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.

Hon. Member for Portage—Lisgar

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am truly honoured to rise today to say a few words in the House about our leader, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and leader of the official opposition.

The Winnipeg Free Press has described her as, “Arguably one of the hardest-working MPs in Canada”. Without a doubt, she is one of the hardest-working MPs in Canada. That is exactly why the member for Portage—Lisgar successfully rose to the challenge of interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, as the short leadership race began that will allow members to choose a new leader on September 10.

The member for Portage—Lisgar has shown us that she is not only a hard worker, but that she is a principled woman of values who knows how to listen to others and, above all, knows how to make decisions while respecting the differences of each of the other members of the team.

It was no accident that Candice was able to take up the responsibilities of leader of the official opposition with such ease. Over the years, she has gained experience that few of us on either side of the House will ever get the chance to match, no matter how much we want it or how skilled we are.

Candice was elected as the member for Portage—Lisgar in 2008, after being a Conservative Party supporter for years. She is a principled woman, as I mentioned earlier. One thing that made her get into politics as a supporter was the then Liberal government's spending spree. It is funny how times never change. She chose to take the bull by the horns and became the Manitoba campaign manager for the leadership bid of the man who would become Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Hon. Stephen Harper.

She did not want to sit on the sidelines. She had a desire to serve the people in her riding and all Canadians. As I mentioned, she was elected in Portage—Lisgar in 2008 by an overwhelming majority. Not only did her constituents and the people of Manitoba choose a strong voice to defend their interests, but Canadians quickly came to know her and, more importantly, to recognize her as a woman with an infinite amount of love for the great Canadian family.

In 2011, she was appointed as the parliamentary secretary to the then minister of public safety, the Hon. Vic Toews. In her role as parliamentary secretary, she had the opportunity to work alongside the minister of public safety, notably on Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act, which came into force the following year, 2012.

In 2013, the Right Hon. Stephen Harper recognized the undeniable talent of the member for Portage—Lisgar and, most importantly, her immense compassion for Canadians who were suffering and needed a strong voice to represent them. Candice became the hon. member of Parliament for Portage—Lisgar and entered cabinet as minister of state for social development. During her tenure, she worked hard to improve Canada's efforts to combat homelessness, as well as provide better support for people with disabilities.

In September 2016, Candice broke the glass ceiling by becoming the first woman in the history of the Conservative Party of Canada to hold the role of House leader. Conservative leader Rona Ambrose recognized her as a strong woman who could make quick decisions and a team player who could organize the work of the official opposition to ensure that the voices of all Canadians would continue to be heard and relayed in the House of Commons.

She does her job brilliantly. The Liberal government's first years were not a walk in the park, far from it. Candice was able to use all parliamentary options to make the government understand that it did not have carte blanche to turn the House into a tool to do its bidding.

The new party leader, the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, also recognized the spirit and talent of the member for Portage—Lisgar, and asked her to continue serving the country as the House leader of the official opposition. With all this experience, it is no surprise that she became the deputy leader for the member for Durham, the leader of the Conservative Party. All our party leaders under whom she served her country as an MP entrusted her with important responsibilities because she is a woman who can be trusted.

In February, the Conservative caucus also recognized her ability to bring people together. We knew she was a true-blue Conservative. Most importantly, we knew she was capable of taking the helm following what had certainly been a tumultuous time.

Having watched her work so hard for so long, her peers elected her to serve as official opposition leader. Let us not think of her as a temporary or interim leader. She is the interim Conservative leader, but she has never, ever taken the job for granted. From day one, she set to work fulfilling her mandate, which is to lead the Conservatives during a leadership race, present a strong and united opposition to the Liberal government and speak on behalf of every single Canadian.

On behalf of all my colleagues, I am confident in saying that she has succeeded across the board. She really is the leader of all Conservatives and she has made us all forget her interim status.

Now I would like to talk about Candice as the woman who rallied Conservatives during tough times. I have to admit that, before I began spending time with her on a daily basis, when she gave me the tremendous privilege of serving alongside her as deputy leader, I was aware of her talent as a politician and her skill as a parliamentarian, but I did not really know the reasons for her success.

I have been in politics for almost 25 years, and I was intrigued by the path of my colleague from Manitoba. Today, I will share a secret with Canadians. The secret to the success of the MP for Portage—Lisgar, the leader of the official opposition and the Conservative Party, can be summed up in three words: respect, values and principles.

Candice is a woman of faith and the youngest of eight children. She grew up in a family with Mennonite roots.

As the baby of the family, she surely had to learn at an early age to listen to others. She has applied the lessons her family taught her throughout her life, both personal and professional. She believes that every member of the caucus deserves to be heard and that all points of view deserve to be considered.

I truly believe that she sees the caucus as her family. She understands and accepts differences. She may tolerate some misbehaviour, but she will do everything she can to keep the family together at all times. Where conflicts may arise, she will build bridges. She will push each member of her caucus to use their skills for the good of the team. Like the family values within her, she wants to instill in each of us the conservative values that unite us and make us who we are.

She does not give in to every little whim. She will defend her principles and her convictions tooth and nail, while recognizing that her colleagues might have opinions that differ from her own, and that is one of her greatest qualities. She is not afraid to take a stand, even though that can be hard at times, because she relies on her convictions and values in doing so. She will work to find whatever unites people, rather than trying to be right at all costs. She asked us, her leadership team, to demonstrate the same openness and to listen to our colleagues, and she did so with an iron will.

She is a strong and proud mother who wants the best for everyone in her family. I truly believe that she considers each of us as part of her extended family. I think I speak on behalf of all my colleagues and all members of our party when I say this: Thank you for accepting us as we are. Yes, we do have some faults, but we also have all our good qualities.

Before I conclude, I have to mention one important part of our leader's life. She is very proud of the family values that were instilled in her by her parents, including her mother Anne, whom she regularly visits in Morden. Her children are a big source of inspiration for her and will always come first. Luke, Delaney, who is here in Ottawa, and Parker can be unbelievably proud of their mother. She is unbelievably proud of them.

I do not think that Candice, the mother, would mind my saying that she is also the proud grandmother to two grandchildren, Arcaydia and Lance, whom she loves a lot. There is also her husband, Michael, her partner on this great political adventure, who sometimes joins her in singing and playing music as a form of relaxation and, perhaps, to offer an occasional reprieve from the little squabbles that can come up within our political family.

I thank Michael and Candice's children and grandchildren for sharing her with us.

I think I speak for all members in the House when I say that the leader of the official opposition is an extraordinary person.

She is respected. She has devoted much of her life to public service, to defending the people of her riding of Portage—Lisgar and to wanting to improve the future for all Canadians.

On behalf of all my fellow Conservatives, I want to thank Candice for leading our party and caucus in a strong yet gentle way, showcasing everyone's strengths and respecting everyone's opinions. Candice showed us that we can be proud of who we are. She gave us back the pride of being united as a team. She taught us the pride of being Conservative in 2022.

The House will soon rise for the summer, but I would like to tell the Liberals one thing: Candice is still our leader until September 10, so they should not expect to have a quiet little holiday before Parliament resumes this fall.

Thank you, Candice, for having trusted us.

Thank you for your hard work on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada.

[Heidi Rathjen]

Thank you for the question.

Following the introduction of the former Bill C‑71, all of the key documents, all of the debates and all of the media coverage dealt with the RCMP's verification of the validity of the license. On the topic of verification, the documents indicated that the license numbers would be checked in the system to ensure that they were valid. This is not part of the regulations. The regulations only require the vendor to verify the photo and contact the RCMP. All that was required of the RCMP was that they be satisfied that the license was legal.

The wording used is problematic. The same was true of the language included in former Bill C‑19, where the requirement to verify the license was removed. It states that the seller must simply have no reason to believe that the buyer is not licensed. In this regard, the Barreau du Québec stated that it was extremely problematic to prove in court what a person had in mind.

It is a loophole that has the effect of cancelling the measure altogether. One can think here of what a future government might do. The Conservative Party, which was opposed to Bill C‑71, could require the RCMP to accept all applications without any verification. RCMP officials have testified before this committee that there will be a verification. I think it's a bit disingenuous to put that forward, because verification is an extremely subjective thing. All that is required of the RCMP is that they say they are satisfied.

In our view, this goes against what was promised. We found that Bill C‑71 was relatively weak. Yet one of the main reasons we supported it was precisely because it included this measure regarding license verification. The current draft regulations do not include this measure. So Canadians will not get the measure that was promised to them.

[Linda Lapointe]

Has being in office when Bill C-19 and Bill C-42 were passed allowed you to see opportunities to change information for Canadians?

[Rob O'Reilly]

Yes. I started working for the predecessor of the current Assistant Commissioner, Ms. Strachan. So I took part in the consultations on Bill C-19. I forget at this very moment what year I started the Canadian firearms program, but I was part of the team when Bill C-42 and Bill C-71 were drafted.

[Rob O'Reilly]

Okay.

Thank you very much for the question.

As you can appreciate, there have been three firearms bills since 2012, Bill C-19, Bill C-42 and Bill C-71. The program has been and remains intimately involved in the preparation of some cases and in early consultation on those bills. We are very aware of and attempt to respect the parliamentary process. Many of the documents we are asked to review and provide input on are subject to cabinet confidence. We are very versed in the handling of those documents, and the breadth of consultations we can or cannot have as a consequence of that particular privilege.

When it comes to legislation like this, we also are in a position of anticipating what are going to be areas of inquiry. As I mentioned in my first statement, we are not in the habit of speaking on pending legislation. There are many elements to Bill C-71. In this case, it would probably have been our preference to not provide any commentary at all.

Unfortunately, and we've seen this historically, the minute new legislation is proposed or even being talked about in the media or the public context, we immediately get calls.

We don't have the luxury of saying we're not going to prepare Q and As for a particular issue, because the fact of the matter is we have hundreds of employees who have to answer those phones. If we don't have answers prepared to be able to inform those Canadians, they can rightly be more confused or more upset.

[Alexandra Laberge, Co-leader, Comité de travail Féminisme, corps, sexualité, image, genre et violences, Fédération des femmes du Québec]

Allow me to introduce myself briefly. I am Alexandra Laberge and I am an elementary and high school teacher. I am a volunteer member and activist with the Fédération des femmes du Québec, the Quebec women's federation or FFQ, and co-chair of the working committee on feminism, the body, sexuality, image, gender, and violence.

I would like to use the privilege of officially representing the FFQ here today, and the voices of the women and girls of Quebec—and the voices of the women and girls of Canada as well, I hope—to remind the government that firearms issues are women's issues.

Women's struggle against firearms is historical, global, and legitimate since firearms are primarily owned by men who victimize and make women vulnerable by how they use them. Our struggle dates back long before 2012, when the previous government passed Bill C-19.

In the years since then, we have suffered another affront as a result of Bill C-42, in 2015. Women mobilized and the public statements, briefs and actions, as well as the heartfelt cries of women who have suffered as a result of these bills have finally been heard by a Liberal government that has promised reform to the women of this country. We are confident that this government has heard us since we represent half of Canada's population and are the targets of the bullets fired predominantly by men.

Unfortunately, we do not think Bill C-71 will adequately protect Canadian women and girls. In our opinion, the government could do better than this bill to improve the safety of women and girls in Canada. We would like to take this time today to remind you of what these women and girls have concluded and what has been shown by various authorities and women's groups. We would like to give you recommendations that are the result of these women's reflections, which we consider legitimate and feasible, in order to help preserve the safety of women and girls in Canada.

As a volunteer, and at the same time as my work as a teacher, I have studied more than a dozen briefs, reports, and written demands by women, yet I have looked only at what has been produced since 2012, and in French only. Supported by reliable sources and recognized bodies such as Statistics Canada and the RCMP, these women have done an outstanding job in order to be recognized once again in the government's decisions on firearms. I hope that these documents, which have been reported in the media and are readily accessible, have been read and studied, but I have not been able to look at everything that has been done elsewhere in Canada. We could rely on the data from Statistics Canada, which are quite telling, or other government platforms, but women always have to work extra hard to assert their rights and, nowadays, their safety. That is why the Quebec women's federation insists on honouring this work by raising the main points that these women have taken the time to identify and that we officially support.

All the written briefs point out that firearms are a women's issue. Let us not forget that firearms are primarily owned by men and that, although they make up the majority of victims of homicide statistically speaking, women should not suffer as a result of firearms or laws that make it easier for men to harm them.

The Coalition for Gun Control, reports, for instance, that although men are more frequently the victims of homicide, women are about three times more likely to be killed by their spouse.

Let us recall the discussion in 2015 surrounding Bill C-32. More than 30 women's groups in Canada spoke out about the impact of Bill C-42 on the safety of women. Eighty-eight per cent of Canadian women were killed by a bullet that was fired by legally owned shotguns or rifles, the same weapons that some people do not consider to be the cause of gun violence.

Guns are fifth among the 18 main causes of death in domestic homicides.

Investigations of family violence, such as in the case of the children of Kasonde and Arlene May and the Vernon massacre, have shown the weaknesses of the old act. Changes to the current act have been recommended. Risk detection needs to be improved for gun licence applicants by using detailed questionnaires and requiring two references from the applicant, along with notification of the spouse. A gun registry should also be created because important information is missing from police databases.

Fifty per cent of domestic homicides end with the killer committing suicide, which shows that the key to protecting women and children is to thoroughly review gun licences and gun licence renewals. Eighty per cent of gun deaths in Canada are suicides which, for the most part, are committed by a rifle or hunting rifle that can be easily obtained.

In rural communities in western Canada, in particular, people are less in favour of gun control and the percentage of people with firearms licences is higher.

Women and children are especially vulnerable when there is a gun in the home. In Ontario, 55% of killers in cases of domestic violence had access to a firearm. The recent Small Arms Survey of 2013 studied the relationship between guns and domestic violence. It states among other things that while men account for the majority of victims and of those committing homicide using guns, the number of women killed, injured, and intimidated by guns in situations of spousal violence is significantly higher. Appendix D of the RCMP report states that some of those deaths could be prevented through stricter laws that prohibit persons found guilty of spousal violence from carrying a gun. Further, the report entitled “Homicide in Canada, 2011” shows that stricter firearms laws have protected women and children.

We agreed to appear today because we think the current government, through its actions and decisions, which support feminist policies, will finally consider the safety of women a top priority. We have chosen to take on this responsibility because what we are proposing will be analyzed by competent people and adopted for the safety of women in Canada.

We have two recommendations, which we are making jointly with “PolySeSouvient”.

The first is to prohibit anyone subject to a protection order from carrying a gun.

The second is to clearly prohibit anyone found guilty of spousal violence, rape or other sex crime from carrying a gun.

These recommendations would not eliminate gun violence against women, but our objective is more realistic. We are calling on the government to impose stricter regulations in order to reduce the number of women killed.

Carrying a gun is not a right; it is a privilege. It is logical and legitimate that people who are found guilty of a crime, especially crimes against women, should lose that privilege.

We want the government to take a clear stance on these two issues and show its support for the safety of women in Canada by adopting these two realistic and necessary recommendations.

In closing, we would like to mention the forgotten women and girls who suffer because of the right to carry a weapon, people who are not mentioned often enough and are never given the opportunity to be heard. According to Statistics Canada, indigenous women and girls have been forgotten for too long and suffer the consequences of guns more than non-indigenous members of both sexes combined.

The report entitled “Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile” shows that older women are also the victims of gun violence and are more likely than older men to be killed by a family member.

Finally, we must not forget transgender women, for whom no statistics are available as of yet.

In conclusion, I will draw a brief parallel with what is happening to women in the United States. Since the start of the year, there have been 22 school killings in the U.S. In Canada, we have also had our share of tragedies at educational institutions in which women were targeted in particular. Teachers, who are still part of a traditionally and primarily female profession, are offering an interesting perspective on women and men beyond the intimate sphere, the family, the public sphere or the workplace. Women are not safe because of the laws that allow people to own guns.

Criminal Code

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to speak to the private member's bill. The Parliamentary secretary for the government has already indicated that Liberals do not support the private member's bill as it is written; and it is important to provide a bit of background.

I have had the good fortune of being around for a number of years, and at different times in my career, the issue of rifles and guns has risen quite significantly. I can recall in the early 1990s, for example, the whole issue of the gun registry came up. I was first elected back in 1988 and it was almost two years afterward that the massacre occurred in Montreal, when 14 young women were killed at École polytechnique. Even today, the local high school in my riding, Sisler High, commemorates, remembers, and reflects on what took place in Montreal back in 1989.

The reason I raise it is that, for me, my political career began on the issue of rifles and guns and wanting to make sure there is sound, good government policy, whether at the provincial or national level. I have had a significant interest in it from the onset of my political career, and I am very much aware of the politics of it. Many people, for example, would be quite surprised to know that Kim Campbell was the first advocate for the gun registry and it was a Conservative senator who actually pushed it forward; and a lot has happened since then.

I appreciate the member's comments about law-abiding gun owners. That is something we need to reinforce. Law-abiding gun owners deserve the respect given to all citizens. Rifles and guns play a very important role in today's society. When we talk about regulations and elements of public safety, it is not to demean law-abiding gun owners in any fashion whatsoever.

In fact, if we were to speak to many of the individuals who have been cited, we would find that some of the strongest advocates for public safety and good, healthy, strong regulations, and so forth, come from responsible, law-abiding gun owners. It is a common interest that I believe that a vast majority of Canadians have and would advocate for.

In the last federal election, the Liberal Party made a number of commitments. The member from the New Democratic caucus made reference to them. I want to highlight that in the 2015 Liberal party platform, we clearly stated that as a government we would take action to get handguns and assault rifles off our streets. This commitment was reiterated during the throne speech. Bill C-230 would run contrary to that promise, by classifying some assault rifles as non-restricted weapons, making them easier to import and acquire.

There is no doubt that there is a great sense of public awareness on this public policy issue. The member, in his attempt to provide more definition, might have actually made things more complicated. At the end of the day, even some individuals who advocate for the legislation might be surprised at how providing this definition of a variant would ultimately change the classifications of some rifles and guns in a way that even the member himself might not have initially intended. What the current law states with regard to the variant, I believe, should be left as is.

The member made reference to Bill C-19. I will refrain from commenting on Bill C-19. I gave many speeches inside the House in regard to Bill C-19. He also made reference to Bill C-42. That was a piece of legislation for which there was great concern from all regions, on issues of transportation and classification. There was a great deal of concern in terms of why the government, at the time, felt that it was in a better position to make determinations as opposed to those experts who are making decisions not based on politics. I am referring to the RCMP.

I know there was a great deal of concern raised with the Swiss Arms issue and how that firearm was reclassified. That ultimately led to, I believe, at least in part, why Bill C-42 was brought forward. I do not believe that the government, back then, made progressive steps forward in attempting to address that issue.

I do not think the Conservatives realized the valuable contributions that our experts and, in particular, our RCMP experts have to play in this whole area. Every day, they have to deal with issues related to guns and rifles. Over the years, they have compiled a great deal of expertise. As legislators, we would do well to listen to what the experts actually have to say on the legislation.

My colleague pointed out a number of important facts that are worth repeating. He stated that the Government of Canada believes in a balanced approach, and that we have effective gun legislation that prioritizes public safety, while ensuring that law-abiding firearms owners do not face unfair treatment under the law.

While the bill's intent is in fact to bring more precision to the Criminal Code, it is the unintended consequences that would criminalize many law-abiding gun owners, while at the same time making it easier to import or own certain assault rifles.

This is what I meant when I said that I believe not even the sponsor of this particular bill has realized the consequences of the bill, if in fact it were to pass as it is. I would also point out that if the bill were to pass, it would lead to massive and indiscriminate reclassification of literally tens of thousands of firearms among the non-restricted, restricted, and prohibited classifications system, something I suspect we should all be concerned about.

It is also important that we recognize that reclassifying many hunting rifles and shotguns from non-restricted to restricted would result in thousands of law-abiding gun owners needing to apply to the RCMP for a restricted licence and be approved, or dispose of the firearm itself, or be in violation of the Criminal Code. It does not really leave very much in terms of options.

Before I run out of time, I just want to emphasize that the parliamentary secretary and the government believe that public safety is priority one. We recognize those individuals who are law-abiding gun owners. There is an overwhelming consensus that public safety is number one and that we do in fact respect those law-abiding gun owners.

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

moved that Bill C-230, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (firearm — definition of variant), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to speak to my private member's bill, Bill C-230, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (firearm — definition of variant). This is a straightforward piece of legislation that will provide much-needed clarity for law-abiding firearms owners across Canada.

Today, I would like to explain to the House why I am bringing this legislation forward, the problems surrounding variant firearms, how this legislation will help solve the problem, and why I believe this bill should be considered further at committee.

Before I do so, I would like to take a moment to thank the member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies for seconding the bill and for all of the important work that he does for hunters, anglers, and sports shooters in Canada.

I have owned and handled firearms for a number of years, basically all of my life. I am a very proud and law-abiding gun owner. However, one thing that has always bugged me and irritated a lot of law-abiding gun owners and hunters is the stigma that some people attach to the firearms community. Let me be very clear: owning a gun does not make someone a criminal. As I said, I am a law-abiding gun owner. I have many friends and family who are law-abiding gun owners. Most people who own firearms in Canada are law-abiding gun owners.

Sadly, though, time and time again, we see gun owners who are presumed to be dangerous. The stigma has worked its way into our regulatory system and, in my mind, it is high time that we bring some common sense, fairness, and clarity to the system.

There were two pieces of legislation, which were brought in under the previous Conservative government, that worked toward creating a better system for law-abiding firearms owners in Canada. I was proud to support Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, and was pleased that it received royal assent in 2012. This legislation was extremely important to hunters and firearms owners across the country. The long-gun registry was a colossal waste of money, was ineffective, and it simply did not make sense.

Furthermore, in 2015, Bill C-42, Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, received royal assent. Measures in this bill included merging the POL and PAL licences, giving the Governor in Council the ability to reverse arbitrary firearms classification decisions, a grace period at the expiry of licences, authorizations to transport as conditions of licence, mandatory firearms safety courses for first-time gun owners, and prohibitions for those who are convicted of domestic violence offences. That is just to name a few of the measures.

These were all very common-sense reforms that were welcomed by firearms owners across the country. I would like to highlight one of the measures in particular, as it deals directly with the purpose of my Bill C-230.

Bill C-42 came in response to a seemingly random classification decision in 2014 regarding the Swiss Arms Classic Green rifles. This was a decision that was made overnight, wherein the RCMP classified the Swiss Arms as a variant of the SG 540, a restricted firearm in Canada.

There were a number of problems that resulted from this decision. Since 2001, the Swiss Arms rifles had been legal, non-restricted firearms in Canada, and with the stroke of a pen, many owners of these firearms found themselves in unlawful possession, without a clear explanation of the decision to reclassify. In simple terms, one night these guns were legal, and the next morning they were not. I think members can understand the frustration of law-abiding gun owners.

This all stems from the fact that there is no legal definition for the term “variant”. Firearms are under the purview of two different acts in Canada, part three of the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act. These two acts form the basis for the regulatory framework that is used when it comes to firearms. Specifically when it comes to classifications of firearms, it is the Criminal Code and the Regulations Prescribing Certain Firearms and Other Weapons, Components and Parts of Weapons, Accessories, Cartridge Magazines, Ammunition and Projectiles as Prohibited, Restricted or Non-Restricted, that are the two important legislative pieces.

Furthermore, it is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Canadian firearms program that is responsible for the administration of legislation and regulations, which includes determining the classification of firearms based upon criteria in the Criminal Code.

It has been in my mind, and in the minds of many other firearms owners across Canada, that there is a significant disconnect between the legislation and regulations surrounding the term variant. This term is used nearly 100 times in the regulations to classify firearms as prohibited, restricted, or non-restricted, but there is no clear sense of what this term actually means. It has been used extensively to reclassify firearms in cases similar to the Swiss Arms decision, without any clear explanation of the purpose for the reclassification. In simple terms, it is continually misinterpreted, and therein lies the problem.

Firearms owners have been left scratching their heads wondering how is it possible for these seemingly random decisions to be made. This is my reason for bringing this legislation forward. We need some clarity here. There is no room for vague interpretation on a case-by-case basis. In fact, if the bill were passed, it should actually make the job of RCMP members who are responsible for this law much easier.

As legislators, it is our job to ensure that those who are tasked with interpreting the laws we create are clear on the intentions of the legislation. This would provide clarity, not only for firearms owners but, as I said, also for the RCMP firearms program. They will finally have a benchmark on which they will be able to make clear and consistent classification decisions.

Bill C-230 proposes that a variant of a firearm be defined as “a firearm that has the unmodified frame or receiver of another firearm”. This will ensure that firearms that are classified as variants do in fact share fundamental mechanical pieces and therefore warrants the firearm to have the same classification as the previously classified firearm.

Having this definition added to the Criminal Code will ensure that the regulations surrounding firearms classifications are well informed and consistent with the intent of the legislation on which they are based. It will eliminate inconsistent and arbitrary interpretation and provide much-needed clarity for firearms owners and, as I always like to point out, law-abiding firearms owners.

It is rare that a piece of legislation is perfect on the first draft, and I want to pledge that my goal is to fix a problem. I have worked with a lot of people on this, and I am willing to work with the government to fix a problem that needs to be fixed. Basically, I am saying that if there is an amendment to the bill that makes it better, I am open to it and we will see where it goes. There may be members and outside stakeholders who will have concerns with certain elements of the bill. I welcome all feedback.

I feel that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security would be the perfect place to have this discussion. I see both the chair of that committee and the parliamentary secretary are here today. I want to thank both of them for their interest in being here and hearing what I have to say on the bill.

I see this legislation as less of a partisan matter and more a matter of clarity and responsible legislation. No matter what one's ideology on firearms and gun control is, I think that all members can and should agree that we need clear legislation that is free of vague and inconsistent interpretation. This is what I am hoping to accomplish with the bill.

Finally, I would like to thank the Canadian Shooting Sports Association for all of the help and guidance it has provided in the drafting of the bill. The CSSA knows this issue well and has heard loud and clear from its members that this problem must be solved. President Tony Bernardo and his team have been strong advocates for this legislation, and I would like to thank them for that support and for their input.

I also want to thank Mr. Greg Farrant of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters for his input as well, and the many responsible firearms owners across the country I have heard from. I have received support and suggestions from firearms owners in every province and territory across this country, and I still welcome that.

In closing, I want to make it very clear that I fully support good regulation and legislation that ensures that only responsible Canadians own and operate firearms in this country. Criminals and irresponsible gun owners affect the reputation of people like me, and all law-abiding gun owners. We do not want or need that.

Leaving it at that, I look forward to the debate today in the first hour of second reading. I am very happy to take questions from my honourable colleagues.

[Suzanne Legault]

I think you'd have to ask a member of Parliament about the original intent of the Ending the Long Gun Registry Act. I am assuming it was the destruction of all the records in the long gun registry.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much.

Shifting over to Ms. Legault, I wanted to know if you could comment about the original intent of the Ending the Long Gun Registry Act in 2011?

[Suzanne Legault]

Yes, I have said so very publicly. The retroactive application of the provisions of the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act goes back to October of 2011, even before the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act was in effect. It nullifies the request of the complainant in this case. It nullifies all my investigations. It nullifies all the use of the formal powers in the documents that we've obtained through that. It nullifies the application we made to the Federal Court, and it nullifies any potential administrative, civil, or criminal liability of any of the actors involved.

[Greg Farrant]

There are many ways to respond to that.

First of all—and I don't know if this is the case here; I'm only citing a previous example, so please understand that—when we talked about Bill C-19 to scrap the long-gun registry, there was a real division within the policing community across the country, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, as to who supported it and who didn't support it. The fact that the association says one thing does not mean it speaks for all of its members across the country, I want to be clear about that.

Second, the fact that there may have been relatively few charges laid to date under this does not make it right, and if there's any opportunity to clear up ambiguities in the law, I think it behooves us to take that opportunity to make it clearer. It also helps police officers do their job when the law is clearer. Right now, as I said during my comments, it's as clear as mud. People could inadvertently be charged, and we've seen cases where they have been, and have had to go through the proceedings under the current system, as it stands.

As for police officers having difficulty, and this goes back to an earlier question, identifying replica guns, or guns which look like something that they're not, police officers, as Mr. Brown has indicated, have the ability to stop anybody at any time to identify a firearm and what has been going on with the firearm, what use it has, what type it is, etc. Nothing changes here because of this.

[Greg Farrant, Manager, Government Affairs and Policy, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters]

Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, and my fellow panellists.

On behalf of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, the largest conservation-based organization in Ontario, our 100,000 members, supporters, and subscribers, and our 725 member clubs across the province, thank you for the courtesy of inviting me to appear before the committee to speak to Bill C-42, the common-sense firearms licensing act.

It has been clear from the rhetoric that has developed around this legislation and from many of the comments made during debate in the House, that there is either a troubling lack of understanding of what the legislation does or does not do, or a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what the government is seeking to do through the legislation by suggesting that it will open the floodgates to a proliferation of irresponsible behaviour on the part of legal, licensed, law-abiding firearms owners in this country.

In fact, some members of Parliament have gone so far as to suggest that once passed the bill will sanction behaviour reminiscent of the wild west, the same kind of dire predictions that characterize the response of anti-gun lobbyists. Many of the comments have been remarkably similar to those we heard in 2011 and 2012 when debate focused on Bill C-391 and Bill C-19, the latter of which finally scrapped the long-gun registry.

Not only are many of the characterizations we heard in the House inaccurate, but quite frankly it's disappointing when in the interest of partisan politics some have suggested that the bill is either a bribe to one group in the firearms community, or payola, as one member of Parliament put it, to not testify against other government legislation; or a gift to the firearms community; or politically partisan legislation that will benefit only those who represent ridings where firearms ownership and use is the norm; or worse still, that it's the product of a “gun lobby” with a U.S.-influenced ideology, which frankly I find offensive.

During second reading debate on the bill, a number of members expressed the belief that the legislation will benefit those in rural and northern areas of the country. For members who ascribe to this theory, I would respectfully remind them that firearms owners from across Canada come from many places and many backgrounds.

In fact, if they think there is a rural-urban divide on long-gun ownership in particular, I suggest they think again. A quick survey of just our members in three urban centres, Windsor, London, and Ottawa, earlier this week showed that 4,500 of our members who own firearms live in those centres. When it comes to a large urban centre like Toronto, almost 290,000 non-restricted firearms are owned by residents of Canada's biggest city, and 85,000 are legally licensed to possess a firearm. Of those, roughly 32,000 are licensed to possess restricted or prohibited firearms, which in 2012 translated into 90,000 legally registered restricted and prohibited firearms in the GTA.

Firearms owners in Canada are judges, lawyers, farmers, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, accountants, even federal politicians, many of whom, like former interim Liberal and opposition leader Bill Graham, live in and represent urban ridings. They are not criminals. They are not gang members. Rather, they are lawful firearms owners who obey the law.

The changes proposed in Bill C-42 will make life easier for these people because there will be less needless paperwork. It will not, however, change the way that these responsible, law-abiding individuals safely use, store, and transport their firearms. Despite this we have had at least one member of Parliament who attempted to link the debate of Bill C-42 and the changes it will make with the behaviour of terrorists. Others have suggested that the changes like the application of an ATT to a licence will result in firearms owners running around mall parking lots with guns in their possession threatening the public safety.

This bill does some very simple things, some of which are specifically designed to greatly enhance the public safety. The rest are nothing more than common-sense proposals that pose no additional risk to the public despite all the hyperbole. I will not speak to all the changes proposed in the legislation but will focus instead on a few key aspects of the bill.

The grace period for licence renewal comes with an incentive to renew. It addresses an administrative error on the part of the licensee that immediately and unfairly places them in violation of the Criminal Code. It also comes with restrictions that ensure that until the error is corrected they cannot use their firearms or purchase ammunition for those firearms. The bill proposes to merge possession-only licences with possession and acquisition licences. Canadians who have a POL have owned and used firearms responsibly for decades. The very fact that their licence status will change is hardly a reason for them to suddenly and inexplicably become irresponsible.

Bill C-42 contains two very important changes that taken alone or together will help to enhance public safety, something that many parliamentarians and anti-gun groups have been arguing for for years.

The first, which I might point out has been a long-standing policy of my organization, is that all new or first-time firearms owners will no longer be able to simply challenge a test to get a licence, but will have to take the firearms safety course.

You would think that even a group like the Coalition for Gun Control would applaud this move, but instead of admitting that the provision enhances public safety, they choose instead to focus on what they believe are discrepancies on how the course is taught across the country instead of supporting the introduction of mandatory training.

The second relates to proposed changes that Bill C-42 would make to sections 109 and 110 of the Criminal Code that relate to mandatory and discretionary prohibition orders. Court orders prohibiting the possession of firearms and other articles including ammunition are mandatory when a person has been convicted or granted a discharge. Bill C-42 adds that a mandatory prohibition order would apply regardless of the possible sentence when violence was used, threatened, or attempted against the offender's current or former intimate partner, or the child or parent of the offender or the offender's current or former intimate partner.

With respect to discretionary prohibition orders, Bill C-42 provides that, in circumstances involving the use or threat of violence, prohibition orders may be imposed for life or a shorter period as opposed to the current maximum of 10 years. Surely this is something that should be supported, but we've been disappointed with the reaction of anti-gun groups and others to what we believe is a sensible amendment that enhances public safety.

During debate in the House, several members of Parliament spoke of their concerns about illegal firearms coming into Canada and chastised the government for not doing anything to address the threat. In fact, this bill proposes to end the loophole that stops information sharing between law enforcement agencies, in this case, the RCMP and the CBSA when they are investigating the importation of illegal guns. The concern over the flow of illegal firearms into Canada is a serious one, and depending upon the jurisdiction, is responsible for the large majority of guns used in the commission of a crime. In my view, this amendment goes a long way to addressing this problem. Just anecdotally, former police chief Bill Blair, estimated that 55% of the guns used in crime in Toronto were smuggled in from the U.S., while in B.C. one police chief suggested it could be up to 90%.

Lastly I want to touch on the portion of the bill that amends section 19 of the Firearms Act pertaining to the circumstances under which authorization to transport restricted or prohibited firearms is granted. The bill provides for automatic authorizations upon licence renewal, not automatic licence renewal, as the coalition would have you believe. It simply removes the requirement to obtain paper authorizations every time you want to move a firearm. A person who holds the appropriate licence will be authorized to transport them for the five purposes spelled out in the legislation, not freely transported in cars at any time going anywhere within the province, as the coalition and others have suggested.

In closing, Mr. Chair and members of the panel, Bill C-42 proposes reasonable amendments to sections of the Criminal Code that make sense, that eliminate red tape, and introduce additional public safety measures. It does not make guns easier to get. It does not allow firearms owners to transport them at will wherever they want, and it does not put guns in the hands of the “wrong people”.

I am pleased to see that the Liberal Party of Canada has chosen to support many of the aspects of the bill, and we appreciate and acknowledge that.

Thank you again, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for affording me the courtesy of appearing here today.

[Heidi Rathjen]

Obviously, mental health is a key factor in screening certain people. In the screening process, there is an opportunity to check if someone has had mental health problems, and it occurs when the licence is about to be granted. This is extremely important. The possession licence granting process has been severely weakened. Bill C-19 had an enormous loophole whereby an online vendor, no matter where they were located, no longer had to check if the buyer had a valid licence. Everything is done in the dark and there is no compulsory check for a valid possession licence. It's all voluntary.

This loophole is extremely dangerous when you think of the economic incentive to sell a gun or the incentive for a dishonest individual who wishes to purchase a gun without being allowed to. We currently have assault rifles classified as unrestricted firearms that go unregistered and can be sold online without the vendor checking whether the buyer has a valid possession licence. That's where we find ourselves today.

[Benoît Laganière, Spokesperson, PolySeSouvient]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good morning.

For the survivors, the witnesses and the many families of the victims of the Polytechnique massacre in 1989, our main objective was and remains the avoidance of loss of life and the prevention of the enormous suffering caused by violence committed by firearms. The fight against violence requires interventions at all levels.

Since its election, the Conservative government has destroyed or weakened most of the measures that had been implemented at the request of victims of firearms, but also at the request of police officers, women's groups, suicide prevention workers and public health groups. In 2012, the government destroyed the long-gun registry. Since then, a long gun can no longer be traced to its owner. The Harper government also eliminated the requirement to check the validity of the permit of a potential purchaser, as well as the sales records of firearms merchants. Today, Bill C-42 will further weaken the controls that remain.

By definition, a firearm is designed to kill. It is a dangerous object that deserves the greatest attention and the greatest respect. Using a firearm is a privilege, not a right. This privilege should be governed by strong rules and should result in a series of responsibilities. Strict controls are the norm in most developed countries. However, the Harper government, always ready to please the firearms lobby, has made it so that Canada is today in a situation in which there are fewer controls than at the time of the Polytechnique tragedy, 25 years ago.

You know, when someone is attacked in such a violent way using a firearm, the only thing that they can cling to is hope and comfort. The hope that governments will take action and take all of the means possible to prevent this type of extreme violence, and comfort in the idea that the brutal death of our sisters was not in vain because other lives will be saved.

I had already come to testify as the witness to a massacre, but mainly as an ordinary citizen, before the parliamentary and Senate committees, about Bill C-19, which scrapped the long-gun registry.

Despite the plentiful testimony from many pro-control groups, not a single line or a single comma was changed in the wording of the bill. This morning, I have no hope that things will be different this time around, but we are here because it is important to highlight some of the effects of this bill and to express our opposition to it, especially in light of all of the misinformation being disseminated by this government.

Bill C-42 will put us in the awful situation that we observe daily south of the border. Its adoption will result in easier access to firearms and will increase the chances that they fall into the wrong hands. MPs who vote in favour of this bill will have to assume responsibility for this.

Our position is the outright rejection of Bill C-42.

Standing Committee on Finance

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to the hon. House Leader of the Official Oppositionfor raising this point of order yesterday, objecting to the unusual procedures that were accepted within the Standing Committee on Finance, in relation to the clause-by-clause treatment of Bill C-60, the 2013 omnibus budget bill.

Prior to his point of order, I was struggling with a dilemma: I was certain there was an effort to undermine my rights as an individual member of Parliament and yet there had been no formal challenge. I was not sure how to approach this, Mr. Speaker, and to put before you the ways in which I found that procedure unacceptable. I really very much appreciate that the official opposition saw fit to raise its concerns that those procedures and the procedures adopted--novel procedures, mind you--before the Standing Committee on Finance did not comport to parliamentary rules and practice and went beyond the mandate of the committee.

I agree with all the points made by the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition and by the member for Winnipeg North, on behalf of the Liberal Party.

Before getting down to the particulars of the current situation, I wish to review some fundamental principles related to the matter before you, Mr. Speaker.

In essence, what you are asked to adjudicate here is an effort by a powerful government party with the majority of seats in this place to eliminate what few rights exist to influence legislation in the hands of only eight members of Parliament belonging to two recognized national parties, myself, on behalf of the Green Party, and members here for the Bloc Québécois, plus two members currently sitting as independents.

Within this group, the government party's efforts are aimed only at the Green Party and the Bloc Québécois. We are the only members to have submitted amendments at report stage in the 41st Parliament.

The appropriate balance between the majority and the minority in proceedings of the House is, as Speaker Milliken noted, a fundamental issue.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be providing the written copy of this presentation to you so that I will not have to read out loud all the citations.

The following passage is very apt. Although Speaker Milliken was dealing with a situation with a minority Parliament, the issues before him of balancing the rights of the minority and the majority are the same. I quote from Speaker Milliken's ruling of March 29, 2007:

At the present time, the chair occupants, like our counterparts in House committees, daily face the challenge of dealing with the pressures of a minority government, but neither the political realities of the moment nor the sheer force of numbers should force us to set aside the values inherent in the parliamentary conventions and procedures by which we govern our deliberations.

Continuing:

Unlike the situation faced by committee chairs, a Speaker's decision is not subject to appeal. All the more reason then for the Chair to exercise its awesome responsibility carefully and to ensure that the House does not, in the heat of the moment, veer dangerously off course.

The Speaker must remain ever mindful of the first principles of our great parliamentary tradition, principles best described by John George Bourinot, Clerk of this House from 1890 to 1902, who described these principles thus:

To protect the minority and restrain the improvidence and tyranny of the majority, to secure the transaction of public business in a decent and orderly manner, to enable every member to express his opinions within those limits necessary to preserve decorum and prevent an unnecessary waste of time, to give full opportunity for the consideration of every measure, and to prevent any legislative action being taken heedlessly and upon sudden impulse.

As I noted yesterday, in particular, in your ruling related to the member for Langley's question of privilege, you said:

...[an] unquestionable duty of the Speaker [is] to act as the guardian of the rights and privileges of members and of the House as an institution.

And you cited, with approval, these words from former speaker Fraser:

...we are a parliamentary democracy, not a so-called executive democracy, nor a so-called administrative democracy.

The last quote is from your ruling of December 12, 2012, which bears directly on the matter at hand. In that ruling, Mr. Speaker, you dealt with an objection raised by the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons to, inter alia, my presentation of amendments at report stage. The hon. government House leader presented a proposal that all my amendments at report stage should be grouped and one motion selected as a “test motion”, and only if the test motion was adopted would any of the other amendments be put to the House.

Your ruling was clear, Mr. Speaker. You cited House of Commons Procedure and Practice at page 250, which states:

[I]t remains true that parliamentary procedure is intended to ensure that there is a balance between the government's need to get its business through the House, and the opposition's responsibility to debate that business without completely immobilizing the proceedings of the House.

And you added:

The underlying principles these citations express are the cornerstones of our parliamentary system. They enshrine the ancient democratic tradition of allowing the minority to voice its views and opinions in the public square and, in counterpoint, of allowing the majority to put its legislative program before Parliament and have it voted upon.

You ruled then, Mr. Speaker, that my amendments at report stage on Bill C-45 could stand and be put to a vote in the House. You also set out some circumstances that would provide a potential procedure to provide me and other members in my position with a fair and satisfactory alternative to amendments at report stage.

In my view, the government House leader is now attempting to do indirectly that which he could not do directly. It puts me in mind of the finding of Mr. Justice Dickson in that landmark Supreme Court case of Amax Potash, in which Mr. Dickson said:

To allow moneys collected under compulsion, pursuant to an ultra vires statute, to be retained would be tantamount to allowing the provincial Legislature to do indirectly what it could not do directly, and by covert means to impose illegal burdens.

I again underline that as the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition has put before us, the actions of the finance committee were ultra vires, and the whole effort here is to do indirectly what it could not do directly. I am speaking of the Conservative Party's efforts to suppress the rights of minority members.

It offends principles of fairness to use the superior clout and power of a majority government to crush the few procedures found within our rules and traditions to which I, as an individual member, have a right to recourse. It is clear that the effort being made by the finance committee on Bill C-60 is a continuation of the strategy-by-stealth of the government House leader's to foreclose the democratic rights of members, which was attempted in November of last year.

For the remainder of my argument, I would like to canvass two areas of facts that are relevant to the specifics of the question before you, Mr. Speaker. First, was the procedure adopted by the finance committee in conformity with your ruling of December 12, 2012? Second, have the amendments I have put forward in the 41st Parliament offended the rules by failing the tests of “repetition, frivolity, vexatiousness and unnecessary prolongation of report stage”?

Dealing with the second point first, I have moved amendments at report stage on the following bills, and I will state how many amendments per bill: Bill C-10, 36 amendments; Bill C-11, 11 amendments; Bill C-13, one amendment; Bill C-18, three amendments; Bill C-19, three amendments; Bill C-31, 23 amendments; Bill C-316, five amendments; Bill C-38, 320 amendments; Bill C-37, one amendment; Bill C-43, 21 amendments; and Bill C-45, 82 amendments.

