 million. What we know now is that the cost has ballooned to over $2 billion and continues to grow. As the former auditor general, Sheila Fraser, said in 2006, it is impossible to tell where the ceiling of these costs will be because so many of them are hidden.

There is another cost borne by law-abiding citizens in this country, not only in dollars and cents, but farmers, hunters, sports shooters and other firearms owners are made to bear the high cost of the challenge to their integrity in being called criminals if they do not comply with the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Many opponents of the long gun registry have expressed deep concern over the years about their private information getting into the wrong hands and the registry becoming a shopping list for thieves and gangsters instead of a tool to protect Canadians. An access to information request to the RCMP showed that the registry had been breached over 300 times, and this was back in 2003. I can only imagine how many more times this has happened since then.

Canadians put their trust in this government on May 2 in large part because of our commitment to get tough on crime and to make our streets and communities safer. Our government believes that the right gun control laws do save lives. Bill C-19 would continue the strict system of controlling restricted and prohibited firearms. As well, a requirement for a valid firearms licence would remain in place.

We will continue to provide legislation that gives police real tools to apprehend criminals and keep them off the street, such as the safe streets and communities act, which was shamefully opposed by the NDP. Unlike the opposition, we do not support punishing law-abiding Canadians and rewarding criminals.

Instead of defending the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, the opposition needs to stop stalling and hindering these important pieces of legislation our government has introduced so that we can pass them, see them become law and ensure that criminals are where they belong: behind bars and not on our streets.

I am asking for the support of all members of Parliament, no matter their political stripe, to pass Bill C-19 and to work together to eliminate the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. Let us take this opportunity to refocus on tackling real crime in Canada.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great humility and emotion that I rise to speak to Bill C-19. This is a complex and difficult bill for Canadians, a bill that should raise public awareness about a problem.

I will not be speaking for myself alone; I will be speaking primarily on behalf of the victims of crimes committed with firearms, the families whose lives have been affected forever, who continue to be victims and will remain victims.

In today's society, these debates are widely reported. The media love these issues. This means that we should be able to debate them in the House at length, especially when the issue is complex and affects many people. For that reason, I am speaking with a great deal of humility because just like a number of my colleagues and even the members opposite, I probably have much to learn about this issue and about the experiences of the victims of these crimes. We must take this into consideration.

Let me begin by explaining what the registry is. The Canadian firearms registry is part of the Canadian firearms information system available to Canadian police forces through an online system called the Canadian Police Information Centre. CPIC, as it is called, is a search program the police can use to look up the name, address and firearm permit number of an individual or even information about firearms such as the serial number or the firearm registration certificate. It is a way of determining whether the certificate has expired or is still current. That in itself sounds the alarm for some people in the police force.

The system also provides police officers with real-time access to the information, and it is updated regularly when a public danger has been identified. The system is used when police officers respond to a call and might be used in the course of their duties and investigations. Police officers have to respond to all sorts of calls. Speaking of police officers, in 2011, they used the registry almost 15,000 times a day. The registry was useful. There is no doubt it was useful. We have to keep that in mind.

What is the difference between a permit and registration? Under the Firearms Act, having a permit and registering a gun is comparable to having a driver's licence and registering a vehicle. A firearms permit shows that the permit holder took training, satisfied certain public safety criteria, including a background check, and is authorized to own and use firearms. The purpose of registering a firearm is to identify a firearm and tie it to its owner, in order to keep track of guns.

What we want here is control. We want to protect the public from actions or misdeeds. It is better to have some control than none at all. For some time now, the government has not wanted control or debate. It has been letting everything slide. Freedom is great, but at what cost?

The cost is often unnecessary deaths, shootings and tragic events that could have been prevented if we had at least had some control and if we had been able to broaden the scope of a certain law. Hunters and fishers were never the target of the gun registry. The target is a population at risk. Some will say that, as long as they are at risk, they can do what they want and that they would never take the time to register or what have you, but that is not true. It is not true. We never know who we are dealing with.

The legal registration of a firearm was a way to save lives and I am certain that it still is—we are only at the report stage.

Parliament passed the Firearms Act in 1995 and implemented most of its provisions in 1998 with the specific goal to protect people from crime. As I said, this law does not target hunters. The purpose of this legislation was to protect the population in terms of possession, transportation, maintenance and storage of firearms.

If a civilization, a modern society like Canada wants to protect its people and implement a registry such as this one, why not? It must do so. It must ensure that people are not living in fear and worry. We must protect the people of Canada from east to west, from one end of the country to the other.

The 2000 reference regarding the Firearms Act stated unequivocally that the primary goal of this act is public safety. Is the act achieving its primary goal now? That is hard to say. The answer involves complex analysis. That is why we have to debate it. For the nth time, the government is limiting the debate by moving a time allocation motion. Many of us know a thing or two about this. We can do the research and ask our constituents what they want. But do we have time to do that? Never. Regardless of the issue at hand, we never have time for that. Everything is so rushed. That is not how a democratic Parliament should work.

That is why it is important to gauge the impact of changing these provisions and to hold an informed and civilized debate on the issues involved. We live in a changing world where truth can be stranger than fiction. One of my colleagues opposite talked about that. Scenes of violence are commonplace on television and in video games. It is absolutely everywhere, and nobody is talking about it. Some people are more easily influenced than others. That element of Bill C-19 has not even been touched upon.

That makes no sense, considering how freely available scenes of gun violence are to people seeking that kind of thrill. It is in video games. Gratuitous violence is present in all kinds of social media. People can go online and buy guns so powerful that they might as well be nuclear weapons. They can buy a bazooka online and have UPS or even Canada Post deliver it. What kind of world, what kind of society do we live in? Is this the Planet of the Conservatives, a society where fear trumps peace and harmony? I do not know what to say, but do I even have the authority to speak? As a representative of the people, can I make decisions on their behalf? I would like to have a chance to talk to them and hear what they think.

I humbly conclude my remarks, and I hope that the Conservative government will hear our grievances.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased today to rise in the House to speak in favour of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. However, I would first like to honour my colleagues, the member for Yorkton—Melville and the member for Portage—Lisgar, for their tremendous work on eliminating the long gun registry. We will shortly see the fruits of their labour.

Many of my colleagues on this side of the House have spoken eloquently about how the long gun registry has been wasteful and ineffective. Costs have ballooned to over $2 billion. They have proven that the registry has not stopped a single crime, nor saved a single life. They have told us how front-line police officers, like Murray Grismer and Duane Rutledge, have explained why the registry is useless and actually reduces officers' safety. They have told us how the registry needlessly targets law-abiding hunters, farmers, ranchers and sport shooters. They have told us how it diverts much-needed resources away from crime prevention and law enforcement. My colleagues have been spot-on in their condemnation of the long gun registry.

What I will do is show why, in principle, the registry is wrong and should have never come into existence.

Sir William Blackstone wrote in his seminal text, Commentaries on the Laws of England:

...every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny.

This is an important statement to remember in the context of the long gun registry.

Not long after his first election, Allan Rock, the former Liberal justice minister who oversaw the implementation of the long gun registry, stated that it was his firm belief that, “Only the police and military should have firearms”.

Lloyd Axworthy, the then Liberal foreign affairs minister, during his time also stated that, “disarming the Canadian public is part of the new humanitarian social agenda”.

These egregious attitudes run contrary to section 1 of the Canadian Bill of Rights, where it is clearly laid out in black and white:

It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,

(a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property...;

This is not something that most of my colleagues across the aisle would like to admit is part of the rights of Canadians. Law-abiding individuals should not be compelled by the force of criminal law to register their property.

Let us not mince words. A firearm in the hands of a sound-minded, law-abiding Canadian is no more a threat to the safety of Canadians than any kitchen appliance or garden tool. It is refreshing that our government has finally returned this common sense attitude back to the discussion. Limiting personal freedom for nebulous public safety benefits is not what the Fathers of Confederation envisaged in 1867.

We cannot fundamentally give up liberty in order to maintain a small amount of safety or, in reality, a small amount of perceived safety. This is why I am so very proud to be a Conservative member of Parliament. We are the only party that talks about liberty, freedom and human rights, and we actually mean what we say. Rather than frittering away billions of dollars, this money could have been spent on crime prevention, policing or incarceration, all of which would have, by comparison, reduced crime exponentially.

The regulation of property is a matter for the provinces. It is most certainly not a matter to be dealt with under the Criminal Code, the strongest instrument available to government. We must cease the attitude that says guns are scary, therefore, no one should have them. If we follow that path, this approach would simply never end.