What is immediately obvious is that the number of my amendments was directly proportionate to the legislation proposed by the government. Only on the two omnibus budget bills, Bill C-45 and Bill C-38, and the omnibus crime bill, Bill C-10, did I propose a relatively large number of amendments. There were many amendments, because the omnibus bills involved changes to multiple laws in a dramatic and transformative fashion. The amendments I proposed were all serious; none were frivolous. They were not of the kind, for example, put forward by the opposition of the day on the Nisga'a treaty, in which multiple amendments were mere changes of punctuation with the goal being slowing passage of the Nisga'a treaty.

The amendments I have put forward have even gained favourable commentary from some government members. On Bill C-31, the hon. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism said, “I appreciate the member's evident concern”, speaking of me as the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, “and the fact that she takes the deliberative legislative process very seriously”.

On Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages said, “I compliment her for her substantive approach to this legislation”.

On Bill C-43, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stated:

I commend the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her constant due diligence. I know it is a particular challenge to effectively be an independent member and yet participate in an informed way in debates on virtually all bills in the House. We all admire her for that even if I do not agree with the substance of her intervention here.

In summary, the amendments I have put forward in the 41st Parliament have never been frivolous. Were they designed to slow passage? Not at all. Even on the day we began the marathon session of votes on the amendments to Bill C-38, I approached the Prime Minister personally and asked if any compromise were possible. I told him I would be at his disposal, that if one or two amendments might pass, perhaps the rest could be withdrawn, and that I was open to suggestion.

My goal throughout was serious and grounded in principle. My constituents care about these issues and these bills. I am working tirelessly in their interest. I have never engaged in preparing and presenting amendments for the sake of, as the government House leader has suggested, political games or delay for the sake of delay.

Having worked in the Mulroney government and in public policy work in Ottawa dealing with federal governments, federal ministers and federal laws since 1978, I have personal experience with what used to be the normal approach to legislating in the Parliament of Canada. This particular administration is the only one in our history to enforce rigid discipline on its members in legislative committees. It is the first administration in Canadian history to resist any changes in its legislative proposals from first reading to royal assent. Even the errors that are discovered prior to passage are protected from amendment until subsequent bills correct earlier drafting errors.

Worsening this abuse of democratic process, virtually every bill in the 41st Parliament has been subject to time allocation. If time allocation were not applied, in the normal round of debates, eventually members in my situation, who are seen as independent for my rights and privileges, although I sit here as a Green Party member, would be recognized and would participate in the debates. However, due to time allocation, there is never an opportunity to speak at second reading, report stage or third reading. With time allocation, there is never an opportunity for members in my position to make a speech unless another party cedes a speaking slot.

As a matter of practical reality, the only way to have a speaking opportunity in such time-constrained circumstances is to have amendments tabled at report stage. This approach of the current Conservative administration of rejecting any and all amendments, while simultaneously abbreviating debate opportunities, is a perversion of Westminster parliamentary tradition. It is a new and hyper-partisan approach to the legislative process.

As a member of Parliament, I believe it is my duty to work to resist this new, contemptuous approach to legislating. The ability to table amendments at report stage and to offer the entire House an opportunity to improve bills before third reading is even more critical when the legislative committee process has ceased to function as it did in all the time of all the speakers before you.

Now I turn to the question, Mr. Speaker, of how the finance committee applied the suggestions contained in your ruling of December 12, 2012. I note that the chair of the finance committee is never anything but personally fair, and I mean nothing personal against all members of the finance committee. I assume that this entire stratagem emerged elsewhere than from the members of the finance committee themselves.

I note that you suggested, Mr. Speaker, that there are “opportunities and mechanisms that are at the House's disposal to resolve these issues to the satisfaction of all members” in a “manner that would balance the rights of all members” and that “...members need only to remember that there are several precedents where independent members were made members of standing committees”. Those are all quotes from your ruling in December.

Finally, you suggested this:

Were a satisfactory mechanism found that would afford independent members an opportunity to move motions to move bills in committee, the Chair has no doubt that its report stage selection process would adapt to the new reality.

From these comments it is clear that your direction suggests that an effort might be made to engage members with rights of independents to enter into a discussion about how arrangements could be reached that would be, in fact, satisfactory. To be “to the satisfaction of all members”, your ruling implicitly requires that the suggested opportunities and mechanisms be discussed and accepted by all concerned. Further, you suggested that temporary membership was possible and that members should be able to “move motions”.

None of that occurred. I am attaching a written copy of all the correspondence between me and the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, which I will provide to the table. As you will see, there was no discussion or offer of co-operation. The “invitation” contained in a letter of May 7, 2013 left no room for discussion. The attached motion of the committee was supported only by the Conservative members of the finance committee but not by the official opposition or the Liberal Party members.

The letter, and particularly the motion itself, had the tone of a unilateral ultimatum. My response was to ask for temporary committee membership for the duration of clause-by-clause review. This request was rejected in the letter of May 24, 2013.

As the various sections of Bill C-60 had been distributed among several committees, I attempted to attend all the hearings relative to my amendments. However, committees were meeting at the same time in different locations throughout the parliamentary precinct making it impossible to get to each one of them. I did attend meetings of the industry, finance and the foreign affairs committees prior to clause-by-clause. I asked for permission to ask witnesses questions and was denied in the finance and foreign affairs committees. I was allowed a three-minute opportunity to pose questions in the industry committee. To be blunt, my opportunities were not close to equivalent to the members of those committees.

On Monday, May 27, 2013 as requested by the finance committee, I complied with the committee and attempted to co-operate. I submitted my amendments and attended clause-by-clause throughout the meeting of the committee on Tuesday, May 28. I asked for time to present my amendments. There were 11 in total. I was given half as much time as my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. I was allowed one minute per amendment. He was allowed two minutes per amendment. I have attached copies of the Hansard from all of these discussions to abbreviate the recitation of the facts.

I prefaced my presentation of amendments with a statement that I had not asked for this opportunity nor invitation and that while I was attempting to co-operate, it was without prejudice to my rights to submit amendments at report stage. Each time I was given the floor for 60 seconds, I repeated that my participation was without prejudice to my rights to present amendments at report stage, when I had the right to move my own amendments, speak to my own amendments, and answer questions about my amendments. At report stage, I have the right to vote on my amendments.

I also supported the point made by the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park that inviting independent members to committee, in her words, “does not conform with parliamentary procedure in that only the House of Commons can appoint committee members”.

I noted that I did not have an equal opportunity to present my amendments. This observation was compounded as we went through clause-by-clause.

On two occasions, members of the committee suggested amendments to my amendments. I was not allowed to comment on those suggestions. On one occasion, a member of the government benches disagreed with a point I made, but I was not allowed to reply. On another occasion, the NDP members misunderstood the impact of my amendment, but I was not allowed to explain. I was not allowed to move my amendments. The motions were deemed moved. I was not allowed to vote on my amendments. As noted, I was not allowed even the ability to participate in discussions about my amendments.

There is no way the word “satisfactory” can be so twisted of meaning as to apply to the set of circumstances to which I was required to submit. It is a principle of fairness and natural justice that an opportunity that cannot be used is no opportunity at all.

When one considers the circumstances in which speakers have ruled that members did not have an adequate opportunity to submit their amendments, it is clear that this imposed process before the Standing Committee on Finance falls far short of the mark.

For example, in 2001, Speaker Milliken ruled that where a member was on two committees and had difficulty getting to the meeting, he could move amendments at report stage. Speaker Milliken wrote that:

...because...the member maintains that he sits on two committees, both of which were seized with bills at the same time, and therefore had difficulty in moving his amendments, the Chair will give the benefit of the doubt to the member on this occasion.

In a situation where a member of a recognized parliamentary party attended the clause-by-clause consideration at the committee but was not an official member of the committee, Speaker Milliken allowed that member's amendments to be presented at report stage. He noted:

Of course, the Chair recognizes that our parliamentary system is party driven and the positions of the parties are brought forward to committees through its officially designated members. The Chair also recognizes that some members may want to act on their own.

Underscoring this, what an example: a member of a recognized party with rights to participate in standing committees chose to be in the meetings, in clause-by-clause, and could have handed that member's amendments to another member of his party and ask that they be submitted, but the Speaker of the House supported the right of that member to amendments at report stage because he was not a committee member. I was a long, long way from the rights of that member of a recognized political party sitting in that committee back in 2003 when Speaker Milliken allowed that member's amendments at report stage.

The right of a member to actually move the amendments at committee cannot be perverted through the expedient measure, imposed by a majority party, of demanding all amendments of an independent member be submitted, denying that member the right to move the amendment, speak to the amendment, other than in an inadequate perfunctory fashion, debate or defend the amendment, giving that member no opportunity to speak to other amendments and denying the member any chance to vote on his or her motion.

There may well be some way to accommodate members of Parliament in my position, but clearly, this experiment on Bill C-60 at clause-by-clause consideration in the finance committee was not acceptable. To accept it now, and disallow rights of members of Parliament in the position of independents to submit amendments at report stage, will be to create a precedent that fundamentally abuses our foundational principles of Westminster parliamentary democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I urge you to find in favour of the point of order put forward by the hon. House leader for the official opposition and to set aside the treatment of me and the member from the Bloc Québécois and allow us to submit amendments, move amendments, debate our amendments and vote on them on Bill C-60 at report stage.

Nuclear Terrorism Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.

The bill fulfills Canada's treaty obligations to the UN under the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, including extending international measures and beyond protecting against proliferation to now include the protection of nuclear facilities. Also, it reinforces Canada's obligation under the UN Security Council Resolution 1540 taken in 2004, to take and enforce effective measures to prevent the proliferation of nuclear materials as well as chemical and biological weapons.

At the outset, let me say that we generally support the bill. We think it is about time that the government actually lived up to its obligations under the UN, but we have some reservations about the scope of the bill.

I also want to point out that the government with its law and order agenda has an overarching propensity to deal with law and order as its prime focus. This is just one of 14 bills, I believe, that have reached the House dealing with crime or crime and punishment, or defining crime. There are many of them. There were bills about megatrials, human smugglers, mandatory minimums, military justice, the gun registry, citizens' arrest, criminal and electronic communications, human smugglers, elder abuse, accountability of offenders, RCMP accountability, the faster removal of foreign criminals, terrorism and nuclear terrorism, which would lead one to belive that perhaps Canada is going through a spate of crime that is out of proportion to everything, because these bills are out of proportion to what we are doing here in the House of Commons.

However, that is not true. The facts suggest otherwise, that crime is on the decline in Canada and has been on the decline since before the government took office. Focusing on laws to scare Canadians into thinking that crime is on the rise and making the criminal justice system harsher and less flexible is not the way to go. On this side of the House, we believe that a flexible and more systematic approach to crime is a better of dealing with it.

The bill is necessary and we agree it is necessary to adopt these laws, to abide by our agreements with the United Nations, to deal with the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, et cetera. However, let us talk about what things are still missing from the government's agenda while this bill is front and centre.

The government is making illegal certain acts of terrorism involving nuclear materials. Bravo. Canadians generally are glad that, if people try to use nuclear or radioactive material for terrorism, they will be doing something against the law and if they are caught and convicted they will face serious penalties. However, we note there are no mandatory minimums here.

What is the government doing about other things that are terrifying Canadians? In my riding of York South—Weston there was a recent spate of killings and maimings using handguns. Last week one person was killed and two others injured in handgun violence. Over the summer, there were six funerals of Somali youth who were gunned down in acts of violence all over the city of Toronto. Of course there were the horrific shootings at a block party on Danzig Street in Scarborough, which left two dead and 23 injured. What action has the government taken to stop the flow of illegal guns at our border?

It is all well and good to pass laws making terrorism and nuclear terrorism illegal, but if our citizenry is being terrorized by other things, what are we doing about that? What actions are being taken to get the guns that are already there off the street? There is no bill before us on that topic.

The government passed Bill C-19, which cancels and will destroy the long gun registry, so less will be known about what guns are out there, and people are fearful. People in my city are fearful about what that will mean for their personal safety. They are more fearful than they were before the Conservative government took power.

In my riding of York South—Weston the bill does nothing to prevent another thing that is the single biggest crime in my riding right now, the theft of cellphones and other electronic mobile devices. Kids are being mugged and people are being injured, and yet nothing is happening from the government. The solution is simple. Make it illegal to activate phones reported as stolen, and I brought forward such a motion in the House of Commons.

So far the government is silent on things that are terrifying people, that are making people feel they are less safe than they were yesterday. Yet, we are here discussing nuclear terrorism.

It also takes aim at the risk of the environment being threatened by nuclear terrorists. Again, bravo. Canadians are worried about the environment. They are worried about the climate changes that have been felt most recently from Hurricane Sandy doing damage to both the U.S. and Canada.

What else is the government doing about the environment? The definition of the environment in Bill S-9, this bill, is almost identical to that found in the new environmental assessment act. Essentially,

“environment” means the components of the Earth, and includes (a) land, water and air, including all layers of the atmosphere; (b) all organic and inorganic matter and living organisms; and (c) the interacting natural systems that include components referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b).

Bravo, again.

If a nuclear terrorist threatens any of these elements of the environment, they can be charged with an offence, and if convicted, they can face serious time. However, if they do something, the environmental effects of these actions cannot hurt any living organism, including humans. That is not so for the way that the government treats its own projects.

The definition of environmental effect in the new environmental assessment act is only about those impacts on fish, migratory species and birds. If a federal project harms the environment in such a way that human health is threatened, apparently the government does not care. Human health is no longer protected by the Environmental Assessment Act.

Bill S-9 protects human health. It therefore protects the environment better against harm than the environmental assessment act. Nuclear terrorists are treated more harshly than government projects or other projects that are of large scale and large effect and that can in fact harm the environment. Most of those projects are not nuclear terrorism, so nothing is wrong with harming human health, says this Conservative government.

Bill S-9 is a necessary part of living up to our obligations to the UN. We like the UN. We wish we were part of the Security Council. We wish we lived up to all of our obligations. One of those obligations is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the government signed on March 11, 2010. On that date the government promised, as a result of signing that convention, to report back to the UN within two years. It still has not done it.

There has been no report on what it has done so far to help persons with disabilities. So far, the government has done things to harm persons with disabilities. One of the things that treaty with the UN says very clearly we are supposed to be doing is making it possible for persons with disabilities to have equal access to information, equal access to the Internet. Yet, the government, in its last bill, removed community access funding. It therefore cut off thousands upon thousands of disabled individuals from having access to the Internet, which they had grown used to under that plan, and it is no longer available to them.

The government has apparently failed the disabled, and failed, again, one of the very important things we have signed with the UN. We agreed with the UN. We thought we would make life better for the disabled, with every measure we took and with everything we did. Yet, we have the government acting in opposition of that promise to the UN.

In addition, the bill does nothing to deal with one of the most pressing needs in my riding, and that is affordable housing. The bill is all about safety and security, but safety and security is one of the things that is most missing in my riding with regard to persons living in supported housing in the city of Toronto.

Fifteen years ago, the Liberal government got itself out of supported housing, and the federal government has done nothing to move back into that role. The City of Toronto is facing a $750 million deficit in terms of repairing these buildings, and thousands upon thousands of people are on waiting lists. Yet, we can do nothing about it. This is part of the safety and security of individuals in my riding in the city of Toronto, and in Canada as a whole.

However, the most important thing facing us is nuclear terrorism, according to the government. We have done absolutely nothing to assist those people in this country to feel more secure in where they live.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I'm not sure if my friend is proposing an amendment to Ms. Hoeppner's motion, but if she is, I'm going to vote against it. We're not here to redebate Bill C-19. We're here to assess the regulations.

The legislation empowers the minister to pass regulations, and if that is, in fact, an amendment to Ms. Hoeppner's motion, I'll be voting against the amendment but in favour of the motion.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

On this, we've basically discussed what the process would be. How do we give effect to Bill C-19? This isn't a substantive change in any way. This is simply giving effect to or reinforcing the policy decision that we extensively consulted on.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Oh. I thought it was Bill C-19.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Well, absolutely. That's the only reason I'm here today given the very blatant refusal by the CFO in Ontario to respect the impact of Bill C-19. I guess there are a number of ways of handling it. You could take a court action to clarify that. You can pass a regulation to clarify it. We've chosen the regulatory measure.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I would just like to say that, on the record, Thomas Mulcair came out and said that he would bring the registry back, so I don't know what we're hearing right now.

At any rate, I'd just like to say that there are a lot of socialists, a lot of free enterprisers, and a lot of communists in northern Ontario, but they're all united on one thing, Mr. Minister. This is the most popular legislation—and I'm speaking about Bill C-19—that probably was ever passed for the residents of northern Ontario, so on behalf of the residents of northern Ontario, thank you very much for leading that legislation.

We know as well that there's a lot of pushback on this. The Ontario premier has not been exactly cooperative. Would it be accurate to say that actions such as these of the CFOs like Mr. Wyatt forced you, really, to act on behalf of law-abiding Canadian gun owners in terms of further regulations introduced?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I find that last comment interesting, because now I feel like you're shifting your interest in the sense that all through Bill C-19 it was about the hunters, the good law-abiding hunters, about the sportsmen, about the collectors. Now I feel that where you're going is that you're now the protector of the gun shops, which, we can agree, is a totally different situation, because if the onus to keep the ledger.... It's not an infraction on the person who buys; it's an infraction on the gun-shop owner, who is not asking or keeping.

Where I have a hard time following your government's position on this is that even those who were your advisers—and am I mistaken when I say—like Mr. Bernardo, who was super happy the day you filed those regulations? He has said throughout, through all the meetings he went through all the years, through all shape and form of the different types of bills you presented.... He said, “That green book has been the status quo for at least 30 years.”

I mean, it's a long time that the green book has been there. It's still there now, to this day. Even with the registration, merchants still have to do that. They have to maintain that book.

And even in front of the Senate standing committee:

Remember that all businesses are required to keep records mandated by the chief firearms office of the province that they live in. To remove the record from this registry does not remove their obligation to keep business records. Business records are mandated by the chief firearms office in the issuance of a business permit.

As well, “The RCMP only runs part of the program.” And I could go on and on.

Gun-shop owners have been highlighting the importance of the ledger. Brad Thomas, owner of Lake Huron Rod and Gun, talked to the Owen Sound Sun Times:

“You talk to any gun store, they are happy with the ledger,” said Thomas. “I don’t want this ledger to go away and I don’t know too many businesses that would.”

In a sense, as my colleague previous was just saying, it's kind of a protection on the gun-shop owner. If there's something happening with some long gun, some non-restricted gun, wouldn't you prefer to be on the safe side? And that we had, because all your....

Despite all your arguments for abolishing the gun registry—you said it would not have protected a single life, since someone with a gun would have committed murder anyway—this registry has still had a positive impact. We have seen evidence of that here in the committee. We have learned that, in an investigative context—after the fact—the registry has been useful.

The registry no longer exists, but at least, certain information on guns sold is kept, even if those are non-restricted guns.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I have a very quick follow-up. Were some CFOs in other jurisdictions complying with the spirit and letter of C-19? How has it been across the country?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

So in that sense, a chief firearms officer can't say he's going to recreate the registry when, in fact, the actual act C-19 repeals that particular provision.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Yes, I believe that C-19 does that as well. It limits what a reasonable condition can be, because the general condition that you're pointing out there cannot override a specific prohibition or a specific—

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

The regulation wipes out the registry for non-restricted firearms. That's correct. It wipes it out completely. It should have happened under C-19. However, we know that businesses still keep these records. When you go to a store and buy a computer, the store will keep a record of your sale—most stores will do that—for warranty purposes usually. As I say, you can access that kind of information with a warrant.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister.

I didn't think I would have to come back here. After all the meetings we have held on Bill C-19, I thought this case was closed. You have presented a notice of regulation. That is a bit of a surprise because, when we were debating Bill C-19, the government, you, your committee colleagues and the people strongly in favour of abolishing and destroying the registry data were saying that there was no need to worry. You were saying that what you call the ledger was there, that the information came from businesses that sell

the long guns and the non-restricted arms, and not to worry, we will be able to keep track without being a long-gun registry. So what became of that phrase? Are you standing by what you said before, which is, and I'll quote you,

They can still do that through the records of the shop that sold the firearms, the importer to whom that gun was sent. In the case you're mentioning, most of those guns would probably never even have been sold in that brief period of time. Gun shops, in fact, keep records of their sales and those records can be accessed through a warrant or other appropriate provisions.

Will that still be possible with your regulations? Will we have the information needed, in case we need to be able to go back to a store and see who sold to whom and so on, or will your regulations just wipe everything out?

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

You touched on it right there toward the end, Minister.

We've talked a lot about the need for Bill C-19 to protect individuals, hunters, and farmers who utilize long guns as tools; aboriginals and first nations people in the north who utilize them as day-to-day tools in their way of life; athletes who represent our country in sport shooting events; collectors. But you touched on, right at the very end, how the requirement to bring in this regulation is now to add further protection to retailers and to the people in that business.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Minister, thank you very much for attending committee today. I would like to say congratulations for your steps here in closing off what I think has been viewed by Canadians, particularly the northern Canadians I represent, and has been aptly described as a backdoor loophole to maintain a registry.

I think we were very clear with Canadians in our campaign commitments during the last election. You aptly described in your notes today that the spirit and the intention of Bill C-19 was quite clear. I think that was clear when we talked to our constituents about it. It was clear during debate. It was very clear during all the votes that took place in the House of Commons.

Now, unfortunately, we're having to go these extra steps because the spirit and the intention of what we put forward hasn't been respected.

When we look at which governments, which sides of the House, are committed to ensuring Canadians aren't needlessly turned into criminals or aren't treated in a criminal fashion, this is another example of our government being the only government with a crystal clear agenda to make sure that law-abiding Canadians aren't impacted by this kind of legislation.

I will say, with one caveat, we are the only government with a clear direction in that, but we aren't necessarily the only members of Parliament who believe the long-gun registry was wasteful, ineffective, and misguided. Members of the opposition stood and voted along with our government on that. One of the members, from Thunder Bay—Rainy River, who sits on this committee but is conspicuously missing today, voted along with the government.

Can you expand on the history of this, from an 11-year-plus message that you would have from your experience as a longer-term member of Parliament and minister, how long this has been going on for Canadians, and what this will mean to finally bring this to an end?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'm very pleased to appear before you and committee members to discuss new proposed regulations pursuant to the Firearms Act.

Our government is once again standing up for law abiding Canadians, such as farmers, hunters, and sports shooters. We are standing up for rural, northern, and remote Canadians who use shotguns and rifles as tools in their day-to-day lives. But Mr. Chair, most of all, we are standing up for Canadians who do not believe that the state has a right to needlessly interfere with the private property of law-abiding Canadians.

The long-gun registry was a wasteful and ineffective creation. Mr. Chair, I'm very proud to note that our government's legislation to eliminate the federal long-gun registry came into force at the beginning of April. The Ending the Long-gun Registry Act not only repeals a requirement for individuals and businesses to register their non-restricted firearms but also requires the Commissioner of Firearms, and the chief firearms officer for each province, to ensure the destruction of all records and copies of those records under their control.

The regulations that are now before you will help to ensure that the will of Parliament to eliminate the federal long-gun registry is fully respected. Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end the wasteful long-gun registry, and Canadians will not tolerate an end run around the law. Nor will many Canadians or the government tolerate the recreation, under federal authority, of anything that resembles the wasteful and ineffective federal long-gun registry, which only created hassles and red tape for hunters rather than improve public safety.

The regulations we have introduced will ensure that the federal long-gun registry remains in the past, where it belongs. Members of this committee will know that despite a clear direction from Parliament to put an end to the registration of long guns, CFOs, or chief firearms officers, in some jurisdictions have continued to require that businesses collect and store point-of-sale information concerning long guns. In particular, Ontario's CFO is requiring businesses to record a buyer's name, licence information, and the details of the firearm being purchased. This is contrary to the spirit and intent of C-19 to eliminate the federal long-gun registry, which received royal assent on April 5.

To reinforce our government's position on this matter, I wrote a letter to the RCMP commissioner and to all chief firearms officers on May 8 affirming that the Firearms Act does not authorize any measures that would facilitate the establishment of a provincial long-gun registry. I further directed that neither the Canadian firearms program nor the RCMP are to assist a province seeking to establish a long-gun registry in any way. At that time, I also made clear my willingness to consider all necessary legislative and regulatory measures.

Despite this attempt to clarify what is permitted under the law, Ontario's CFO continues to be of the view that it is his prerogative to require that businesses keep point-of-sale records.

Moreover, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, despite knowing the clear will of Parliament, as expressed through Bill C-19, has publicly stated that it will be up to the federal government to make it clear that businesses are not required to maintain registration-type records. This is what the proposed regulations our government has introduced will accomplish.

The regulations before you today make clear that businesses would not be required, as a condition of a licence, to collect or retain information regarding the transfer or purchase of a non-restricted firearm. While businesses may choose to keep point-of-sale records for their own purposes, such as inventory or warranty, they cannot be required, as a condition of their business licences, to keep records that link the long gun to a specific owner.

The regulations our government has proposed pursuant to the Firearms Act will remove any ambiguity with respect to the creation of a federal registry by the back door.

Our position on the long-gun registry is quite clear. It does nothing to help put an end to gun crimes. It criminalizes hard-working and law-abiding citizens. It has not stopped a single crime or saved a single life. According to the CBC, it has cost over $2 billion—money that is far better spent elsewhere.

Canadians do not want or need this boondoggle reintroduced under the guise of collecting and storing information concerning the lawful acquisition of legal firearms by law-abiding citizens.

Our government delivers on our commitments to Canadians, and this is what we have done with Bill C-19, which is now the law of the land. It is what we are continuing to do with the introduction of regulations pursuant to the Firearms Act.

The issue of effective firearms control is an important one—one that has been debated in this country for years. All of us see the fallout from gun-related crimes in Canada. Our government is committed to protecting Canadians and ensuring that people feel safe on their own streets and in their own homes.

In this light, it is imperative that we have effective ways of dealing with gun crime. Since we were elected in 2006, our government has been committed to doing just that, to making our streets and communities safer for all Canadians. We've followed up that commitment with concrete and tangible initiatives to get tough with criminals and to help prevent crime before it happens.

I'm certain that all Canadians are concerned with preventing crime. We all want to make sure that our streets and our communities are safe. We all want to ensure that guns don't fall into the hands of criminals or are used to commit grievous crimes.

That is really what the legislation to repeal the long-gun registry is all about. It's about making sure that we continue to preserve and enhance those measures that do work to reduce crime and protect Canadians. It's also about making sure that we don't necessarily penalize millions of honest and law-abiding citizens with rules that have little effect on crime prevention or on reducing gun crime.

Bill C-19 retains the existing controls for restricted and prohibited firearms, but it eliminates the need for honest, law-abiding citizens to register their non-restricted rifles or shotguns—a requirement that has no impact on reducing gun crimes in Canada.

The regime now in place, thanks to the royal assent of Bill C-19, is one that makes sense and one that our government and many law enforcement officials believe will work to effectively protect the safety and security of law-abiding citizens. The regulations pursuant to the Firearms Act, which we have introduced, will ensure this remains the case in the future.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Solomon Friedman, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, honourable members. Thank you very much for inviting me to address you today.

My name is Solomon Friedman. I am a criminal defence lawyer in private practice in Ottawa. Although I maintain a comprehensive defence practice, a significant portion of my work is focused on firearms law, representing law-abiding hunters, target shooters, sportsmen and women, and firearms businesses in Criminal Code and related Firearms Act matters.

As the Government of Canada considers its position on the arms trade treaty, it is important that Parliament be aware of the potential domestic implications of the treaty in general, and in particular of certain more problematic provisions. I preface my remarks by simply noting that there is, as of yet, no official final draft of the treaty before this committee for consideration. Accordingly, issues highlighted today may become moot and new ones may arise. I base my comments, therefore, on the chair's text and on suggested model texts, which have been circulated by the United Nations and various NGOs, and by Canada's official policy statements concerning the proposed treaty.

In my view, there are three distinct areas of concern with regard to the proposed treaty. First, does the treaty signify a step backwards in firearms regulation and a change of direction for this government? Second, will the treaty adversely affect law-abiding gun owners and businesses by influencing domestic criminal and regulatory law and by unduly hampering law reform in Canada? Third, are certain key treaty provisions overly broad in their scope and reach?

With your kind permission, I will address each in turn.

First, the government should be careful that this treaty not signify a regression, a step backwards, in how firearms and gun owners are treated in Canada and abroad. Since 2006, the Canadian government has demonstrated a shift, exemplified in policy, regulation, and most recently legislation, in how Canadian gun owners are regulated under our law. Instead of punishing the law-abiding for the acts of the lawless, the government has consistently signalled that the regulation of firearms should target those who wilfully and unlawfully misuse firearms in a criminal manner.

It is imperative that Canada's involvement with the arms trade treaty not signify either a condemnation of responsible civilian firearms ownership or a step backwards to a time when it was thought—based on ideological speculation, not empirical evidence—that somehow the criminal misuse of guns could be addressed by more onerous and stringent regulation of law-abiding civilian gun owners, be they farmers, hunters, or target shooters.

Aside from the potential for symbolic repercussions, Parliament should be aware that international law, despite being conceived of and legislated thousands of miles away, can potentially have very real implications here at home. Of course, in Canada, unless a treaty is implemented by domestic legislation, it is not, strictly speaking, a part of Canadian law. However, courts are increasingly turning to international law, be it in the form of binding treaties or normative principles, when interpreting domestic law.

For example, a court may consider the arms trade treaty when wrestling with an unclear provision in the Firearms Act or the Criminal Code. Of course, despite Parliament's best intentions, legislators do not always say what they mean and mean what they say. For that reason, Parliament should be particularly concerned with broad, overreaching purposive clauses and preamble-like statements. If these are in conflict with our own domestic approach to regulating firearms, we do not want to put a court in the position of having to square domestic statutory interpretation with Canada's statements on the international stage.

Of course, such a discussion is, by its very nature, entirely speculative. We do not know which provisions of the Firearms Act or the Criminal Code will be litigated and require interpretation by our courts. Similarly, we do not know how a court may choose to use the arms trade treaty as the basis of statutory interpretation. Accordingly, when crafting any treaty provisions, Canada should proceed with caution.

Aside from the courtrooms of this country, the effects of the arms trade treaty may be felt in the chambers of Parliament as well. To illustrate this point, let me turn to the long-gun registry for a moment.

I had the opportunity to testify before the parliamentary committees that reviewed and ultimately passed Bill C-19, both in the House and the Senate. At both these sessions, proponents of the long-gun registry repeatedly cited Canada's international commitments in the UN and other global forums as a purported reason for maintaining the wasteful and ineffective registry.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Well, we've made it very clear that Bill C-19 abolishes the long-gun registry and that Bill C-19 takes away any power to create an alternative registry even at the provincial level.

If there are chief firearms officers in various provinces who are administering the Firearms Act, we've made it very clear to them that there is no authority to collect the kind of data that was being collected for the long-run registry under the Firearms Act. That authority no longer exists.

There is an injunction application that has taken place in Quebec, and we are respecting that injunction. But in the meantime we are moving to separate the information and discontinue the ability of anyone to access that information outside of the province of Quebec. That process is well under way.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much.

Minister, will you be able to just comment very quickly? Bill C-19 was passed a few months ago and reached royal assent, and the long-gun registry has ended in Canada. There have been some efforts...it appears that a backdoor registry has been created. Can you comment on the government's position on the long-gun registry and what's happening in some of the provinces right now?

Firearms Registration

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is completely incorrect.

Our legislation ended the long gun registry across Canada. The minister has been very clear that we expect jurisdictions which are working under federal law to respect that.

Bill C-19 should be complied with, the spirit and the letter of the law. The minister directed CFOs throughout the province and the RCMP to comply with that.

Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, before beginning my speech on Bill C-26, I would like to mention that this is my first debate as the official opposition's new justice critic. I would therefore like to thank the leader of our party, the hon. member for Outremont, for the confidence he has placed in me.

I would particularly like to thank the hon. member for St. John's East, who has done absolutely extraordinary work on this file, as well as his entire team. Over the past few months, we examined Bill C-26 as a team.

I would also like to thank the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina. Those who have been following this issue know that she is behind Bill C-26. This bill addresses the famous Lucky Moose Food Mart case, which served as a wake-up call for members of Parliament who are now trying to determine how to resolve this problem.

I also extend my thanks to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, where we studied many bills, including Bill C-10 on law and order, which was very thick and had many amendments. I use the term “thick” in reference to the size of the bill and not the content. We also studied Bill C-19 on the registry. We looked at many files, but this was the first time, since I was elected on May 2, that I felt that there was co-operation and that the two parties and all the people around the table, no matter their political stripe, were truly trying to find intelligent solutions to the problems and serious issues raised.

This bill involves amending the Criminal Code, which has been in existence for quite some time and has been interpreted by the courts and the Supreme Court. It is not necessarily an easy task. The member from the Green Party pointed out a problem with citizen's arrest that was raised at the committee hearings. I will come back to that later in my speech.

Having said that, I hope that the members opposite will adopt this new way of doing things because the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights does not meet to engage in petty politics. We meet because we know that these laws will have a direct effect on the lives of Canadians. We discuss criminal acts that have an impact on the lives of people, whether they are the victims or the accused, who benefit from the presumption of innocence. As guardians of the charter, we must ensure that the legal provisions and amendments to such laws are made properly.

Let us come back to Bill C-26. What is it all about? This bill amends a few sections of the Criminal Code, especially on self-defence, whether in relation to people or their personal or real property. It is the main purpose of this bill. The other part concerns citizens' arrest in a very specific context, which was the starting point for the private member's bill introduced by my colleague from Trinity—Spadina.

The first part on the lawful defence of property and persons, especially self-defence of persons, had been requested by the courts for a very long time. Finding a way to amend the Criminal Code was not easy. Earlier, I asked the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice a question about balancing the objective and subjective criteria with regard to the reasonable nature of the force that is used in self-defence. I think people understand what self-defence is. When we think we are being attacked and our lives are in danger or we are going to be seriously injured, we defend ourselves. That being said, it must be determined whether the act of self-defence was lawful or not, what the provocation was, whether necessary force was used and whether the context was appropriate.

It is not obvious. Over the years and decades, since the Criminal Code of Canada was created, the courts have realized that it is not always obvious. Over time, as things have developed, in certain cases defences based on scientific or medical reasons have been used. Take the battered woman syndrome for example.

I remember when I was hosting a radio show some years ago and there was a murder in my region, in Aylmer. A woman had killed her husband with a gun. The entire region was outraged simply because for most people a murder is a murder. We finally learned the facts in the case and found out what had happened. The woman had been terrorized day after day by an abusive husband who beat her and sometimes held a gun to her head. It was atrocious. Nevertheless, people said that did not matter. To them, all the woman had to do was leave home, get out of there and her life would not be in danger, but can we really judge another person's circumstances?

The courts began to develop certain plausible, allowable defences and to extrapolate the criteria mentioned in the Criminal Code, but every time, they came back to us and said that it was up to us as legislators to clarify and tidy this up a bit. This has not always been easy, especially when talking about defence and provocation.

I practised a little criminal law early in my career. One day, a man walked into my office. I am not revealing anything, since no one could ever guess his identity. He was a rather short man and he had been beaten by a woman who was taller than him. He pleaded self-defence, while she maintained that he had provoked her. This gives you some idea of the cases that go before criminal courts. In that particular context, only the gender criterion might have been considered. Basically, we sometimes have an impression, a preconceived notion, that because he is a man, he cannot be abused, or that because a woman is very tall, she cannot be abused by someone shorter than her, and so on.

The courts were often frustrated by these kinds of situations. It was important that the criteria not be too stringent. That is more or less what the Canadian Bar Association and the Barreau du Québec said in committee. As the parliamentary secretary said, we heard from several groups, such as the Barreau du Québec, the Canadian Convenience Stores Association, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, the Association of Professional Security Agencies—I will come back to this group, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Police Association, as well as universities, lawyers and other groups.

What came up again and again, especially concerning self-defence and the criteria mentioned in section 34 of the Criminal Code, was the importance of striking a balance. There was some concern about the government's wording of some of the clauses and amendments to Bill C-26 concerning a better balance between these subjective and objective elements. For example, the Canadian Bar Association agreed with me in committee that this balance appeared to be lacking, which is dangerous. The bill seemed to emphasize the objective criteria, which could jeopardize defences such as self-defence based on battered woman syndrome, for example.

I want to point out right away that the official opposition did propose seven amendments to ensure a balanced approach. We proposed objective and subjective criteria to enable the trial judge who hears the facts of the case to determine whether actions were provoked, assess what happened between the two parties and analyze the whole thing.

We did not succeed in getting all of the amendments included even though they would have made the provisions much clearer. But we will see. People will have to adjust. We are hearing that a lot these days, particularly in Quebec. We will see how the courts interpret all of this and whether the bill is balanced. I am reasonably confident that the amendments my colleague talked about earlier will ensure that balance.

I want to make it clear that section 34 of the Criminal Code, as amended by the bill, starts out by saying that a person is not guilty:

34. (1) A person is not guilty of an offence if

[This means that all of the criteria must apply.]

(a) they believe on reasonable grounds that force is being used against them or another person or that a threat of force is being made against them or another person;

(b) the act that constitutes the offence is committed for the purpose of defending or protecting themselves or the other person from that use or threat of force; and

(c) the act committed is reasonable in the circumstances.

[This one, (c), is often problematic.]

(2) In determining whether the act committed is reasonable in the circumstances, the court shall consider the relevant circumstances of the person, the other parties and the act, including, but not limited to, the following factors:

A list of factors follows. We appreciate that the government agreed to include our amendment. We want to ensure that offences are analyzed based on the perspective of the person directly involved rather than on that of someone who was not involved at all. Sometimes, it is by putting ourselves in someone else's shoes that we come to know what that person saw and we can really understand the impact of his action.

The physical capabilities of the parties to the incident were added. As I mentioned earlier, to look only at size, age and gender could cause confusion. I know people who are only 5' 2'' who have black belts in karate and, let me tell you, they could do some damage to someone who is a sturdy 6' 4'' but who has never played a sport in his life. We therefore wanted to avoid this type of prejudice.

Paragraph 34(2)(f.1) refers to the history of interaction or communication between the parties to the incident. Some people have difficulty understanding what that means, but those who are very active users of social networking sites, who are involved in blogging and who talk to different people understand what this means.

I once had a written conversation with people I did not know. I did not even know where they lived. I must say that, at the end of that conversation, I had the willies. I hoped that those people did not live nearby because I was seriously concerned.

Since we have new technologies, we have to adapt to this type of situation. Sometimes, people can be terrorized by means of written messages or threats delivered in other ways.

Given the amendments that were made in this regard, I am confident that we have managed to find a balance. The courts will still have access to the committee's work and to the report, and they will be able to make informed decisions when they are called upon to interpret the new clauses on the protection of property, clauses 34 and 35. At least that is what I hope.

As I told my clients, those who came to see me, if we had a perfect knowledge of law and wrote perfect legal provisions, there would be no need for lawyers. Since laws are often drafted by lawyers, to date, I have yet to see a provision that is so clear and straightforward that there is no room for any interpretation. Likely, down the line, we will discover additional factors that should be added to clause 34.

With regard to the legitimate defence of property, as was expected by the legal community and the courts, no distinction is made between personal and real property. An attack on real property was always considered to be of greater consequence. If a person suffered an assault in their home or something like that, the courts tended to be a bit more strict in their assessment of the factors, when the person claimed self-defence.

In the case of the theft of a cassette from a car, we might say that self-defence was not necessary. We must always look at the concept of necessity.

I would now like to examine the most difficult part of the bill to understand: the amendments proposed by the government. I would like to point out that what I find the most worrisome is that the government has not accepted any suggested amendments at all.

The comment or the point I would like to make is as follows. Section 494(2) of the Criminal Code deals with citizen's arrest, which was the reason for Bill C-26. That is why we cannot withdraw clause 3 of Bill C-26, because it would completely gut the bill.

I am fully aware of the fact that there was the political will to amend the bill because of what Mr. Chen went through in Toronto.

These are the facts as we heard them. Mr. Chen was working at his convenience store when the store was robbed. A short time later, the shoplifter had the nerve to return to Mr. Chen's store. However, Mr. Chen recognized the shoplifter and stopped him before he had a chance to commit a second theft. The store owner, Mr. Chen, tied up the shoplifter and put him in a van—the only place he could keep him until the police arrived. Believe it or not, it was the store owner who was charged with forcible confinement, among other things. The justice system amazes me sometimes.

I worked in the media long enough to know how sensational this type of story can become across the country. The story made it all the way to Gatineau. That being said, legal experts have told us that notwithstanding Mr. Chen's case, the Criminal Code, as currently drafted, should have given plenty of latitude to the police, who could have chosen not to arrest Mr. Chen. This could have been resolved without charges being laid against Mr. Chen.

To ensure that this does not happen again, the government introduced Bill C-26. At the time, my colleague from Trinity—Spadina also introduced a very similar bill. I will read the proposed subclause 3(2):

(2) The owner or a person in lawful possession of property, or a person authorized by the owner or by a person in lawful possession of property, may arrest a person without a warrant if they find them committing a criminal offence on or in relation to that property and

(a) they make the arrest at that time; or

(b) they make the arrest within a reasonable time after the offence is committed and they believe on reasonable grounds that it is not feasible in the circumstances for a peace officer to make the arrest.

I am sure that the infamous reasonable grounds are going to be interpreted in all kinds of ways.

I have a few problems with this clause because when it says “or a person authorized by the owner”, it obviously refers to security guards, and that bothers me.

In committee, we heard from witnesses from security agencies. An entire sector of the economy collectively jumped for joy over this new opportunity. The guards said it was finally their turn to shine.

To their credit, I must say, they are already working in stores, but not in small convenience stores. It is not the Mr. Chens of the world who will benefit from this, but rather superstores like Walmart and Target.

What worries me is that some of them like to pretend they are police officers, as though they are replacing the police. However, the defendant must be able to demonstrate that no peace officer was available to make the arrest. We were told that, quite often, it was hard for police officers to respond immediately to a call concerning shoplifting, because it was not necessarily a priority for them.

We also need to think about rural communities. Personally, I am a city girl. We often forget that many people live in rural settings, where there is not necessarily a police officer posted on every street corner.

That is all I have to say about the notion of a reasonable time.

However, we were definitely convinced that defining the notion of a reasonable time would prevent the court or the judge from using their own judgment in that regard. With that in mind, even though we have some reservations and we are anxious to see what will happen with all of that, the NDP plans to support Bill C-26. In its current state, it already answers many questions people had, which the courts often referred back to us as legislators. In that context, we hope this will do what it is meant to do.

In closing, regarding section 494 and citizen's arrest, one thing is clear: the government committed to ensuring that convenience store managers know that it is not open season for them to start making arrests left, right and centre, without thinking carefully first. No one is asking or recommending that they do so. We must leave this up to the professionals, the people who have been trained to do so. Otherwise, there could be serious consequences, especially if someone makes an illegal arrest. That is all I have to say, and I now welcome questions.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

The Secretary to the Governor General and Herald Chancellor

April 4, 2012

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 4th day of April, 2012, at 6:22 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Wallace

The schedule indicates that the bill assented to on Wednesday, April 4, 2012, was Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

Firearms Registry

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to report that our government has ended the long gun registry once and for all. This afternoon the royal assent of Bill C-19 will be proclaimed.