It is a sad truth, but there are individuals who will seek to do harm to others in our society. Studies show this number to be about 7% of the population. Those people will not be bothered by some sort of bureaucratic regulation that mandates them to register their firearms. This attitude needs to be replaced by one of enlightened understanding.

Regulation must be smart. That is what we have done. We ensure, through rigorous testing, that only those who are responsible and qualified come into possession of firearms. We have ensured that those who insist on breaking the law and harming others will receive serious jail time. These are measures that make sense. These are measures we will continue. These are measures that the opposition, somehow, opposes. I am not sure how it logically squares that circle.

Canadians voted on May 2 from coast to coast to coast for a party that said it would return logic to the firearms laws in this country. Every single person knew that a Conservative government would end the long gun registry. That should be a surprise to no one. A promise made, a promise kept. Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. That is exactly what the bill before us would do.

I would now like to focus on the land, resources, people and culture of my own constituency. My constituents are uniformly outraged by the long gun registry. Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette is a vast and beautiful constituency in western Manitoba. Farmers, ranchers, loggers, hunters, anglers, outfitters and trappers make up the majority of my constituents. It is a beautiful place with abundant wildlife. Many of my constituents are avid hunters, as am I. Hunting is a part of my culture and my way of life, as it is for many of my constituents. Interestingly, almost all of the homes in my constituency have one firearm or more, yet the crime rate is very low. The comment by the member opposite about how women are intimidated by firearms most certainly does not apply to the women in my constituency. Many of them own firearms and hunt.

Why is the crime rate so low in my constituency? It is because where I live there is a culture of respect for each other, the community and the land that sustains us. In fact, I would call my constituency a peaceable kingdom. Members opposite are always throwing around labels like gun lobby in order to demonize people like my constituents. It is as if firearms ownership is a central tenet of my neighbours' existence. To us, firearms are a useful tool and a necessary part of country living. We are not afraid of firearms. Seeing someone walking down the road with a firearm is usually an excuse to stop and ask how the hunting trip was.

The gun lobby is manifested by the many wild game dinners that are hosted right across my constituency. In my constituency there is the Crawford Park Christmas party. People bring food to the event and most of the meals are wild game. There is a Santa Claus and people sing Christmas carols. There are all the traditional things that Canada stands for. Is that the gun lobby in action? It is not. These are good, solid folks who work hard and play by the rules. My constituents are honest country people who work hard and play by the rules. That is why we find the long gun registry so egregious and offensive. When crimes are committed in far-off, big cities, who gets punished? My constituents do.

Parties opposite make a great show of their support for the working people. Yet those parties are working tirelessly to put the communities in my riding out of business. From the long gun registry to the Liberals' failed animal rights legislation, to the NDP attacks on rural resource communities and to the recent musings by the NDP member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl on the end of the seal hunt in his province, a disturbing pattern has emerged, a pattern of relentless attacks on the entire sustainable use community.

The Liberals have always despised rural resource communities like my own, but there was a time when the old NDP actually exhibited some solidarity with people on the land. In fact, out of the nine NDP MPs at the time of the vote on Bill C-68, eight voted against the long gun registry, including the then leader Audrey McLaughlin. Times have certainly changed. Today's NDP has become the party of big government elites and union bosses and has abandoned its roots.

Members on this side of the House will never forget who we are and where we come from. We stand in solidarity with Canada's natural resource communities, with our culture of the responsible and sustainable use of our national resources, and with Canada's law-abiding firearms owners and hunters. I therefore encourage all members to stand with me and support Bill C-19, a bill to end the long gun registry.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by saying how disappointed I am that the government has introduced this bill. During the previous Parliament, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay introduced a bill laying out a responsible approach to ensuring public safety while taking into account the needs and grievances of gun owners. I am disappointed in the government's position, but I am not surprised.

Personally, I support the gun registry. There is no doubt in my mind that the registry is an important tool to ensure public safety in Quebec and in Canada. How can the government say that it wants to make our streets safer? Of course I want safer streets, but I have to tell it like it is. This government has ignored all of the available data and analyses, choosing instead to give us Bill C-10 and Bill C-19. The people of Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert and I feel that this government is not walking the walk.