We were happy yesterday to receive the support of three Liberal senators who supported ending the long gun registry. We have received support from two NDP members of Parliament, and we received support from three Liberal senators. Together, we are ending the long gun registry once and for all. We have fulfilled our commitment to Canadians.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Madam Speaker, I disagree with my hon. colleague on a number of fronts. First, I would disagree that I am about to get up and crow. I think there is only one crow who is crowing, and it was not me at all, nor will it be me.

Second, I disagree with the hon. member in regard to reports being suppressed. We welcome the reports by the RCMP on the entire Canadian firearms program. If one actually reads the entire report, one can see that the RCMP is talking about the program as a whole. What we did hear from front-line officers when they testified on Bill C-19 was that they did not use the long gun registry when they went on calls because they could not count on the information.

In fact, we heard from not only the RCMP but police officers as well that the 14,000 so-called checks were actually automatic checks. They were not individual police officers going to check the registry. Therefore, there were obviously some differences in how we read the report and also the testimony we heard from police officers.

The bottom line is that today Bill C-19 passed in the Senate. It passed by a vote of 50 to 27. It passed with three Liberal senators supporting the bill. We are very pleased that the House passed the bill with Conservatives and two NDP members of Parliament supporting it, and in the other place we actually received support on the bill from three Liberals. It shows that across the country, even across political lines, we agree it is time to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

It is time to give police the tools they need to do their job. It is time to put in place laws so that there is not a revolving door. That is exactly what we have done with Bill C-10. We have stopped the revolving doors with criminals who are in jail, then out of jail.

Let us not harass and criminalize rural Canadians, aboriginals, hunters, sport shooters and farmers who are using firearms for legitimate purposes. Sadly, the NDP has been misleading and misrepresenting on many parts of this file. NDP members show pictures of firearms that are clearly restricted and try to say they will no longer be registered.

My hon. colleague is incorrect, in that it still remains a requirement to get a licence to own a firearm. If a person sells or transfers a firearm to someone without a licence, it is a criminal offence. That stays in place. Nothing changes.

We can all very thankfully know that the bill has passed in the other place. It will soon reach royal assent. The long gun registry will be done in a very few short hours. Farmers, hunters and sport shooters, law abiding Canadians, will not have to register their long guns anymore.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I rise to further query the Minister of Public Safety on the question raised on January 31 of this year concerning the firearms registry. The question was about the government's misleading Canadians about what the gun registry did and what the government was going to do. It was also about the suppression of reports, government reports from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, one going back to February 2010, which was hidden from the public, and the other being the Commissioner of Firearms 2010 report, which was also withheld.

These reports were suppressed during the time when the House was considering the notion of a vote on Bill C-19, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, which I understand was passed today. I expect the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety will crow about that when she gets up to respond.

This is about the kind of misinformation we heard in the House today. A government member talked about a $2 billion cost for the registry, frightening Canadians about the expense, when a report of February 2010, the RCMP Canadian firearms program evaluation, said the cost of the long gun registry was between $1.1 million and $4 million in 2009, that it was a cost-effective program. The RCMP, which runs the firearms program, said in its report that it was going to cost between $1.1 million and $4 million a year, yet the government even today talked about $2 billion. That is obviously misleading.

The report, by the way, was suppressed. It was available in February 2010. It was not until it was reported in August and September that the government was refusing to release the report that it ever came out.

What does the report tell us? It tells us a lot about the firearms program that Canadians were not allowed to find out about, because the government did not want them to know because it was pursuing its own approach, which was to try to kill the long gun registry without the facts getting in the way.

The RCMP said the firearms registry was a critical component of the entire firearms program. It recommended that the existing full registry be maintained as part of that program in order to increase non-restricted firearms compliance.

The RCMP also said that one of the effects of the proposed changes would be a significant impact on firearm-related mortality and injury. What did that mean? It meant that if these changes were brought about there would be deaths in Canada.

The RCMP also said something that we raised in debate. It said without the registration there is a failure of accountability, and anyone could buy and sell firearms privately and there would be “no record”. That is a fact that was included, and the bill that was before the House made loose provisions for that.

The other report that was suppressed was in November 2011 while we were having the same debate in Parliament. The report disclosed that the firearms registry was used 14,357 times per day in 2010. The government did not want Canadians to know about that. It misled Canadians by saying that it would continue to monitor long guns after the registry was gone. It is not doing that. No records will be kept of sales by gun shops and there will be unenforceable laws with respect to transfers.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today being International Women's Day, I am honoured to present a petition calling on the House to withdraw Bill C-19 to eliminate the gun registry, which, as we all know, will have adverse consequences for heath and public safety, not to mention the fact that it is a terrible waste of taxpayers' dollars.

This petition, with several pages of signatures, is the initiative of women's organizations in the greater Quebec City region, including Violence Info, Centre de ressources pour femmes de Beauport, Centre femmes d'aujourd'hui, and Viol Secours. I wish to congratulate those women on their hard work and thank them for all the services they provide to women.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, as we have already mentioned in this House, none of us want to see guns fall into the hands of violent criminals. This is why we want to preserve and enhance the measures that work to reduce crime and protect Canadians.

The hon. member refers to horrible incidents that should not be forgotten. Such arguments appeal to the very strong reactions we have to tragic events involving grievous gun crimes. It is understandable that some people wish to resort to massive controls by government in the hope of preventing such terrible violence from ever occurring again.

I should be clear that registering long guns does nothing to prevent such incidents. Our government is committed to getting tough on crime but the criminalization of our hunters, farmers and sport shooters will not have an impact on crime in Canada's major cities. We do not support treating them as criminals.

The May 2006 report of the Auditor General stated that the Canadian Firearms Centre could not demonstrate evidence-based outcomes of its activities, such as reduced threats from firearms, injuries and deaths, or helping to minimize risks to the public.

The facts are that the long gun registry has been ineffective, costly and wasteful. It has done nothing to help prevent gun crime in Canada or to help increase the safety of our communities. Canadians want gun control measures that enhance safety on our streets by preventing firearms from falling into the hands of dangerous people and by setting severe consequences for those who commit violent gun crimes. That is what our government is doing.

As we have said, the most effective gun control tool we have in this country is our current gun licensing system, which remains unchanged in Bill C-19. Every individual who wishes to possess and acquire firearms must take the required Canadian firearms safety course and pass the related test. Those wishing to possess and acquire restricted firearms must pass the Canadian restricted firearms safety course.

Firearms licence applicants are also subject to a screening process by the Chief Firearms Officers or their representatives, including a criminal background check, which determines if they have committed a serious criminal offence or if they are prohibited from owning firearms by a court ordered sanction, or if they present a risk to themselves or others. If any of these conditions exist, they will not be granted the privilege of possessing a firearm.

Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end the long gun registry once and for all, and that is exactly what we will do. The successful vote on the third reading of the bill on February 15 marked a leap forward toward fulfilling our promise to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

We are delighted to be closer than ever to doing away with the $2 billion boondoggle that criminalizes law-abiding Canadians, like those long gun owners in my riding of Simcoe—Grey. Unsurprisingly, the NDP and the Liberals once again reminded Canadians that, while they oppose tougher sentences for real criminals, they will never miss an opportunity to criminalize law-abiding farmers and duck hunters.

Law-abiding Canadians know that only this Conservative government will stand up for their rights.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on November 4, I received a contradictory response from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety. I hope that this evening the minister will enlighten us as to his position. The fact that this bill was passed on February 15 in this House and the government trumpeted victory at the conclusion of that vote in no way detracts from the scope of this evening’s adjournment proceedings. The legislative process of Bill C-19 is following its course.

My question dealt with the preservation of the firearms registry data. I must admit that I am quite puzzled by this government’s attitude toward crime. On the one hand it adopts a repressive approach, and on the other it is in the process of destroying an effective tool for police officers. This is a tool to control the use of long guns in Canada and to track the owners of such weapons.

It also curbs the trafficking of illegal weapons and serves to prevent the use of firearms in violent crimes against vulnerable persons such as female victims of domestic violence. Ending the registry is going to make things worse, and it runs counter to the effective combatting of crime. In reality, it is going to increase the number of victims in this country. For all these reasons I deplore this initiative of the government, who wants not only to abolish the firearms registry but to destroy the data collected, and who is categorically refusing to transfer it to the provinces, including Quebec, which is holding out its hand to the federal government.

This province is prepared to take over and manage this data. All Canadians and Quebeckers still remember the slaughter at the École polytechnique, the 22nd anniversary of which was marked last December. That blow to the heart of everyone argues in favour of transferring the data to Quebec. The federal government’s objection to proceeding with this transfer is inconsistent with an effective battle against crime.

Given the lack of co-operation between the federal government and Quebec, the provincial minister of public safety announced in a press release on December 13, 2011, that, if Bill C-19 were passed, he would go to court to recover the data from the registration certificates of non-restricted firearms owned by Quebeckers, data that are found in the Canadian firearms registry.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety said that the long gun registry does nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms. I would like to challenge that statement. Certainly, criminals will always find backdoor methods of obtaining weapons, but the registry nevertheless constitutes an effective safeguard. Thanks to this registry, certain licence holders who presented real risk to public safety were deprived of the use of their firearms. Crimes were thus prevented. The registry protects both the public and police officers, and prevents them from becoming victims.

Opposition Motion--Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I find it ironic that the member opposite and the government members in general are quite happy to quote the chiefs of police when it suits them. They did not listen to them on Bill C-19 when they talked about what a valuable tool for law enforcement the gun registry was in terms of investigating crime, finding criminals and prosecuting crime. They did not listen to them then but they are quite happy to quote them now.

The police chiefs are entitled to their opinion but they do not make the laws. However, if police officers say s that any tool that is put at their disposal they will take it, I understand that.

However, it is our job to ensure that whatever tools are created for police enforcement meet the test of fundamental justice, fairness and the fundamental rights of Canadians, whether they be privacy rights or the right to be guarded against unlawful search and seizure. That is what I believe.

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the bill moved by the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.

However, I am rather ambivalent about it because, although we agree that prisoners ought to be accountable and we agree with the recommendations of the Ombudsman for Victims of Crime who talked about some of these issues and suggested that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act be amended to ensure that offenders who fill their court ordered sentences, including restitution, and victim fine surcharges and also the suggestion that there be authorization for the Correctional Service of Canada to deduct from an offender's earnings while in prison reasonable amounts for the restitution or victim fine surcharge orders, some of this can be done by regulation. In fact, there is no need to change the act to do that at all.

I am curious that the member did not address that. I want to talk about the government's talk about victims. Who are we talking about? We are talking about somebody who has successfully sued Her Majesty the Queen on the basis that there was something committed against them. It specifically refers to any debt owed to an offender as a result of a monetary award made by a court, tribunal or agency proceeding against Her Majesty the Queen or any agent employed by Her Majesty the Queen in the course of performance of his or her duties.

Who are we talking about? Are we talking about a prisoner who has been abused by some agent of Her Majesty the Queen who then successfully sues Her Majesty the Queen and is entitled to a monetary award? I do not know how many people there are like that. Perhaps the member can address that in his closing remarks. Are we talking about two? Are we talking about 10? Are we talking about hundreds of people? Is there really any purpose for the bill? Is there anything to be gained by this? It only deals with people who sue Her Majesty the Queen.

The member referred to spurious lawsuits. If it were a spurious lawsuit against Her Majesty the Queen, it would not be successful. It would be thrown out of court. I do not know what the evil is that is being corrected. However, I do agree with certain aspects of what the member said in that, yes, if an offender has obligations to his family, which is supported by a court order in the case of spousal support, child support or the other items listed, they would get the money before the offender would. However, I think that is already provided for by the law of the provinces referred to by the member for Lac-Saint-Louis and as noted by the parliamentary officers who advise on legislation.

I think there are some problems with this. The notion is not a bad one. I do not know whether it can be amended at committee to allow for deductions from offenders' pay to cover court restitution orders or to cover the other ones that are mentioned here, whether it be spousal support, the business dealing with victim fine surcharges, for example, or restitution orders. These are things that surely should be able to be handled by a different sort of amendment that authorizes deductions of those items from payments due to an offender.

The member is on the right track when it comes to trying to find a way to ensure that offenders who are receiving money while in prison can have deductions made to look after these matters, but we should not build it around what he has done in saying that this is for people who successfully sue the Crown for some action taken against them by an officer of the Crown in the performance of his or her duty. That obviously means somebody committed something against the prisoner who might be considered a victim of a civil tort.

The bill is a bit misguided in that sense but there may be something that can be done with it. New Democrats are not saying that the bill does not deserve further consideration in committee but we need listened carefully to what legal experts told us about jurisdiction. In my province, there is a judgment enforcement act that deals with the issue of priorities as to who gets what money from a court judgment. It may be that this legislation could override that and that is something that needs to be further examined.

There is a bit of a mix-up in terms of what the member has suggested. I would like to know, in terms of his own research, why he feels this bill is necessary. Are there hundreds and thousands of people incarcerated who are receiving monetary awards on claims against Her Majesty the Queen? How many are we talking about? Is this a problem that needs to be solved in this way or would we be better off looking at the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to ensure that the provisions in sections 76 to 78 ensure that payments may be deducted. Subsection 78(2) states:

Where an offender receives a payment [or income]...from a prescribed source, the Service may

(a) make deductions from that payment...in accordance with regulations made under paragraph 96(z.2) and any Commissioner’s Directive....

That seems to me to be the place where we ought to be looking because that is the provision of the act that allows for deductions to be made from any prisoner's income.

I have listened to the member and I do not agree with his statement that the government is concerned about victims because, if it were, it would have listened to the victims who testified before the public safety committee on Bill C-19. They were concerned about the wholesale lack of protection that would be left if the bill were to pass through the Senate because of all the other measures that were taken away, along with the so-called long gun registry. It did not listen to them. It did not listen to the victims and families of École Polytechnique who testified. It also does not seem to be interested in reinstating support for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Boards across Canada, some of which have shut down due to lack of federal support.

Victims are going without the compensation that was available previously during the 1990s. In fact, I represented a large number of victims of sexual abuse at a particular orphanage in St. John's. We went to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board on a regular basis to get support for counselling and what was available under the Criminal Injury Compensation Act. However, that act no longer exists. There are no criminal injury compensations in my province anymore because of lack of funding and federal support.

We do not hear anybody on the other side say that we should get back on track with criminal injuries compensation. Maybe I am putting something in their ears over there. Maybe they should ask the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Justice why they are not supporting criminal injury compensation in Canada, which used to be the case with previous governments. We do not talk about what we are doing for victims. We talk about what we are doing to offenders.

The biggest worry I have is that many of the things being done to offenders within Bill C-10, for example, would lead to more hardened criminals, less rehabilitation and more crime as a result. When people are not rehabilitated when they are in prison, when they are released they will be more likely to offend, which will lead to more victims. They have the wrong end of the stick when it comes to the approach the government is taking.

New Democrats will support this bill at second reading, allow it to go committee where we can see if something can be done with it that fits the jurisdiction and the Constitution and that can provide for deductions being made from prisoners' incomes to meet some of the objectives that the member suggests.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, the mover of the bill talked about how the government was concerned about victims of crime. It is a mantra we hear from members opposite all the time. This is not really about the bill, although the member spoke about it, it is about the government's attitude. We do not have a problem with judgments being paid. They are paid anyway, so I do not know how necessary the bill is.

However, in the meantime, if the member and the government are so concerned about victims, why is he not bringing forward a resolution calling for the reinstatement of the criminal injuries compensation that the Government of Canada, for many years, provided funds for? Provinces had programs and the federal government assisted those. Most of them collapsed as a result of not having the funds. Why is he not calling on his government to do that? Victims are out there suffering from crimes and do not get the restitution they need because many of the offenders do not have the money.

Second, if you are so concerned about victims of crime, why did you not listen to the victims of gun crime when they appeared before our committee on Bill C-19, saying that they were fearful of the loss of the kind of gun control that was in place?

Firearms Registry

[Jean-François Fortin, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-19 has not been enacted yet and the Conservatives are celebrating their victory in an offensive manner. To the loved ones of the massacre victims, it is as though the Conservatives were dancing on their graves. What is more, the government refuses to say exactly when the data in the registry will be destroyed. It seems to just be waiting for royal assent before calling for the immediate destruction of the data, even though Quebec has said it is going to take legal action to keep the information.

Can the Minister of Public Safety assure us that he will wait for Quebec to pursue its legal options before destroying the data in the registry, or does he simply intend to press the button on the shredder?

Ending The Long-Gun Registry Act

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my please to rise to speak to Bill C-19, getting rid of the wasteful and useless long gun registry. I am proud to split my time with the member for Portage—Lisgar, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety. I thank her the yeoman's effort she has put in toward getting rid of the long gun registry. In the last Parliament, her private member's bill to end the long gun registry nearly passed, but lost by two votes. In my time in Parliament since 2004, that was the closest, until today, that we ever came to getting rid of the long gun registry.

I have to thank the Minister of Public Safety for bringing forward this bill and for listening to firearms' owners right across the country and to ranchers, farmers, hunters and sports people who enjoy the outdoors and target shooting. He listened and was able to put that all together in a comprehensive bill that would ensure we would get rid of the registry and the data and, more important, it would take away the incredible onus on responsible Canadians having to register their long guns.

We cannot talk on this bill without thanking the MP for Yorkton—Melville who has been fighting this since 1995 in the House of Commons. He has been an incredible spokesperson on behalf of wildlife organizations and firearms owners across the country, always getting the details, the data and the real statistics on how useless the long gun registry has been and how it has made law-abiding citizens into criminals.

I have listened to the debate. My friend from Winnipeg North stood and made a number of accusations. I want to address some of those in my speech today.

I have been fighting Bill C-68 since 1995. When I was with the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, I presented to the Senate committee on Bill C-68 when it was travelling across Manitoba. I told the majority Liberal senators at that time that this was going to be a discriminatory bill against rural Canadians. Individuals involved in the agriculture industry use firearms, long guns in particular, as a tool in controlling predators, or varmints that they did not want around the yard, like rabid skunks and raccoons, and for putting animals down humanely if they are ill or injured. For the times that we do our own butchering on the farm, we need to have those long guns. Many of us in the agriculture industry are also outdoors people. We love hunting and fishing and when we go out hunting, we need to have our firearms.

Because of the way Bill C-68 was brought in, it automatically labelled people who owned firearms and did not register them as a criminals. The member for Winnipeg North said that nobody was ever arrested based upon the fact that they never registered their firearms. However, we know the bill was specific. If they did not register, they were criminals. Luckily, the western provinces instructed their police forces, mainly the RCMP at that time, not to enforce the firearms registry for those who did not register their long guns. For the most part, that was upheld.

I know of two cases in Alberta alone where firearms owners were arrested and their guns confiscated because they failed to re-register their firearms. Also a friend of mine, Bruce Montague, who was in Kenora, is a gunsmith, a gun collector and goes out to gun shows. He was arrested after a gun show in northwestern Ontario and went to jail. He kept fighting it because he knew it was wrong that he should be treated as a criminal for legally owning firearms even though he never registered them. I agree with him. They were there as part of his collection and his craft. They were never meant for criminal use. Yet he was treated as a criminal, fined under the legislation and put in jail. That is just wrong in too many ways.

We hear all these exclamations that because of the gun registry, we have seen a reduction in gun-related crimes. We know for a fact that gun-related crimes, gun-related accidents and suicides that happen with firearms and long guns in particular, have been on the decline since the 1970s.

We know for a fact that the massive reduction in accidental shootings dates from the previous Conservative government, when Kim Campbell, the Minister of Justice, brought in the first bill to introduce the firearms acquisition certificates and required safe storage and handling and that firearms owners take firearms safety courses. These shootings could have been by kids playing with guns that had not been locked up or stored properly, or as a result of people not having been properly trained and shootings happening accidentally on hunting excursions. Since then there has been a real difference in the number of accidents, the number of suicides and the number of crimes committed with long guns. That is because firearms owners have been getting the proper training. They have been storing and locking up and handling their handguns properly. That is an educational measure that has nothing to do with the long gun registry itself.

We will be continuing with the licensing requirement for gun owners. That has not changed in the last 20 to 25 years. That will stay in place. To be a licensed firearms owner, a person must have taken a firearm safety course. I took my hunting safety course back in 1977 when I was 13 or 14 years old. It was because of that training that I properly handle my firearms and properly store them under lock and key.

I never registered any of my firearms. I refused to do so as my act of civil disobedience. Thanks to the Province of Manitoba, I was never treated as a criminal per se, but as I have explained times in and outside this House, I have refused to register my long guns.

Let us really be clear about the statistics. There have been a lot of numbers thrown around. In 2003 in Vancouver, one of the hotbeds of gun crime, over 97% of the firearms collected on the streets that entire year were not registered. Criminals do not register their firearms. We have stated that over and over again. We know that criminals use handguns. Handguns, under the current legislation, will still be registered and have been since 1925. That will not change.

Targeting law-abiding citizens like long gun owners is a waste of tax dollars, a waste of police time, and a waste of public service time administering a registry that does nothing to prevent any gun crimes.

Since the 1970s, the number of murders committed with guns, that is, the murder rate by long guns or any firearm for that matter, has been 1.9 murders per year per 100,000 people. If we compare that with the population of registered firearms owners, that number goes down to 0.38 murders per 100,000 people.

The most law-abiding people in this country are licensed firearms owners, so why are we making them look like criminals? Professor Gary Mauser looked at all murders since 1997. Less than 2% of them were committed by firearms owners, and out of those licensed firearms owners, only 1.2% of the murders were done with registered firearms. It comes down to the fact that it is not guns that kill people, but people who kill people, and we have to target them.

Just to summarize, the NDP and the Liberals have stated over and over again that they want the gun registry. If they ever have a chance to come back into power, they will bring back the gun registry.

I criticize the member for Western Arctic and the member for Churchill, who campaigned saying, “Vote for me. I will vote to get rid of the long gun registry”. Yet they reversed themselves at second reading and voted, along with their colleagues, to kill our bill to end the long gun registry once and for all.

I thank the members for Thunder Bay—Superior North and Thunder Bay—Rainy River for standing up against their party leadership and voting for their constituents, helping to ensure that we get rid of this long gun registry once and for all. They have been sanctioned and silenced, and their constituents do not have a voice in this House of Commons because of that NDP leadership. However, they deserve to be given all the accolades in the world for allowing the grassroots to speak to them and for carrying their voice back here into the House of Commons.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to add my voice to those of many Quebeckers, Canadians, police officers and victims who strongly condemn abolishing the long gun registry and its data. This irresponsible choice shows once again the take-it-or-leave-it Conservative rhetoric that has prevailed in the House of Commons since the last election.

Under the Liberal government, the initial implementation phase of this registry cost Canadians a lot more than expected, while also being plagued by significant delays and registration costs. The lack of leadership and the poor estimate of the actual costs were indeed disturbing. However, the current cost of maintaining the registry is $4 million annually, while the total budget for the Canadian firearms program is $76.5 million. Let us do some quick calculations. The registry accounts for 5.23% of the program's annual budget. Hon. members will agree that this is a relatively small amount and that the significant investments that had to be made to create the registry are now behind us. Therefore, destroying these records would waste the public funds already invested.

With their taxes, Quebeckers have paid close to one-quarter of the cost of the registry, and they want a registry. Quebec was even prepared to take over this registry, but the Conservative government flatly refused. Destroying the data would waste the large investment made by Quebeckers and Canadians.

Since the destruction of those records is part of the Conservative plan, I find it unacceptable that the provinces, which have invested a lot of money, were not consulted before making this decision. The Conservative government refuses yet again to listen to the provinces, just as it did with Bill C-10. That shows a total lack of respect.

I also want to point out that the speeches made by the Conservatives in recent months are very inconsistent. The Conservatives partly justify abolishing the long gun registry by suggesting that citizens should be treated like adults and that the government should not interfere in their private lives. The government also says that it is wrong to treat law-abiding hunters as if they were criminals.

I find it very ironic that, under the lawful access legislation, all Canadians using the Internet will be treated like criminals, without any regard for their right to privacy. After all, one of the main goals of the Conservatives with Bill C-19 is to destroy data in order to protect privacy. These two positions are rather controversial and inconsistent.

I want to point out that those same hunters whose privacy the government wants to protect also have computers at home. They will probably use the Internet. I am having a very hard time understanding the government's position. I do not understand why we are legally required to disclose details about our private lives by registering our animals, our children and our cars, but registering a firearm that could be used to kill someone, whether intentionally or accidentally, is an invasion of privacy. That makes no sense.

Simply put, the government is against data that interfere with their rhetoric. They are underestimating the intelligence of Canadians.

As of September 30, 2011, the registry was being accessed 17,000 times a day. A survey showed that nearly all general duty police officers use the system, and that in 74% of cases, the information they obtain assists their operations. The registry enables police officers to better prepare their intervention strategies, which is crucial to protecting those who bear the weighty responsibility of keeping us safe.

That is why William Blair, Toronto police chief and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and Daniel Parkinson, president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, expressed concern about the safety of police officers and Canadians should the data be destroyed.

In Quebec, Yves Francoeur, president of the Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal, said, “To keep people safe, we need a registry, no matter what the cost”.

Marc Parent, chief of the Montreal city police, said, “This is a tool we use every day. The need is there".

The RCMP and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have also spoken in favour of maintaining the registry.

The government is bragging about making the work of police officers easier, but Bill C-19 does not make any sense to police officers across the country.

There is absolutely no question that the registry gives police officers essential strategic planning tools that they use for their interventions. However, I am very concerned about victims and future victims of criminal acts committed with guns. I am thinking in particular of the victims at the Polytechnique in 1989 and at Dawson College in 2006, of police officer Valérie Gignac, and of the RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe in 2005, who were all killed by guns. In 2010, the RCMP said that in the previous 10 years, 10 out of 13 police officers were killed by long guns.

Victims' groups have condemned Bill C-19. It is grotesque, insensitive and cruel to all these victims to abolish a registry whose records can save lives. This government says it protects victims, but its position on Bill C-19 shows the exact opposite. Rather than presenting Canadians with a take-it-or-leave-it choice so as to divide them, the NDP wants to unite them. Our party seeks a compromise between the public safety issues that could result from the abolition and destruction of this registry and aboriginal treaty rights. We believe it is possible to find a solution for all Canadians.

In 2010, we proposed the following: decriminalizing the failure to register a firearm for first-time offenders and issuing a ticket instead; indicating in the legislation that long gun owners would not have to pay registration costs; prohibiting the disclosure of information about firearms owners, except for the purpose of protecting the public or when ordered by a court or by law; and creating a legal guarantee to protect aboriginal treaty rights.

Our point of view has not changed. We support a constructive dialogue between the stakeholders, so that no one is left out and we all work together. Recent governments have divided us enough. The time has come to take measures that will foster reconciliation between all Canadians. There are solutions that will improve public safety while also respecting aboriginal people and everyone who lives in rural areas.

It is time the Conservative government listened to Canadians and acted like a responsible government towards them and towards all those who risk their lives to maintain the peace.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to begin the final day of third reading debate on Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act.

As I said last week, this is a very proud day for long gun owners and, indeed, people who are fiscally prudent and taxpayers in our country from coast to coast to coast. We are one step closer to fulfilling our longstanding commitment to ending the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

I am pleased to tell Yukon citizens, trappers, hunters, athletes, sport shooters, collectors and first nations who rely on long guns to protect their heritage, culture and traditional way of life that the long gun registry, as promised by our government, is finally coming to its rightful end.

Long guns have been a staple tool in Yukon since its beginning, before it was designated as its own territory. This is indeed true of Canada itself.

Throughout this process of debate we have heard all of the reasons our government is opposed to this misdirected legislation. We have heard how wasteful and costly the long gun registry is. The costs have surpassed $2 billion. Can one imagine how many police officers that money would have hired, how many crime prevention programs could have been funded, how much rehabilitative treatment could have been developed and how much victim support could have been provided? When we stop to think about it in those terms, it is an absolutely grotesque and astounding waste of money.

Throughout this entire debate, whether in second reading or committee stage, we have also heard that it is ineffective. Frankly, for the last 17 years, not one person has convinced me that the long gun registry has ever stopped a single crime or saved a single life.

What would stop crime is smart prevention, effective policing and sentences that deter crime. That is the approach to criminal justice this Conservative government is taking and will continue to take into the future.

The single biggest impediment to police work today is paperwork. Crimes by and large are not solved from behind a computer desk. There is as much value today in good old fashioned, on the street, door to door efforts as there ever was. This holds infinitely true when we discuss crime prevention. Crimes are not prevented from behind a desk.

Supporters of the long gun registry continue to claim that it will help the police. Ask any officer if they would like a partner or a computer and a database and the overwhelmingly answer would be a partner. However, the $2 billion blown by the Liberal government went to a database that did nothing, and the police are now buried in databases wrought with errors.

What do I know about this? I was a member of the RCMP's Troop 4 in depot division the year the Liberal government shut it down. It was the second last troop to graduate before a complete closure of the depot for the first time in 125 years of the RCMP's existence. Troop 4 was told well past the mid-point of training that the depot would be closing and there would be no jobs to go to. For the first time in 125 years, facilitators met with our entire troop to say that while we could remain there until graduation, there would be no jobs.

How can the Liberal member now stand in this House and say that the registry keeps Canadians and the police safe with a legacy like that?

It keeps police behind desks. It keeps police buried in data so that they are not on our streets to prevent crimes. The wasted $2 billion could have been $2 billion spent on a partner that every officer would love to have. That would have been $2 billion well spent.

After all the fearmongering and hyperbole the opposition has continued to use at every single juncture of debate, I thought it would be a useful exercise to again review with everyone what I like to call the seven myths of the opposition, by which they have repeatedly misled Canadians.

Myth number one: The long gun registry will help keep suicide rates down. At committee we clearly heard evidence from peer reviewed studies by Dr. Caillin Langmann, Ph.D, Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine at McMaster University. He stated:

—the discontinuation of the registration of non-restricted firearms is not likely to result in an increase in the aggregate suicide rate by long gun.

I treat suicide and violence on a daily basis.... [T]he money that has been spent on the long-gun registry is unfortunately wasted; however, we can prevent further waste by taking the money we currently spend on the long-gun registry and spending it on....women's shelters; police training in spousal abuse; and psychiatric care, which is sorely lacking in this country. We are not winning the battle against suicide.

Myth number two: The long gun registry will keep women safer. The committee clearly heard about peer-reviewed research which demonstrated that the discontinuation of non-restricted firearms will not result in an increase in homicide or spousal homicide rates through the utilization of long guns. This only makes sense because the people who register their long guns are not committing these crimes. These are men and women who are impeded by the red tape and the stigma associated with being long gun owners. They do their civic duty despite the unnecessary and wasteful burden imposed upon them. They register their firearms because their government tells them it is the law.

Meanwhile, criminals do not do any of this. They enjoy the freedom to operate outside of the law and have all the rights and protections of the law. The opposition attempts to position this debate in long guns as men against women, and offender and victim. The committee heard directly from women, women who hunt, women who trap, women who have represented our great nation in international shooting competitions. The opposition would like Canadians to believe that it is only men who own guns. This is simply not the case.

Madame Hélène Laurente, volunteer coordinator of the Quebec women's hunting program, said this in committee:

As a hunter, I don't think it's fair that we are being treated like criminals... The registry does not protect women any more than it does society as a whole.

Myth number three: Guns will now be as easy to get as checking out books at a library. The opposition is ignoring the facts. It is deliberately misleading those who do not own long guns and who are not familiar with the process. I can tell Canadians, as any long gun owner can, that the requirements for licensing are not changing. They include Canadian firearms safety courses and, for some, additional firearm, hunter ethic and safety development courses and, of course, pre-screening security background checks.

Myth number four: Police support the registry and elimination of the registry will put police in danger. This is what the committee heard from law enforcement personnel:

I can tell you that the registration of long guns did not make my job as a conservation officer safer.

That testimony was from Donald Weltz, an Ontario conservation officer.

The committee heard about a survey conducted between March 2009 and June of 2010 of 2,631 police officers from all across Canada, 2,410 of whom voted to scrap the registry. In April 2011, a further survey of Edmonton city police concluded that 81% voted in favour of scrapping the registry. The committee heard that the Auditor General found that the RCMP could not rely on the registry because of a large number of errors and omissions. Numerous individual police officers stated that they do not trust the information contained in the registry and would not rely on it to ensure their safety.

Myth number five: The data should be saved and turned over to provinces that wish to create their own registry. The registry is the data. Our commitment to the Canadian people was clear. Anything less would be disingenuous. The data was collected under federal law for a federal purpose. It will not be turned over to another jurisdiction. The committee heard evidence that the RCMP had reported error rates between 43% and 90% in firearms applications and registry information. It also heard that the manual search conducted discovered 4,438 stolen firearms had been successfully re-registered. With these errors, it would irresponsible to the extreme to allow this unreliable, ineffective and grossly expensive system to be handed over to anyone.

Myth number six: Registering a long gun is no different than registering a car. What did the committee hear on this assumption? Solomon Friedman accurately stated that, unlike registering a car, failure to comply or errors in the application process have criminal implications. People will not be going to jail or receiving criminal records if they fail to register their cars.

Myth number seven: Registering a firearm is simple, so what is the harm? Again, the harm is that any mistake has criminal implications. The mistakes in the registry are staggering.

We should further consider additional testimony from Mr. Friedman:

I have two law degrees. I clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada, and I practise criminal law for a living. Even I at times find the provisions of the Firearms Act and the gun control portions of the Criminal Code convoluted, complex, and confusing.

If this is the case, how can we expect average Canadians to navigate this quagmire without error? How can we have criminal consequences as a result? How can we expect our law enforcement officers to interpret and apply complex and convoluted legislation with discretion and consistency if a criminal lawyer, well versed and studied on the subject matter, finds it difficult?

Linda Thom, who is a Canadian Olympic gold medal shooter, said:

I’m accorded fewer legal rights than a criminal. Measures enacted by Bill C-68 allow police to enter my home at any time without a search warrant because I own registered firearms, yet the same police must have a search warrant to enter the home of a criminal. I’m not arguing that criminals should not have this right, they should. I’m arguing that this right should be restored to me and all Canadian firearms owners.

Finally, I would like to highlight the conclusion of Gary Mauser, PhD, professor emeritus at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Simon Fraser University. He concluded:

First, responsible gun owners are less likely to be accused of homicide than other Canadians. Second, the police have not been able to demonstrate the value of the long-gun registry. Third, the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing homicide. Fourth, the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed.

That is exactly what will happen. Our government has made a clear commitment. Promise made, promise kept.

However, I would also like to focus today on some of the other insincerities offered by the opposition. First and most flagrantly is the NDP, Her Majesty's loyal opposition. This party, sadly, has caved to the big labour special interests. Numerous members of that party from rural Canada told their voters last spring that when they went to Ottawa, they would put the views of people ahead of cheap partisan politics.

Boy, were those people misled. For example, the member for Western Arctic stated recently, and repeatedly, that he would vote to end the long gun registry. He campaigned on this, knowing full well, and in his own words to the Slave River Journal as recently as June 2010, that 95% of the emails he received from the Northwest Territories constituents supported eliminating the long gun registry. The member has now stated in this House that he will vote against ending the long gun registry.

It appears that he is willing to disappoint his constituents, turn his back on them by failing to defend their traditional, cultural, historic and present-day way of life. Why would he do this when he stated in the same article that he believed he would be able to vote as he saw fit? He said:

The NDP has a policy of not whipping the vote on private member's bills, so people are allowed to vote as they see fit.

Alas, the answer. The member for Western Arctic is not prepared to face the wrath of NDP bosses and suffer the consequences.

However, not all members of the NDP are willing to break their commitments. I am referring to the members from Thunder Bay—Superior North and Thunder Bay—Rainy River, who both had the courage to stand up and vote with the Conservative government to end the long gun registry.

Unfortunately, we know how that story went. The heavy-handed union bosses in the backrooms of the NDP spoke and spoke quickly. Immediately these MPs were stripped of the ability to speak up for their constituents. These sorts of intimidation tactics are reprehensible, but frankly not surprising from the disunited NDP.

Let us also look at the Liberal Party members. They have not been as cagey about their position as their New Democratic colleagues. The Liberals were clear prior to the last election that all Liberals would support continuing the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Now, thanks to ignoring the will of their constituents, the once-great big red machine has been relegated to the back corner of this place.

Members should not think for a moment that I have any problem with the Liberal tactics. Without these ham-fisted actions by the opposition, our caucus might not have been blessed with the great talents, such as the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming, among others.

Despite the two different approaches of ignoring the will of their constituents, the NDP and the Liberals have something in common. They both support criminalizing law-abiding Canadians through the long gun registry, but oppose punishing real criminals through tough and appropriate sanctions.

This is something that I simply fail to understand. It is the firm belief of the opposition that individuals should have the force of the Criminal Code, the most powerful tool at the disposal of the state, thrust upon them should they fail to fill out some paperwork to register their rifles and shotguns. At the same time, the members opposite grimace and grumble every time our government dares to suggest that those who are trafficking drugs to our children should get serious jail time or that those who sexually abuse children should never have the benefit of having their criminal record erased.

The position not only lacks serious elements of common sense, it is morally bankrupt. All reasonable people agree that individuals must be licensed to possess firearms. We are not changing that. What we are doing is simply taking steps to eliminate a needlessly bureaucratic process that has done nothing to protect public safety.

Anyone who believes that putting a piece of paper next to a firearm makes it safer is not being honest with himself or herself. Let us be clear: Firearms in the wrong hands are dangerous. That is why we are ensuring appropriate licensing still takes place. Firearms in the hands of law-abiding Canadians, however, are merely tools. They are no different from any other piece of property. This again returns to my confusion as to the priorities of the opposition regarding criminal justice.

When I go back to the Yukon I hear the same refrain from all sorts of people. They ask why law-abiding gun owners are treated like criminals, yet criminals are getting off easy. The only answer I have for them is to look back at the history and the legacy of Liberal governments throughout the years.

Our government is looking to take action to correct both of these historic wrongs. We will end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. We will ensure we develop a correctional system that actually corrects criminal behaviour. That is what we were elected to do, and that is what we will do.

It boggles my mind that any reasonable individual could oppose the bill. There are two fundamental halves. First, as I have touched on, is keeping Canadians safe through effective gun control. Our government does not believe in measures that simply make people feel safe. We are concerned with actually making people safe.

Effective gun control exists through proper licensing and ensuring only qualified individuals have possession of firearms. As I have said before, a gun in the hands of a law-abiding Canadian is just another piece of property. A gun in the hands of a criminal or the mentally ill only leads to tragedy. The long gun registry does nothing to prevent the latter. That is done through screening and licensing, which we have recently increased investment in. That is how people are truly kept safe.

The second half of the bill, which is equally important, is protecting the privacy of all Canadians. For many years the long gun registry made ordinary Canadians feel like criminals for no other reason than the fact that they happened to own a firearm. They were required to register in a cumbersome and paperwork-heavy process. They were required to submit into a database a list of legally owned private property. All for merely having the audacity of being a long gun owner.

Diana Cabrera from the Canadian Shooting Sports Association testified before committee. She said:

There is no question that the long-gun registry has deterred individuals from entering the shooting sports. Firearm owners are subjected to spectacular press coverage in which reporters tirelessly describe small and very ordinary collections of firearms as an “arsenal”.

Some may say that being in a database hardly constitutes being a criminal. There are all kinds of databases. The problem lies with the attitude. Firearms owners are taught that they need be ashamed of their hobby, that somehow, because they own a gun, they are more likely to become a criminal. This needs to stop. That is completely untrue.

On law and order matters, police and the firearms community tend to march in lockstep. However, the long gun registry has thrust a wedge between these two groups. In many cases, firearms owners rightfully feel that they are being targeted by police officers for simply owning a hunting rifle. While the police are merely doing their job and enforcing the law as it stands, a culture of division has been spawned by the policies of the previous Liberal government. Eliminating the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry is an important first step in correcting this needless division of Canadians.

The fact of the matter is that once we eliminate the long gun registry, there will be no change in public safety. Effective gun control will still exist. What will change is that, once and for all, gun owners will be able to feel good about owning their guns.

I see my time is coming to an end. I would just like to conclude that we have seen a number of steps taken that are simply divisive politics. We saw, as an example, on two separate occasions, billboards designed by the NDP to provoke fear in urban communities. They had silhouettes of dangerous-looking firearms and they implied that these scary guns would be everywhere should the registry be scrapped. Plain and simple, they were wrong. Those firearms displayed are restricted and are still subject to gun control measures.

I call on all members, especially those members who campaigned on this promise, to stand with our government and vote to end the long gun registry. Let us put an end to this Liberal-led attack on our Canadian culture, tradition, history and day-to-day life of north to south, rural to urban, coast to coast to magnificent coast.

The House resumed from February 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the third time and passed.

Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg North.

I am pleased to take part in today's debate on Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, which seeks 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. This bill is based exclusively on the Conservatives' right-wing ideology rather than on facts.

Police officers say that the registry is effective. It is an essential tool used by the police in implementing preventive measures and enforcing prohibition orders. It is used to ensure that any firearm can be taken from a person should the situation warrant it. It facilitates police investigations. When the police find a firearm at the scene of a crime, they can trace it back to its rightful owner. On a number of occasions, offenders have been found guilty of aiding and abetting murders or other crimes, partly because a registered firearm was left at the scene of the crime.

The registry allows the police to determine whether a firearm is legal or illegal. Without information on the people who legally own firearms and the firearms that they possess, the police cannot charge anyone with illegal possession. The registry allows the police to easily trace firearms, which assists in police investigations of illegal trafficking. The registry reduces the possibility of finding legal firearms on the black market.

We know that the Conservatives do not like evidence, but Statistics Canada recently reported a drop in the number of firearm-related homicides, mainly due to a drop in the number of shotgun- and rifle-related murders. Firearms were involved in 32% of murders last year, which is slightly higher than the proportion of stabbing deaths at 31%. Handguns accounted for approximately two-thirds of the firearm-related homicides, while long guns accounted for 23%. The remaining murders involved sawed-off shotguns, automatic weapons or other firearm-like weapons.

According to the RCMP's 2002 data, long guns are the most commonly used firearm in spousal homicides. Over the past decade, 71% of spousal homicides involved shotguns and rifles.

The Liberal Party joins Canada's police chiefs and the majority of Canadians in the belief that scrapping a tool used over 20,000 times a day by our police forces is not in Canada's best interest.

Unfortunately, the gun registry is set to become the latest casualty of the Conservative government's ideological attack on facts and evidence. There is no respect for last year's vote that definitely said we should not abolish the gun registry. However, the Conservatives have just brought the issue back up.

Some provinces have expressed interest in maintaining provincial registries to keep their citizens safe. Quebec has been notable in this regard. It has not just asked for it but demanded and pleaded for it on many occasions. For this reason the data collected over the last 16 years should be preserved so that provinces can salvage this important policing tool, which has been paid for by taxpayers over and over again.

We are also concerned about the reports of increasing pressure being put on the government by the gun lobby to scrap the licensing of firearm owners in addition to eliminating the registry completely. We are already preparing for the next battle. The Conservatives must be prepared to stand up for the interests of public safety and resist the call for complete deregulation.

Under Bill C-19, the registrar of firearms would no longer issue or keep records of registration certificates for non-restricted firearms, commonly known as long guns. As registration certificates would no longer be required to possess a non-restricted firearm, certain offences under the Firearms Act would be amended and repealed. The Criminal Code would also be amended so that failure to hold a registration certification for a non-restricted firearm would not give rise to any of the offences related to unauthorized possession of a firearm. Therefore, police could no longer seize these non-restricted firearms.

Although Bill C-19 would remove the need to hold a registration certificate for non-restricted firearms, it does not change the requirement that people need to hold a licence in order to possess a firearm and undergo a background check and pass a required safety course. However, while the licensing process screens gun owners for risk, a one-time registration holds gun owners accountable for their guns. If passed the bill would allow a licensed individual to acquire an unlimited number of guns without raising any flags. Members should try to figure out the consistency of that.

The bill would also remove mandatory licensing checks required when transferring gun ownership from a person or business. Currently, the licence has to be verified in the electronic system or through a phone call to the registry office before someone can buy a gun. However, Bill C-19 proposes that gun shop owners should simply visually check a gun licence, which, like other types of cards such as health cards and drivers' licences, can be forged.

Verifying gun licenses has been a factor in different crimes. Victims have been shot by offenders who had been under a prohibition order and had their licences cancelled. Although the licenses were removed from the offenders' possession, they were still able to purchase a gun legally, as the seller was not required to ensure that the licence was valid.

Finally, as a consequence of the registry's repeal, a gun merchant is not obliged to keep records of gun sales. In 1977, Canada passed legislation requiring gun merchants to keep a record of gun sale transactions. The obligation was removed with the introduction of the Firearms Act, as guns would be registered to the owner at the point of sale. What will happen now?

This is where the controversy stems. There has always been a history of gun control in Canada and this is to what we defer. Gun control in Canada dates back to the 19th century. It has been required that all handguns be registered since 1934 and a central registry for restricted firearms was established and operated by the RCMP in 1951. A classification system consisting of prohibited weapons, the most severe classification, and restricted and non-restricted weapons has existed since 1968. However, the classification system has not been updated since 1995.

Prohibited weapons, including handguns, automatic weapons, rifles and shotguns, have been adapted by either sawing or cutting. If so, what are we to make of certain measures classified in the legislation, wherein individuals could possess a prohibited firearm if it were registered when the firearm became prohibited and if they had continually held a valid registration certificate since 1998? The firearms legislation refers to these firearms as having been grandfathered.

Therefore, although the Conservatives say they are saving money by eliminating the gun registry, they are actually adding to the confusion. Now people do not know what they can or should register and which firearms are grandfathered. Restricted firearms are allowed only for approved purposes such as target shooting, or as part of a collection. Firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted, such as hunting rifles or shotguns, are referred to as non-restricted firearms, or long guns.

The Firearms Act was passed by Parliament in 1995 and came into force in 1998. It was established in response to the shooting deaths of 14 women at École polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. It requires both a licence for the owner and a registration certificate for all firearms. This is not a big deal. All transfers of firearms require approval so that a new registration certificate can be issued to the new owner. Again, this is not a big deal. Instead, the registration requirement is eliminated under Bill C-19. We have seen that crimes have gone down as a result of long guns being registered.

In May 2006, the Auditor General of Canada issued a report that examined the Canadian firearms program. In the report, she criticized not only the cost of the registry, but also the quality of the data and how the registry was being maintained. Since that time, several of those flaws have been corrected, because oversight and administration of the registry were assigned to the RCMP in 2006.

The Auditor General confirmed that the cost of developing and implementing the program was $1 million over 10 years. However, that money has now been squandered and we can never get it back. The RCMP estimates that the current cost of maintaining the firearms registry is less than $2 million a year, that is, less than 15 cents per Canadian per year. According to the RCMP's external report, eliminating the firearms registry will save only a few million dollars.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today with respect to Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act. It is no secret that our government places a high priority on cracking down on crime and making our streets safer.

Since day one, we have been very clear that we have worked hard to ensure victims are respected, offenders are punished and law enforcement officials have the tools they need to do their jobs. It is also no secret that when we say we will do something, we follow through on it.

Over the last six years, our government has passed several pieces of legislation to tackle violent crime. We passed mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes, as well as reverse bail provisions for serious offences, a lot of changes that the Canadian public has felt were long overdue. Our government has also passed legislation that, among other things, created a new broad-based offence to target drive-by and other intentional shootings that involve the reckless disregard for the life or safety of others.

Those convicted of such acts are now subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison with a maximum period of imprisonment of 14 years. If these acts are committed by or for a criminal organization, or with a restricted or prohibited firearm, such as a handgun or an automatic weapon, the minimum sentence is increased to five years.

However, our work does not end there. We have told Canadians that we would waste no time introducing legislation to repeal the long gun registry and this is exactly what we have done. With Bill C-19, we are making good on another commitment to Canadians.

I will start by noting that the issue of effective firearm control is an important one, one that has been debated in this country for years. All of us see the fallout from gun related crimes in Canada. The media headlines remind us almost daily of the tragic consequences of violent gun crime. Sadly, in some places people do not feel safe in their neighbourhoods or, worse, in their own homes. In this light, it is imperative that we have effective ways of dealing with crime.

As I said at the outset, our government has been committed to making our streets and communities safer for all Canadians for the past six years. We followed up that commitment with concrete and tangible initiatives to get tough with offenders and to help prevent crime before it happens. This is why I hope that hon. members will consider this legislation with an open mind and with a view of moving forward on this long overdue change to our law books.

We all want to ensure that guns do not fall into the hands of offenders or are used to commit grievous crimes. I believe that we are all committed to the principles of balance and common sense. That is really what the bill before us today is all about.

It is about ensuring that we continue to preserve and enhance those measures that do work to reduce crime and protect Canadians. However, it is also about ensuring that we do not unnecessarily penalize millions of honest and law-abiding citizens with rules that absolutely have no effect on crime prevention or on reducing gun related crime.

Our government has said many times that the long gun registry unfairly treats owners of rifles and shotguns like criminals, like so many of the residents in my riding of Huron—Bruce. We stand behind these law-abiding Canadians and we are telling them that we will no longer make them feel like criminals.

We have also said many times that the long gun registry is wasteful and ineffective. First, it is definitely a waste of taxpayer dollars, and we have known this right since day one. The CBC estimates that the long gun registry has cost in excess of $2 billion. That is money that could be better used to support crime prevention, like we so often hear, and give police more tools to do their jobs.

Second, it is ineffective because there is no evidence that the long gun registry has ever stopped a single crime or saved a single life. In fact, in committee hearings, some of the policing community have said themselves that they find the registry inaccurate and ineffective. That is why we are moving ahead the legislation before us.

What does that do to Bill C-19? First and foremost, the legislation before us today removes the need to register non-restricted firearms, such as rifles and shotguns, tools that people use on any farm from coast to coast. These are not generally the guns used to commit homicides.

That said, Bill C-19 would not do away with the need to properly license all firearms owners. All businesses and individuals will still need to possess a valid firearms licence in order to legally purchase a firearm. To obtain a licence, they must be able to pass the required Canadian firearms safety course and to comply with firearms safe storage and transportation requirements. They will also need to pass a background check performed by the chief firearms officers or their representatives who employ law enforcement systems and resources to review individuals' criminal records. Any history of treatment for mental illness associated with violence or history of a violent behaviour against another person will be taken into consideration.

Bill C-19 would retain licensing requirements for all gun owners while doing away with the need for honest, law-abiding citizens to register their non-restricted rifles or shotguns, a requirement that is unfair and ineffective.

What else would this legislation do? Bill C-19 includes a provision for the complete destruction of all records related to the registration of non-restricted firearms that is currently contained within the Canadian firearms registry. This would ensure that the private information of millions of Canadians who have registered their non-restricted firearms in good faith is not distributed to other entities. They did not sign up for that.

These law-abiding long gun owners provided their personal information in good faith to our government for one reason, and one reason alone: to be added to the national long gun registry; nothing more, nothing less. We cannot simply provide this information to other organizations or governments without the express consent of each one of these citizens. Therefore, we must and we will ensure that records are destroyed.

We have heard loud and clear from Canadians who own non-restricted rifles and long guns that they want the long gun registry eliminated. I can say that virtually every weekend I have been home since I was elected, and even before then, this is what I have heard from the constituents of Huron—Bruce. They want to ensure that their private information is not distributed to other entities.

What is proposed under Bill C-19 is, therefore, not a fundamental overhaul or a scrapping of the entire licensing and registration system. Rather, what is proposed are changes that would do away with the need to register legally acquired and used rifles and shotguns that are largely owned by Canadians living in rural or remote areas. This would ensure that scarce government resources can be directed toward initiatives that make our streets safer.

As the Prime Minister has noted, we want to ensure that what we do is actually effective. Certainly, in today's economic climate, every dollar must be accounted for. This includes putting more police on our streets, fighting organized crime at its source and combating gun smuggling. The government has already done a lot in this regard. Our goal is to do a lot more by directing our efforts to where they can be most effective in the fight against crime and gun crime in particular.

Our government is determined to maintain an effective firearms control system while, at the same time, combating the criminal use of firearms and getting tough on crime. This again is really what the bill before us today is all about. It is about ensuring that we invest in initiatives that work and that we continue to protect the safety and security of Canadians without unnecessarily punishing people because of where they live or how they make a living.

Now is the time to support the legislation before us today and stop penalizing honest, law-abiding citizens, just like the honest, law-abiding citizens of Huron—Bruce.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Huron—Bruce.

It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. I would like to thank my hon. colleagues who have presented strong arguments in favour of the legislation that will finally end a measure that has had no clear benefit and many downfalls.

The legislation before us, as with many bills we have introduced, is straightforward and to the point. We tell it like it is, plain and simple. There is no confusion as to what the bill will do. Just to ensure that my hon. colleagues are clear, however, I will briefly explain what the bill is all about.

First, it would eliminate the requirement to register long guns. Second, it would allow for the destruction of the registration information for non-restricted firearms that is in the Canadian firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officer. This is the extent of Bill C-19.

With the countless hours of debate and discussion that have taken place regarding this legislation and proposed bills that have come before it, one would think it is a far more complicated issue. In fact, I would argue that of all the words that have been written, spoken and perhaps sometimes even yelled in this House and in the media on this topic, the most important one is “wasteful”. This is a strong word, but it is the only accurate word to describe the long gun registry.

What do we mean by wasteful? The dictionary defines wasteful as using or spending too much. That is the perfect way to describe the long gun registry. It has used up a tremendous amount of time and energy for millions of Canadians. This includes the time wasted by millions of law-abiding long gun owners to go through the unnecessary registration process.

In fact, up until 2006 when our government made amendments to the rules, Canadians were expected to provide physical verification of their rifles and shotguns. We can only imagine what this adds up to in terms of wasted time and energy on the part of these individuals.

Even with the changes put in place in 2006, individuals registering their rifles and shotguns must still answer a series of questions by phone. We must ask ourselves, is this truly an effective form of gun control? Do we really believe that criminals will go through the registration process, diligently sitting through a telephone conversation to ensure their non-restricted firearm is properly registered? The answer is no. The individuals wasting their time registering their firearms are the law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters in Canada, in other words, ordinary Canadians who are doing their best to comply with the heavy-handed registration system.

The long gun registry has also proven to be a waste of time for the police officers it was originally purported to protect. We have heard the testimony of several police officers who appeared before committee and told us the registry is inaccurate and unreliable. One Saskatoon police officer who testified in committee put it this way:

For officers using the registry, trusting in the inaccurate and unverified information contained therein, tragedy looms around the door.

Knowing what I do about the registry, I cannot use the information contained in the registry to swear out a search warrant. To do so would be a criminal act. Thus I cannot in good conscience tell any officer, junior or senior, to place his faith in the results of a query of the Canada firearms registry online.

This is a chilling indictment of the long gun registry. Not only is it a waste of time for police to rely on the data contained in the long gun registry, it also creates a false sense of security that could lead to deadly consequences for our brave police officers.

It is impossible to put a price tag on the amount of time Canadians have wasted on this long gun registry over the course of the last 16 years. What we can do, however, is put a price tag on the second part of the definition of wasteful, that which refers to spending too much. The state broadcaster has done just that. The CBC has estimated that the long gun registry has cost Canadians in excess of $2 billion. This is an affront to Canadian taxpayers.

Worse still is the fact that despite our government's ongoing efforts since 2006 to pass legislation that would eliminate the long gun registry, it still remains in place today, costing millions of dollars each and every year. This wasteful spending is an insult to ordinary citizens who place their trust in their government to spend their taxes wisely on policies and actions that keep them safe.

We know that Canadians are willing to pay for effective crime prevention measures. They understand and accept the need to follow reasonable and fair regulations as part of a nation that adheres to the rule of law. In return, they deserve nothing less than a government that is careful with their money, while taking into consideration the need to invest in areas that will build a better, stronger and safer Canada.

It has always been our government's commitment, first and foremost, to keep our streets and communities safe. In the matter of gun control, this responsibility translates into making the right decisions on how to best prevent violent gun crimes. It has been shown empirically that the current gun licensing system is one of the best tools at our disposal, and it is a system that is widely accepted by gun owners as a necessary and fair measure. That is why Bill C-19 will not make any changes to this system. Obtaining a valid firearms licence will still require individuals to undergo the Canadian firearms safety course and background checks to determine their eligibility to own a firearm. Further, we will make no changes to the regulations in place regarding restricted and prohibited firearms.

This legislation is the work of a responsible government that is committed to focusing our resources and efforts on what works rather than pouring money into an ineffective measure that does not. It is the work of a government that stands by its commitment to Canadians.

When we first came to power more than six years ago, we told Canadians that we would crack down on crime, put the rights of victims first, and strengthen our police forces. We have delivered on that pledge. Over the past six years we have introduced legislation that gives victims a voice at parole board hearings and which ensures that offenders cannot pull out of their parole board hearing at the last minute. We have passed legislation to crack down on violent gun crimes and to make sure that those who commit serious crimes face serious consequences. We have passed legislation that gives our police officers better tools to do their jobs, tools that are actually effective. Even if we had a well run long gun registry that remained within its estimated budget, it still would not prevent violent gun crimes. It still would not change the fact that criminals do not register their firearms.

In conclusion, the time for endless words and debate is over. Now is the time that we must take action and eliminate the long gun registry. I call on all hon. members to look at the facts and listen to their constituents, particularly those in rural and remote areas of Canada. I call on all members to make the responsible choice and support this bill.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly an honour for me to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-19 on abolishing the firearms registry. It is an honour for me as a woman, as a person from Laval, as a Quebecker and as a Canadian. It is also a great honour for me to tell my colleagues what the people of Alfred-Pellan think about abolishing the firearms registry.

The Conservatives often use demagogic terms and bogus contexts to get across their message on abolishing the firearms registry.

The members opposite often say that by abolishing the registry, hunters and farmers will no longer be viewed as criminals. I really did not know that the Conservatives viewed the farmers of Alfred-Pellan as criminals.

I will say a few words about the people of the riding I represent. Alfred-Pellan is a riding located on Laval Island, very near the greater Montreal area. One of the rather unusual characteristics of this eastern part of Laval is that it is 80% farmland. Many farmers and hunters live in my riding. No one thought to ask them what they really think about the firearms registry.

I know most of my neighbours, having lived in their community for 28 years now. Most of them want to keep the firearms registry. We all agree that changes need to be made, but the NDP has proposed some changes to the firearms registry and that is what we must continue to work on.

I would like to remind the members opposite that I too am a hunter and my family has been hunting for many generations. My cousins, my uncles and my father are all hunters and they all register their firearms. It is their pleasure to do so. They have no problem with that.

Are my colleagues on the other side of the House not indirectly treating members of my family as criminals? We must realize that the gun registry is very important to them. They have families; they respect the work of police officers across Canada; and they want them to have the tools to do a good job.

Does this government really believe it can fool Canadians by spouting such nonsense and demagoguery? At times, it is sad to see how weak some of the Conservatives' arguments are in certain matters. It is also appalling to see this government lump everyone together. I would like to point out that not all the men and women who hunt and farm think like the members opposite.

This also proves that they are completely out of touch with the Canadian reality and that they do not understand the complexity of the problem before us. The Conservatives often tell us that, in any case, the gun registry data are outdated and inaccurate. I would like to remind the House that it was this government's responsibility to maintain the quality of the existing gun registry. The Conservatives failed to fulfill this responsibility and now they are telling us that the data are no longer up to date. Furthermore, in 2006, this government declared an amnesty on gun registration. The amnesty was renewed every year, which sadly weakened enforcement of the Firearms Act. Rarely have we seen such bad faith from a government in power.

I would also like to remind my colleagues that on May 2 last year, the current Prime Minister promised to work for all Canadians, no matter what their political affiliation or where they live. Unfortunately, it is clear that he has not kept his promise.

I would like to remind all MPs that, on six separate occasions, Quebec's National Assembly unanimously voted in favour of maintaining a universal firearms registration system. This registry is an extremely useful tool in my province. Among other things, it helps prevent crime. Police officers rely on it as they carry out their daily duties.

Does this government respect Quebeckers' position and choices? I do not think so. Let us talk about the information in the registry and why it is so important to the thousands of police officers who use it every day. They use it to find out how many firearms an individual owns so that they can respond accordingly. It is very important for anyone entering the home of a violent person to know how many firearms that individual owns.

The registry can also provide a starting point for an investigation. For example, if a firearm is found at the scene of a crime, the criminal responsible could be tracked down through the registry.

The members opposite talk about how most firearms are illegal and not registered because they are bought on the black market. I would like us to focus on the fact that some registered firearms are used to commit violent crimes. In the case of registered guns, the police can sometimes prevent crimes, and of course they can investigate and find the criminal involved.

Domestic violence is another interesting situation that often involves long guns. Long gun registration has reduced the number of crimes against women who are victims of domestic violence. The number of these crimes has dropped by about one-third since the long gun registry came into effect. The police can find out if an altercation involves a violent spouse who owns a long gun.

I would like to take the time to quote Robert Dutil, who testified before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on November 17, 2011. He spoke about another extremely important thing about the data in the firearms registry.

It also contributes to protecting individuals with mental health problems and their loved ones. Universal registration enables the chief firearms officer of Quebec to determine whether the weapons are in the possession of people under an application for an order to confine them to an institution, or calling for a psychiatric assessment.

In the second paragraph, he refers to Anastasia's Law. Before I continue, I would like to explain this law to the House. It is a Quebec law that was implemented after the Dawson College massacre, where Anastasia DeSousa was unfortunately killed. It bans the possession of firearms in educational institutions at all levels, in day care centres, and in public and school transportation. It also requires people to report any behaviour that could be a public safety concern.

Mr. Dutil continues by saying:

Under Anastasia's Law, the chief firearms officer is systematically informed of these applications. Between January 1, 2008 and November 1, 2011, 18,661 applications for orders were reported to him, and consultation of the registry made it possible to conduct more than 1,000 interventions to ensure the safety of persons. I am convinced that many lives were saved because of this. Abolishing the registry will limit the application of Anastasia's Law.

My colleagues and I have spoken a lot about prevention. As the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas mentioned, it is very difficult to measure prevention because we do not see the results. However, we are convinced that Anastasia's Law and the long gun registry are excellent preventive measures.

In order to unite all the different positions across Canada, the NDP has proposed several amendments to the long gun registry that should be taken into consideration. We are very aware that, since its implementation, the long gun registry has received its share of both praise and criticism. We agree. In addition to the delays and the significant cost overruns under the Liberal government, there are also other serious weaknesses in the registry.

The NDP is proposing, for instance, that the registry be modernized and adapted to current Canadian realities. Yes, preserving the data is possible. We can respect the aboriginal and rural populations while still providing police forces with the equipment they need to do their job. Here are the changes we propose: decriminalizing the failure to register a firearm for first-time offenders and issuing a ticket instead; indicating in the legislation that long gun owners would not have to pay registration costs; prohibiting the disclosure of information about firearms owners, except for the purpose of protecting the public or when ordered by a court or by law; and finally, creating a legal guarantee to protect aboriginal treaty rights.

I could continue for quite a while, but I see my time is up. I would be pleased to answer any questions from members.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to add my voice to this important debate on Bill C-19, the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.

I want to thank my colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming for sharing his time with me today and for the work he has done on the bill at committee.

I would also like to thank my other colleagues who have worked very hard to have this legislation developed and introduced in the House, fulfilling a long-standing promise to Canadians that we would repeal the long gun registry. In particular, I would like to congratulate the member for Portage—Lisgar, who has fought tirelessly to represent the wishes of her constituents and millions of Canadians by making sure this legislation goes forward once and for all.

I would like to thank every Canadian who has taken the time to write to his or her MP, to attend town hall meetings, to organize rallies and just generally to discuss this important matter with fellow Canadians.

As we are all aware, this is not the first time that legislation has been tabled in this House to eliminate the long gun registry. This is not the first time we have discussed and debated the topic of the long gun registry here or in committee or in consultations with Canadians.

Since it came into force in 1995, and particularly since our government first came to power in 2006, the long gun registry has been the focus of much debate. There comes a time, however, when debate must end and action must be taken. That time is now. Our government is firmly committed to passing this legislation. We told Canadians that we would eliminate the long gun registry. That is exactly what Bill C-19 would do.

The legislation is in fact quite simple. First, it ends the requirement for long gun owners to register their firearms. Second, it ensures that we protect the privacy of individual Canadians by destroying the long gun data currently held in the registry. Canadians can rest assured that our government will not share their personal information with other organizations or government bodies.

It is not a complicated piece of legislation, but as I said, it has generated much discussion. Throughout these debates and during our extensive consultations right across the country with Canadians from a wide cross-section of demographics, we have heard opinions on both sides of this issue.

Unfortunately, over the past several years we have heard ongoing fallacies and myths perpetuated about the long gun registry. We have heard it said that the long gun registry reduces gun crime, as we heard again today. On the face of it, that sounds like a great fact, one that has been trotted out by many members opposite and by the media and organizations across Canada in their desperate bid to save the registry. The reality is that there is no evidence that the long gun registry has stopped a single crime or saved a single life.

Supporters of the long gun registry have also said that it promotes responsible gun use. This is insulting for two reasons. First, it implies that anyone who is opposed to the registry is somehow, by default, promoting a wild west scenario where guns are everywhere and violence is rampant. Second, it implies that long gun owners are irresponsible by nature and can only be held accountable if they fill out the proper paperwork and register their guns. Both of these claims are patently false.

Supporters also claim that the long gun registry is important because it provides a proper record of where guns are located, the number and type of guns in Canada and who owns them. Again, this is a myth. The architects of the long gun registry set an impossible goal of registering and documenting every single long gun in Canada.

Many front-line police officers told us that the information in the registry was inaccurate and that reliance on it is both dangerous and foolish. One detective from the Saskatoon Police Service testified that:

—it's acknowledged by persons within policing, the firearms centre, and the recreational firearms community that there are, at minimum, in excess of one million firearms in Canada that have not been registered. The registry does not indicate where firearms are stored or who may have control of the firearm, nor does it denote ownership. Tens of thousands of firearms are registered inaccurately using patent numbers and catalogue numbers in place of serial numbers or model numbers. Many firearms in the registry have multiple registrations for the same firearm.

Clearly there are issues with the accuracy of this data.

Some of my colleagues in the NDP like fearmonger and trot out the idea that somehow the abolition of the gun registry will increase gun violence. The reality is that the most effective gun control tool in this country is our current gun licensing system and the bill makes no changes to that system.

Currently, every person must undergo a process of training and background checks before obtaining a licence to possess or to acquire any firearm. They must pass the required course on Canadian firearms safety. They also face a screening process to ensure that they have not committed a serious criminal offence and are not prohibited by a court sanction to own firearms and do not pose a risk to society. Also, under the current system, all restricted and prohibited firearms, including handguns, must be registered.

We have been clear that under Bill C-19 these controls will not change. Individuals will still need to go through the proper checks and training to obtain their non-restricted firearms. They will still be required to renew their licence periodically. They will still have to follow the rigorous rules that control prohibited and restricted firearms. These checks and balances are effective tools and we are not proposing any changes to this current system.

Our government has clearly demonstrated that it is serious about getting tough on crime, especially gun crime. However, we also need to ensure that we have a system of gun control that is effective and efficient. That is why the government has undertaken a number of initiatives to enhance compliance with public safety while easing administrative burdens on lawful firearm owners. Our government believes that gun control should target criminals, not law-abiding citizens. It should promote safety on our streets, not frustrate hunters in the bush.

Since May 2006, the government has put key measures in place to protect owners of non-restricted guns from criminal prosecution and to encourage compliance with laws and regulations. First, we introduced an amnesty period to give owners of non-restricted firearms an opportunity to register those firearms and renew expired licences without fear of prosecution. Second, we waived fees for the gun owners who renewed or modified a firearm licence. Finally, over the last number of years, we took steps to enable eligible holders of expired possession only licences to apply for a new POL to bring themselves back into compliance with firearms legislation.

The reason we have taken these steps is quite simple. The measures we have implemented have helped to protect Canadians by making sure that as many gun owners as possible are properly and lawfully licensed and therefore subject to continuous eligibility screening. These measures have been complemented through enhanced resources to strengthen the screening of first-time firearm licence applicants.

Since 2007, our government has committed $7 million annually for enhanced screening of individual licensees. Ours approach to gun control is based on common sense. It is about an approach that does not penalize law-abiding citizens, particularly those in rural areas. It is about an approach that will truly reduce gun crime and keep Canadians safer.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just have a small problem with the debate on Bill C-19. I would like the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming to explain what he means by a law-abiding citizen. I thought I was one because, when the bill was passed, I registered all my guns. I keep them under lock and key in my home and I obey the law.

I bought a rifle in December and it is registered. Many people did the same thing. Is the law-abiding citizen the person who, like me, registers his guns, or is it the person who is told to not register his guns because the registry will be abolished and we are going to get rid of this law?

I would like to know who is the law-abiding citizen: the person who obeys the Conservatives or the person who obeys the law?

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Don Valley West.

I am pleased to rise today to debate Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. I am so pleased to speak to this bill, because frankly, our government's taking the steps to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry is an important reason that I am here today. My constituents in Nipissing—Timiskaming are good salt of the earth people. They work hard, pay their taxes and raise their families. All they ask from their government is to allow them to quietly enjoy the fruits of their labour and to protect them from those who wish to do harm to law-abiding Canadians.

The long gun registry is the antithesis of that statement. It is the ultimate depiction of the nanny state in Canada.

Most of my constituents have never had any experience with the criminal justice system, save a speeding ticket or two. They are largely law-abiding Canadians. This may come as a shock since I come from a rural area, but some even have the temerity to own firearms. Some of them like to hunt and participate in sports shooting. They are harming no one and yet, thanks to the previous Liberal government, they are made to feel like criminals. They are required to submit to a rigorous process to register their firearms, which has never been proven to stop a single crime or save a single life. How could it? The registry by design only targets those who are predisposed to following the law and regulations. Do people think murderers, gangsters and drug dealers are going to be too concerned with filling out some paperwork to ensure that the guns they are using for their next drive-by shooting conforms to all legal standards? Obviously not. To assume so is patently ridiculous.

No, the only people who this was ever meant to target are law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters. On this side of the House, we do not believe we should be focusing our scarce resources on targeting those who are predisposed to comply with the law. We believe we should go after criminals. I am not sure whether it was through negligence, incompetence or malfeasance that we were cursed with the long gun registry. The justice minister at the time, Allan Rock, said that it was his firm belief that only police and the military should have firearms. That should tell us all we need to know, but I digress.

I said earlier that one of the reasons I am here is our Conservative government's position on the long gun registry. I would like to expand on that. My Liberal predecessor, Mr. Anthony Rota, was told by his political bosses that he had to listen to them over the wishes of his constituents or he would be in big trouble. I guess the folks back home had some other ideas. He betrayed his constituents, something I will not do.

What is troubling is that rather than learning from the poor example set by the Liberals, the NDP seems to be following them down this terrible path. Member after member is flip-flopping and turning his or her back on constituents in order to listen to the big union bosses in the office of the Leader of the Opposition. First, the member for Timmins—James Bay flipped over even though he said the registry was useless. He was the original flipper dipper.

The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley wants to be the leader of his party and maybe even prime minister some day. He cannot even manage to keep a promise to the hunters in his northern riding. He flip-flopped and voted with the big bosses over the little guy.

Last but not least is the member for Western Arctic. If there is any riding in the country where people have been up in arms about the long gun registry, it is in the beautiful Northwest Territories. The member even said in an all candidates debate last spring, “Vote for me or vote for the Conservatives. It is the same. We will bootstrap the registry”. Unbelievably, mere months after voters put their trust in him, he smugly turned his back.

Greg Farrant of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, OFAH, had it right when he said that the NDP MPs “have abandoned their principles” and “betrayed their constituents”.

I hope the gentlemen I have just mentioned will take a lesson from the courage and conviction of the members for Thunder Bay—Superior North and Thunder Bay—Rainy River and stand up and vote the will of the people, even if it means the big bosses coming down on them like a ton of bricks.

I would encourage all hon. members to vote to stop the $2 billion boondoggle, vote to stop the unnecessary targeting of law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters, vote to focus our crime-fighting efforts on things that make us really safe and not on things that only make us feel safe. I ask members to stand with me, the Conservatives and the Prime Minister and vote to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will follow-up on my hon. colleague's point. It behooves us that we would take tools away from police officers rather than give them more to fight crime and keep Canadians safe.

If the government is so adamant about the ineffectiveness of the gun registry, why has it been hiding a report that shows the public safety value of the long gun registry for two years in a row? It is not enough that the Conservatives are going to destroy a tool that police use thousands of times a day and all the data along with it, but they have also been holding back crucial information from the committee that has been examining the bill.

A lot of talk was had both in committee and in the House suggesting that law enforcement was not consulting the registry, but rather consulting CPIC, which has registry information on it. That is where the spin was given.

The RCMP report dated November 2011, which was signed by previous RCMP Commissioner William Elliott, was not released until last month. It was not made available to the committee examining the bill and the House did not ask for it. However, it was made available to the Minister of Public Safety.

The report outlines just how often police officers refer to the registry for inquiries. This raises at least two issues. First, does the report show how useful the instrument is for police forces across the country? Second, why is the government not disclosing important information, a part of a larger pattern?

It would seem that the Conservatives do not want people to know the facts because they do not want the facts to get in the way of the baseless arguments they keep making time and time again. This is yet another example of the government choosing ideology over fact.

Destroying the existing information in the registry will not bring back the money spent to set it up. Why is the government going to have a billion dollar bonfire with the data Canadian taxpayers have already paid for, especially when provinces and police forces are telling us that it does have public safety value?

Let us consider some facts. Approximately 1.9 million Canadians are licensed firearm owners. The number of registered non-restricted firearms in Canada as of September 2011 was 7,137,386. As of September 2011, the Canadian firearms registry was accessed an average of 17,402 times per day. That does not sound ineffective or wasteful to me.

In one survey, 92% of general duty police officers said they used the Canadian firearms information system and 74% said that query results had proven beneficial during major operations. We know that 15 officers serving on the government benches make up part of that 8% minority of general duty officers who disagree and the 26% who do not think it is very useful.

A study conducted by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec estimates that 2,100 lives have been saved since that legislation came into force. One-third of women killed by their spouses are killed by a firearm. Nearly nine out of 10 of these women, or 88%, were killed by a long gun, or a legal, registered hunting rifle. Since the registry was created, firearms-related domestic homicides have decreased by 50%. Make no mistake about this: it works.

Furthermore, rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in suicides, particularly those involving youth. These types of suicides had decreased 64% in the last nine years, from over 300 in 1995 to 121 in 2005, suicides that were prevented as we were not able to find any evidence of substitution with other methods. Experts in the field of suicide will certainly back up that often when people's first attempts are thwarted they do not look for an alternative.

Lastly, long guns were used in the killing of 10 of the 13 police officers killed in the last 10 years.

Rather than getting tough on crime, the Conservatives are taking away precautions that have proven to keep our communities safe. If the Conservatives want to state that the registry is a waste of money and exaggerate the costs, they should at least get their facts straight. We recognize that while there were significant cost overruns in the initial phase of the registry setup, as highlighted by the Auditor General's 2006 report that revealed that the costs of the Canadian firearms program hit $946 million by 2005, by 2010 the cost of the registry had stabilized to about $4 million of the total $76.5 million annually spent on the Canadian firearms program.

Let us also not forget that registration is a one time only procedure. It is free and never expires unless registrants transfer their firearms to new owners. Registrations or transfers are done over the phone or online in a matter of minutes. In fact, 97% of firearms transfers are completed within 30 days. If only Service Canada could say the same about processing claims for EI.

In a quote from the 2010 RCMP evaluation of the Canadian firearms program, it states:

Canadians are receiving value for their tax dollars from the CFP. Overall...[it] is cost-effective in reducing firearms-related crime and promoting public safety through universal licensing of firearms owners and registration of firearms in Canada.

As my colleague for St. John's East pointed out a few days ago, there is no such thing as specifically a long gun registry. We have a registry of guns, which consists of various types of guns and rifles. There are prohibited weapons, restricted weapons and then all other types. Swept up in the all other types are the guns that the Conservatives have been referring to for years. They talk about the long gun registry as if it were a separate registry that makes law-abiding hunters and farmers feel like criminals.

I can honestly say that in my family there has been a great deal of debate over the years about the registry. My family likes to camp and we own a property together. Many of my family members are hunters and anglers. We have had a great many difficult discussions about the registry and disagreements, frankly, between my point of view and often many of theirs. However, not once has any of them thought that they were being treated like a criminal because they had to register their firearms.

Rather than working on fixing the problems and the anomalies that occurred as a result of the failed implementation by the Liberal Party, the Conservatives want to scrap a program that has been a crucial policing tool for provinces and communities.

The Conservatives like to go on ad nauseam that the registry does nothing to catch criminals, prevent gun violence or keep our communities safe. On the contrary, implementing Bill C-19 would risk public safety by treating all non-registered, non-restricted and non-prohibited weapons the same. We are talking about semi-automatic rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, guns that are very dangerous and can threaten our public safety. Gun shops, sporting goods stores, Canadian Tires and so on were required to keep a record of to whom they sold rifles, shotguns and even ammunition. That provision lapsed when the gun registry was brought in because it was deemed unnecessary since all guns had to then be registered. By removing the requirement for all non-restricted or non-prohibited guns to be registered, there will be no record. The government has not reinstituted the requirement for gun shops, sporting goods stores and the like to keep records of their sales.

I will close by blowing some holes in the argument that the registry cannot help catch criminals. Last week in the House the member for Yukon said that the committee heard evidence that the RCMP had heard that a manual search conducted discovered that 4,438 stolen firearms were successfully re-registered. Talk about being asleep at the switch. That is practically aiding and abetting criminals and legitimizing their activities.

What I would like to know is how many of those re-registered stolen firearms were found, confiscated, how many criminal investigations this triggered, how many convictions ensued and how many of these weapons ended up back in the hands of their law-abiding owners? More important, why did the government only find out during committee hearings on the bill and not before that?

That is why I say the Conservatives are asleep at the switch. They have such an ideological hatred of this law that they cannot see the good that could come of it.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in this House and add my voice to the debate on Bill C-19, the ending the long registry act.

This is not the first time that I have spoken on the topic of the gun registry. Over the last 11 years, this has been one of those issues that I have been able to lend my voice to perhaps as much as or more than many other issues. The reason I say that is, that in the 11 years that I have served as member of Parliament for Crowfoot, I do not know if I have heard from my constituents on any other issue more than I have heard from my constituents on the issue of the long gun registry.

Every once in a while we have the opportunity to stand on long-stated policy within our party, which is the case here. Other times, we can stand and debate based upon our own opinions and our own sense of right and wrong. Again, in this case, I am proud to say that I really believe the government is doing the right thing here.

However, what makes this case so special is that, although there is a handful of people from my riding who have contacted me basically issuing NDP form letters, the majority of people in my riding believe that the long gun registry has to be put to an end.

I am pleased to announce to them that it would appear we are on the home stretch of ridding Canada of this long-standing thorn in the sides of most people in the country. It is a thorn for a number of reasons. First is the high cost of developing and maintaining the registry but also the sense of property rights and the sense of being very invasive in that way.

I thank my colleague who sits in front of me, the member for Yorkton—Melville, for taking this issue and dealing with it for a long time, as well as former members of Parliament. I am thinking of individuals like Myron Thompson, Jack Ramsay and others who made this into a very strong cause because they knew what their constituents believed.

Since the long registry was put in place in 1995 by the previous Liberal regime, and continues today, we have witnessed exhaustive debates in this House and across the country on the issue. We have been able to host these types of discussions at town hall meetings in our constituencies and have debated it many times here in the House. We have heard about it from the media and from Canadians right across the country. People on both sides of the debate have been given ample time to discuss and contribute their opinions.

Furthermore, this is not the first time that our government has introduced similar legislation to eliminate the long gun registry. Since coming to power in 2006, our Conservative government has introduced three bills to repeal the long gun registry: in June 2006, in November 2007 and in April 2009. We also have seen two private members' bills introduced in this House that called for the same action. As has already been mentioned, the parliamentary secretary to the minister and member of Parliament Portage—Lisgar brought forward a very strong private member's bill, Bill C-391.

Suffice it to say that the historical record will show that there has been plenty of time for debate on this registry. Our policy is clear. As mentioned by the previous speaker, for the past six elections Canadians have known our stand on this issue.

It is unfair to suggest that our government is cutting off debate on this topic. It is clear that the issue of effective gun control is an important one and that is why we have seen such fiery and passionate debates on the long gun registry. Our government is firmly committed to effective gun control. However, what we are not committed to is a wasteful and ineffective long gun registry that pretends to be gun control.

I am confident that all members will agree that keeping our citizens safe is the paramount consideration of any government. I would suggest to the opposition that it would be very disingenuous to say that the government on this side does not believe in keeping our streets and our citizens safe in our communities and across this country.

I am also hopeful that all members are committed to the principles of balance and common sense. Ending the long gun registry is what this is all about. It is about ensuring we continue to preserve and enhance those measures that do work to reduce crime and protect Canadians. However, it is also about ensuring we do not unnecessarily penalize millions of honest, law-abiding citizens with rules that have little effect on crime prevention or on reducing gun crime but give some a feel safe attitude that is not warranted.

We need to look at what Bill C-19 would do. The legislation before us today would end the need for Canadians to register their non-restricted firearms, such as rifles and shotguns. We know for a fact that rifles and shotguns are commonly used by farmers, hunters and residents in rural Canada. They use these non-restricted firearms to protect their livestock, to hunt wild game or, in some cases, even among our first nations, earn a living.

We have been very clear in saying that Bill C-19 would not do away with the need for these individuals to obtain a proper licence for their long guns. They will still need a proper licence.

We have also been very clear in saying that Bill C-19 would not do away with the requirements for the owners of prohibited or restricted firearms, such as handguns, to obtain a registration certification, as well as a licence. That registry continues. The handgun will still be registered and it will still need a licence. Nothing will change in this respect. They will still be in charge of handling the registration of restricted and prohibited firearms, including all handguns and automatic firearms.

Under Bill C-19, all law-abiding Canadians would still need to go through a licensing procedure. Under Bill C-19, all law-abiding Canadians would still need to pass the required Canadian firearms safety exam in order to obtain a licence.

The leader of the Green Party was wondering if the safety courses would continue. Yes, that will still be necessary. Gun owners will still need to show that they are in compliance with proper firearms storage and transportation requirements. They will still need to pass a background check performed by the Chief Firearms Officer or their representatives who employ law enforcement systems and resources to ensure that people have never committed a serious criminal offence. If they have, they will not get the licence to own any type of firearm. They would also ensure that the individual in question does not have a history of mental illness associated with violence. If they did they could not have a firearm. They would also ensure people are not under a court sanctioned prohibition order for firearms and do not pose a threat to public safety.

While Bill C-19 would do away with the need for honest and law-abiding citizens to undergo the burden of registering their non-restricted rifles or shotguns, it would ensure that we keep the current licensing requirements for all gun owners.

The legislation would make another important change. It would allow for the destruction of all records related to the registration of non-restricted firearms. Some have claimed that destroying the long gun registration data is unnecessary, that it will eliminate all the data the long gun registry has. Others have suggested that we should simply divide up the data by the territory and ship it off to those jurisdictions so they can create their own long gun registry.

Both of those suggestions are non-starters. We are opposed to the long gun registry. We are not simply saying that we are opposed to our federal government administering it. We believe that it is invasive and that it is a waste of money. We believe that it is a non-effective way of fighting crime. For that reason, I stand in this place proud to speak in favour of Bill C-19, which would get rid of the long gun registry.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Crowfoot.

It is with great pleasure that I rise today to acknowledge the nearing end of the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. For too long, the voices of law-abiding hunters, sports shooters and farmers have not been heard.

It is fair to say that people have talked about the looming end of debate on this. However, when I ran in 2004, one of the things I committed to as a party member if elected was to end this ineffective long gun registry. If we look back to 2004, 2006, 2008 and then 2011, I would suggest that eight years has been more than enough time to debate this issue. Quite frankly, the debate started long before I arrived in 2004.

I do want to pay special tribute to the member for Yorkton—Melville, because it was with his help, diligence and hard work that the waste of this long gun registry was uncovered. He has long been a proponent of trying to deal with it. Therefore, I want to recognize him as I start my speech today.

Another person I want to recognize is my colleague, the member for Portage—Lisgar, who introduced private member's Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry) two years ago. It was defeated by a mere two votes in our last parliament, against the express wishes of responsible Canadian gun owners.

Once again, although the opposition have suggested that we have not had a chance to discuss this issue, I can assure them and all Canadians that if they look at private members' bills and campaign promises like mine 2004, there has been plenty of debate on the issue. Today we are one step closer to renewing their faith in a Canada, that it will not discriminate against them simply for legally possessing a simple piece of property.

Members on this side of the House continue to move forward as a unit to abolish the registry, which only divides law-abiding Canadians. We are standing up for our constituents by eliminating red tape and putting money back where it belongs.

Since it was created, the long gun registry has cost Canadians close to $2 billion, as has been noted. The Auditor General mentioned that it was over $1 billion and that the costs have continued to rise. The net annual cost of the program alone for the 2010-11 fiscal year was $66.4 million. This money should instead be invested into putting more police on our streets, looking at trying to fight organized crime, introducing mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes and combatting drug smuggling.

The long gun registry was never, nor could it ever be, a viable or valuable tool to help reduce gun crime in Canada. For example, the majority of homicides committed in all of Canada do not involve long guns at all. Statistics have shown that long guns are not the problem. In reality, they are not the weapons of choice for criminals. What good is a registry of legally owned long guns held by their law-abiding owners when it is very clear that the real problem is criminals acting outside of the law.

Unfortunately, gun crimes happen all too frequently. Yes, there have terrible incidents where dangerous people have used long guns to cause harm to others. However, there seems to be a misconception that by keeping the long gun registry we will somehow prevent these horrible things from happening. The truth is that these incidents happened despite the long gun registry being in place. Our government does believe that the right gun control laws save lives. Our government will continue to take action to make our streets and communities safer.

Canadians have given our government a strong mandate to do away with the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. We have answered their cries in the form of Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. Millions of dollars will now be better spent on more efficient and useful public safety tools. This means more front-line police officers and better resources for our men and women in uniform. It means better support for those who put their lives on the line to ensure the safety of the Canadian public. It is the bravery, selflessness and personal sacrifice of these men and women that prevent crimes from being committed, not the existence of an electronic database that identifies the law-abiding Canadians who own a long gun.