Many organizations have condemned this bill, among them the Fédération des policiers et policières municipaux du Québec, the Quebec association of emergency physicians, the Canadian Labour Congress and the YWCA. These organizations have said that the registry is useful.

Why is this government not heeding its own Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Ms. O'Sullivan, who has said that Canada must do all it can to prevent further tragedies from happening, including using the tools we have to help keep communities safe, like the long-gun registry?

From the beginning of the session, this government has tried to convince us that it cares about the victims of crime. Students at Dawson College spoke to me about this issue at a meeting on post-secondary education. The chairperson of the Dawson student union, Audrey Deveault, said that the harm caused by firearms is a problem for our country and that weakening long gun control would not help solve the problem. But why listen to them? Dawson College students asked to meet with the Prime Minister to discuss the firearms registry, but he did not even have the courtesy to respond.

The Association des étudiants de Polytechnique has also spoken out loud and clear against this bill, as has the Association québécoise plaidoyer-victimes, which stated in its press release that saving money is a false argument. It said:

Citing the cost of the registry as a reason for undermining some of its elements is not one of the soundest possible arguments. In fact, the Polytechnique, Concordia and Dawson shootings are tragic reminders of the cost of gun violence.

I would also like to call the attention of this House to the opinion of Quebec's Association of Families of Persons Assassinated or Disappeared. Ms. Elizabeth Pousoulidis, president of the association, said that controlling and registering firearms were important measures to protect safety and quality of life in our communities and to minimize the number of victims wounded or slain. That is one more voice speaking out against this bill. The government may not have expected this from an organization founded by one of its senators.

The registry has had many positive outcomes. I have been involved in women's causes for a long time. I was affected by the École Polytechnique massacre, which spurred many to call for the creation of the registry. But we should not forget about domestic violence. According to the Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, 71% of spousal homicides are committed with a rifle or shotgun. These types of guns are governed by this bill.

The YWCA estimates that violence against women costs Canadians approximately $4 billion annually.

Over 100,000 women and children are forced to leave their homes because of violence and abuse. The CEO of the YWCA, Paulette Senior, made a very important point that I would like to share with the House. She said, “Long guns and rifles are used to intimidate women and the threat of a rifle is often a significant reason that women don’t risk leaving to seek help.”

That is why the Fédération des femmes du Québec, the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale and the Fédération de ressources d'hébergement pour femmes violentées et en difficulté du Québec have decided to speak out in favour of maintaining the firearms registry. They work in the field of violence against women and they see the effects of firearms and the registry. It is important to note that the rate of homicides involving rifles or shotguns has decreased by 70% since the registry was created.

As a member from Quebec, I call upon this government to grant the request of the Government of Quebec and Quebeckers. We must save the firearms registry or, in the worst case scenario, we must save the data. We must.

I would like to close by citing a letter that I received from Dr. Jocelyne Sauvé, the director of public health in the Montérégie region. She makes arguments that represent the principles I uphold as a physician.

...I would like to share with you my concerns about public health should this bill be passed.

In Canada, firearms are the cause of approximately 800 deaths per year, mainly suicides committed in private residences with non-restricted firearms such as shotguns or rifles. A number of studies have shown that a home where there are firearms is five times more likely to be the scene of a suicide and three times more likely to be the scene of a homicide or a firearm-related accident than a home without a gun. Contrary to popular belief, most gun deaths are caused by people who do not have a criminal record. For these people, who often have personal, marital or mental health problems, access to firearms is a significant risk factor for such action. As a result, controlling access to firearms is a key prevention measure for vulnerable individuals.

...The combined effects [of the firearms registry] have resulted in a reduction in the number of weapons that are improperly stored, lost or illegally owned. It also makes firearms less accessible to individuals who are vulnerable or in a state of crisis, without preventing owners from using them for ordinary, legitimate, purposes such as hunting or sports shooting.

In addition, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec recently stated that the Firearms Act had saved 300 lives a year between 1998 and 2004. I am therefore asking members of the House to consider the points that I have just mentioned, as well as those set out in our brief, and oppose this bill.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to pick up my comments from where I left off yesterday at adjournment.