A database would not have stopped the tragedy at École Polytechnique. The man responsible was a criminal, not a law-abiding hunter or farmer. That is why we need police to make sure that criminals do not get their hands on guns, and not focus on a registry composed of law-abiding citizens. The guns used in crimes are not the legally owned hunting rifles or shotguns anyway. Crimes are committed with guns that come into this country, usually illegally. Furthermore, hunting and sports shooting are not crimes, so why should we stand behind a registry that has done nothing but make law-abiding gun owners feel like criminals? Why should they be subject to the same treatment as criminals who use illegal firearms to commit crimes?

The long gun registry alone does not make anyone safer. The long gun registry focuses on the issues of licensing and registering firearms, and there has been no evidence detailing if or how the registry's activities have helped minimize risks to public safety. There was, however, a survey conducted in August 2010 that revealed that 72% of Canadians believe the long gun registry has done nothing to prevent crime.

We have an ongoing gun crisis across Canada, including firearms-related homicides, and a law for registering firearms has neither deterred nor helped solve any of the crimes. None of the guns used were found to have been registered in the registry and more than half of them have been smuggled into Canada from the United States. In the words of the former Ontario provincial police commissioner and the current member for Vaughan:

We have an ongoing gun crisis including firearms-related homicides lately in Toronto, and a law registering firearms has neither deterred these crimes nor helped us solve any of them. None of the guns we know to have been used were registered, although we believe that more than half of them were smuggled into Canada from the United States. The firearms registry is long on philosophy and short on practical results considering the money could be more effectively used for security against terrorism as well as a host of other public safety initiatives.

My constituency office has received a countless number of letters asking us to do away with the long gun registry. I have personally received phone calls and had many people approach me supporting the abolition of the registry. Citizens across this great country have elected a strong, stable Conservative majority government and have asked us to abolish the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, a process we are witnessing here today.

The issue of destroying the long gun registry's database remains contentious. One of the reasons we want to scrap this registry is that we do not believe that all of the data are even correct and we certainly do not want to enable provincial governments to move forward to make this happen. Once it is gone, it should be gone for good. Licensing information of registered weapons would be maintained and be available to police forces, but not in the manner these weapons were registered in the long gun registry.

The registry is not a valuable tool for combating crime. Many front-line police officers across Canada do not use the registry because they cannot count on it.

John Hicks, an Orillia area computer consultant and webmaster for the Canadian Firearms Centre, once said that anyone with a home computer can easily access names, addresses and detailed shopping lists, including the makes, models and serial numbers of registered guns belonging to licensed firearms owners. He also stated that despite the database costing some $15 million to develop, he managed to break into it within 30 minutes.

Our government stands with law-abiding farmers, duck hunters and rural Canadians in every region of this country. We have long opposed the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry and are now on the eve of its eradication. By eliminating the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, we will instead focus our efforts and time on more effective measures to tackle crime and to protect families in communities.

I would like to extend an invitation to the opposition to vote with us in putting an end to the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. We must stop the wasteful and ineffective registry. This is what the Canadian people have asked us to do. We have made Canadians a promise and we shall deliver on our promise.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, usually I say that I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to whatever bill we are debating, but today I have to say that when it comes to Bill C-19, , which would end the long gun registry, I wish we were not debating this bill. I think it is a terrible bill. The whole process and history of the bill have been incredibly divisive in Parliament. I would be the first to say that we would do anything to keep the debate going so that we would not get to a vote and hopefully we could defeat the bill, but I do not think that is likely.

Yet again the government has brought in another gag order to limit debate on the bill and force it through to a vote, which is the government's right to do. However, it is just another indication of the well-established pattern of the government. The Conservatives would like to dismiss the parliamentary process as much as they can and rush bills through. That is certainly what is happening on this bill.

I do want to put on the record my concerns about the bill, my opposition to it and what I think the impact of the bill would be.

The bill would eliminate the requirement to register non-restricted firearms and it would also destroy existing long gun registration records. That is particularly offensive. The campaign that has been put out by the Conservatives strikes me as something that is particularly mean. It strikes me as something that is particularly destructive. It is one thing to say that politically they support the end of the registry and they want to eliminate it, and they have always been clear on their position from way back, but then they want to go further and destroy all of the existing records and eliminate any possibility that those records may be very important in the future. For example, Quebec likely will have a legal challenge and the question of these records will become very important.

The two aspects of the bill are very disturbing, one which is to eliminate the registry itself, and the other which is for the government to go even further and be hell-bent on getting rid of everything and destroying all of the records that go along with it. Even people who have questions about the registry would find it quite shocking that the government would go so far as to destroy all the records and preclude any potential use those records may have in the future.

My colleague mentioned the late Jack Layton. I also say that he did an incredible job of responding to this issue. The issue was put forward by the Conservatives in a way that divided Canadians, which often pitted rural and northern Canadians against Canadians who live in urban areas. Jack Layton rose above that. He understood the concerns of the long gun registry and sought ways to mitigate the problems and the concerns that existed.

The NDP put forward a proposal and a bill that would have addressed some of the concerns that existed with the gun registry. That was Mr. Layton's leadership. He brought people together. He did not let it be a divisive thing not only in his own caucus, but also in broader Canadian society.

We have been very clear. We do want to address the legitimate concerns of rural and aboriginal Canadians, but also ensure that the police have the tools they need to keep our streets safe.

The fact is there are approximately seven million registered non-restricted firearms in Canada as of September 2011, and almost two million Canadians who are licensed firearms owners. We are talking about a not insignificant number.

To me the use of the registry is where the debate moves from what has been an ideological ground staked out by the Conservatives to the realities of everyday life. I always find it quite ironic that on the one hand the Conservative members are quick to rise and support the work of public safety officers, police officers and police chiefs, and yet when it comes to the registry, they somehow ignore the very substantive evidence of what the registry actually does in supporting and protecting public safety.

As of September 2011, the registry is accessed about 17,000 times a day. That is a very significant number. It tells us that this is something that is active. It is used by officers who are out in the field, following up calls and complaints, and who oftentimes go into very high-risk and dangerous situations. In a survey, 92% of general duty police officers responded that they use the firearms information centre. That is a very high number. It shows us that this is not just a figment of someone's imagination or a system that is sitting on a shelf gathering dust. This is a real tool that is being used by police officers every day as they carry out their work. It astounds me that somehow that information can be so ignored in the face of a political decision to get rid of the registry. Unfortunately, it is a pattern that we have seen with the government. The government tends to ignore evidence and to make decisions based on its political agenda and ideological beliefs as opposed to making public policy decisions on sound evidence and information that is readily available. This has been a sad story with this legislation.

One reason the gun registry is important is that it saves lives. There have been many studies done but one from the Institut national de santé publique du Québec estimates that more than 2,000 lives have been saved since the implementation of the Firearms Act.

Unfortunately, violence against women in our society is still very prevalent. It is a threat that women live with every day. On average one in three women who are killed by their husbands is shot and 88% of those are with legally owned rifles and shotguns. Since the introduction of the registry, gun-related spousal homicides have gone down 50%. This is very significant evidence to show that the terrible situation of violence against women and domestic violence are things to which we have to pay attention. The gun registry was not a panacea to that. We need to focus on all kinds of things, like education, criminal justice and safe shelters for women. However, the registry was a tool that could be used when officers were going into those domestic disturbance situations. They would know what they were walking into. We should be aware that the registry had a real impact on the lives and safety of women in this country.

I would also say that I know there was mismanagement of the registry. I was in Parliament in 2005 when the costs came out and they were approaching $1 billion. It was staggering. There was no question there were problems with the registry, but we should note that by 2010 the cost of the registry had stabilized to about $4 million a year and was much more manageable and was doing the purpose for which it was brought in. There is a history of mismanagement and problems, but those things have also been addressed.

There are other issues to do with the registry. The NDP has been very clear in bringing forward proposals to fix those concerns in terms of ensuring that people are not criminalized, that the registration process is clear and simple.

It is a very sad day for this country that this registry will be abolished and the records destroyed, that debate in Parliament was shut down, and that the truth of evidence became part of what was left on the side to be discarded in this debate. I am proud that New Democrats did not do that. We understand the evidence. We understand the importance of this registry and the need to maintain it and ensure it works as a proper safety tool.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her question. As I mentioned in my speech, I have a letter that was sent to me by Jocelyne Sauvé, the director of the Montérégie health and social services agency. She is opposed to this bill because of the suicides that the firearms registry could prevent. The hon. member raises a very important point.

That is one of the reasons why we would like to continue the debate. There are people who are very concerned, and those concerns must be taken into account. As the NDP has pointed out numerous times, we want to make amendments to address the concerns of people who use the registry and to respect the opinions of experts and people who have spoken out against Bill C-19.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East.

At the beginning of my speech, I said that I did not like the way the Conservatives, with their 13 former police officers, thought they had the right to shoot down every one of the arguments we made just because we do not have any police experience in our caucus.

The point of my reply was to explain that we represent the people, whether we have had the same experience or not. I have a letter here that Jocelyne Sauvé sent to my office. Ms. Sauvé is with the Montérégie health and social services agency. This letter is very important because it supports the remarks that my colleague from Gatineau just made. People in the health sector are talking about other aspects of this issue, not just about hunting or the very tragic, high-profile cases like the École Polytechnique and Dawson College. People are talking about situations in which health is a factor, such as suicide.

I would like to quote from her letter:

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.

The government claims that whether a firearm is registered or not changes nothing. However, the idea is to have a system that discourages the inappropriate use of a firearm by someone with that kind of problem. That is why Ms. Sauvé, the director of the Montérégie health and social services agency, supports our position on maintaining the gun registry. One example we often hear is that people have to register their cars. A registry would deter people who should not possess firearms from acquiring them.

A comment was made the last time I used the argument that we have to register our vehicles. We are talking about federal and provincial jurisdictions. In the case of the gun registry, it is the Criminal Code that applies. When we use the example of vehicle registration, it is for comparison purposes. There is a system in place to deter individuals who would use their vehicles inappropriately.

Let us get back to the tragedy of the female police officer in Laval, which was referred to at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. As with any governmental or social system, it is not perfect. We will never be able to prevent every tragedy. The fact that the system did not work in some cases is not sufficient argument to abolish the registry.

Some members represent rural ridings and regions where there are people—hunters—who comply with the law and who use their firearms for sporting purposes, including hunting. Even though I represent a riding where people do not necessarily hunt, some people there are still required to register their firearms. This means that I can understand the situation and have discussions with individuals in the same situation as the citizens represented by Conservative members.

It is very important to point this out. Back home, the reaction of those who must deal with this system is to wonder whether it is perfect. We NDP members say that it is not perfect. However, it is the best option right now, and we are very open to making improvements such as those that were proposed in the past, in 2010, by our party and by our former leader, Mr. Layton. That is the kind of proposals that we would put forward. Abolishing the system and destroying the data against the will of the provinces, particularly Quebec, and against the will of our fellow citizens and of NDP members is not the proper way to proceed. That is why I oppose Bill C-19.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the third time and passed.

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to comment on what the Minister of Public Safety said when we were debating closure on Bill C-19.

He said that the House has been debating the gun registry for 17 years, or almost as long as some members have been alive. I believe that I am one of those members to whom that comment could apply. Nevertheless, it is interesting. I am the oldest of three sons, and my mother always told me that just because someone speaks up more often does not necessarily mean that they are right. That applies here. Just because it has been 17 years does not automatically justify closure or the government's current position.

I object to the idea that we are not qualified to speak to the bill and share the people's ideas if we have never been police officers. In the end, as MPs, we may not necessarily be representative of the various segments of the population that we represent. We stand up for seniors even though we are not seniors, we stand up for youth even though we may not be young, and we stand up for retirees even though we are not retired. The fact that there are 13 former or active police officers in the Conservative caucus is not adequate justification for diminishing the words and testimony of other police officers and police associations.

I would like to come back to a quote that is very relevant to this debate. After Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, the work he did with regard to the economy was the subject of great criticism. For example, the unemployment rate was not dropping. This is relevant to this debate because President Obama spoke to the media and said that prevention is never applauded because it is invisible and very difficult to measure. In that context, President Obama was talking about the fact that the United States did not experience another recession. To him, that meant success. However, we cannot talk about something that did not happen. I think that the same logic applies to this debate.

We cannot talk about all the deaths and all the problems that have been prevented because of the firearms registry for that very reason—they were prevented. They never happened. It is very important to keep this in mind when reading quotes. The hon. member for Gatineau made the same comment, and another member who spoke earlier made a similar comment when he spoke about the police officer who was unfortunately the victim of a crime and who was shot despite the registry's existence. I believe that happened in Laval. We heard about it during testimony given before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Regardless of the measures we put in place, whether they be tax measures or economic measures, regardless of the work that a government can do, the system will never be perfect. So, to give an example where the result was tragic and did not meet the expectations we have of the system in place, once again, does not constitute a legitimate rationale in this case.

I will continue my comments a little bit later.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and participate in the debate on the ending of the long-gun registry act. My constituents have consistently told me to abolish the long gun registry. As we finally approach that goal, I am proud to support the repeal and the destruction of the registry.

Our Conservative government places a high priority on the safety and security of Canadians. However, we also place a high value on their freedom and ability to enjoy that safety. We have been working hard on initiatives and legislation to that end. Repealing the long gun registry is one of those efforts.

Supporters of the long gun registry often hold up the legislation as a key tool for keeping Canadians safe. In reality, it is nothing more than a costly database of information about law-abiding Canadians. It is essentially incapable of preventing any crime from occurring. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that this has stopped a single crime or saved a single life. It is wasteful and it does not achieve its goals. It is time to get rid of it so we can focus on issues that will actually have a practical impact on the safety and security of Canadians.

The long gun registry has been expensive. This is an indisputable fact. The CBC, not known for its Conservative bias, has estimated a total cost of over $2 billion over the 17 years of the registry. Let me remind members that the former Liberal justice minister, Allan Rock promised it would not cost a cent more than $2 million. That is a hefty price to pay for a an inferior product, as we can all agree. The $2 billion could have gone a long way in other safety initiatives, including preventive action or rehabilitative programs.

Across this country, Canadians are working hard to provide for their families. They do not throw money away on items or services that are not beneficial or practical for them or for their families. It is time that we follow their lead and do away with the needless spending on the registry.

The long gun registry does a fine job of collecting the names of those using their long guns for sport and protecting their livestock. It does an awful job at stopping illegal activity, using guns that were never legally purchased or registered in the first place. That is because the people listed in the registry are individuals who have acquired and wish to use their long guns in legal ways.

They have followed their government's requirements. They comply because they wish to abide by the law. These people are not the ones committing gun crimes in Canada. This is the key reason that the long gun registry is an ineffective piece of legislation.

This is not a surprise to me, yet I suspect it will come as one to the opposition. Most criminal activity naturally operates outside of the law, hence its criminality. Guns used in crime are generally not legally purchased or registered. More often than not, they have been brought into Canada for criminal use and for that reason are never registered. This renders the registry useless in both tracking down criminals and protecting Canadians from harm.

The majority of Canadians have had enough of the long gun registry. I know that our government knows that. If my colleagues across the aisle were honest with themselves, they would be well aware of it, too. In fact, there are ridings all over Canada clamouring for this change regardless of the political party of the member they have elected to represent them.

I would like to focus on one riding in particular. The member for Western Arctic travelled across the Northwest Territories. He told all who would listen that he would stand up for northern values and vote to end the long gun registry. He even stood in a debate and said, “Vote for me, vote for the Conservatives. It is the same thing. We both will vote to end the long gun registry.”

Well, it is clear that the electoral promises of that member do not mean a whole lot.

To all reasonable people, this bill should be a win, win situation. It would lessen the constraints on our fellow Canadians and allow hunters, farmers and sports shooters to continue their lawful activity in peace.

Having discussed the costly nature of the registry, the ineffective structure of the registry and the Canada-wide request to repeal the registry, the conclusion of this debate should be obvious to all. It is essential that the long gun registry come to an end, and that it happen soon.

We are looking forward to the day that law-abiding Canadians can relax and know that their information has been completely destroyed. That is why Bill C-19 also includes a provision to destroy all data collected by the registry in the last 17 years. This aspect is extremely important, as it is necessary to protect innocent citizens from ever being targeted by their government again.

Canadians gave their support for the abolition of the registry last May. Our government stands by our promise to remove it from the federal level forever.

This is not a new issue in the House of Commons. Throughout the debate the word “ideology” has been bandied about quite a bit. At the end of the day, this war of words leads us nowhere.

Let us ignore ideology for a moment and summarize the simple facts. The long gun registry has never stopped a single crime or saved a single life. Billions of dollars have been spent. Members of Parliament on both sides of the aisle have heard from Canadians that they want the registry to be gone. Now is the time to do what we came here to do and serve Canadians by abolishing the long gun registry once and for all.

I and our Conservative government made a promise to the Canadian people that the long gun registry would be repealed and all data related to it would be destroyed. We stand firmly behind that promise and are dedicated to seeing that through. I encourage all members, especially those from rural and remote ridings, including those across the way, to stand up and speak for their constituents and vote in favour of ending the long gun registry once and for all.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Prince George--Peace River.

It is a privilege to contribute to this debate and to speak in support of Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act.

My riding of Okanagan--Coquihalla is a very diverse one. There are large urban cities, such as Penticton and West Kelowna, resource communities like Merritt and Okanagan Falls, and many rural regions, such as Logan Lake, Meadow Valley, Faulder and Willowbrook. For rural residents, this is an issue of great importance to them. It is one that I hear about weekly, and sometimes even daily. They ask me when the government will fulfill its commitment to end the long gun registry and why has it taken so long. I expect that I am not the only member of the House to get these kinds of questions.

I believe it is important to share with the House the frustration that I hear from the rural residents in my riding. They are law-abiding citizens and they are taxpayers, and yet they are forced to comply with a system created out of Ottawa that does nothing but inconvenience the lifestyle they work hard to enjoy.

Everyone in the House knows that criminals do not register their guns. It is often a repeated point in this debate but it is the truth. However, more important, we need to recognize that there are times when a registered gun is used to take a life. Recently, in my riding, a family lost a loved one as a result of domestic violence. Did the registered gun stop the alleged murderer from pulling the trigger? Sadly, it did not. For those people in society who are capable of taking a life, the fact that a gun may or may not be registered means nothing to them. The simple fact of the matter is that the long gun registry has not stopped crime, nor is it saving lives.

I have also listened to the opposition arguments in favour of the long gun registry. The opposition suggests that its greatest contribution is that it provides law enforcement with a record of where guns are, and not just where they are but what kinds of guns they are.

Those who followed the committee hearings for Bill C-391 last year will know that members heard testimony from numerous respected and experienced police officers. Those experienced officers told us that the information provided by the long gun registry was not reliable. I have met with many front-line officers who have made it very clear that they cannot rely on the registry to confirm if a gun may or may not be at that address. In fact, if officers were to rely solely on the long gun registry, they would be putting their life and the life of their colleagues at risk.

We also know that there are long guns that have never been registered and those that have not been registered properly, and situations where model numbers or catalogue numbers were used instead of serial numbers.

The long gun registry has been in place for over a decade. What are the results? The registry has not stopped crime, nor has it saved lives. Millions of dollars were spent on the registry and what are the results for the taxpayers? We have a database that front-line officers tell us that they cannot depend on.

I understand that most members of the opposition choose to ignore how this registry has adversely impacted many taxpayers in rural Canada. However, I will recognize the opposition members for Thunder Bay—Rainy River and Thunder Bay—Superior North who have to date respected the wishes of their constituents.

This has been a difficult issue for many members of the opposition who come from rural ridings. It does not need to be difficult. Admitting that the long gun registry has been a failure is not an opinion, it is a fact. Rural Canadians know it and residents in my riding, who live in communities like Merritt, Logan Lake and Okanagan Falls, know it as well.

One of the challenges that many communities in my region are facing is an overpopulation of deer. On the surface it may not seem like a problem, however, deer destroy small gardens and can be aggressive to small animals and even adults. They also present a real danger to motorists. The reality is that fewer people are hunting these days, in part because of the burden and costs of dealing with issues like the long gun registry. In my riding, many residents have told me that they feel the quality of life in rural Canada is threatened. That is why I believe it is important we take action on their issue.

On May 2 of last year, Canadians made it clear that they were supporting a platform that would put an end to the wasteful spending of tax dollars on failed programs like the long gun registry. Therefore, let us instead work together on more effective gun control, like the requirement for people to have a licence before they can buy a rifle or a shotgun. We also need to ensure that before people get a licence they need to pass the Canadian firearms safety course. We also need to ensure that before people get a licence to own a rifle or a shotgun they must pass a background check. A background check involves things like a criminal record check and ensures that people are not under a court order prohibiting them from possessing a firearm.

I am proud to say that our government is now investing $7 million a year to make the screening process for people applying for a firearm's licence stronger. Bill C-19 would not change any of those requirements. In fact, no one would be able to buy a firearm of any kind without passing the Canadian firearms safety course, the background check and without having a proper licence.

I support the bill because it would eliminate a law that places an unnecessary burden on law-abiding Canadians. The bill would also free up resources that could be better spent on anti-crime initiatives to help make our streets safer.

We need to be honest with ourselves about the real gun problem in Canada. It is not just the legally acquired shotguns and rifles in the hands of our farmers and hunters that is the problem. While we continue to penalize them, it may seem like a solution to some members opposite, but doing so does not stop crime. A failed registry and a flawed database is not an answer.

Between 2005 and 2009, police in Canada recovered 253 firearms that had been used in the commission of a homicide. Some of those guns were registered, most were not. However, we need recognize that the registry failed 253 times to prevent crime, much as it failed in my riding last year. As a result, I cannot support a process that requires law-abiding, tax paying citizens to continue to dump money into a system that offers no tangible results.

Does it really makes sense to the opposition to continue to penalize rural taxpayers who often legally purchase a rifle for the protection of livestock or hunting game with family and friends? The long gun registry continues to penalize these citizens and yet it does nothing to address any of the real problems. We do have some real problems, such as the flow of illicit firearms being smuggled into Canada, and the firearms that are used as a commodity for criminal purposes.

I am convinced that we all want to reduce crime, especially gun crime, but the long gun registry is a failure and it is time we respect rural Canadians and admit it. That is why I speak in support Bill C-19. We need to invest in programs that are effective and eliminate those that do nothing.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think I am even sadder than the member opposite who just spoke to be talking about Bill C-19 for what is probably the last time before it goes to the Senate, which is overrun with partisan Conservative appointees. The Senate is supposed to be above partisanship but I will not waste my breath talking about that.

First, I would like to point out that I am one of the people who participated in all stages of Bill C-19. I was there at first reading. I participated in the debates at second reading. I sat on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, which examined Bill C-19. This committee is not very aptly named, nor is this bill even related to public safety. I am not questioning the words of the member opposite who just said, with a straight face, that he changed his mind on the subject. I do not know what hit him but it must have been quite heavy.

From the outset, I have been in favour of maintaining the firearms registry. In fact, I was in favour of creating it. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to quickly forget history, and that is why we keep making the same damn mistakes all the time. We are forgetting why the registry was created. The firearms registry was created under Bill C-68. I would like to give a short history lesson. I would like to tell you what really happened, since the Conservatives like to reinvent history.

This bill was introduced because, in 1989, a deranged man entered the École Polytechnique with the expressed intention of shooting the young women who were going to school there. He had mental health problems, but whatever the reasons, this crazed gunman entered the school, targeted people and killed them. We must remember this. My heart bleeds for these victims. Yet since that time, the Conservatives have been constantly using the issue of abolishing the firearms registry to gain political advantage. They have turned it into their pet issue, as though Canada would crumble if we kept the firearms registry.

All this time, the parents, friends, sisters and brothers of Geneviève Bergeron, Nathalie Croteau, Anne-Marie Edward, Maryse Laganière, Anne-Marie Lemay, Michèle Richard, Annie Turcotte, Hélène Colgan, Barbara Daigneault, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Leclair, Sonia Pelletier, Annie St-Arneault and Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz have not forgotten them. We have not forgotten these women either.

But that does not mean that the NDP proceeded blindly with respect to the gun registry. Our caucus examined the issue carefully. Some members did not want to change a thing, but other members from other regions saw things differently. We have to remember how the legislation came to be. When politicians are inspired by historic events like that one and begin a crusade to create related legislation, the result is not always well thought out. That is not to say the legislation cannot be improved down the line.

The goal was for our society, our country, to have a record of who owns guns and how many they own in order to ensure that the individuals have the right to own those guns, that they are storing the weapons safely, and that they do not intend to use them for criminal purposes. Is it a threat to public safety for a society to seek that assurance? If so, what a terrible society. This is not a perfect system, but if we have to choose between scrapping it entirely and improving it, I think we would be better off improving it.

Yes, it was expensive to develop and implement, but I am tired of hearing Conservative members repeat, ad nauseam, that the registry cost $2 billion.

Once and for all, can they stop treating us like imbeciles? The registry as a whole, and its implementation, have been exaggerated and decried by everyone. You do not, however, throw the baby out with the bathwater just because the Liberals did not know how to do their job. You try to improve things.

That is what we strove to do, on our side of the House. We listened to people with completely opposing points of view. We listened to those who said that the registry must not be touched. That is what we do in the NDP: we listen to what people have to say. We do not listen only to one category of individuals in society, as the members opposite have done on this issue. We listened to the concerns of hunters, aboriginal people, first nations and police chiefs. We listened to the concerns of almost all stakeholders so that we could attempt to eliminate the irritants.

Obviously, if you are a hunter, you do not want to be labelled a criminal for forgetting to register a weapon. However, what our colleagues opposite do not admit is that the irritants have been largely removed. There are now fewer complaints because of the armistice and the fact that there are incredibly generous time frames for the registration of firearms.

The group of members opposite see this as an opportunity to rejoice, as if abolishing the long gun registry were going to be the biggest victory seen this century in Canada. That is the plan, according to certain people on Twitter. I hope that the Conservatives will be humble in their victory because there are victims involved. I am not going to repeat the names of these people. I could speak about the Dawson College tragedy. The wounds are still fresh for those involved. We have heard that there will be a big party on February 15 because we will be gagged from that date onwards. We certainly will not have enough time to all be able to speak one last time on the issue. My crystal ball tells me that our friends across the way are going to silence us sometime soon. That is unfortunate, because there are still voices that have not been heard. I am not just talking about members. We do not speak just for ourselves; we speak on behalf of the constituents in our ridings.

The Conservatives are speaking on behalf of a minority of people and the National Rifle Association. There is perhaps no hard evidence that this is the case, but there is something fundamentally bizarre. As a lawyer, I know that when something factual seems to point to but one conclusion, even if not by direct association, there is a good chance that it will be fact. Given that the witnesses who appeared before us in committee are the same people who travel around the United States advocating that every American citizen should carry a weapon in their pocket, I can put two and two together and work out what truly motivates them.

When I talk to hunters—and there are many in my neck of the woods—I ask them what is the matter with the gun registry. The have told me that, at first, it was cumbersome, and that they did not know how it worked. They do not seem to really understand how it works. They also told me that, with time, they have gotten used to it, have registered their guns and do not talk about it.

In a similar vein, I can just imagine the debate that took place when the lawmakers introduced automobile licensing. People travelled by horse and buggy, and I am sure that there was not much registration. How did we establish the registration system when we began driving cars? I am trying to imagine the debates that took place in the early days of Confederation.

That said, we do not have to get rid of something just because it irritates people. After conducting studies and having discussions with various people who were for or against the registry, we presented some very reasonable proposals to remove the irritants.

From the outset, I have tried to understand why our friends opposite have mounted such a visceral attack on the registry. Thinking of the victims does elicit great emotions in me and I do feel very sad. But I can still take Bill C-19, read it and ask myself, what complaints do our Conservative friends have? First, they say that it does not save lives. No one here can confirm this.

When I asked the question in committee, it made the government's witnesses uncomfortable. It bothered them when I asked them whether they could tell me with certainty and with evidence to back their claims, that not one life had been saved thanks to the firearms registry. Chiefs of police came to tell us that they were using the registry. People in suicide prevention came to tell us that since the registry was established, suicide rates had dropped. Generally speaking, long guns are used for suicide. A smart person can put two and two together and realize that the number of suicides with a long gun goes down when there is a registry. The problem was that no one was able to tell me that the registry had not saved at least one life. Saving a single life is certainly worth $1 million or $2 million a year. If we can save a few lives a year, then so much the better.

Whether some people like it or not, the registry is that and more. I would not base my entire argument on the fact that the registry saves lives because often, people will counter the argument by saying that the registry did not prevent a man from gunning down women at the Polytechnique. That is the type of debate we are having. No one on this side of the House is claiming that the registry is going to prevent a mentally ill person from walking around with a legally obtained gun and doing whatever he wants with it. That is one of the Conservatives' arguments. However, evidence shows that the police have used the data in the registry in their investigations in order to find out how many guns a person possesses, and so forth.

After listening to about 10 witnesses who all had to answer the same question—if the registry saved even only one life—the Conservatives asked another person to appear. That individual came and told us with a straight face that, on the contrary, a police officer from Laval, from my province, had died because of the registry. The Conservative member said it himself earlier. It was the last straw. It is indecent to say such a thing. Not only is it indecent, but it demonstrates a total lack of respect for the person who died. There is so much evidence in this case. The people of Quebec know full well what happened. No one said that the police officer consulted the registry and determined that, because the individual did not have a weapon, because he did not have the right to own one, and because the court forbade him from owning a weapon, she could enter his residence, where she was then shot. Come on. How can someone say something like that? That is not what happened. A young police officer arrived at the individual's residence—and perhaps she did not have a lot of experience—and was the victim of a heinous crime. An individual who was not supposed to have a firearm had one. That is not something that could have been prevented, registry or no registry.

The government claims that it wants to protect public safety, but it is not doing the Canadian public any favours by using that kind of argument. I cannot tell the House that we will all feel safer if we pass Bill C-19. After all this time, all these debates and all these studies, the Commissioner of Firearms submitted a nice report. The government made sure that it did not send us the report quickly enough so that we would have time to consult it when we were examining Bill C-19. I encourage the members opposite to read that report, particularly those who will be called upon to speak on the subject, so that they have something to say other than the registry is no good and the data are not valid. Why are the data not up to date? Because the Conservatives imposed a moratorium. It has been a number of years since anyone has registered, but the existing data are necessary.

Quebec wants to have the data transferred to it. How does transferring the data to Quebec hurt anyone? The province does not want to use the data to criminalize people. It has no jurisdiction when it comes to the Criminal Code. The friends of the members opposite who are hunters will not have a problem. If Quebec wants to legislate in this area and ensure that people with long guns are registered and wants to know how many weapons the registrants have, then the data will be useful.

Clause 11 of Bill C-19 includes a shocking loophole: I could own a legally obtained weapon and transfer ownership to my colleague on my right, and the only question I would be asked would be whether I had reason to believe that my colleague should not have a weapon.

Some people might contradict me on this, but honestly, I do not really get the sense that he should not have a weapon, so I transfer ownership of the weapon because I do not feel like having it anymore and I need the $300. So I give the weapon to my friend. If the Conservatives cannot see the loophole in that, then there is a problem. It is not safe.

Let us turn to the Commissioner of Firearms' report. From what I know, the commissioner is not a hysterical person or someone who is out of touch. The commissioner's report includes facts and is based on factual data collected year after year demonstrating how the registry works and how it is useful. I would encourage hon. members to read this report, because having read it, members cannot in all decency rise in this House and vote in favour of Bill C-19 because we know what steps have been taken to address all the irritants. And that is all the hunters, aboriginal peoples, first nations, gun collectors and the rest were asking us for: to have a way of registering a weapon without it being more worrisome and damaging than necessary. Everything is there, everything is permitted and registration hardly takes 15 minutes. Hold on. We may want to prevent the proliferation of weapons in circulation, but we will no longer be complying with our international treaties.

I am absolutely stunned that our friends across the way cannot see all the problems with Bill C-19. I just cannot get over it.

They are doing this just so they can tell a few people in the Minister of Public Safety's circle that they went through with it. Some people have a visceral feeling about this. An athlete who appeared before the committee thinks it is appalling that she would be asked to register her weapon to take part in the biathlon. For crying out loud. I register my car. It is not a problem for me as long as it does not take two hours of my time and the process is simple. Every time we made this case to the Conservatives, it seemed less and less clear that registration was a problem for them.

In closing, there are so many things that need to be said. People write to me about this every day to share data with me. The public health authorities in Quebec are calling unanimously for the registry to be kept. This is important, and it has been proven that the registry has had an impact when comes to long guns.

I say to my colleagues once again, do not get caught up in the rhetoric from the Conservatives who like to amuse themselves by saying that the astronomical costs are associated with long guns. This is not true. The cost is for the registry as a whole. There are still other weapons that are included in the registry. The registry has not been abolished.

Some of the Conservatives in charge of the firearms file have no doubt been telling people that they will get what they want, and so, anyone listening now who believes those Conservatives is going to wake up with one heck of a headache the morning after the party on February 1. I guarantee it. There will still be a gun registry.

That $2 billion was spent setting up the entire registry. That is not the true cost since then. The cost is somewhere between $2 million and $4 million. When I calculate what has been spent on the anniversary of the War of 1812, when I see the millions spent on all kinds of celebrations for the Queen—though I have absolutely nothing against the Queen—I have to say that, in terms of logic, and as a legislator who wants her constituents to be safe, my heart bleeds today. What are we supposed to say to the people who worked from 1989 to 1995 to set up the registry? It will take nearly as much time to dismantle it as it took to create it. Wait and see how long it will take to destroy the data. That does not happen at the touch of a button. It will cost billions, and one day, people will talk about how much money the Conservatives wasted dismantling the long gun registry.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the support from the member and all of my colleagues on the other side, many of them who unfortunately have been forced by their leadership not to vote according to the wishes of their constituents. We have made it very clear that we need to focus on the criminal and not the law-abiding firearms owner.

I want to say one thing. This may be my last speech in regard to Bill C-19, and I want to thank all the fine citizens of our great nation for their patience over the past 17, almost 18 years. I have always said that government moves slowly, but I never dreamed it would take this long to get rid of something that has been absolutely a waste of time.

We have had a majority government for less than 100 days and we have made the commitment to get rid of this. Therefore, in answer to the member's question, yes, we are acting on this. Unfortunately so much money has been wasted on this and am really pleased to finally put this whole issue to rest. I thank all those who supported me.

The paramount question is if the firearms legislation cost-effective in improving public safety. That should have been the core question. That is what we should have been debating.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and honoured to have the opportunity to begin the third reading debate on Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act. I thank the public safety minister and the parliamentary secretary for allowing me the honour to lead off on this debate.

The legislation before us today fulfills a long-standing commitment of our government to stand up for law-abiding Canadians while ensuring effective measures to crack down on crime and make our streets and communities safer for all Canadians. The bill before us today is quite simple. It would put an end to the need for law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters to register their non-restricted hunting rifles and shotguns. It is nothing more and nothing less.

For those who are not familiar with this issue, there were two requirements to gun ownership in Canada. One was registration and the other was licensing. I am sure by now that my hon. colleagues on both sides of the House are very familiar with my position on Bill C-19. I feel that laying a piece of paper beside a firearm, which is called registration, does nothing to improve public safety.

Instead of explaining my position over again, I have decided to simply highlight testimony from several expert witnesses who appeared before the public safety committee as it studied Bill C-19 last November. There is a recurring theme in all of their remarks and the four elements of that theme are: First, the long gun registry has been a colossal waste of money; second, it has targeted law-abiding gun owners, not the criminal use of firearms; third, it has done nothing to enhance public safety; and fourth, the data is so horribly flawed that it must be destroyed.

For the rest of my remarks, I will read into the record witnesses' testimony. The first person I will quote is Mr. Greg Farrant of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters who had this to say about Bill C-19:

A paper trail of trained, legal, licensed firearm owners does not address the real problem. Even a well-run registry, which this is not, will not prevent random violent crime. Believing in that ignores the glaring reality that the vast majority of criminals don't register firearms; and in the rare case when they do, a piece of paper and the creation of a system where possibly 50% of the firearms in Canada are not included does nothing to anticipate the actions of an individual, nor do anything to prevent such actions in the first place.

In the case of the long-gun registry, there's a glaring absence of fact-based evidence to support its existence. Suggestions that gun crime in Canada has declined since the introduction of the long-gun registry under Bill C-68 ignores the fact that gun crime, particularly gun crime using long guns, has been on the decline in this country since the 1970s, two decades before this registry ever came into being. Crimes committed with long guns have fallen steadily since 1981. Bill C-68 was not introduced until 1985 and wasn't mandatory until 2005.

The present system focuses all of its efforts on law-abiding firearms owners and includes no provisions for tracking prohibited offenders, who are most likely to commit gun crimes.

This should be about who should not have guns rather than about who does.

Another prominent argument we've already heard here today is how many times per day the system is used by police. ... We've recently heard 14,000 and 17,000. ... The vast majority of so-called hits on the registry have little or nothing to do with gun crime. The majority of these are cases of an officer maybe stopping a vehicle for a plate identification or an address identification, which automatically touches all databases, including the long-gun registry, despite the fact that the check has nothing to do with firearms in the first place.

The next quote I will read is from Solomon Friedman, who is a criminal defence lawyer. He stated:

You will no doubt hear in the coming days and weeks from various interest groups about how the long-gun registry is a minor inconvenience, merely a matter of paperwork. We register our dogs, our cats, and our cars, they say. Why not register our shotguns and rifles, as well? As you know, the registration scheme for non-restricted long guns, and for prohibited and restricted firearms as well, is enacted as federal legislation under the Criminal Code and under the Firearms Act.

With the criminal law power comes criminal law procedure and, most importantly, for the nearly two million law-abiding licensed gun owners in Canada, criminal law penalties. Unlike a failure to register a pet or a motor vehicle, any violation of the firearms registration scheme, even the mislaying of paperwork, carries with it the most severe consequences: a criminal charge, a potential criminal record, detention, and sometimes incarceration. This is hardly comparable to the ticket under the Provincial Offences Act or the Highway Traffic Act....

In addition, registry violations are often grounds for colourable attempts on the part of police, the crown, and the chief firearms officer to confiscate firearms and revoke lawfully obtained gun licences. ...long-gun registry violations used as a pretext to detain individuals, search their belongings and their homes, and secure evidence to lay additional charges.

Parliament ought not to be in the business of transforming licensed, law-abiding, responsible citizens into criminals, especially not for paper crimes.

There are millions of Canadian gun owners who will be glad to know that in the halls of Parliament Hill, hysteria and hyperbole no longer trump reason, facts, and empirical evidence.

...the registration of firearms, aside from having no discernible impact on crime or public safety, has merely alienated law-abiding firearms owners and driven a deep wedge between gun owners and law enforcement.

The next quotation is from Sergeant Murray Grismer of the Saskatoon police service. He said:

...the registry for non-restricted rifles and shotguns...should be abolished. Thousands of police officers across Canada, who are in my opinion the silent or silenced majority, also share this position.

...the Canadian Police Association...adopted their position without ever formally having polled their membership.

The Saskatchewan federation is the only provincial police association that polled its entire membership on the issue of the registration of firearms. When polled, the Saskatoon Police Association was 99.46% against the registry, while our compatriots in many of the other Saskatchewan police forces were 100% in opposition to the registry.

...the registry can do nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining or using firearms. École Polytechnique, Mayerthorpe, Spiritwood and Dawson College are synonymous with tragic events involving firearms. However, the firearms registry for long guns would not, could not, and did not stop these tragic events. The retention of the firearms registry or records will do nothing to prevent any further such occurrences. ...even Canada's strict licensing regime and firearms registry cannot prevent random acts of violence.

For the officers using the registry, trusting in the inaccurate, unverified information contained therein, tragedy looms at the next door. ... Knowing what I do about the registry, I cannot use any of the information contained in it to square with a search warrant. To do so would be a criminal act.

Projections from within the Canadian Firearms Centre privately state that it will take 70 years of attrition to eliminate all of the errors in the registry and to have all of the firearms currently in Canada registered. This level of inaccuracy is unacceptable for any industry, let alone law enforcement.

Constable Randy Kuntz of Edmonton stated that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said that police officers support the registry but that he was one who did not. He went on to state:

I conducted a self-funded survey of 2,631 heroes of law enforcement across this country. They were all identified by their police-issued e-mail. They were all serving police officers. Of the 2,631 who responded to me between March 2009 and June 2010, 2,410 were in favour of scrapping the long-gun registry. In April 2011, the Edmonton Police Association surveyed its members: 81% voted to scrap the long-gun registry.

I'm also a victim. In my personal life, I have 15 friends, teammates, classmates, and co-workers who have committed suicide with a firearm. I also have three friends who were murdered with a firearm.

I am still sitting here in front of this committee telling you that I do not support a firearms registry. I tell you that it does not save lives.

Ontario police officer Constable John Gador had this to say:

The Firearms Act and its long-gun registry were marketed to law enforcement as a tool to target the criminal misuse of firearms, but only six of its 125 pages deal with increased penalties for criminals. The other 119 pages are aimed squarely at law-abiding Canadians who own or seek to own firearms....front-line officers...want funding to go toward things that have been proven to assist in the detection and apprehension of real criminals. They don't want money wasted on dreamy, ivory tower ideas like the long-gun registry, which are costly, ineffective, and drive a corrosive wedge between them and the public they are sworn to protect.

I have another quotation from police officer Sergeant Duane Rutledge of the New Glasgow Police Service in Nova Scotia. He said:

My experience is that these people take their weapons and share them with their friends and family. They have other people who will hold the weapons for them. That's part of the issue with the whole registry. An individual registers the guns, but there's no way to track where that person keeps his weapons....As a front-line police officer, I believe there are more hidden guns today...This, therefore, makes it more dangerous for me now, because I'm guessing every time I go to a house if I rely on the registry to give me the facts. I don't believe it can do that, simply because there are so many people who haven't registered guns.

I would like to continue with another quotation from Sergeant Rutledge. He said:

I'll go back to the female police officer who was shot in Quebec. She had full belief that the person was prohibited from having firearms and she let her guard down. Complacency is what gets police officers killed. I'd rather have no hope than false hope.

That one point alone is key to this debate. Could it have cost a life?

I would like to now quote from Linda Thom, the Canadian Olympic gold medal winning shooter, who said:

—I’m accorded fewer legal rights than a criminal. Measures enacted by Bill C-68 allow police to enter my home at any time without a search warrant because I own registered firearms, yet the same police must have a search warrant to enter the home of a criminal. I’m not arguing that criminals should not have this right—they should. I’m arguing that this right should be restored to me and all Canadian firearms owners.

Ms. Hélène Larente, volunteer coordinator of a Quebec women's hunting program, had this to say:

As a hunter, I don't think it is fair that we are being treated like criminals...the registry does not protect women any more than it does society as a whole. The fact that a firearm is registered does not mean that it will not be used, either against women or anyone else....I am in charge of an orientation program. Women who participate in that orientation learn how to handle guns and realize that the gun itself is not dangerous.

I asked Ms. Larente if the long gun registry had a negative effect on people getting into the hunting and shooting sports in Quebec. Her answer was:

That certainly has a negative effect...If we are stopped, we are seen as criminals because our gun is registered....We risk committing an offence if we forget our registration.

My next quotation comes from Ms. Diana Cabrera of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. She had this to say:

—I'm an international competitor shooter. Although I'm Canadian, I currently compete for the Uruguay national team...The challenge of obtaining the public safety goals of the firearms...are major concerns...the fear of confiscation, the perceived social stigma of firearm ownership and demonization, and the many costs and burdensome processes involved....There is no question that the long-gun registry has deterred individuals from entering their shooting sports....The main issue for competitive participants is the fear of imminent criminality. They may easily find themselves afoul of uniformed law enforcement or CBSA officers, even if all the paperwork is in order. Any paperwork error may lead to temporary detention, missed flights, missed shooting matches, and confiscation of property....Law enforcement and media coverage of firearm issues have made this situation even worse. Firearm owners are subject to spectacular press coverage in which reporters tirelessly describe small and very ordinary collections of firearms as an 'arsenal'....Will I be targeted at a traffic checkpoint if a CPIC verification says I possess firearms?

Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, talked about the number of firearms owners of guns in Canada. He said:

Based upon the Canada Firearms Centre's polling figures, in 1998 there were 3.3 million firearms owners in Canada. On January 1, 2001, 40% of Canadian gun owners--over 1 million people--became instant criminals.

Fewer than half the guns in Canada are actually in the registry....Getting the ones that are out there to actually come into the system would be like pulling teeth....To get those people to come forward now, you would have to go right back to the very basics of the act and change the very premise of the act; the first sentence says that it's a criminal offence to possess a firearm without a licence.

Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University introduced some interesting research findings. He said:

First, responsible gun owners are less likely to be accused of homicide than other Canadians. Second, the police have not been able to demonstrate the value of the long-gun registry. Third, the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing homicide. Fourth, the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed.

Maybe I will have more time to deal with some of his statistics later.

From Greg Illerbrun:

I am a former RCMP officer as well as a past provincial president of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation...the thousands of people I represent support the permanent elimination of the registry.

This...targets law-abiding citizens, but does little to stop the criminal use of firearms. That approach is fundamentally wrong.... Registries do not work to stop crime....Government inspectors--not police services--can enter your home without a warrant based on the suspicion that there is a firearm, ammunition, or documentation of a firearm....the Firearms Act removes your right to remain silent. Inspectors can demand that you tell them where your firearms are...and if you do not assist them you can be charged and put in jail....We're all criminals, because the mere possession of a firearm makes you a criminal....Criminals enjoy more rights than firearm owners....We support gun control; we just support gun control that is effective and focuses on the real problem, not the legal and law-abiding owner.

There are so many quotations that I would still like to read. Maybe I will do some of them in questions and comments.

Dr. Caillin Langmann, an emergency medicine resident in Hamilton noted:

I treat suicide and violence on a daily basis....the money that has been spent on the long-gun registry is unfortunately wasted; however, we can prevent further waste by taking the money we currently spend on the long-gun registry and spending it on...women's shelters; police training in spousal abuse; and psychiatric care, which is sorely lacking in this country. We are not winning the battle against suicide.

I would like to quote from Mr. Donald Weltz. He is a retired Ontario conservation officer with 32 years of service. He said:

—the registering of long guns does nothing to increase the safety of the public. The fact that a long gun has been registered does not prohibit that firearm from being used by an individual with criminal intent. It is not the long gun that commits the criminal act, but the individual in control of that long gun...I have heard people ask why individuals would be upset with registering their long guns. We have to register our vehicles, they say, so what's the difference?...I would ask this question: has the fact of registering our vehicles he number of impaired drivers? In an impaired driving situation, is the vehicle the problem or is it the driver who decided to drive while their ability was impaired with alcohol?...even though I probably had the ability to check that registry ahead of time...I chose not to, and I did so specifically so that my mind would not have some kind of little innuendo hiding there that would lead me to take my guard down for a split second....If you have the perception that there is nothing there that really can hurt you, you have a tendency to not be as careful as you should be.

I have more comments but I will have to finish them later.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

moved that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by re-extending my invitation to the opposition House leader to actually move forward on some of the most non-controversial bills before the House. For example, Bill C-28, the Financial Literacy Leader Act, will help to promote and enhance the financial literacy of Canadians. I know this is an issue that the NDP has often raised in the past, especially the member for Sudbury. I look forward to hearing a proposal from the NDP on how much debate it would like to see on that non-controversial bill before moving it to committee.

What will disappoint Canadians is what we saw this morning when the NDP rejected a responsible work plan based on the views actually expressed by all parties right here in debate last week to pass Bill S-5, the Financial System Review Act, before Canada's banking laws expire in mid-April. Again, the NDP House leader is apparently blocking the will of the members of his own party, who are responsible for the legislation, on how it should be dealt with in the House.

Nevertheless, we will give the NDP another chance. We have asked for a debate on this bill next Tuesday. I hope that we will be able to move forward then and refer the bill to committee.

When we returned to Parliament last month, I laid out our government's plan for a productive, hard-working and orderly House of Commons. We are going to continue in that direction. Unfortunately, we have also seen the NDP lay out its own plans for the House. It wants to force the government to resort to time allocation in every case possible in the hope of running up the score. It wants to be able to quote the number of times the government has been forced to resort to time allocation to get bills advanced in Parliament. For this, it has refused to agree to processing even the most non-controversial bills, or in the case of the copyright bill, one that had only seven hours of debate before we all agreed to send it to committee in the last Parliament. This time, even after 75 speeches on the identical bill, it refuses to let it go to committee for detailed examination.

While the NDP hopes that this statistic, the running up of the score that it is forcing, will somehow help it in the next election, what the number actually stands as proof of is the NDP's commitment to paralyze Parliament, to obstruct and delay to the maximum and to refuse to co-operate on even the simplest, most straightforward and broadly supported legislation.

We demonstrated that yesterday with Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act. We had to take action once we realized that a co-operative solution was not viable. Seventy-five speeches later, the end was still not in sight. During the previous session, an identical bill was sent to committee after just seven hours of debate, as I said.

Tomorrow, we will have the eighth and final day of debate on second reading of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, which would protect high-quality jobs in the digital and creative sectors. This bill is important to Canada's economy. Today, we will complete debate on the New Democrats' opposition day motion.

I am pleased to inform the House that on Monday and Wednesday we will deal with third reading of Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. Next Wednesday night, we will have a momentous vote to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I can advise that I will be scheduling Friday, February 17, as the day, pursuant to Standing Order 51, on which the House will hold a day of debate taking note of the Standing Orders and the rules of this House and its committees. I also want to say that Thursday, February 16, will be the third allotted day.

Canada's economic stability and advantage in these uncertain times depends on political stability and strong leadership. That is why we will continue to manage the country's business in a productive, hard-working and orderly fashion.

Firearms Registry

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it has taken many long years but, finally, law-abiding firearms owners can see the end in sight.

For some 18 years, I have been defending the interests of law-abiding gun owners in Canada. The long gun registry has been targeting the wrong people, and not the criminal use of firearms. Responsible long gun owners would no longer be forced to expose their names and addresses in a computer database that has been hacked by criminals over 300 times by the RCMP's own admission. The registry data must be erased.

Today, it is estimated that fewer than half the guns in Canada are actually in the registry. Moreover, the data is riddled with errors and omissions. Front-line police officers refuse to rely on it when answering domestic calls because it can get them killed.

With the registry gone, we would be able to focus our tax dollars on more effective crime control. One witness at the Bill C-19 hearings hoped:

Bill C-19 will serve as a memorial of sorts, a tombstone marking the final resting place of wrong-headed policy-making.

Amen to that.

Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to speak to this bill and actually close debate before we vote on the report stage motions.

Seventeen years ago, when the Liberal Party first brought in Bill C-68, they promised that the gun registry would cost Canadians $2 million. Here we are 17 years later and the cost is estimated to be around $2 billion. That is a horrendous difference in cost.

Bill C-19, on which we will be voting very soon, is a piece of legislation that is as hot in my riding and as aggressively debated against in this country as any piece of legislation that we have before this House, and this is after 17 years. I would suggest it is aggressively argued against because of the wrong direction in which the original bill, Bill C-68, was going and it has not changed course.

I am from a rural area. I understand full well the importance of farmers looking after their livestock and being able to use a rifle to protect their property from predatory animals. A gun is a very important tool on a farm.

However, the registry has targeted law-abiding citizens. If they are not prepared to register a gun, they become criminals in this country. It is long overdue for change. We will have an opportunity in a few minutes to actually make the changes that are needed, to redirect a wrong-headed idea on where this country should be going with regard to keeping our streets safe.

We have listened to the opponents on the other side, the NDP in particular, for the best part of those 17 years. The members were on the side of getting rid of the long gun registry until it came to a vote. Then they said they were just kidding. They went even one step further and disciplined a couple of members in their party who had decided to follow the will of their constituents. That is inappropriate when it comes to a piece of legislation like this because of the impact it has on law-abiding citizens in rural Canada.

I can understand someone living in downtown Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, or any of the large centres in this country, looking at this piece of legislation and asking why anyone should have a handgun or rifle because they have no need for them and some of the violent crimes happening on the streets in our cities would lead one to the idea that these guns should not be there.

A long gun registry does not have anything to do with handguns. Handguns and restricted weapons have been included in a registry since the 1930s. Nothing will change there. In fact, going one step further, we believe that the individuals should be licensed and not the guns.

The country will remember an incident which happened in my riding which lends itself to this argument. It has to do with the “fallen four”. A man by the name of James Roszko, when he was 12 years old, was into drugs and was up on drug charges. When he was 17 years old, he was stealing ammunition and firearms from Canadian Tire stores. By the time he was 44, he was killing RCMP officers. The gun he used in that terrible incident was registered. The long gun registry does not save anyone's life. It does not protect any RCMP officers. It does not keep our streets one bit safer. The proof is in that it is the individual who has to be targeted.

I mention this incident because that individual was before a judge 44 times and was convicted 12 times in a catch and release system that has permeated the criminal justice system and put people on the streets who should not be there and who cause harm to law-abiding citizens of this country.

The argument from many of my colleagues in the House is that the long gun registry keeps our streets safer and that the chiefs of police say that we should keep it. I have asked the constables in my riding who supposedly work with the long gun registry all the time if they are for or against the gun registry, if it helps them keep the streets safe, and if it is something they use on a continual basis, as has been alleged by the opposition. They said there is nothing that makes their job more difficult, more compromised than the long gun registry because of how clumsy it is and the paperwork that is involved. They spend more time in the office doing paperwork than out on the streets keeping people safe.

Those are not my words; those are the words of constables with whom I have spoken directly, who deal with keeping our streets safe on a day-to-day basis.

When I look at the long gun registry, I ask if it has helped at all. I would say it has hindered a lot of things. I would say it is targeting the wrong people. It is not because we do not want to keep our streets safe, because we do, but we do not want to use this vehicle to do it. We have to target the crime and deal with the problem that is at hand to ensure that Canadians are safe. That is the obligation of a federal government. We are compelled to do that.

How do we do that? We put more law enforcement officers on the streets. We make certain that we change the laws to stop this catch and release system that seems to have permeated our criminal justice system over the last number of years.

We bring in legislation and what do opposition members do? They criticize it and vote against it, similar to what they did with the long gun registry. Even though they said they were against it for 15 years or more, when it came to a vote, they bailed and decided that they were just kidding and just playing games with their constituents.

We are not playing games with our constituents tonight. I would encourage everyone in the House to consider soberly who they represent when they sit in their seats in the House of Commons. The seats should have the names of whom we represent, because it is their seats we are actually sitting in. They are saying loud and clear to me that this long gun registry is attacking them and it has to go.

We know there are criminal elements out there. The crime and violence committed by gang members in an urban setting will not be mitigated by the long gun registry. Handguns, illegal guns are the weapons being used to commit crimes and compromise the safety of our streets in urban settings. I say to anyone who thinks the long gun registry will save them and make their streets safer in an urban setting, that would not be the case. We do not have to convince people in a rural setting, because they know exactly what is involved with the long gun registry and how it absolutely does not make their lives safer. In fact, it targets them as criminals.

As we have this debate on the long gun registry, it is very important that we think soberly about the people we represent in this country. For 17 years they have been victimized by the long gun registry. It is time we got rid of the long gun registry. It is time to treat our rural people with the respect they deserve. We must do the right thing, which is to vote against the long gun registry so it will no longer be there. This legislation will correct once and for all an injustice that was done to the rural people of this country.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-19, a bill that if passed will mean the abolishment of the long gun registry.

As the opposition critic for public safety and as the representative for a community where gang and gun-related violence is a reality, where there have been four murders in the last month alone, I am fiercely opposed to the bill.

Abolishing the long gun registry is a mistake and I fear the impact this mistake will have on public safety.

The most saddening part about the government's motivation to kill the registry is that it is entirely political. It has nothing to do with public safety. Instead, it has to do with a reckless Conservative agenda on crime that will cripple our criminal justice system and cost taxpayers billions of dollars, all just to divide Canadians and score some cheap points along the way. It has nothing to do with the facts, but, sadly, facts are rarely a concern with the government, especially when it comes to public safety.

Last week in the Senate committee hearing on Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, the Minister of Public Safety told senators to ignore the facts when it came to public safety. He said, “I don't know if the statistics demonstrate that crime is down...I'm focused on danger”.

His statement, which seems completely absurd to most Canadians, pretty much summarizes the government's approach on crime. Its plan, as far as I can see, is to scare Canadians and then spend billions of dollars on policies that will not make our communities any safer, all the while convincing us that all of this somehow makes it tough.

My friends do not believe in facts, but I will give some to them anyway. Here are some facts about the long gun registry, which the minister and his colleagues on that side of the House are ignoring.

On average, one in three women killed by their husbands are shot and 88% of those women are killed with legally owned rifles and shotguns. Since the introduction of the gun registry, gun-related spousal homicides are down 50%.

Rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in suicides, particularly those involving youth. These have decreased by 64% in nine years, from 329 in 1995 to 121 in 2005, with no evidence of substitution with other methods.

Long guns have killed 10 out of 13 police officers in the past 10 years. That comes from the 2010 RCMP evaluation of the Canadian firearms program.

The Conservatives are also ignoring the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has told them many times that the registry saves the lives of officers and that cancelling it would hinder their ability to solve crimes.

The Conservatives are ignoring the RCMP that has consistently defended its usefulness as an investigative tool.

The Conservatives are ignoring victims' groups that have spoken out in support of the gun registry. We heard from many victims' groups in committee.

The registry is not perfect. That is why New Democrats have been saying for many years that we need to find a way to address the problems with the gun registry, while strengthening gun controls in our country.

Our position is clear. We want to see the legitimate concerns of rural Canadians and aboriginals addressed, while ensuring that police officers have the tools they need to keep our communities safer. We want to bring Canadians together and find solutions, instead of playing games with wedge politics like the Conservatives are doing.

The NDP put forward a number of suggestions to address problems with the registry, while maintaining its value as a public safety tool, but the Conservatives refused to consider those solutions. Not only are they going to end the gun registry, but just to prove a juvenile point, the government is also going to destroy the existing gun registry data.

The money has already been spent. We have heard about it. It was $2 billion that my friends spent over the years to gather this information. It makes no sense to simply destroy it if there are police officers and provinces that want to use it to enhance public safety. Destroying existing information in the registry will not bring back the money that has already been spent. Why is the government going to effectively burn billions of dollars worth of data that Canadian taxpayers have already paid for when the provinces and the police are telling us that the data has a public safety value?

It does not make sense to me. What makes sense to me is to fix the registry so it works for all Canadians, rural Canadians, aboriginals and urban Canadians. What makes sense to me is to give the police the tools they need. What makes sense to me is to adopt improvements that New Democrats have proposed to strengthen the gun registry. What makes sense to me is to ensure that semi-automatic weapons, like the Ruger Mini-14, used by Anders Breivik in the recent Norway shootings and by Marc Lépine at the Montreal massacre in 1989, cannot be classified the same way as hunting and sporting shooting guns, to close loopholes around firearms importation that have led to guns ending up on the black market. What makes sense to me is to stop gun violence in the country using every possible tool that we have. What makes sense is to save lives.

Like Jack Layton said, “stopping gun violence has been a priority” for rural and urban Canadians. There is no good reason why we should not be able to sit down with goodwill and open minds. There is no good reason why we should not be able to build solutions that bring us together. There is no good reason why we cannot rise above the political games, fix the registry and make Canada a safer place for everyone: my family, the families of the members and families across our country.

I urge my Conservative colleagues to vote against the bill so they can work with the NDP to fix this so we have safer communities.

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.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member, who has given an excellent speech on Bill C-19. Today, we voted once again on a time allocation motion for a bill that is extremely important for all Canadians. What does the hon. member think about the fact that the Conservative government is not listening to Quebec, which wants to recover the data from the firearms registry?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am horrified to hear the arguments coming from the other side of the House. The obstinacy with which the Conservatives are calling for the destruction of the firearms registry is neither practical nor well thought out. Bill C-19 is motivated entirely by ideology and seeks to divide rural and urban Canadians. The Conservatives want people to think that those two groups hold irreconcilable positions on this issue, and that is not the case.

As the New Democrats have shown in the past, we have the leadership that is needed for considering both sides of the coin, in order to come up with a solution that works for all Canadians. In 2010, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay introduced a bill that would have made changes to the registry and removed the parts that are problematic for hunters and the first nations, without destroying this vital protection that is used every day by the police to combat spousal violence, among other things.

Rather than supporting a well thought-out solution to the problem, the government decided to divide Canada on this issue in order to play petty politics. I do not need to remind this House that it is women who are the primary victims of spousal violence, women who are rightly terrified at the prospect of the registry and the data in it being destroyed. Anyone who rises in this House and tries to minimize that fear is denying or ignoring the fact that one-third of women killed by their partner are killed by a legally owned shotgun or rifle. They are also denying or ignoring the fact that since the introduction of the registry, the frequency of such incidents has declined by 50%. The government is not just endangering women’s rights; it is playing with their lives.

I represent a rural riding in Quebec. I am one of the New Democrats who represent communities of farmers, first nations and sports hunters. I have no difficulty explaining the bill introduced by my colleague from Timmins—James Bay to them, and the amendments we would like to make to Bill C-19. Those amendments would have created a firearms registry that I could defend wholeheartedly. Those amendments would have controlled the cost of the registry, simplified firearms registration and created a legal guarantee of adherence to the treaties signed with the first nations.

However, today I have to stand up for the women in my riding who are firmly opposed to Bill C-19. I have known Andrée Larochelle and Carole Girardeau of the Carrefour des femmes du Grand Lachute since last May. That organization is a wonderful centre for women, that works with victims of violence on a daily basis.

Ms. Larochelle wrote the following letter to the Prime Minister on December 6:

Dear Mr. [Prime Minister]

You are no doubt aware that December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. It marks the anniversary of the murders of 14 young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989, by a man who hated them just because they were women.

Since that time, in Quebec alone, 973 women and children have died at the hands of violent men.

Here at the Carrefour des femmes du Grand Lachute, we are working to combat the violence committed against women every day. Every day, women of all ages tell us that they are the victims of violence, whether it be psychological, verbal, sexual, economic or physical. Every day!

And now, two decades later, you, Mr. Prime Minister, the leader of our great country whose democracy is a model for the world, are planning to abolish the firearms registry, after so much work was done to implement it. It is incomprehensible. It is unacceptable.

The women of this same great country, particularly those of Quebec, will remember you as the one who undermined the status of women. That is what we will remember. That much is certain.

In the meantime, if you are curious, take the time to read the enclosed list of given names. It will give you an opportunity to personalize violence against women. This list was created in less than five minutes by gathering the names of approximately 30 women who visit our centre. Imagine if every Canadian woman did the same thing...

We hope that we have made you aware of the violence women experience and we send our respect, particularly if you change your mind about the firearms registry.

Sincerely, Andrée Larochelle, case worker and communications officer

I have here the list of names to which the letter refers: Manon, Kim, Nathalie, Guétane, Brigitte, Micheline, Gisèle, Josée, Nicole, Isabelle, Linda, Cécile, Paulette, Lorraine, Diane, Manon, Johanne, Sylviane, Linda, Jacqueline, Suzanne, Ginette, Carole, Sylvie, France, Pauline, Josée, Nicole, Tanya, Laurie, Ronya, Selahna, Cassandra, Ashley, Paula, Amal, Lucie, Rachel, Tanya, Lisa, Lori, Judith, Andrée, Joanie, Chantal, Sandra, Karine, Lise, Lucie, Nancy, France, Danielle, Marie-Karine, Francine, Manon, Maude, Huguette, Chantal, Marianne, Sophie, Jacqueline, Michelle, Thérèse, Jeannine, Kim, Mélissa, Mélanie, Jacynthe, Mylène, Micheline, Nathalie. I did not read all the names. These are just a few of the victims.

On behalf of the women's centre in Lachute, the women and police officers in the Province of Quebec and everyone else across Canada who has spoken out against Bill C-19, I am asking all the members of the House to vote against this reckless and ill-conceived bill.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to talk a bit more about what the B.C. Wildlife Federation said:

The long gun registry, created under Bill C-68 by a previous Liberal government, has always been misdirected. It focused on law-abiding citizens, ignoring violent criminals and offenders who have been prohibited by court from owning firearms who actually do threaten the public safety. As a result, the BCWF [B.C. Wildlife Federation] has joined with provincial and territorial wildlife federations, national and provincial wildlife and outdoor organizations, responsible firearms owners, hunters, farmers, trappers, recreational sport shooters, and many rank and file law enforcement officers who have consistently urged the government to scrap the system.

These are common sense folks, just as the legislation we are bringing forward under Bill C-10 and Bill C-19 is common sense.

I would appreciate the support of the hon. member. He was not here at the time when his predecessors brought in the registry. He is from Kingston and can bring some common sense from those folks in Ontario to the House.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, on behalf of my constituents of Kelowna—Lake Country, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to show my support for Bill C-19. I have personally waited a number of years for this opportunity to stand in this place and say with confidence that the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry will soon be gone.

Our government has been quite clear since we were first elected that we would take a stand and do what was right. We said that we would do what was right for all law-abiding Canadians. We said that we would abolish a system that criminalizes law-abiding Canadians based solely on where they live and the tools they use to make a living. Canadians have now given us a strong mandate to do that.

The debate is not new. Our government has tried on several occasions to achieve the results that Canadians want, as have several hon. members. At this time I want to recognize the efforts of the hon. members for Yorkton—Melville and Portage—Lisgar who have worked tirelessly for many years to do away with Canada's long gun registry. Today is their day as much as it is a great day for all Canadians, a day to rejoice.

I would ask all hon. members of this House to think back to the news coverage they have seen in the past few days. I would ask them to think more specifically about those news stories that covered gun violence on our streets. In many cases, when we see images of gun crime on television, it usually involves gang members settling scores or fighting for drug turf in large city neighbours. It usually involves brazen acts on street corners or in parks or even in schools.

Last summer in my riding, on a Sunday afternoon, it happened. We had open fire from gang members in the middle of a beautiful August day in a tourist city, a city of just over 100,000 people. People from all around the world had gathered to enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon. My daughter happened to be working at the hotel that day and I thank the good Lord every day that she survived. The staff ran into the rooms, called 911 and took frantic customers, patrons from all walks of life, to safety. It was a horrific situation. It is these situations that gun control must target. This must be stopped and our government has certainly taken a number of steps over the last six years to do that.

This government is convinced that asking hunters to fill out forms to register their long guns in a computer database does not prevent these types of crimes from taking place in our communities. Our government is not alone in taking such a stand.

Some hon. members have indicated that police speak with one voice in support of the long gun registry. That, however, is simply not the case. For instance, in April 2006, more than 11 years after the Firearms Act was introduced, the president of the Winnipeg Police Association said, “The Winnipeg Police Association has never supported the long-gun registry”.

More recently, other front-line officers have added their voice to the debate indicating that Canada's long gun registry does nothing to prevent gun crimes or even to protect the safety of police officers.

Abbotsford police chief, Bob Rich, an urbanite with no hunting background, has been quoted in the London Free Press as saying that the long gun registry completely misses the mark and does nothing to address the real gun problems in his community. What he said was that 90% of all recovered guns in Abbotsford were smuggled into Canada from Washington state and that the debate we should be having in this country was about how to address that issue. I think that is of vital importance.

Madam Speaker, yourself coming from British Columbia, you are well aware of the fact that guns and cocaine are going across the border. It is a very serious issue and it is something we need to be focused on, be aware of and working on with other pieces of legislation with the support of all members of this House.

Chief Rich is not alone. When Calgary police chief, Rick Hanson, testified at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness last spring he said that the registry was flawed and that it failed to tackle the real issue of gun violence. He went on to say that the registry:

...falls short of making the type of positive impact this country needs to be safer. No direct links have been made between the existing gun registry and the behaviour of criminals.

I have some more from front-line police officers weighing in on the debate. Retired police officer, Sergeant Michael Mays, who spent 6 of his 33 years on the Toronto Police Force, working the dangerous Jane and Finch area, wrote in a letter to the Toronto Star that he found the long gun registry “ terribly flawed and a waste of time, energy and money”.

Sergeant Mays added that the information in the registry was “outdated, inaccurate and completely unreliable”, and that for any officer ”to make a decision at a call based on registry information would be foolish at best and deadly at worst”, as my hon. colleague recently stated.

The verdict is in. The long gun registry does nothing to prevent gun crimes, protect Canadians or even protect law enforcement officers.

Again, retired police sergeant Michael Mays noted in his letter to the Toronto Star that:

A [police] check of the registry is done automatically every time an officer is dispatched to an address, wanted or not. From its inception, I was advised not to depend on it to make decisions.

What we can deduce from all this is that however well-intentioned it may have been, the long gun registry is completely ineffective and does nothing to prevent gun crimes.

Taxpayers were originally told that the registry would cost something in the order of $2 million, since the rest would be made up by fees. All of us know full well that the state broadcaster has stated the cost to be well in excess of $2 billion. Two million, two billion. M and B. That is a big difference.

Today, we know there are over seven million long guns legally registered but there are millions of others not legally registered. Some estimates put that figure at 16 million. Seven million registered and possibly 16 million unregistered. It is a guess at best. There are still a lot of guns that would need to be registered if the long gun registry remained intact.

We could add to that the cost of making the data current and correcting the data, as well as the police hours that would be spent enforcing its compliance. For what? For a tool that never has and never will have any impact in preventing gun crimes? For a tool that police officers do not rely on? For a tool that some police officers actually refer to as dangerous? For a tool that many police officers say has had absolutely no role in helping them to solve crimes? It is just goes on and on. We can and will do better.

As Al Koenig, president of the Calgary Police Association, noted in the Calgary Herald, the vast amount of money spent on the long gun registry could have been much better spent and put to use for the front-line police officers in Canada. He said that the program has had no effect on crime or acted in any way as a deterrent. He said, “despite the money spent, it should be scrapped.

That is what the legislation before us would do.

Our government believes in taking a balanced approach to firearms control, one that targets criminals and eases requirements on law-abiding firearm owners. We must not forget that the true aim of gun control is to prevent gun crime.

The measures we are taking to build a more effective firearms control system aim to achieve two goals. On the one hand, we want to crack down on individuals who would use firearms to harm others and, on the other hand, we want to ensure that individuals who want to obtain firearms for legitimate purposes are not a threat to others and know how to handle firearms.

We respect our law-abiding farmers, recreational hunters and sports shooters.

I met with members of the BC Wildlife Federation, which has about 38,000 individual members and represents over 100 member clubs in British Columbia, including the Oceola Fish and Game Club in my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country and the Kelowna and District Fish and Game Club. Its president, Rod Wiebe, put out a news release in the fall when we tabled this legislation, in which he stated:

The Prime Minister has consistently pledged to rid us of this expensive white elephant, which has cost Canadian taxpayers almost $2 billion dollars; the introduction of the legislation is tangible proof of that commitment. Supporters of the registry have repeatedly stated that it works, but they have consistently failed to provide clear evidence to support that contention.

The bottom line is that Canadians want results, not expensive showpieces. They want action on gun crime, not expensive boondoggles.

Bill C-19 is long overdue. I therefore ask all members of this House to work with this government to ensure its speedy passage.

In a little while hon. members will have an opportunity to stand up and do the right thing, to stand up for freedom for recreational hunters, farmers, fishermen, outdoors people, who appreciate the beauty of our country and our freedom, and support Bill C-19

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, the government listens to the Association of Chiefs of Police when it comes to Bill C-10 on law and order, but when those same chiefs come to committee to talk about Bill C-19 and urge the government to keep the registry, the government suddenly turns a deaf ear. What does the hon. member think about that?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is with the support and respect of the people of my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke that I rise today once again to speak in support of this legislation, which will finally scrap the long gun registry.

I am pleased to confirm to the House that scrapping the Liberal long gun registry is the number one topic of discussion when I am out and about on the various public engagements I am invited to attend.

My constituents followed the progress of this legislation very closely. They are disgusted by the cynical, manipulative ploys of the opposition. My constituents assure me they will never in their lifetime support those parties with their not so hidden agenda to reintroduce the registry.

In my riding, demonstrations against the Liberal long gun registry were not occupied by young people being manipulated by radicals funded by foreign interests. These demonstrations were held by middle-aged firearm owners whose first reflex is to respect the laws of the land, whose parents and their parents before them built this great nation.

The political alienation of rural Canadians by the Liberals was a far greater loss than the $1 billion-plus that have been wasted on an experiment in social engineering. It was an experiment that backfired on the Liberal Party and helped reduce it to the fringe status in Canadian politics it enjoys today. The creation by the Liberals of a new criminal class, rural firearm owners, was the ultimate triumph of the negative political politics, which thoughtful Canadians rejected in the same way they rejected the Liberal long gun registry.

This may be the worst and most enduring product of the gun registry culture war. When it comes to the gun issue, my constituents all know my stand. I am against it and I will never quite fighting until it is gone.

Until now, however, I have only made reference to it as the Liberal long gun registry, which means registering all serial numbers on guns owned by law-abiding citizens, but there was much more.

As we all know, brave Canadians have sacrificed their lives in two world wars and many conflicts, the most recent in Afghanistan, to ensure that we have a free and democratic society, as well as the rule book that lays out how society will be run. The rule book is the Constitution of Canada. However, when Liberal minister, Allan Rock, brought in Bill C-68, the original legislation, using deception and flawed RCMP data, his Liberal Party failed to tell the public that hidden in his so-called “gun bill” were 11 unconstitutional sections that denied the rights and freedoms guaranteed to us by our Constitution.

Some argue that these intentional rights and freedoms violations gave the registry the same legal authority as the War Measures Act. When the War Measures Act is invoked, all civil rights and freedoms are suspended. However, we are not a war here, are we? Is this the culture war the left is always trying to incite?

The reality of this blatant assault on the Canadian Constitution can only be stopped by Bill C-19. Yet the left-wing parties are fighting to keep this kind of legislation on the books, vowing never to rescind it. They have promised to keep fighting every attempt by our government to end it and then to reintroduce it if they ever get the chance.

Nevertheless, our Constitution is the set of rules that our government abides by because they represent the supreme laws of the nation. When we see the left-wing parties demanding that the gun registry stay, remember they are demanding an outright repudiation of the Canadian Constitution as well as a blatantly unconstitutional denial of our civil rights and freedoms. These violations prove that the long gun registry was never about crime reduction. It was about giving the Liberal government the power to seize Canadian property without due process.

The 11 violations constituents cited are as follows.

First, Bill C-68, from which the long gun registry emanated, denies the constitutional right to possess private chattel property by allowing the police to confiscate the private property without the due process of law, or fair, just and timely compensation. That is from CFA subsections 102(1) and 102(4). This section also provides for the future confiscation of any and all personal property, classed as being prohibited upon the death of the owner, without monetary compensation of any kind.

Second, Bill C-68 denies the constitutional right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure, by forcing citizens to allow the police into their homes to search and seize without a warrant, even if no known crime is suspected. They have to allow the search or face arrest, and the legality of search can only be challenged after the fact. That is from CFA sections 102 to 104 and Criminal Code amendment subsections 117.04(1).

Third, Bill C-68 denies the constitutional right against self-incrimination, the right to remain silent, while allowing police to threaten criminal charges, according to CFA sections 103 and 113, if one does not assist the police to search one's home and go through one's belongings, relative to the enforcement of the act, its regulations or part III of the Criminal Code, CFA section 103.

Fourth, Bill C-68 denies the constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty by saying the burden of proof is on the individual. That is reverse onus. That is CFA subsection 75(3), Criminal Code amendment subsection 117.11. This section alone destroyed the very foundation upon which our entire legal justice system was predicated.

Fifth, Bill C-68 denies the constitutional right to consult legal counsel before consenting to surprise police inspections or warrantless searches of one's home, CFA sections 103 and 113.

Sixth, Bill C-68 denies one's constitutional right to privacy by authorizing police to conduct warrantless searches of one's home at any time, even if one does not own a firearm. That is from CFA subsection 102(7) and section 104.

Seventh, Bill C-68 denies the constitutional right to freedom of association by allowing the government to prohibit one from owning a firearm if one is an associate of someone who is already prohibited from owning a firearm. That is Criminal Code amendment subsection 117.011(1)(b).

Eighth, Bill C-68 denies the constitutional right to be represented by an MP by allowing the justice minister to make unilateral regulations that modify the Criminal Code as he or she sees fit, using orders-in-council, without ever having to go through the House or Parliament. That is CFA subsections 117(a) to (v) and subsection 119(6), part III of the Criminal Code. That provision makes the justice minister a law onto himself or herself.

Ninth, Bill C-68 denies aboriginals their constitutional right to equal treatment under the law by allowing the government to unilaterally adapt or otherwise change any provision of the act as it applies to native people, according to CFA subsection 177(u). This is all without consulting the House or Parliament. That is from CFA subsection 119(6).

Tenth, Bill C-68 allows the justice minister to create civilian police, as opposed to properly trained officers dedicated to law enforcement. That is from CFA section 101. This provision leaves the door wide open for a future creation of unaccountable government forces and/or paramilitary units.

Eleventh, Bill C-68 allows for both military and foreign enforcement as well, but with no other part of the Canadian Criminal Code enforceable by the military, especially a foreign military. We wondered why that one was added. The truth is this provision was included to legitimize the future presence of foreign troops on our land. Why would Canada ever need foreign troops enforcing Canadian gun laws?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act. This is something that western Canadians, people in Saskatchewan, people in my constituency have been waiting a long time for. There has been a history of opposition by the members opposite to the passage of such a bill.

The member who previously spoke asked why we were pressing so much with the bill when it deals with farmers, duck hunters and those who belong to wildlife clubs and who do not wish to have to register their guns or be criminalized if they do not. My question is: Why has there been such opposition to removing this class of people from the provisions and the requirements to register under the Firearms Act?

Much talk has been heard from people who believe that if the long gun registry were repealed, we would lose control of firearms safety regulations altogether. It has been said that if we get rid of the registry we will be endangering the lives of police and those who are vulnerable to domestic violence. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The registry does not make police entrances to difficult situations any safer or less difficult. The police must always take an abundance of precaution when they go into any situation, and whether a firearm is registered or not is something they will take into account. They will go into a situation using the utmost care.

Our government has always committed itself to keeping our citizens and our communities safe. We have said from day one that the most important responsibility for government is to keep its citizens safe and to do what it can to ensure that is the case. Our commitment has been to work hard to protect Canadians, and this was clear in our first Speech from the Throne, which said:

—our safe streets and healthy communities are increasingly under threat of gun, gang and drug violence.

This Government will tackle crime. It will propose changes to the Criminal Code to provide tougher sentences for violent and repeat offenders, particularly those involved in weapons-related crimes. It will help prevent crime by putting more police on the street and improving the security of our borders.

Those are practical, very basic steps that can ensure the safety of our communities and our streets. If we are going to spend money and get value for that money, we will target the most effective areas to ensure success.

Since our government was first elected we have worked hard to follow through on our pledge to make our streets and communities safer by repairing a system that was completely out of touch with the priorities of Canadians.

Offenders who engaged in serious and repeat victimization of society's most vulnerable were walking away from their convictions with merely a slap on the wrist. Our front-line police officers were not receiving the resources they needed to do their job and support for crime prevention was under-funded. Nonsensical and ineffective policies like the long gun registry were enacted to foster an aura of public safety rather than the taking of real action.

We have taken a firm and reasonable approach to creating safer and stronger communities. Our government is proud of what we have accomplished so far. Our track record is quite impressive when one looks at the series of legislation that has been put before the House, and in fact has passed the House into the other House as well.

We have taken decisive action to crack down on crime, to strengthen the rights of victims and to give police the tools they need to do their job.

We make no apologies for getting tough on serious criminals by ensuring they serve sentences that reflect the severity of their crimes.

We do not apologize for taking a stand against crime and focusing on helping victims of crime. It was surely a time to refocus on victims and some of the things they are interested in, giving them a say, giving them a part in our justice system, to ensure that those who commit the crime receive the appropriate sentence and punishment.

In May, Canadians gave us a strong mandate to move forward with our tough law and order agenda. We are doing what we promised.

In June, we introduced legislation to crack down on human smuggling. In September, we introduced comprehensive legislation to make our streets and communities safer. With this current legislation, we are moving ahead with one of our longstanding electoral commitments, that is, to abolish the long gun registry.

It has been difficult responding to constituents who have been asking since I have been in this House in 2004, through 2006, 2008 and 2011, “When will the ineffective and wasteful long gun registry be eliminated?” They have asked us to do that and we are finally coming to a place where that may happen.

It seems that some members of the opposition think we are too tough on criminals. If that were true, would we be introducing legislation to abolish the long gun registry if it were indeed effective?

Eliminating the long gun registry would not make our streets unsafe because, quite frankly, it never impacted the safety of our streets in one way or another. There is not a shred of evidence that the long gun registry has stopped a single crime or saved a single life.

What we do know, however, is that the rules and regulations currently in place for licensing firearms are effective and reasonable. For this reason, Bill C-19 would not change the current licensing regime.

What it would do is to get rid of an unnecessary and heavy-handed system that unfairly paints hunters and farmers as criminals. We should not criminalize the failure to register firearms and criminally sanction those who use their firearm for legitimate purposes. Once passed, the legislation would repeal the requirement for the long gun owners to register their hunting rifles and shotguns.

As I mentioned, firearm owners would still require a valid licence to purchase or possess firearms. They would be required to undergo background checks, pass a firearm safety training course, and comply with firearm safe storage and transportation requirements. Those are the kinds of things the public has an interest in and that we would enforce. Those are the kinds of things that would produce some results.

However, the registration produced no results, cost a lot of money, and took aim at farmers, hunters, and other wildlife-interested persons.

Bill C-19 would also require that individuals be in the possession of valid firearms licence when a firearm is purchased.

Finally, the proposed legislation would allow the destruction of all records currently held in the Canadian firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officers.

Many have felt that registry should never have been in place. In order to rectify that, the registry needs to be done away with. That would mean that its data must be destroyed. This would ensure that the privacy rights of individuals would not be breached by their information being accessed by another organization or government body.

Let me state with the utmost clarity that our government would not allow for the creation of a long gun registry through the backdoor.

It is common knowledge that we have desired to abolish this wasteful and ineffective measure. It has been part of the policy of the Conservative Party of Canada since its inception in 2003. It was the policy of both legacy parties. It is not news to anyone that the party, and now the government, has proposed that we proceed with the elimination of the registry.

In fact, my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety introduced a bill that came very close to passing in the last Parliament. Yet, thanks to a number of members from the New Democratic Party, the bill did not pass. Fortunately, many of these members I speak of were reminded, on May 2, that they must stand up for their constituents.

As I mentioned, we have taken a number of steps that will be effective. We have taken a number of steps that will achieve results. However, we will do away, once and for all, with the ineffective and wasteful long gun registry. It is a measure that constituents from my riding of Souris—Moose Mountain have desired for a very long time. It is a measure that is long overdue.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Madam Speaker, in addition to limiting the time allowed for us to debate Bill C-19, the Conservatives are accusing us of treating farmers like criminals. In my riding, 80% of which is farmland, farmers want to keep the firearms registry. I am a hunter myself and come from a family of hunters, and I want to keep the firearms registry. The member promised earlier that she would work with the provinces. I would remind the member that the Government of Quebec wants to keep the data from the firearms registry.

Why does the member across the floor refuse to listen to what Quebec and the people of Alfred-Pellan are calling for?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise in support of Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. The state broadcaster, the CBC, has confirmed that $2 billion in taxpayer money have already been squandered on the long gun registry, with no tangible impact on preventing gun crime. This leads me to ask why some members in this place want to continue this wasteful program when the money could be put to much better use.

Our government is committed to cracking down on crime. We are committed to providing law enforcement officers with the tools they need to do their jobs. On this side of the House, our goal is to put criminals out of business, in stark contrast to those across the way who would rather harass law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters.

When the long gun registry was introduced in 1995, the previous government promised it would cost approximately $2 million to implement over five years. In her 2002 audit, however, the Auditor General of Canada reported the program's costs had skyrocketed to more than $600 million. Moreover, due to a lack of solid financial information, she believed this figure did not fairly represent the true costs of the program. It is small wonder that when I ask people in my riding how they would describe the long gun registry, the response is always the same: an absolute boondoggle.

Apart from the cost to taxpayers and the financial burden on law-abiding citizens, there is also no evidence the long gun registry has stopped a single crime or saved a single life. This is not only my personal belief, but the belief of a vast number of my constituents, as well as law-abiding Canadians. It is also the belief of the Auditor General of Canada, who, in her 2006 audit, stated that the Canada Firearms Centre did not show how it helped minimize risks to public safety.

It is also the belief of veteran police officers such as Gilbert Yard, a retired RCMP superintendent, who has said in the past:

I believe that Canadians are much too astute to believe [the long gun registry] is anything other than a waste of time, effort and money. Wasting public funds that could really make a difference in acute justice issues, in my view, borders on criminal activity.

When our Conservative government came to office, we pledged that our approach to crime would generate the kind of practical results demanded by our law enforcement community rather than wasting taxpayer dollars on initiatives such as the long gun registry, which does nothing to reduce gun crimes. We promised to make our streets safer by tackling the deadly combination of drugs, gangs and guns. We promised to increase sentences for violent and repeat offenders, especially those involved in weapons-related crimes. We promised to work with the provinces and territories to fight the root causes of crime through community-based prevention. We made those promises and we have kept them.

Over the last six years, we have passed legislation to tackle violent crime. We introduced mandatory prison sentences for serious gun crimes, as well as reverse bail provisions for serious offences, changes that were long overdue. Our government has also passed legislation that creates a new offence to target drive-by and other intentional shootings that involve the reckless disregard for the life or safety of others. Those convicted of such acts are subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison, with a maximum period of imprisonment of 14 years. If these acts are committed by or for a criminal organization or with a restricted or prohibited firearm such as a handgun or automatic weapon, the minimum sentence has been increased to five years.

More recently, our government introduced comprehensive legislation which would make our communities safer by: extending greater protection to the most vulnerable members of society, as well as victims of terrorism; further enhancing the ability of our justice system to hold criminals accountable for their actions; and helping improve the safety and security of all Canadians.

In particular, the safe streets and communities act would: better protect children and youth from sexual predators; increase penalties for organized drug crime and house arrest for serious crimes; protect the public from violent young offenders; eliminate pardons for serious crimes; enshrine in law a number of additional key factors in deciding whether an offender would be granted a transfer back to Canada; increase offender accountability and support victims of crime; support victims of terrorism; and protect vulnerable foreign nationals against abuse and exploitation.

In addition to taking action on the legislative side, our government has provided more money to the provinces and territories so they can hire additional police officers. The government has also helped the RCMP recruit and train more personnel.

Our government has shown, through these measures, that it is serious about getting tough on gun crime, but we also need to ensure that we have a system of gun control that makes people safer rather than simply making people feel safe. That is why the government is investing $7 million annually to strengthen front-end screening of first-time firearms licence applicants, with a view to keeping firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them.