Yesterday I talked about the great statesman and parliamentarian Sir Edmund Burke. Burke's position, when discussing bills and motions that lead to an end requiring a practical application of the laws that parliamentarians pass, was that parliamentarians should focus on those who do as opposed to those who simply pontificate when seeking the ends to a particular means.

The particular end we seek is the protection of our communities and families from criminals. To that end our government has done a lot of common sense things. For example, we have introduced legislation that would put violent and repeat criminals behind bars.

The opposition also seeks the same end, to keep our communities and families safe, but believes that compiling a list of those law-abiding citizens who own long guns somehow achieves that goal. However, Canadians know that logic is tragically flawed.

I want the Canadian public to grasp this point. The opposition parties think that compiling a $2 billion list of law-abiding farmers and hunters is more effective in fighting crime and exponentially less expensive than simply locking criminals up. That is the difference between us and the opposition on this matter.

As Burke said, let us look to those who do in this regard. Those who do are our front line police officers who day after day protect our communities. What do front-line police officers say about the long gun registry? During committee study on the private member's bill introduced by the member for Portage—Lisgar, Detective Sergeant Murray Grismer of the Saskatoon police said this:

—we recognize the cornerstone of public safety is the training, screening, and licensing of owners, not the registration of non-restricted rifles and shotguns.

He went on to say:

I don't rely on the Canadian firearms registry to protect my life.... I don't rely on the information contained there.

Finally, Sergeant Grismer provided this common sense advice to committee:

By having more members on the street, having a more visible presence, we make our society safer than we do by having a registry—

It is clear that the long gun registry does nothing to enhance public safety.

It is truly disappointing that the opposition parties oppose the government every time it takes concrete steps to protect Canadians and their families. The opposition would use the heavy hand of the Criminal Code of Canada to threaten and intimidate law-abiding farmers and sportsmen, while we would use it to keep drug dealers who prey on our children and sex offenders who prey on their innocence behind bars. That is the difference.

It is worth dwelling of these differences because we know that the opposition likes to engage in misinformation campaigns, especially on the issue of the long gun registry.

The main difference between the government and the opposition is a basic philosophical one. On our side of the House we believe in constructive politics and empowering Canadians. We believe that our role is to empower Canadians so they can work hard, raise families, and to the greatest extent possible keep the fruits of their labour.

The opposition does not believe in that type of Canada. Those members believe in the politics of division and fear. They want to pit rural Canadians against urban Canadians. They want to pit gun owners against non-gun owners. They want to pit the younger generation against the older generation. It would seem that the Liberal Party and now even the NDP have adopted the advice of Liberal pollster Frank Graves, who counselled the Liberals to pit Canadians against each other in a grand culture war.

It would seem that Mr. Grave's advice has been taken to heart, in how these two parties have decided how they will approach the issue of the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. Instead of working constructively, these parties have held fast to their rigid ideology in order to divide Canadians.

In one barrage of misinformation after another, the opposition has fired the opening salvos in its divisive culture war. I am going to give a couple of examples of the type of tactic that the opposition is using.

On not one but two occasions, the NDP misled Canadians by posting pictures of restricted weapons on its website, suggesting that these weapons would no longer be registered if Bill C-19 were to become law. On another occasion, the NDP claimed that a restricted weapon would somehow become unrestricted if Bill C-19 were to become law. We all know it has nothing to do with restricted weapons; it has to do with the long gun registry of law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters.

Spreading this type of misinformation and fear is morally and intellectually bankrupt. We have long known that the NDP and Liberals are not averse to using this type of strategy. What they are averse to using is the facts, logic and plain reason in matters of public policy. Nonetheless, the deliberate use of misleading information is a new low.

I began this speech by repeating Burke's prescription that one should always look to the practical means of achieving an end when deliberating a difficult question. We believe in the end of safe communities. I also believe that through some contortion of logic, the opposition also seeks the same end. However, in reaching that end, we believe in a robust regime of firearm licensing. We believe that one aspect of having safe communities is that violent repeat offenders should be kept behind bars. We do not believe that a $2 billion list of law-abiding gun owners is a prudent means of realizing safety on our streets and in our communities.

We have looked to the farmers and to the front-line police officers, and their message is clear: let us get serious about crime and do things that would actually keep our families and communities safe. Let us get on with passing our badly needed criminal justice reforms. Let us pass Bill C-19.

The House resumed from February 6 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.