We have to ensure that our gun control keeps firearms out of the hands of those who threaten our communities, our safety, our lives. Our government is determined to maintain an effective firearms control system, while at the same time combatting the criminal use of firearms and getting tough on crime.

We also believe the radical notion that gun control should target criminals not law-abiding citizens. It should save lives not waste money. That is why our government is moving forward with Bill C-19. This would reduce the burden on farmers and hunters who use rifles and shotguns to protect their livestock or hunt for wild game. Ending the registration of non-restricted guns would also free up money that we could reinvest to combat the criminal use of firearms.

This government is taking a balanced approach to firearms. On the one hand, we are fine-tuning the law so it targets criminals and not law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, we have spearheaded legislation that gives the police and the courts new tools to fight weapons-related crime, especially related to gangs and organized crime.

It is a two-pronged approach rooted in common sense and one that will enable us to make our firearms control program truly effective, enhancing public safety for all Canadians.

I encourage all members to stand in the House and support this important legislation before us today.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-19, which seeks to abolish the firearms registry.

We have heard a host of good reasons as to why the firearms registry should be kept, such as its usefulness to the police forces and the prevention of violent acts. As a hunter, however, it is important that I speak about one particular argument that has not been the subject of much discussion since the start of this debate. I hope that my colleagues from the Conservative Party will listen closely to what I have to say, because I believe that I know what I am talking about, since I am a hunter myself.

I started hunting at three years of age. I did not hunt with a real weapon. My father built me a small wooden shotgun and took me hunting with him. I would sit on the three-wheeler and hunt partridges with him. I have not stopped hunting since. I have five weapons of my own at home: three 22-calibre shotguns, a 303 rifle and a 270 rifle. I hunt moose, bears, partridges and other small animals. So I think I know what I am talking about and that is why I want to discuss the issue.

When hunters ask me why I am in favour of the firearms registry, I talk to them about firearm theft. I explain it in simple terms. Before the firearms registry existed, wrongdoers, who perhaps needed the money, would enter houses and steal firearms. These were regular people, just like all the Canadians we represent. They would place a short advertisement in the newspaper in order to sell the firearm. When there was a potential buyer, the thief would explain that his grandfather had given him the weapon and that he was selling it because he did not really go hunting. He would say that he no longer had the papers because it was a long time ago and he did not know where they were anymore. That would always be a bit of an annoyance, but the seller would seem to be acting in good faith and knew what he was talking about. The buyer would tell himself that this was normal and would go ahead and buy the firearm. Consequently, when a firearm was stolen, there was no way of locating it.

Since the registry was created, when people put an advertisement in the newspaper, for example, to try to sell weapons they have stolen from other people’s homes, it is no longer possible. This is because when a potential buyer goes to see the weapon and expresses an interest in buying it, since it is a good model at a reasonable price, the buyer suggests calling to make the transfer. The person at the other end of the phone line tells him that the weapon was reported stolen, according to the information in the registry. That person then strongly advises the would-be buyer against buying the weapon. Of course, the police are notified and may take action to get the firearm back. If a person has stolen a firearm to use it for hunting, he runs the risk of being in the woods and having a law enforcement officer ask for the registration papers. If the person does not have the papers, the officer will check and see that the weapon was stolen. In either case, there is a chance of locating the weapon, which was not previously the case.

We have to understand that many firearms are part of family tradition. Many people have firearms that belonged to their grandfather and their great-grandfather and have been passed down from generation to generation. If they are stolen from us, even if someone could offer us a similar firearm, it would not be exactly the same. It would not be the one our grandfather went hunting with. There is great family attachment to these firearms.

Some firearms are now practically impossible to recover. Without the firearms registry, if they are stolen, there is virtually no way to recover them. The police have no way of recovering these firearms, unless they have some uniquely special feature. But when we talk about firearms from the 1960s, for example, one 22-calibre weapon with a wooden stock looks just like another 22-calibre weapon with a wooden stock. It is therefore extremely difficult, unless it is marked, to know whether that firearm is in fact the one that was stolen. It is practically impossible. Since we have had the firearms registry, thefts of firearms have declined significantly.

We paid for these data, as did hunters. That is why we want to preserve them. That is why, in Quebec, we think this is logical. The registry provides a degree of security because the police use it, but it also protects us as hunters because it reduces theft. If a theft occurs, and that cannot always be prevented, we have a chance of recovering the stolen firearms.

Another thing I must stress is the value of the firearms. Some of these firearms are worth a lot of money. Because they are used for hunting, a lot of money is invested to make sure they are functional. If the firearms registry is abolished and people start stealing firearms again, the owners might lose the money they have invested in this sport, which is an economic activity in Canada.

I have a firearm, a Ruger SR 10/22. I paid $600 for the firearm alone and nearly $300 for the sight. So I would be extremely unhappy if it were stolen, and even more so if there were no database that would allow it to be recovered. At least, with the firearms registry, a police officer can type in the serial number and the name of the firearm and see the ones that have been stolen. I would have a chance of recovering my firearm, but without the firearms registry, I would have no chance of that. It would be extremely complicated. The person who had stolen it would simply have to say, if asked, that they had lost the registration, that it is in their truck, that they do not know where it is. I think it is important to talk about this aspect because not much has been said about it.

Since I have enough time left, I would like to address another point. As some members know, I am a nurse by training. I have worked in hospitals and I come from a rural area where there are a lot of farmers. We know that farmers have suffered a great deal as a result of climate change, economic crises and the mad cow crisis. All those factors have had a considerable impact on farming. Some of our farms became unstable, economically, and were in distress. The stress level rose significantly among farmers. Most farmers have a firearm at home and use it for activities on the farm. For example, if a cow was attacked by wolves, the farmer could shoot it rather than leave it to suffer. It is reasonable for farmers to all have firearms. That is legitimate when you have a farm, I think.

I believe that the firearms registry can be used to protect people from themselves. When doctors and nurses see that a person is depressed and not doing well, they are able to determine whether the person has firearms at home and, consequently, whether they are a suicide risk. Firearms are not forgiving; it is not possible to save these people’s lives. When they are taken to emergency, it is often too late. Doctors and nurses can use this tool to determine whether a person is in possession of firearms. If the person does have firearms, they can be asked whether they would be prepared to take them to the police station until they feel better and get help getting back on track. Conversely, if the database is not accessible, this kind of prevention—helping someone and preventing something irreparable from happening—is not possible. That is another important point that I wanted to stress.

I want to ask the public to support us when it comes to the registry. I am a hunter and I really believe that the firearms registry can help to prevent the theft of firearms and stop people from burglarizing houses and stealing weapons. Without the registry, this is impossible.

I paid for these data and I would like them to be kept. At the very least, if the federal government does not want to keep them, it should transfer the data to Quebec so that people like me, who paid for the data, are protected. If this kind of thing occurs, there needs to be a chance of finding the weapons. That is what I want to emphasize.

I would ask everyone who does not consider my idea crazy and who thinks that I am perhaps right to write immediately and send a clear message to every Conservative member who is against this idea.

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

Mr. Speaker, in my remarks I pointed out three major reasons. One is about public safety because, if we look at what is in Bill C-19, we still have the licensing provisions and we still have the safety and the background checks. That is gun control, not a registry system.

The other thing people tell me when I am out in the riding every weekend is to get rid of the long gun registry. It is about the inaccuracy of the information and the waste of taxpayer dollars.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to complete my remarks. I just want to give a shout out to a couple of the ranges in my riding, in Springfield and Woodstock, that do a tremendous amount of work. They have a tremendous amount of volunteer effort to educate not only their young people and the kids but also the community on proper firearm control, safe handling and those types of things. I want to give them a shout out for all the great work they do and their work in building respect for firearms in our communities.

The third piece I want to talk about is that Bill C-19 is about protecting taxpayer dollars. We have had a lot of debate in the House and comments made about the $2 billion that was spent on a wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. The Auditor General's report talks about that and is very specific on that issue and the amount of faulty information that is actually within the registry, which means that it cannot be relied on by the police or by any other province in that respect.

Bill C-19, a straightforward bill, has been supported by 90%-plus of my constituents based on the polling that I have done. It provides for public safety, respects our traditions and, for the long-term, respects taxpayer dollars.

As a rural member of Parliament, I campaigned on this four times. I know my members support it and the people in my riding support this. I ask all the members in this House to support this bill today.

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.

Bill C-19—Time Allocation Motion

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, time allocation should be the exception, not the rule, in this House. If there were a question of national security or an entire Canadian sector dealing with a devastating economic crisis, we would come to an agreement in the House to cut off debate for a specific reason. However, the government is simply making up excuses. It has moved nearly 20 time allocation motions, even though the House just recently resumed. It is completely unacceptable.

Not only are the opposition members of the House being scorned, but so are Quebeckers. Three Quebec ministers came to Ottawa to comment on Bill C-19, specifically to ask the federal government not to destroy the data. The Government of Quebec has made a formal request and we have not finished debating this issue. However, the federal government refuses to listen. What is so urgent that the government will not listen to anyone—neither parliamentarians nor provincial governments—debate this issue?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I move:

That, in relation to Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, not more than one further day shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the bill and two sittings days shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the day allotted to the consideration at report stage and on the second day allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

Report Stage

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in this House to continue the report stage debate on Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act. As my hon. colleagues know, this bill seeks to eliminate the threat of jail time for people in this country who do not register their non-restricted firearms.

On the face of it, this seems like common sense. Hunting rifles and shotguns are the tools of the trade for many of those who farm our land and feed our cities. These law-abiding farmers simply want to work hard and sell their products without being criminalized for possessing what is needed to do their jobs. When I think about the debate on this issue and specifically how it affects our farmers, I am reminded of one of the famous lines from Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. He stated:

What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right...? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer...rather than the professor of metaphysics.

Burke was a great statesman and a great parliamentarian, and he was telling us to look toward those who do as opposed to those who pontificate when we are seeking a particular end. That particular end we seek is to protect our communities and families from criminals. To that end, our government has done common sense things. For example, we have introduced legislation that actually puts violent and repeat criminals behind bars.

Before we have to close for the evening, I would say that the opposition seeks the same ends that we do, to keep communities and Canadians safe. However, we differ on the approach to doing that. I will expand on that tomorrow when I am recognized again by the Speaker.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am definitely honoured to speak to Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act.

We are delivering on our government's commitment to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. We have been clear and straightforward with Canadians. It is no secret that we have consistently opposed the long gun registry. For going on 17 years we have said that we are going to scrap it. I am truly excited to say that this is finally coming to fruition.

Last May Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to carry out their priorities. That means jobs. That means economic growth. That means a fair immigration system. That means safe streets and communities. That also means ending the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Every member on this side of the House and every candidate who stood under the banner of the Conservative Party of Canada has stood shoulder to shoulder with law-abiding farmers, hunters and sports shooters all across this great land.

Our government believes that the requirement to register long guns has needlessly and unfairly targeted law-abiding Canadians. This may seem like a simple statement, but it is worth repeating. Criminals are predisposed to breaking the law and going against society. I say it is simple, but it is very clear that the NDP, the Liberals and all those who support the long gun registry do not understand this simple truism. If people are predisposed to breaking the law, why on earth would anyone think they would comply with needless, complicated paperwork? The answer is simple and clear to all reasonable people. It does not happen. Criminals do not register their guns.

I am confident when I stand here to assure everyone that the government has carefully examined all sides of the argument. I can unequivocally state that the long gun registry has been nothing but wasteful and totally ineffective.

Bill C-68 was introduced by Allan Rock and the Liberals in 1995 in the wake of the tragedy that took place at École Polytechnique. The horrific events that unfolded on December 6, 1989 are truly unbearable not only for the victims but also for Canadians as a whole. Let me state that the long gun registry did not, could not and would not have prevented Marc Lépine from taking the lives of those innocent women. There is no evidence that the long gun registry has ever stopped a single crime or saved a single life.

According to our state broadcaster, the CBC, since the long gun registry was created, it has cost Canadians in excess of $2 billion. That is money that should have been used to crack down on real crime and real criminals, not law-abiding farmers, hunters and sports shooters.

The majority of homicides committed in Canada did not even involve long guns. Statistics show that rifles and shotguns are not the problem. In reality, they are not the weapon of choice for criminals. The weapons used in crimes are primarily handguns which will continue to be registered. They are also usually illegally smuggled across the border or stolen and are not being caught by the registry.

Our government does believe that the right gun control laws do save lives, and our government will continue to take action to make our streets and communities safer.

Bill C-19 would continue the strict system of controlling restricted and prohibited firearms. Firearm owners who wish to acquire a firearm or ammunition would still require a valid licence. That would mean they must maintain a clean criminal record, pass a firearms safety course, as well as comply with all firearms safe storage and transportation requirements.

What Bill C-19 would specifically do is repeal the requirement for licensed firearms owners to register their non-restricted firearms. It is simple and it is practical.

All reasonable people agree that there is no need to continue a regime that has had no discernible effect in accomplishing its goal. This bill would also delete all the records of law-abiding long gun owners in the registry, as well as records under the control of chief firearms officers.

Some have criticized this portion of the bill. I would like to discuss why it is fundamental to fully scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. By force of the Criminal Code, the strongest power available to any government, data on law-abiding firearms owners has been collected over the last several years. By eliminating the registry, we would be returning some sanity to Canadian firearm laws. We could focus our efforts on real measures that have real results.

The question remains: What would happen to the data that was collected during the unfortunate period when the government decided to turn on its citizens and needlessly infringe on their privacy? To members on this side, the answer is very clear. In order to fully scrap the long gun registry, one must eliminate it in all its forms. Future gun owners would not be required to register their property. Current gun owners should be afforded the same protection of their privacy. Upon royal assent, the data would be destroyed.

To draw an analogy to illustrate this point, I would like to reference comments made by the Minister of Public Safety. He said that ending the long gun registry but keeping the data is akin to a farmer saying that he will sell his farm to someone so long as he gets to keep the land.

I have had the good fortune of campaigning in the riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry for the last five elections. The good people of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry decided to elect me four of those times. During those campaigns, not once did a person tell me that he or she would not vote for me because I supported the long gun registry. On the other hand, literally hundreds of people stopped me when I was campaigning and asked where I stood on the long gun registry. I told them that I supported the abolition of the long gun registry and they said I had their votes.

I heard some comments earlier about police officers. I can tell the House that police officers in uniform stopped me when I was campaigning and asked me that very question. When they heard that I supported the abolition of the long gun registry, they said they would vote for me and support me. As a matter of fact, in the last few elections off-duty police officers distributed lawn signs for me because I was in favour of abolishing the long gun registry.

Last May, when Canadians went to the polls, they made their choice loud and clear. They voted for a strong, stable majority Conservative government that will deliver on its promises. I would like those Canadians to join me today in saying our government has delivered. I am delighted that we will finally scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

Bill C-19--Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I must advise that an agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) concerning the proceedings at report stage and third reading of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose, at the next sitting, a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages. My plan is to allot one further day of debate at report stage and two days for third reading.

Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand and speak firmly against Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, ending the long-gun registry act.

For any Canadians watching, I think a fair summary of this legislation would say that it would do two things: First, it would eliminate the requirement to register non-restricted firearms or long guns; and second, it would destroy existing records of long gun registration that are currently held in the computer system accessed by police.

As a registration certificate would no longer be required to possess a non-restricted firearm, if this bill passes, certain offences in the Firearm's Act are amended or appealed and the Criminal Code would also be amended so that failure to hold a registration certificate for a non-restricted firearm would not give rise to any of the offences relating to unauthorized possession of a firearm and it would not allow police to seize a firearm. Previous versions of government bills to dismantle the registry did have a requirement for people to check that the person they were selling or giving away their long gun to was a licensed firearm owner. Earlier versions of this bill also allowed for businesses to keep records of the sale of long guns, as was the practice prior to the registry. This bill contains neither provision.

What I have learned since coming to the House and participating in this debate over the last three and a half years has been that this is a big country and we bring many different sensibilities to this debate of the long gun registry. I have noticed that there are differences regionally, socially and culturally. Part of a healthy democracy is that people come from various parts of our broad fabric and bring the different perspectives of the people who live in their riding. That is healthy and that has informed this debate. I commend all members of the House for their contributions to this debate. I also want to give my particular position on the bill and also try to represent what I think is the broad consensus of the people in Vancouver--Kingsway.

Here is how I basically approach the issue of gun registration. I operate from the assumption that a firearm, whether it is long gun, a handgun or any kind of gun, is inherently a dangerous product. It is one of those products that when used exactly as designed has the capacity to harm, injure or kill people or anything living. I come from the basic position that anyone who has the right to own such an implement has a corresponding responsibility and duty to ensure that dangerous product has certain parameters around it. Those include knowing where that object is and ensuring the object cannot be used to hurt other people. I come from the general perspective that tracking the possession of that implement, tracking the sale of it, is a good thing. I come from the point of view that us knowing where those dangerous items are is something that makes our society safer.

I also have come to believe, after talking to many police officers across the country, that the gun registry helps them solve crimes. We all know that there are many thefts and break-ins across the country on a daily basis. None of us likes that but it is a reality of Canadian life. When a gun is stolen and subsequently used in a crime, I am told by police officers that locating that gun, finding out where it was originally registered and what residence it was registered to, helps them trace it back to its original owner and helps them, ultimately, to solve crime with that piece of evidence. I think that a gun registry imbues those who own guns with a feeling of responsibility.

It has been said a few times, and I do not want to make light of this, that we licence dogs and cars in our country. We licence certain fertilizers because there are constituent parts that can be used to make bombs. When people go into hardware stores to buy simple fertilizers, we make those stores keep a registry of who buys the fertilizers because we recognize that they are dangerous products and if they get into the wrong hands they can cause injury and death.

I also think of the balance of convenience. What is being asked of Canadians when we establish a gun registry? We are asking people that as a consequence of their privilege and right to own that weapon they simply fill out a registration form which indicates to authorities that they are the registered owner of that particular item.

What inconvenience is caused to people? There is a lot of rhetoric on all sides of the House on this issue. In my sincerely held belief, we are not asking duck hunters and farmers to do much. We are not asking them to give up the right to own a firearm. They can own 10 firearms if they want. We are simply asking them to register their firearms as a sign of responsibility, just as we would ask them to do if they purchased a car, which they would do without complaint.

There has been a lot of talk by the government about there being no evidence of the efficacy and effectiveness of the gun registry. That is not my understanding and it is not my research.

A vast number of police forces across the land are supportive of the gun registry. They are not unanimous, but there is no unanimity on any issue in this country. I will read a couple of quotes.

Bill Blair, the chief of police in Toronto and the past president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said:

The registry gives officers information that keeps them safe. If the registry is taken from us, police officers may guess, but they cannot know. It could get them killed.

Chief Daniel Parkinson, president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, said:

Scrapping the federal Firearms Registry will put our officers at risk and undermine our ability to prevent and solve crimes.

The government talks a lot about victims. It claims to support the rights of victims better than any other party in the House, which I doubt, but that is what it says. Sue O'Sullivan, the federal victims' ombudsperson, said:

Though there are varying points of view, the majority of victims' groups we have spoken with continue to support keeping the long gun registry.

My friends opposite stand in the House and say there is no evidence from police, victims or anybody in this country that the gun registry is desired or supported, but that simply is not true. I have just given the House some examples of hundreds of quotes from police officers, victims' groups, people who work in the criminal justice system across this country who tell us on a daily basis that the long gun registry is effective in preventing and solving crimes and keeping people safe. This is coming from police officers, women, people who might be contemplating suicide.

It is a little surprising that the Conservatives want concrete proof positive of a direct causative relationship between the gun registry and saving lives. With the greatest of respect, I do not need that. We accept many things in life. In this chamber we make decisions. We pass laws that are based on the best educated information and evidence that if we take a certain step it will likely result in a different step. We do this with tax law for instance. If we provide a tax cut to corporations, the government suggests it will lead to a certain behaviour by those corporations, and that they will invest, or so goes the argument. Does the government have evidence of that? Is there concrete empirical evidence of that? Probably not, but we make that decision based on the best evidence and our best reasoning.

The same thing I would respectfully suggest applies to the gun registry. If we tell people that if they want to own a firearm, a weapon that can kill, maim and injure, then registering that weapon will make our country slightly safer. That to me is intuitively correct.

I want to talk about what differentiates our country from the country to the south. In our country we have had much tighter firearms regulations. I have always felt that makes Canada a safer place. We do not have the level of gun violence that there is in the United States. The major reason for that is that we have tighter gun regulations, and Canadians support that.

The Conservative government says that criminals will not register guns, but every member on the government side says the government stills want to have the registration process of the gun owner. Criminals do not apply for a firearms acquisition certificate either.

With the greatest of respect, this is sound public policy. I agree that a lot of money has been wasted by previous governments, but that money is sunk. This is a valuable tool for police and the people of this country. I urge all members of this House to put ideology aside and vote to keep our communities safe.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot say I take any pleasure in rising to speak at report stage on Bill C-19, because I believe this bill represents the triumph of ideology and wedge politics over evidence and public safety.

Over the last 30 years, Canada has introduced numerous measures to tighten firearms control and has produced a system that has served us well, the twin system of licensing owners and registration of weapons. Why did we come to this system?

There are three main reasons that we have slowly but surely tightened our control over firearms in this country. Certainly there were spectacular tragedies, like those at École Polytechnique in Montreal, which caused us to pay the due attention we should have paid much earlier to this crisis. My colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry talked in very personal terms about some of the suffering that was caused to students and their families in Montreal. Those victims and families worked very hard to get the government to set up this gun registry to try to prevent situations like this one in the future.

There were two other factors that were also at play. One of those was the very frequent use of firearms in domestic violence, which I will come back to in a second. The other was the very frequent use of firearms in suicides, particularly youth suicides. What is significant about firearms and suicides is that firearms are final. If people take pills and then change their mind, they can call an ambulance. If someone slashes his or her wrists, there is a chance. When a firearm is used to commit suicide, it is over.

These three things together cause us as a society to say we can and must do better in the control of firearms.

What evidence do we have of the effectiveness of this registry? In the short time I have, I want to talk about three pieces of very important evidence. The other side likes to say there is no evidence, and I will come back to talk about what I think they are doing in misusing information.

My first piece of evidence is the very strong support of police for the gun registry. We all know that long guns have killed about 80% of the officers killed on duty in this country. However, I do not think that fact is what has caused police organizations to support the bill. We also know they access the system about 14,000 times a day. The other side tries to discredit that by saying it is automatic and that it does not provide good information. From my personal experience as a police board member, I know police do not do things that waste their time; they are too busy. So if they are accessing the registry there is a good reason to do so. Police believe it to be a very useful tool. This was found in the RCMP evaluation of the Canadian firearms program in February 2010.

Also, almost without exception, police leaders and police associations support the gun registry, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Police Boards. I sit on the public safety committee where I am the vice-chair. What the government tried to do on that committee was to find individual police officers and individual researchers who would say they did not support the registry, when the overwhelming evidence was that police organizations, police leaders and those who work in the field of criminal justice find it to be effective.

The second piece of evidence we have comes from domestic violence. One in three women in this country killed by their husbands is shot, and 88% of them are shot with legally owned registered rifles and shotguns. Over the past five years, courts have ordered the revocation of 9,950 permits to own firearms. This has allowed police to go to those residences and pick up the firearms. While the other side said there was no evidence of the registry preventing deaths, I believe there are strong indications that many deaths were prevented by the seizure of arms from the 9,950 people the courts had determined were unstable and therefore should not have firearms in their possession. If this bill passes, the police will no longer be able to go with confidence to residences and pick up all the firearms there, only those the people wish to tell the police officer about.

As for the results, there are good statistics in this area. Gun-related spousal homicides are down 50% since the introduction of the registry. This is an undeniable fact. The use of long guns in suicide has also decreased by 69% since the introduction of the registry, with no evidence of a substitution of other methods. As I mentioned, the problem with guns and suicide is the finality of it. The Institut national de santé public du Québec estimates that 2,100 lives have been saved since the implementation of the registry. An excellent example of sophistry is the claim that we cannot prove a connection between those two. However, we can prove a correlation between the two and we must rely on these kinds of correlations.

Sure there have been concerns about the registry. There was definitely mismanagement of its implementation by the Liberals, long delays and huge cost overruns. When the Conservatives on the other side cite their cost figures, that is like water under the bridge. This is money that was, yes, wasted by the Liberal government, but it has already been spent and cannot be recovered.

There have been some other concerns about rural residents and first nations, and I certainly heard from them in my riding, especially about the criminalization of a first offence for failure to register a firearm. On this side of the House, we argued that could easily be fixed, and we suggested amendments to do that.

There have been concerns about the accuracy of a firearms registry. Again, on the other side, the members like to select their evidence and choose an earlier time before most of those problems with data entry were corrected. We have had more recent reports showing that most of the data which is entered is very correct. There is a very small 1% to 2% error rate. There are holes in the registry, as my hon. friend from Beauport—Limoilou said, because of the amnesties that had been granted, which created some doubt among Canadians about whether they were required to comply with this legislation. Most recent, that amnesty has been extended to 2013.

In 2010 the NDP introduced amendments to address those kinds of concerns. Four of those were put forward on this side of the House.

The first of those was decriminalizing the first-time failure to register. This would make a one-time failure to register a non-criminal ticket. However, a persistent refusal to register firearms would have remained a criminal offence. That is a good compromise, and in talking with people in my riding, they felt that would have solved their problem.

Second, the NDP suggested amendments in 2010 that would have placed a permanent ban in legislation on having a charge for registration. Therefore, we would take away a fee. I heard from first nations in my riding that the registration fees were a barrier for those who were involved in subsistence hunting. Taking away that fee, as we proposed in 2010, would have solved that problem.

A third problem was there were, apparently, releases of private information for the registry. We proposed amending the legislation so information could only be released for use in law enforcement or in court cases.

Finally, we proposed an amendment which said that we would add a legal guarantee of aboriginal treaty rights to the gun registry.

Instead of taking those compromises and trying to work with the opposition, the government proceeded with the complete abolition of the gun registry and added on, in this new version, the destruction of the data.

As the Conservatives have a majority in the House and are determined to proceed, we have been forced, at report stage, to suggest amendments to fix the worst parts of the bill as it stands. I see five things that need to be changed before the bill proceeds.

First, the bill fails to require owners to check for a valid licence before transferring a firearm. The other side likes to talk about criminals not registering their guns, but the bill, as it stands, would open a major door for criminals acquiring firearms because the seller of firearms would not have to check for a valid licence before transferring that weapon. Therefore, even if the government were right and the registry was not much of a deterrent to prevent criminals getting guns, now it would throw the doors wide open for criminals to purchase guns.

The second thing that needs to be fixed is this. Before the institution of the registry, businesses were required to keep records of the sale of non-restricted firearms. There is nothing in the bill that puts that requirement back. Yes, many responsible businesses will keep records, but many which might not be so responsible will not keep those records.

The third thing that needs to be fixed is we would no longer be tracking the loss, theft or destruction of non-prohibited and non-restricted weapons.

The fourth is that destroying the data would mean that there are some court cases in progress and some future court cases which might come forward where convictions could be obtained if they had data from the gun registry. That data would be destroyed and those people would walk free.

Finally, the bill would treat all non-prohibited, non-restricted weapons the same, meaning the Ruger Mini-14, which was used in Montreal in 1989 and in the Norway shootings, would now become an unregulated weapon in our country.

I believe the real agenda here is delivery by the government on a wedge issue promise, one which delivered great fundraising to the Conservatives and had a great deal of success in dividing the country. However, the arguments on the other side really depend on the selective use of information. I know the government likes to say that the police caucus on its side does not support the gun registry. It would surprise if opponents of the gun registry or police had run for another party. The government self-selected that caucus because of its opposition.

As I said earlier, we have seen arguments with select witnesses, select evidence and select research to support a hard-line position, which the government had already decided on before it came to debate in the House. Therefore, we are back to where we started, and that is the triumph of ideology and divisive politics over evidence and good public policy to keep Canadians safe.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my comments, I support the licensing mechanism because it deals with the individual.

The registry deals with the gun, the property. There is no correlation between safety and crime prevention and the gun. There is safety and crime prevention with respect to the person who uses the gun. To get a valid licence, people must pass criminal records checks and must have taken a firearms safety course and demonstrated they are capable of using that firearm safely.

I support the licensing mechanisms, which are unaltered by Bill C-19.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I apologize, Mr. Speaker, and I apologize to members of the House.

The registry represents legislators' and governments' overestimation of their ability to solve and prevent human frailties. There are some things that governments cannot do. Tragedies, such as the one at École Polytechnique, or the one a decade later at Dawson College, are those types of events that no amount of registration, law or legislative registry would necessarily prevent.

The long gun registry was founded on an incorrect premise. The premise is quite simple, and we have heard about it today from members on this side of the House: criminals would register their guns. We know that that is a faulty premise. They would not. These are individuals who are involved in gun violence and tragic circumstances, who flaunt society's norms. They flaunt society's values, and they certainly flaunt society's laws. They are not the type to register their firearms.

Licensing is of course quite different from registration. Nothing in Bill C-19, or its predecessor legislation, the private member's bill in the last Parliament that was sponsored by the member for Portage--Lisgar and almost passed, would affect the licensing mechanism. Licensing is important because it deals with the individual. It is the individual who is going to have ownership of that firearm, or the ammunition to use the firearm. That person is going to have to satisfy the authorities that he or she is competent and has taken the requisite firearms safety course. Criminal record checks are done. If they come back negative, then the individual is entitled to a licence. The licensing mechanism has value. The registration mechanism has no value.

I have heard members on the other side of the House frequently say we register vehicles and our dogs, but we are not going to register our firearms. What they ignore is a clear line of constitutional demarcation between the federal government's responsibility and the responsibility of the provinces with respect to property and civil rights. As we know, property and civil rights were specifically given to the provinces under the British North America Act and now the Constitution Act. Dog and cat licensing has been further delegated to the municipalities. The federal government can only have a registry if there is some valid criminal purpose. We do have registries. We have a sex offender registry. We have a DNA databank. These are registries that have a valid criminal purpose.

I submit to all members of the House that valid criminal purpose is absent in the long gun registry. There is no criminal purpose. Therefore, if a registry of long guns were to be maintained it would have to be maintained by the provinces under their provincial jurisdiction, under section 92 of British North American Act.

As some members know, I sit on the public safety committee. I sat on it in the last Parliament. We heard evidence from both sides of this debate. There are people who truly believe that this registry has merit. We heard from groups, police officers and experts on both sides of this debate. I submit that there is no evidence that this registry has ever prevented a single crime or that it has ever saved a single life. In fact, the evidence is quite the opposite. Proponents of the long gun registry sometimes cite the Mayerthorpe tragedy to somehow support their contention that the long gun registry has merit. I find that perplexing. On that day in March 2005, four members of the RCMP tragically died at the hands of James Roszko, a madman who flaunted all of society's laws. Tragically, he murdered four brave Mounties before taking his own life.

Proponents of the long gun registry cite the fact that there were two accomplices who were subsequently convicted of aiding and abetting that offence, admittedly through registration. They see that somehow as a success. It is not. It is a failure. Four Mounties died.

Police officers cannot and do not rely on the long gun registry in their every day service. We heard of a situation in, I think, 2006 in Laval, Quebec, where a police officer responding to a domestic incident did a long gun registry search, which came back negative. As a result she did not call for backup and went in to deal with the disturbance and was shot. It was to her own peril that the police officer relied on the defective and inaccurate information in the registry.

There is no evidence that a single life has been saved or a single crime stopped by this ill-conceived concept brought in by a previous government.

I live in the city of Edmonton, which held the sad and tragic distinction last year of having 47 murders, the most in Canada. However, not a single one was committed with a long gun. The weapon of choice in Edmonton is the knife, and more victims were stabbed than by any other mode of homicide. In my city there is no correlation between violent crime and long guns.

The last day before our Christmas break there was a tragic incident in southern Alberta, a triple homicide followed by a suicide at Claresholm near the city of Lethbridge. A fourth individual was seriously injured. There were three murders, one attempted murder and a suicide. We found out that the weapons used in that incident were registered.

When murders occur, whether or not the guns involved are registered, society and legislatures and this type of registration mechanism are ill-equipped and cannot prevent these types of tragedies. Individuals use registered weapons to cause tragic incidents. In a city like Edmonton, knives and hand guns are the predominant weapon for homicides.

Therefore, the registry does not prevent crime. Those who believe otherwise are well-intentioned but their feelings and their theories are not borne out by the evidence. It is time that we put this registration mechanism to bed and reallocate the resources toward real law enforcement and to real purpose and activities that can prevent crime.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time I have risen in the House to ask the Conservative members and the members of the opposition to keep the firearms registry. Conservative and opposition members, there is still time to preserve this very important tool that saves thousands of lives. We have had a great deal of debate about Bill C-19 since it was introduced in the House on October 25, 2011.

My NDP colleagues and I have proposed a number of amendments in order to preserve and improve the registry and all the data that has been accumulated over the years, most of which has been paid for by Canadians. I hope that the Conservatives will heed our call and that of the people of Canada.

In a democracy like ours, citizens have rights and responsibilities. A constitutional state such as Canada must constantly juggle the well-being of society as a whole and the rights of individuals. It is possible to find a balance between the two.

One of the primary responsibilities of a democratic state is to ensure its population's safety. That is why we have laws governing the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, and laws governing driving. It is important for individuals to maintain their personal freedom, their freedom to choose, but the state must also ensure the safety of all its citizens.

As far as I know, no one questions the importance of having a driver's licence. The fact that an individual has to show that he can drive a vehicle without endangering the safety of others does not take away his right to drive but simply governs it. An individual who takes a test to get a driver's licence is not necessarily a dangerous driver nor is he considered as such. It is the same thing for those who own firearms. Individuals who own firearms are not potential criminals. The fact that they have to request a permit and register their firearm does not make them dangerous. In this case, the purpose of the law is to prevent individuals who are dangerous to society from owning a weapon that could be used to take the life of another individual. This seems simple and logical to me.

The state has the duty to protect its most vulnerable populations, including children, women and men who are victims of domestic violence. Remember that one in three women who died at the hands of their husbands were shot. Since the firearms registry was introduced, the rate of spousal homicide has decreased by 50%.

Nathalie Provost, who was a student at École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, also believes that the government should put certain parameters on individual liberty for people who own a weapon. She was seriously injured in the tragedy and still carries the scars that can result from such weapons.

Hayder Kadhim, who survived the shooting on September 13, 2006, at Dawson College in Montreal, also advocates for a registry. Every day, he lives with the painful memory of his friend Anastasia DeSousa dying that day. The École Polytechnique, Concordia and Dawson College massacres should serve to remind us of the importance of keeping all Canadians safe. We seem to have short memories.

Protecting the public also means caring about young people in distress who are contemplating suicide. Rifles and shotguns are often used by people trying to commit suicide. Ironically, this week is the 22nd edition of Suicide Prevention Week in Quebec. I would like to commend the crucial work being done by mental health professionals and street outreach workers who, day in and day out, pour their hearts and souls into supporting people in distress and people struggling with dark thoughts. We must stand together, and suicide is not an option.

Despite all that, unfortunately, prevention does not appear to be part of the Conservatives' public safety strategy or a priority for them. Instead of spending billions of dollars to build new prisons and passing on costs to the provinces, it could reform some of these tools that are vital to preventing violence and listen to the experts.

Consider the facts. Police officers consult the firearms registry over 17,000 times a day. The Institut national de santé publique du Québec estimates that over 2,000 lives have been saved since the registry was implemented. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police considers it essential.

Just today, we contacted the Sûreté du Québec in my riding of Beauharnois—Salaberry, which is located on the U.S. border and has problems with the smuggling of firearms and cigarettes. The Sûreté du Québec believes the registry is a necessary, indispensable and effective tool. It is one of a number of sources of information that allow the police to have a more complete file on suspects before taking action.

The RCMP, Sûreté du Québec and Canada Border Services Agency regularly use the registry. According to a survey, 92% of police officers use the Canadian firearms information system and, of these, 74% stated that the query results helped with their major operational activities.

Police can access the registry from their vehicles and can use the information in their initial risk assessment. The registry also helps to break up crime networks involved in arms smuggling. The centralized and computerized registration system allows police officers to quickly track a gun and obtain the file on the owner.

Consequently, some provinces, such as Quebec, have reiterated that they want to create their own registry and have asked Ottawa to not destroy the data. The Conservatives are completely ignoring the security needs of the provinces, just as they ignored the provinces' requests in terms of health, retirement and the environment. When will this government finally sit down with the provinces, the stakeholders and the experts to improve the registry? Why is this government turning a deaf ear, when it claims that law and order are its priorities for society? It makes absolutely no sense and is inconsistent.

It is true that improvements must be made to the gun control system. However, the NDP has been suggesting various improvements and changes since 2010. The following are a few of the ideas contributed by the official opposition. First, we must ensure that everyone who buys a long gun has a permit. This is currently not the case with this bill. For that reason, we propose to amend clause 11 of Bill C-19. Unfortunately, the Conservatives have rejected all our amendments from the outset. With this bill, it will not be mandatory to verify whether the buyer of a long gun has a permit. That is not right.

We must also require businesses to keep an inventory of firearms. This bill makes no mention of that. We must also simplify the registration process and the paperwork, and reduce the cost of registration. Everyone agrees on that. We have to ensure that the data are used properly and that citizens' privacy is respected. We must also take into account the ancestral rights of aboriginals. We must ensure that semi-automatic weapons are classified as dangerous and prohibited weapons.

This is a constructive approach. We must sit down for discussions, and continue to consult experts and the provinces and territories, but this Conservative government still refuses to do so for the sake of ideology, for the sake of satisfying the needs of a minority.

The Conservatives are willing to jeopardize public safety just to please that minority. Their words are inconsistent. On one hand, they want to increase the number of prisons and transfer the cost of prisons to the provinces in the name of enhancing public safety, and, on the other hand, they want to take away a necessary tool that police officers are calling for, also in the name of public safety. They want to have it both ways. It is hard to make any sense of it.

I call on the government to be open and willing to compromise for once, and to make smart reforms to the Canadian firearms registry, or Bill C-19, which is not ready to be voted on in its current form since so many things still need to be improved. We still have time if the Conservatives are willing.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by thanking the many individuals who have been part of the development of this historic bill, specifically the member for Yorkton—Melville for his advocacy over many years, as well as the member for Portage—Lisgar for her private member's bill in the previous Parliament. I also thank members of our Conservative police caucus for the great input they provided.

I rise in support of Bill C-19, ending the long-gun registry act, and I do so in full awareness that people living in rural Canada, including those in my constituency, are paying particular attention to all debates surrounding the repeal of the long gun registry. They know that our government was elected with a mandate to eliminate the long gun registry, that the Speech from the Throne repeated that pledge and that when we make promises, we carry through on them. They also know that this government, by introducing this bill so early in our mandate, is determined to represent their best interests. What they do not know as they listen to this is whether, once again, fear and innuendo will trump common sense. They do not know whether all hon. members will finally understand and respect the tradition of rural Canada and whether they will still be considered criminals in the eyes of the Liberal elite.

The debate about the long gun registry does not simply reflect differences between rural and urban regions. Indeed, there is clear evidence that more and more urban Canadians are recognizing that the long gun registry is wasteful and ineffective. I want to speak to the changing attitudes in urban centres toward the long gun registry, but first I will reflect on the very real differences in attitudes toward guns and safety in rural Canada because, despite those differences, I believe that all Canadians, wherever they live, want the same thing and that if we can just understand each other a little better, we can achieve our goals of creating safer communities.

As members may know, I spent my entire life in a rural community, the kind of place where people did not need to lock their doors at night. As a matter of fact, when I was growing up I did not even know where the key was to the house. When people were out at night, they were looking at a bevy of lights, which were stars, not like in the city where people only see the lights of buildings.

I like to think back to my ancestors and the pioneers where guns were part of their reality. A good example was my father-in-law, Cecil Moore, who was born in Charlottetown in 1901 and whose family, in 1903, settled in, what was at that time the Northwest Territories, the beautiful Pine Lake area in central Alberta. Coincidentally, it was the same year that my family settled in that same region.

Growing up in this frontier, he learned how to hunt and trap, as did his brothers and sisters, as did my father and his siblings. As a young man, Cecil would buy furs from people like my father for the Hudson's Bay company to be sold at the Edmonton fur auction. His stories of hunting, whether out of necessity or sport, coupled with his adventures on trap lines, showed the character of those who lived off the land in harmony with nature. It is these stories that were part of richness of the pioneer life in western Canada. This is why we teach our children how to handle firearms. It is a tradition that is passed down from generation to generation, one that my wife, Judy, and I have been proud to pass down to our children.

However, traditions are more than just tales around a campfire. It is how we as farmers handle gopher infestations to protect crops, pastures and livestock; it is how ranchers protect baby calves in the spring from hunger coyotes, wolves and cougars; and it is how hunters help manage wildlife numbers in the fall as they track and harvest game for their winter freezers. This is why it is so disheartening when those who mean well but are so misinformed minimize that which we hold so dear.

There were certainly rifles and shotguns in my childhood home. I learned how to use them, how to care for them and I was taught to respect them. From my experiences, I know that firearms are not to be trifled with and yet neither are they to be feared. They are simply tools of the trade for country living. We do not tell farmers to register their tractors, we do not tell carpenters to register their saws and yet we compel people in the country to register their long guns.

If the gun registry actually prevented urban crime or kept police officers safer, people living in rural Canada might reconsider their objections. However, there is no evidence that it has stopped a single crime or saved a single life. It is time for the long gun registry to be put out to pasture. That is not just the view of people like me. It is a view increasingly shared by people living in cities as well.

In 2010 Angus Reid discovered that even in provinces with large urban populations, many of the individuals polled believed the long gun registry had not prevented crime and should be shut down. In the province of Quebec only 22% believed it has helped prevent crime. In Ontario they found that only 16% thought it helped prevent crime. This is a tremendous shift in opinion and it shows the depth of frustration with the waste and ineffectiveness of the long gun registry.

Canadians want gun control systems that truly keep their streets and neighbourhoods safer, that combat the criminal use of firearms, and that use common sense to achieve these objectives. I am proud to say that is exactly what Bill C-19 would help to achieve.

The proposed legislation would remove the requirement to register non-restricted firearms. That means farmers, hunters and other residents of rural Canada would no longer have to register their shotguns and rifles. This is a pledge we made and we are honoured to uphold it. At the same time, we are not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some provisions in the law make sense and we have kept them in place. These include the need for all owners of non-restricted firearms to obtain a licence. To obtain a licence, all Canadians would still need to pass a firearms safety course and a background check.

This bill is about ensuring effective gun control. In that sense, Bill C-19 builds on a host of initiatives introduced by this government over the past five years, measures which enhance compliance while cutting red tape for lawful owners of firearms. These measures include a $7 million annual investment to strengthen front-end screening of first-time applicants for firearms licences. It is also true that we are determined to keep firearms away from people who should not have them.

I urge all hon. members to consider the facts before us. With Bill C-19 we can replace a wasteful and ineffective gun registry with common-sense measures that will yield results. We can end years of pointless discrimination against rural Canadians. We can respect the shift in opinion which shows that even many urban Canadians now want to scrap the gun registry.

There is no denying that guns are viewed differently depending on the context. If I see a farmer with a rifle or a shotgun, I do not give it a second thought because I know that gun is a tool that will be used properly. There is no doubt that Canadians, whether urban or rural, essentially want the same thing. They want their children to grow up in communities free of gun violence. They want firearms kept out of the hands of the unqualified and the dangerous. If guns do fall into the wrong hands, Canadians want those offenders punished. These are the values at the heart of Bill C-19, values that are shared by Canadians from all regions of the country.

I also believe that Canadians recognize the need for fairness, balance and common sense. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the long gun registry has penalized rural Canadians and for no good reason. We cannot undo what has been done but we can seize this opportunity now to do the right thing.

I urge all hon. members to join me in supporting Bill C-19, an approach to firearms that is much needed and long overdue.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in joining this debate on Bill C-19, it is with sadness that I hear the speeches of the Conservative members and the continuing campaign of misinformation and disinformation. The Conservatives are cynically pitting important members of our society, such as hunters, ranchers and farmers, against other important members of our society, our peace officers, trauma surgeons and those who care for victims of violence.

My remarks will be about the kind of governance and the kind of erosion of democracy and the unfortunate decision making of the government. Bill C-19 is a prime example of that.

We have an effective and vital tool that police chiefs, front-line officers, emergency room doctors, pediatricians, nurses, women's groups, the RCMP and many others insist saves lives, but the government will not listen. It will not be reasoned with. It refuses to allow the public good to deter it from its partisan campaign to kill this important tool.

I acknowledge that there could be ways to improve the registry. What major tool like this does not require continuous improvement? There are ways to incorporate the concerns of peaceful gun owners, and Liberals proposed just such changes.

This campaign is an ideological one on the part of the Conservative government and it is just an example of many others. The expansion of mandatory minimums and the elimination of the mandatory long form census are similar kinds of divisive, ideological campaigns. Why would the government, for example, want to throw more young people in jail and yet throw out an important tool for understanding the makeup of our country? It does not make sense, but it is the Prime Minister's style, which the Liberal leader recently coined as dictatorial federalism.

The government has not had any meaningful consultation with the provinces, with experts, with community organizations, with Canadians. It is simply bullying, baffling and bulldozing its way forward. That is a concern of anyone who cares about the health of our democracy in Canada.

The Conservatives openly proclaim that if someone or some party disagrees with them then that individual is an adversary, or a radical or a party that they will destroy. That is unworthy of Canada. It is frightening.

Among the people who have spoken to me in Vancouver Quadra about the direction the Conservative government and the Prime Minister are taking are people who have come from other countries to find refuge in Canada. They have come here because we have a reputation of being a responsible, peaceful, open democracy, a country where we value dissenting opinions, a country where we make better decisions and better laws because we listen to people and we change the plan to incorporate good ideas. It is discouraging for those new Canadians to see the direction that this country is going in, the closing down of debate, this dictatorial style, the exact types of governments from which they have fled.

The Conservative government believes that ideology and votes from specific segments of Conservative donors and partisans should be at the heart of government policies, not facts. The Conservative government is a government that has abdicated its responsibility to defend Canada's parliamentary democracy for the common good of all Canadians.

Permit me in contrast to provide some of the facts that have been so distorted in this misinformation campaign.

The gun registry does save lives. There can be no disputing that. Since the gun registry was implemented, there has been a substantial decline in the number of homicides, domestic violence incidents and suicides using rifles and shotguns. As I mentioned earlier in the debate, that same decline has not taken place with respect to handguns and other illegal weapons. Since 1995, there has been a decline of over 40%.

Law enforcement associations across Canada use the registry daily to help prevent, investigate and solve crimes. We know this registry provides safety. It improves the safety of first responders because they tell us so and the RCMP's own report made that clear. Because of the registry, we know that gun ownership is increasing in Canada. That is the kind of thing we learn and build into policing strategies. In fact, the number of firearms owned by each gun owner increased by an average of 12% between 2006 and 2010. That is useful information.

We know that registering firearms helps peace officers ensure the safety of our communities.

According to a report published on the RCMP website on January 23, police officers use the registry almost 14,000 times a day. In 2006, there were a total of 2,400,000 online requests. That figure more than doubled in 2010. These are not routine or useless verifications. Just 11 days ago, the firearms registry helped the Ontario Provincial Police apprehend a man in Sudbury for the dangerous use of a firearm after he had escaped from the police.

The registry also helps the police pursue criminals. The number of affidavits produced by the Canadian firearms program for the purposes of legal proceedings has continued to increase in recent years. More than 17,900 affidavits were produced by the CFP between 2003 and 2008 in support of legal proceedings involving firearms crimes.

The registry allows police officers to revoke permits if a gun owner starts committing drug-related offences, has mental health problems or spousal abuse issues, or does not store the gun safely. It allows police officers to focus preventing crimes before they are committed.

In closing, the RCMP report, an analysis based on facts and hidden by the Minister of Public Safety for months, found that “investing in firearms safety is very worthwhile”.

This is the opposite of what Conservative members are claiming. On top that, in terms of this dictatorial federalism, the government wants to destroy the registry's data. With a stroke of the pen, the government is seeking to eradicate, over the strong objections of the provinces, an invaluable set of information.

The provinces have helped pay for the data and they deserve to have a say in what happens. Again, ideology and not evidence is guiding the government's decision. In fact, by scraping the gun registry, the data becomes subject to the Library and Archives of Canada Act which dictates that records must be maintained for 10 years. After that, the government is free to do what it wants with it.

The government is ignoring the advice of Parliament's own officers. The Information Commissioner has said that destroying the data would violate the letter and spirit of the Library and Archives of Canada Act. The Privacy Commissioner has urged caution in destroying the data. This may well be subject to court cases put forward by the Province of Quebec.

However, the Conservative government does not seem to care. It does not want to consult, and that is dictatorial federalism. We know that the Province of Quebec is very interested in keeping this data and using it, but it is being ignored because it does not fit the government's ideology.

It is disturbing to see this kind of federal governance in Canada. No government has a mandate to ignore the facts and evidence, ignore expert advice, ignore the provinces and territories and dictate to Canadians.

I call upon the government to stop thumbing its nose at Canadians and let facts, not ideology, become the cornerstone of its public safety policies.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to add my support to Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.

The proposed legislation is the product of extensive input by concerned Canadians, from academics and police officers to firearms enthusiasts to those concerned about establishing real, effective gun control. They have written letters, organized town hall meetings and, most importantly, voted for this Conservative government. I want to thank them all for sharing their thoughts and time, and for giving us a strong, stable national majority Conservative government.

For the benefit of those who may be new to the House, let me briefly recap the provisions of the bill.

I am pleased to say that the proposed legislation would eliminate the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. It would also destroy all data in the Canadian firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officers to preserve the privacy of Canadians. At the same time, it would retain the licensing system, which this government believes is the most effective form of gun control.

While this is not a complex piece of legislation, the bill has generated much discussion. I think it would be instructive to look at both sides of the argument. In their testimony, supporters of the long gun registry have dusted off several tired arguments about the long gun registry's benefits.

The first myth is that the long gun registry saves lives. There is no evidence that the long gun registry has stopped a single crime or saved a single life.

The second myth is that the long gun registry promotes responsible use of long guns. This will come as news to my constituents who have never registered their long guns, and to those who know the hundreds of years of experience prior to the introduction of the long gun registry. As far as I know, no one has ever become more responsible by filling out paperwork. The very suggestion is patronizing in the extreme.

The third myth is that the long gun registry is essential because it contains a comprehensive record of the number and type of guns in Canada, where they are located and who owns them. This is simply wishful thinking. In their testimony to the committee, police told us that the long gun registry was unreliable and inaccurate. As one detective from Saskatchewan said:

The registry does not indicate where firearms are stored or who may have control of the firearm, nor does it denote ownership. Tens of thousands of firearms are registered inaccurately.... Many firearms in the registry have multiple registrations—

This testimony should put to rest the idea that police officers can rely on the long gun registry to keep them safe. As the chief of the Abbotsford police put it:

—a flawed system is worse than any system.

The last myth is that pulling the plug on the long gun registry will unleash a flood of violence on our streets. This is preposterous for several reasons. First, the true heart of gun control in Canada is our licensing system, and the bill before us would keep that system intact. Anyone wanting to own or use any firearm must still pass a thorough background check, as well as a firearms safety course. Second, the RCMP would still maintain a registry of all restricted and prohibited firearms. This includes handguns and automatic weapons, which is what criminals tend to use.

I will now cite testimony by critics of the long gun registry. This will take some time because there are just so darn many of them. I will start with voices from the wilderness.

How do the sportsmen and women who enjoy heading into the woods for wild game hunting feel about the long gun registry? They are sick and tired of being treated as either potential criminals or irresponsible children.

In the same neck of the woods are the outfitters and tourist operators. These are the folks who make their living selling outdoor gear and hunting licences and who run lodges in remote areas. They sent a strong message that long guns were an important part of the rural and northern economy and that the long gun registry made it more difficult for them to make a living.

We must not forget those who need to hunt, aboriginal people, who use long guns to provide food for their families. Hunting is not an option for them; it is a necessity. Will we continue to make them criminals as well?

I have already mentioned that many in the policing community think the long gun registry is unreliable. Why do they feel this way? Because registering their long guns is not exactly a priority for criminals. I would say it ranks quite low on their to do list. In any case, police tell us criminals prefer to use handguns when committing homicides, not rifles or shotguns. Therefore, the long gun registry becomes moot.

A sergeant from Nova Scotia summed up these points in his testimony to the committee, when he said:

—the long-gun registry does not help police stop violence or make these communities safer from violence. And there's no evidence that it has ever saved a single life on its own merits.

There is one group that too often gets overlooked in the debate over the long gun registry. I am speaking about elite athletes who take part in shooting events at Commonwealth games, world cups, world championships and the Olympics. Whether it is the biathlon, or skeet or trap shooting, these athletes put in countless hours of training to hone their skills and performance so they can be the best and do this country proud.

How do we pay their sacrifice and hard work? With scorn. At the very moment, these high performance athletes are flashing their Canadian passports at our border. At the very moment when they could be basking in pride and representing our country in international competition, they are instead worried about being treated as common criminals.

Diana Carbrera, a former member of Canada's national shooting team, told us what she experienced each time when she went through Canadian customs. She said there was “a primal cringe every time I am asked for my papers, knowing what could be next and fearing what might happen”.

What could happen is delays, temporary detention, the confiscation of her gun, missed flights, missed competitions, the shame of having her hopes and dreams dashed, years of training down the drain and years of wondering what might have been. This is all because she has to show officials her long gun registration papers and they may, as she said, apply personal interpretations to our confusing law. Handing the paper over for inspection already makes the athlete feel like a criminal. It creates added anxiety and stress at the worst possible moment.

Is it not time we afford some respect to hundreds of farmers and those who use long guns to provide for their families? Is it not time we recognize that long guns have been, and remain, an important part of rural and the northern economy? I think it is high time we did because the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of disbanding the long gun registry. It does not keep front-line officers safer. It does not prevent crime. It makes criminals out of law-abiding citizens who are simply going about their business, whether it is shooting natural predators in a field, hunting for wild game, or hunting for a medal in decision competitions.

The long gun registry has been missing a target for many years. It is wasteful, ineffective and, as I illustrated, a thorn in the side of a variety of groups from all walks of life. It is time to adjust our sites to eliminate the long gun registry once and for all and focus on real gun control and real crime prevention.

Therefore, I urge all hon. members to join with me in supporting Bill C-19.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen time and time again in this Parliament the Conservatives downloading costs onto the provinces and municipalities and refusing to help them with the bill.

That is why the NDP has proposed various changes to Bill C-19 at report stage. Notably, we have proposed abolishing clause 29, as we have heard police chiefs in provinces such as Quebec indicate their desire to retain data to help protect public safety.

The Conservative government has to stop downloading costs and has to help the provinces and municipalities foot the bills. We have seen this as well with the omnibus crime bill, Bill C-10. The government keeps putting forward laws and forcing the provinces as well as municipalities to pay for these enormous bills.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-19, which would remove the requirement to register long guns and would destroy existing registrations.

First, it is important to remember that the gun registry was created in 1995 following the École Polytechnique tragedy. As a woman who grew up and went to university in Montreal, I am very familiar with that event. Just as tragic is the government's failure to learn from it. I would like to quote Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the École Polytechnique massacre:

The firearms registry is a practical means that Canadian society has developed to try and prevent another slaughter of the magnitude of the one that occurred at Polytechnique. In honour of our dead sisters, we tried to take concrete actions that would meet a real societal need.

I believe that gun control is one of the most effective ways to prevent crime, particularly violence against women. According to a study by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, an estimated 2,100 lives have been saved since the introduction of the gun registry. I would like to quote the Government of Quebec's advisory committee on domestic violence:

Eliminating the gun registry, a tool that helps authorities prevent and intervene in domestic violence, would be a major loss. The police use the gun registry every day when they are called on to intervene in domestic violence situations and when the courts order the seizure of firearms.

One-third of all women killed by their husbands are shot to death. In most cases, the murder weapon is a legal rifle or shotgun. Since the introduction of the gun registry, the incidence of spousal murder has dropped by 50%.

Quebec's National Assembly has spoken out in favour of maintaining the gun registry several times since the Conservative government was elected in 2006. Recently, the Government of Quebec clearly stated its intention to take on more responsibility with respect to gun control. The federal government refused to co-operate, so on December 13, 2011, Quebec's public safety minister, Robert Dutil, announced that he would ask the courts to prevent the abolition of the registry and preserve the files therein.

In order to avoid having to start again from scratch, the Government of Quebec would simply like to have access to the existing information. After all, Quebec taxpayers helped pay for the creation of this registry. However, for ideological reasons, the Conservative government stubbornly insists on destroying that information. What a waste. It makes no sense to simply destroy this information, which is so useful to police officers.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police specifically asked the Conservatives to keep those records and make the information available to police forces in an effort to help save lives and trace guns. I recently received a letter from the president of CAW local 1004, Michel Lepage, who criticized the Conservative government's wastefulness. I would like to quote a few passages from the letter, because I think it shows a great deal of common sense:

This bill is an absolute disgrace for Canada. Once again, the Conservatives have proven that they are not governing in the interest of Canadians....The [Conservative] government is taking us back more than 20 years.... As a Canadian, I feel betrayed by this government, which is going to waste all the money that has been invested over the years in order to help police forces track these weapons.

Destroying the records proves that the issue of the cost of the system is a false pretext the Conservatives are using to justify destroying the registry. If they truly wanted to ensure that taxpayers get the best value for their money, they would forward the information to the Quebec government, to avoid destroying information that has already been paid for.

We are not stupid. Eliminating the long gun registry and its records has nothing to do with the cost of the system. This is an ideological decision, pure and simple. The Conservatives' attitude towards gun control is appalling.

They have no intention of coming up with a Canadian solution, a solution based on compromise. All that interests them is partisan games. Their policy is dividing Canadians and, unfortunately, they are using this issue as a funding tool to fill up their election war chest. They are doing this on the backs of Canadians, Quebeckers and people who are likely to be victims of violence, such as women.

We have very serious reservations about Bill C-19 in the NDP. We believe that the problems relating to the registry must be addressed by strengthening the laws controlling the possession of firearms. We want to respond to the concerns of aboriginal and rural populations, while at the same time ensuring that our police forces have the tools they need to keep our communities safe. It must be said again, those on the front lines in the fight against crime, police officers, are calling for the firearms registry to be kept.

Police officers use the Canadian firearms registry more than 17,000 times each and every day. According to a survey, 74% of police officers who had used the registry stated that the search results were of benefit to their major operational activities. These statistics alone prove the usefulness of this registry.

The NDP is going to continue to rally Canadians in order to come up with solutions, rather than doing what the Conservatives do and playing political games that divide the population. The challenge that awaits us is to repair the damage caused by the parties that have used this issue as a political tool for their own partisan purposes. Canadians are counting on us to keep them safe. The firearms registry saves lives, and destroying it is yet another irresponsible action on the part of this government, a government that is not in sync with the public and arbitrarily plays with people's lives.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for many years now law-abiding Canadians who use rifles and shotguns for legitimate reasons have spoken out against the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry created in the 1990s by the former Liberal government.

Last May, this government promised to end the long gun registry once and for all. In the Speech from the Throne we repeated this pledge to Canadians. Now with Bill C-19, I am proud to say we are honouring our commitments.

We are honouring our commitment to Canadians, and I am very proud to say that I will be honouring a personal pledge I made to my constituents in Wild Rose when I stand to vote in favour of scrapping the registry.

The long gun registry was ill-conceived from the outset. Under the guise of urban gun control, the Liberals long gun registry really only served to penalize ranchers and farmers who required and responsibly used firearms as a tool to do their jobs. As we all know, criminals do not register their guns.

It is important, first to see this bill in context. The proposed legislation builds on a long string of law and order initiatives that extends back over five years. During this time, we have created the mandatory minimum prison sentences for serious gun crimes. We have created a new broad-based offence to target drive-by and other intentional shootings. We have given the provinces and territories more resources for law enforcement. This is to name only a few initiatives.

Canadians gave us a strong mandate to keep our streets and our communities safe, and that is exactly what we have done. In June we reintroduced legislation to tackle the scourge of human smuggling. Last September we tabled the safe streets and communities act. That legislation has a range of initiatives designed to extend greater protection to the most vulnerable members of society, while further enhancing the ability of our justice system to hold criminals accountable for their actions. It increases offender accountability, ends house arrest for serious crimes, better protects society from violent and repeat young offenders, and increases penalties for serious drug crimes.

Bill C-19 as proposed fits in with our effective agenda of tackling crime.

First, it ends the discrimination against rural Canadians for their legitimate use of shotguns and rifles. In so doing, it will eliminate the element of the current gun control system that is the most wasteful and ineffective.

Second, it will retain the tools needed to allow us to focus our attention against real threats to public safety. In so doing, it will free up substantial resources that we can invest to further bolster crime prevention and law enforcement.

I want to highlight evidence that reinforces these arguments, but first let me briefly explain why the bill before us is so necessary and overdue. It is no secret that Canadian taxpayers have long protested the exorbitant cost of the long gun registry, and rightfully so. Indeed, the state broadcaster, the CBC, has estimated that the total cost of the long gun registry is in excess of $2 billion. This is a substantial sum of course and it is a sum that we could have invested much more efficiently and with much greater impact in either crime prevention efforts or law enforcement.

Still, if the long gun registry actually contributed to enhancing public safety, perhaps a case could be made to keep it. However, the fact is that it has never stopped a single crime or saved a single life. This is not about having a system that is better than nothing. As the chief of Abbotsford Police said in his testimony before the public safety committee, “a flawed system is worse than no system”.

Defenders of the registry like to make the case that police consult the registry frequently in order to determine if firearms are present in a residence in which they were called to or are investigating. The fact is that the registry data is called up automatically every time a police officer runs a search from his or her cruiser.

That is what accounts for the number and frequency of hits on the registry, not the fact that police officers are relying on the registry for their safety. Police officers are in fact trained to assume there is a firearm or some other weapon on hand whenever they respond to a complaint. Indeed, it would be foolish of them not to assume there was a firearm present.

Imagine the consequences if police officers fully trusted the long gun registry to confirm whether there was a firearm on the premises, only to find themselves facing down the barrel of an unregistered gun that they could not have detected by searching the registry. As we on this side of the House have said repeatedly, criminals do not register their guns.

On top of the waste and ineffectiveness, the long gun registry places an unfair burden on law-abiding citizens in rural communities, such as people who use rifles and shotguns to protect livestock or to provide food for their families. The ponds and woodlands of rural Canada are a long way from the Jane-Finch corridor. Making farmers and hunters register their long guns will not keep people in downtown Toronto any safer.

While there is no evidence to support the long gun registry, there is plenty to show the long gun registry is ineffective. I will take a few moments to break some time-honoured myths.

First, most violent gun crime in Canada does not involve long guns. Between 1975 and 2006, for example, Statistics Canada showed that the use of rifles or shotguns in homicides declined by 86%. In 2006 alone, three times as many victims were killed with a handgun than with rifles or shotguns. These statistics are no aberration. In 2009, out of the 179 firearms homicides, almost 60% of those crimes were committed with handguns.

Furthermore, where long guns were actually used in violent crime, the vast majority of the firearms were unregistered. Between 2005 and 2009, for example, police recovered 253 firearms that were used to commit a homicide. Of these, less than one-third, 31% in fact, were actually listed with the Canadian firearms registry.

All this means that law-abiding citizens are spending time and money to comply with the law, but at the same time, and this by now should come as no surprise to anyone, criminals who use long guns do not follow the rules of the registry. This goes to the heart of why the long gun registry has never worked.

People who are willing to use guns to commit crimes or engage in violent acts are not likely to be the first in line to register their guns. In fact, it is quite the contrary. The result is an ineffective system that discriminates for no good reason against legitimate long gun owners and does nothing to stem the tide of illegal firearms crossing the border.

With all this mind, I will recap the provisions of the new bill and how it would address these issues.

The most important component of Bill C-19, and the one that has been so long awaited, is the end of the registration for non-restricted firearms. This will relieve the disproportionate burden on rural Canadians and free up valuable resources to invest in crime prevention and enforcement.

At the same time, the bill would retain the gun licensing system, which this government believes is the most effective form of gun control. Licences would still be required to own any type of firearm and applicants would still need to undergo a background check and pass a firearms safety course.

Finally, the bill would address a very important piece of housekeeping. As one can imagine, the registry has demanded mountains of paperwork from law-abiding citizens. This has been a source of contention, and now with the imminent demise of the registry, it has also become a source of concern. Canadians are worried about what will happen with these records. Will they be taken over by another government organization?

We know that the NDP and the Liberals, if given the chance, would overturn the will of voters and resurrect the gun registry. I am pleased to say that Bill C-19 would require the complete and absolute destruction of all records related to the registration of non-restricted firearms contained within the firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officers. This would preserve the privacy of all registrants and would give long gun owners the peace of mind they deserve after so many years of exasperation.

The proposed legislation is long overdue. It promises to eliminate a wasteful and ineffective long gun registry that penalizes law-abiding citizens in rural Canada. It would do so without weakening our gun control programs.

The vast majority of constituents in my riding of Wild Rose have long sought the demise of the long gun registry. In fact, in a survey that I did recently, 97% of them showed their support for ending the long gun registry. I know that many members on the other side are loath to admit it, but they would have to admit, if they were being honest, that many of their constituents have long called for that as well.

I would ask that all members of this chamber join me in supporting Bill C-19 to end the wasteful, ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after consideration in committee, the House is now seized, at report stage, with consideration of government Bill C-19, that not only seeks to eliminate references to long guns, but also to destroy the data in this registry.

I would like to begin by highlighting the absolutely extraordinary work done by my colleagues from St. John's East, Surrey North and Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. These members have attempted to convince the government of the defects in this bill. There is, of course, a lot of politicking that goes on in this chamber, but politics is supposed to benefit someone—not necessarily us, but all Canadians, in general.

It is true that since the creation of the firearms registry—and I was not in politics of the time; I was hosting a call-in radio show—everyone has complained, and not just a little. People were not complaining about the registry per se, but rather about how much it costs and how poorly designed it was in the first place. The reason for the creation of the registry was clear. Perhaps this is not repeated frequently enough: there was a mass killing at the École Polytechnique where the now infamous Marc Lépine decided, just like that, to shoot at people for one single reason: they were women. That made people’s blood boil. It became a very personal matter in people’s eyes.

Nobody in this House, regardless of what side they are on, is saying that they want to put weapons in the hands of somebody who is going to go crazy and do what Marc Lépine did at that time.

The firearms registry was created after a lot of trials and tribulations and hemming and hawing. It was supposed to solve all of these problems. There were problems with the cost of the registry. There were also problems—and this is constantly alluded to on that side of the House—because very law abiding citizens had no desire whatsoever to use a firearm in any dangerous way; they were simply collectors, aboriginals or hunters. The debate then took another turn because people realized that the way the bill was drafted created a lot of problems. In fact, people who had no intention of doing anything illegal could be charged because they had an unregistered weapon in their possession. Basically, there were a lot of problems.

For years, the Conservative government promised at each election, and each year, that when it came into power, it would get rid of the firearms registry and in particular the long gun registry, in order to solve the problem faced by hunters.

What did the NDP team assigned to this bill do when it received Bill C-19? We looked at it in what I would call an intelligent and sensible way. We stated that we understood that the government had made certain promises and we wondered what could be done to try and meet everybody’s needs. In other words, we asked ourselves how we would alleviate the fear in the minds of hunters, collectors, and other groups, and remove the idea that they were common criminals. At the same time, we asked ourselves how we could protect the public.

This was of course considered in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The committee, as its name suggests, is responsible for the public’s safety. This is the perspective from which we considered Bill C-19.

The committee studied the bill, and now it is before the House at report stage. Colleagues from other parties presented amendments. For technical reasons, the NDP cannot present amendments in the House because it already did so in committee. The amendments had to be presented by other parties. Regardless of who presented the amendments, they were presented not to irritate Canadians or the Conservative government, but to help improve this bill.

That being said, every time an amendment was presented, it was flatly dismissed. The government never even tried to understand why the amendment was being presented. Since we began studying Bill C-19, associations of chiefs of police and various provincial ministers have said that they would like to maintain the information in the registry. I am not the one who said that; I am not an expert on the subject. They were the ones who explained what they do with the gun registry and the data, which are not perfect, of course.

All the same, as I have said since the beginning, no one can plead his own turpitude. The government itself imposed a moratorium on updating the data. That is why some data are not in the registry. It may not be completely up to date, but if it can save just one life, I think it would be worth the effort.

This government is so deeply ideological that it refuses to listen to reason. That is what makes me so sad about this debate. Since the beginning, I have tried to be as open as possible to the arguments on both sides, beyond the promises politicians sometimes make to the people. That is called leadership. We might have some of the same ideas as our constituents, but we have to take action when we know that something is illegal and that it will cause a problem.

The Quebec public safety minister asked that the data pertaining to Quebec be transferred. This is harmless and does not bother anyone. Quebec wants to maintain the registry and assume the costs. It would not cost the federal government one cent. It would cost even less than destroying the data. In fact, we have been told by information privacy experts that destroying the data will be quite the job. You do not just push a button and say it no longer exists.

Millions of pieces of data are used by our police forces. People who oppose the registry may be convinced to say they have never used it. People told us that they do not use the data, but, if it at least protects the public, it is worth it. We now know that some types of long guns will no longer be tracked after the data are destroyed and the long gun registry abolished. The minister opposite has made this the fight of her life, and whether she likes it or not, we will no longer know where these guns are. Do not bother showing me the proof of purchase because if someone decides to transfer their gun to someone else, or if I knock on my neighbour's door and tell him that I like his gun and want to buy it, there will be no record of it.

There are huge holes in this bill. The government refuses at all costs to listen to reason or to even try to ensure that all the holes will be plugged. This is all I want, and it is all that the NDP, the official opposition, wants.

We must bow to the inevitable. The Conservatives will put an end to the long gun registry but, for goodness' sake, let them plug the holes in the bill and listen to Quebec. Quebec is telling them that it wants to keep the long gun registry. It is not right to claim that the data and the registry are the same thing, and that we need only erase the data to abolish the registry.

The issue was that people were treated as criminals. By removing this criminalization we can solve the problem for those people who are waiting for the bill to pass. At the same time, we can ensure public safety.

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.

Motions in Amendment

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to express my support for Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act.

I would like to start off by commending my hon. colleague from Portage—Lisgar for all her good work on this file, and especially my hon. colleague from Yorkton—Melville, who has worked so hard on this file for so many years. I would also like to thank the Minister of Public Safety for introducing the legislation and moving us all a step closer to fulfilling one of our long-standing commitments to Canadians.

I am proud to be part of a government that actually follows through on its commitments to Canadians. Our government promised Canadians that we would waste no time in the 41st Parliament before introducing legislation that would repeal the wasteful long gun registry. Today we are delivering on that commitment to Canadians.

Our government is working hard to ensure the safety of our streets and communities. Law enforcement knows this, Canadians know this, and criminals know this. When it comes to the issue of gun crime, this is a government that believes in having effective measures to deal with the issue. We need to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to target those offenders who commit gun crimes and threaten our communities. At the same time we must ensure that millions of law-abiding Canadians are not being needlessly burdened.

As it exists today, the ineffective long gun registry unfairly equates law-abiding gun owners to common criminals. Simply put, the long gun registry targets rural Canadians, farmers and duck hunters as criminals.

Although I have never personally owned a gun, I grew up hunting small game and game birds with my father, brother and uncles. The first long gun I used was an old Cooey single shot .22. Pop guns and the odd rabbit and squirrel felt the impact of my limited prowess. Those were fun and carefree days, but I remember the very serious attention that my mentors instilled in me with regard to safe handling, safe storage and responsibility when handling firearms. The vast majority of gun owners today are the same kind of people and deserve to be treated with respect. I am standing here today as a member of a government that is standing up for these Canadians. It is unacceptable to treat these salt of the earth people as criminals, and we are going to take action. Bill C-19 would put an end to this ineffective and wasteful long gun registry once and for all.

Permit me to highlight the merits of the bill before the House.

This legislation would remove the need to register non-restricted firearms, such as shotguns and rifles. This is good news for farmers and hunters. These folks use long guns as a tool to earn their living, whether through hunting game or protecting their livestock. This is not to say that Bill C-19 would do away with gun control entirely as some would disingenuously suggest.

Let me re-emphasize that Bill C-19 would retain licensing requirements for all gun owners while doing away with the need for honest, law-abiding citizens to register their rifles or shotguns. All of the common-sense regulations regarding training, safe handling and storage would be unchanged.

Bill C-19 also includes a provision for the destruction of all records related to the registration of non-restricted firearms that are currently held in the Canadian firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officers. This provision would ensure that for the millions of Canadians who have registered their non-restricted firearms, their private information would not be distributed to other entities.

What we seem to have difficulty getting across to members across the floor is that the data is the registry and the registry is the data. We cannot eliminate the long gun registry without eliminating the data.

Let me be as clear as possible for those listening at home. The government will not allow for the creation of a long gun registry by the back door. This government has heard loud and clear from Canadians who own non-restricted firearms. They want the long gun registry eliminated. They want to ensure that their private information is not distributed to other entities.

Let me pause for a moment to address the issue of the registry data being destroyed. This has certainly been a subject, as I have mentioned, of much discussion in the media, in this House, and in coffee shops across the country. The Minister of Public Safety was very clear about this in his appearance at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I would like to repeat here what he said so plainly about that issue. He said:

The registry is the data; without the data there is no registry. So when our government and our party made the very clear commitment that we would scrap the long-gun registry, that we would end it, implicit in that, indeed explicit, is that we would be destroying the information that's been collected under the authority of that legislation. There's simply no other answer to that.

Let us move on from that discussion to refocus on the task at hand.

The fact is that law-abiding firearms owners across the country welcome this legislation. These owners understand that being held accountable for their actions by requiring them to take responsible measures to protect their fellow Canadians is reasonable. They also understand that being burdened with unnecessary registration and regulations is not reasonable.

Canadians from coast to coast to coast understand the need to ensure that our country has a system of gun control that is both effective and efficient. That is why our government has invested $7 million annually to strengthen the front-end screening of first-time firearms licence applicants, with a view to keeping firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them. We must ensure there are gun control measures to keep firearms out of the hands of those who threaten our safety and that of our communities.

Measures taken in the area of firearms control should enhance public safety on our streets and communities by preventing firearms from falling into the hands of offenders and setting tough consequences if they do. This is what Canadians expect and this is what our government is doing. Our government is determined to get tough on those who commit crimes, the individuals who use firearms for criminal purposes. That is the most important part of effective gun control.

In my city of Edmonton, as in many others, authorities have been dealing with disturbing levels of violence. The issue is not the availability of guns, and especially not long guns. The issues are more related to the people who are committing these violent acts. I would encourage all hon. members of the House to ask Canadians, particularly those in remote and rural areas of this country, how penalizing law-abiding Canadians on a farm or in the woods would help reduce gun crimes in our urban centres such as Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver. Quite simply, it does not.

What members will hear overwhelmingly from Canadians is that now is the time for effective gun control. Now is the time to make sure our resources go toward effective programming that helps prevent crime and to stop penalizing honest, hard-working and law-abiding Canadians. Now is the time for all members of the House to listen to Canadians and eliminate this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. That is exactly what our government will do.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to add my voice to this important debate on the ending of the Long-gun Registry Act. With this legislation we propose to finally remove a measure that has had no tangible benefit in keeping Canadians safe. Rather, it has added unnecessary paper work and placed an unfair burden on law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong besides have the audacity to own a rifle or a shotgun.

The long gun registry has played a divisive role in pitting rural Canadians against urban Canadians. It has been touted as a safety measure that protects police even as we hear from the police themselves that it is unreliable and inaccurate. It has been said to save lives. Yet no one has ever presented compelling evidence to that end. Rather, we have heard directly from Canadians and witnesses who have appeared before committee with two clear messages: it is a waste of taxpayers' money and it is ineffective.

Let us consider the cost of the registry.

The registry was put in place in 1995 with the promised price tag of around $120 million for start-up costs. Most of this was supposed to be covered by registration and licensing fees. However, in her 2002 report and the follow-up 2006 report, the then auditor general of Canada found that the costs were nowhere near that. She did a thorough review of the cost escalations in her review. She estimated that the cost of the Canadian firearms program was many hundreds of millions of dollars by 2005.

This is an affront to Canadian taxpayers. In a media story in 2003, the auditor general put it this way:

The issue here is not gun control and it's not even astronomical cost overruns. What's really inexcusable is that Parliament was in the dark.

Even more, in 2004, the CBC reported that the cost of the long gun registry was well in excess of $2 billion. Is it any surprise that these revelations were met with renewed calls to end the long gun registry? The answer, of course, is a resounding no.

Despite the attempts of long gun registry supporters to convince Canadians that the long gun registry is saving lives, there is simply no compelling data to back that claim up. It is clear to many millions of Canadians that the long gun registry is both wasteful and ineffective. It is for these reasons that our government has worked tirelessly since coming into power to end the long gun registry.

If we were to believe the naysayers, we might imagine that eliminating the long gun registry would lead to rampant gun crime and Wild West shootouts in the streets. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we already have many tough and effective measures in place that are helping to prevent gun crime.

There are three key approaches to cracking down on violent crimes.

First of all, something that would not change with Bill C-19, is a strict licensing system that is already in place. To lawfully possess a firearm, every Canadian must be in possession of a valid firearms licence.

Anyone who wants to acquire a firearm must undergo a required Canadian firearms safety course. This is not a quick online quiz. Rather, it is a comprehensive 10 hour classroom course that gives students a working knowledge of the safe handling of firearms. It also ensures that they are familiar with the laws and procedures regarding firearm ownership.

As part of this licence application, every individual is also screened to ensure there is no reason to believe that the public would be in danger if that individual gained a licence. This includes checking the individual's criminal record to see if he or she has been prohibited by law to own a gun or poses any general danger to society.

These are reasonable measures that have been widely accepted by gun owners across the country. As noted, none of that would change with the legislation we are discussing today. In fact, we feel so strongly about the effectiveness of the gun licensing system that we have invested $7 million annually to improve the screening process for first-time firearms licensees. We believe that this is helping to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them.

Our second area of focus in gun control is the work we have done to ensure that those who commit gun crimes face stiff sentences. We have passed legislation that sets out mandatory minimum prison sentences for serious gun crimes, as well as reverse bail provisions for serious offences. We have put in place laws that target drive-by shootings that demonstrate a reckless disregard for the safety of others. There is now a mandatory minimum sentence of 4 years in prison, up to a maximum of 14 years, for these crimes. That minimum sentence goes up five years if the individual committed the act on behalf of a criminal organization or used a restricted or prohibited handgun or automatic firearm in the progress of the crime. These are tough measures. They send a strong message that those who commit violent gun crimes will face severe consequences.

We have also taken decisive action to ensure that we have the appropriate level of police officers to enforce these tough laws. We have invested in significant funds in helping prevent crime through programs like the youth gang prevention fund and the national crime prevention strategy. We have invested quite a bit in my own city of Hamilton, Ontario, to ensure we keep youth from crime.

The third approach has been to strengthen our borders to stem the flood of illegally smuggled firearms from the United States. We know that the majority of firearms smuggled into Canada are coming across the 49th parallel. Our efforts to crack down on this illegal activity have taken many forms, including the deployment of the integrated border enforcement teams at strategic points along the border, as well as testing new and innovative cross-border policing models such as shiprider to combat illegal smuggling along our borders. Shiprider pilot projects, which involve specially trained and designated RCMP and U.S. Coast Guard officers jointly crewing marine vessels to enforce laws on both sides of the border, have proven to have a direct and measurable impact on cross-border criminality.

Given their success, the Prime Minister and the U.S. president have announced, in the context of a shared vision, that we would look to regularize shiprider operations, as well as leverage the shiprider concept to land-based operations. By working closely with our U.S. counterparts, we can better identify, interdict and prosecute those individuals who attempt to smuggle firearms into our country.

In light of what we know about the long gun registry, we are faced with two choices. We can continue with the status quo, pouring good money after bad into a long gun registry that is in effective and wasteful, or we can do what responsible parliamentarians should do, which is to consider the facts.

In summary, I believe there are three points we must all consider. First, the long gun registry has cost Canadian taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money, far more than they were originally told when it was put in place in 1995. Second, many police officers are telling us that the long gun registry is not reliable, full of errors and has done nothing to keep Canadians safe. Third, there is no statistic showing us that the long gun registry has had any impact in terms of saving lives or deterring individuals from committing violent gun-related crimes.

This is not a matter of partisan or personal views; it is a matter of common sense. The long gun registry has not worked since its inception in 1995. It is not working today and it will not work in the future. I ask all hon. members to stand up for law-abiding Canadians and vote to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time that I have risen in this House to speak about this bill. Clearly, the first time was at second reading.

If I had to give my speech a title, I would call it “A Mistake that Will Haunt us for Years to Come”.

I believe that the decision to abolish the firearms registry is a mistake. I participated in committee hearings where we heard from a number of witnesses on both sides. I am now more convinced than ever that we are making the wrong decision.

In the 10 minutes that I have this morning, I would like to speak more specifically about certain amendments that others moved today in this House, some of which are practically identical to those I moved at committee on behalf of my party.

Before I begin, I would like to point out two things that I found a bit disturbing about the context in which the debate took place. I mentioned one of them earlier in my question to the hon. member for Yukon, and that is the fact that we learned, following the testimony of a number of committee witnesses and as a result of a question on the order paper, that some of these witnesses had been members of the minister's firearms advisory committee.

I do not know whether you agree, Mr. Speaker, but to me, an advisory committee is a group of people with a variety of opinions on a subject, some of whom may have technical expertise on the issue, which the government consults in an attempt to achieve consensus. An advisory committee is not a club of cronies that the government stacks with party supporters. I think that the minister's firearms advisory committee looks more like a bunch of cronies than a real advisory committee that tries to examine an issue thoroughly.

I thought transparency was lacking. When the witnesses appeared, we were given to believe that they had no ties to government, that they were independent. Naturally, we would have responded differently to their testimony had we known that they were operating hand in hand with the minister.

Then there is the RCMP's annual report on the Canadian firearms program. Quite a trend has been developing over the past few years. The report seems to have been published at inconvenient times for those who are against dismantling the gun registry. For example, the 2007 report was published at the end of August 2008, which is reasonable, but the 2008 report was given to the minister on October 9, 2009, and published after the vote at second reading of Bill C-391, a private member's bill sponsored by the member for Portage—Lisgar that sought to dismantle the gun registry. The 2009 report was published on October 14, and the 2010 report was just published on January 19, well after the committee's hearings on Bill C-19 and well after the vote at second reading held last fall.

I would like to talk about a couple of amendments that were presented today that mirror the amendments that I presented in the name of the Liberal Party at committee.

The first was an amendment to ensure that the data would be saved. The hon. member for Yukon neglected to mention that in the province of Quebec, no mandate was given to the Conservative government to destroy the data. To make the people of Quebec pay again for basically the same data would be a form of double taxation. The Conservative government would be guilty of double taxing the people of Quebec. The people of Quebec have already paid to create the database for the registry. If they wanted to maintain the service of that registry, they would have to pay again. That is not quite fair from a fiscal point of view.

Second, doing away with the database would not only violate the spirit of the Library and Archives of Canada Act but the letter of that act as well. That is why Bill C-19 would have to amend the Library and Archives of Canada Act in order to get rid of the data as soon as possible.

The Library and Archives of Canada Act is important for maintaining records that are critical for the functioning of a democracy. It is central to the idea of access to government information by the people of Canada. Bill C-19 would not require the government to obtain the opinion of the national archivist before rushing to destroy the data.

Suzanne Legault the Information Commissioner said the following at committee:

--destroying records on this scale without first obtaining the consent of the archivist, as required by section 12 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act, not only modifies the existing records management system, which seeks to ensure transparency and accountability in the disposal of such records, but in my view also seems contrary to the Federal Court's decision in Bronskill.

--In that case... Justice Noël stated that the Access to Information Act and the Library of Archives of Canada Act are inextricably linked, such that “Parliament considers access to information in Canada and document retention as essential components of citizens' right to government information”.

To destroy the data would be a very unfortunate thing.

In terms of the transfer of firearms in Canada, I agree that the bill would create a dangerous situation. It would essentially take away all supervision of the transfer of firearms, either by gun shop owners or by individuals trying to sell weapons by phone or over the Internet, whichever way they deemed desirable. For example, it would not be necessary for someone selling a weapon, and that could be over the Internet, to check whether the purchaser had a firearms acquisition certificate. This would be problematic.

The bill says that in the vendor's mind, he or she should be certain that the person buying the weapon has a firearms acquisition certificate. But that could mean anything. That would not necessarily lead someone to check. They could call the registrar to find out, if they wanted to go through the inconvenience. However, the registrar would not have to keep a record of that call. If there were a problem down the road, such as a crime, we would not be able to go to the registrar to help with the investigation.

My colleagues opposite will probably say that firearms owners are responsible citizens. I would agree with that statement. I said it in my speech at second reading. The people I know in my community who own firearms are the most sterling members of the community. They are volunteers. They are ideal citizens. This is not to impugn people who own firearms.

I would like to give the House an example of how we are leaving the process of transferring firearms wide open. The mayor of New York City asked his officials to investigate how firearms are transferred. In the United States, if people are transferring a firearm, through Craigslist for example, they have to check whether the prospective buyer has the right to own a firearm. The process is a little stricter than it would be under this law. It was found that in, I think, 62% of cases, people disposing of firearms through the Internet or any other way would not bother checking, even when the prospective buyer said, “Look, you really shouldn't sell it to me, I may not get through the check”.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again to Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act.

In my last speech on this bill, I talked about what role long guns play in Canadians' lives in both rural and urban settings, for women and for men. They are tools for hunting, tools for trapping, tools for farming, and tools for athletics. I talked about how they constitute a symbol of our past and indeed remain a necessary tool in present day life for so many Canadians. First nation, aboriginal and all law-abiding gun owners have been stigmatized and subjected to this onerous and misguided legislation for far too long.

Since the second reading of Bill C-19, the opposition has not lacked in emotion but has consistently fallen short on the facts. Here are the facts. The long gun registry does nothing to make Canadians safer. We were told the long gun registry would cost about $2 million, and the cost has ballooned to exceed $2 billion. The long gun registry targets law-abiding citizens because criminals are not registering guns, nor are they using these sorts of guns to commit crimes.

I would like to introduce members to what I call the seven myths of the opposition. If any of my hon. colleagues would like to count along with me, they would be more than welcome to do so.

Myth number one is that the long gun registry will help keep suicide rates down.

During committee, of which I was a member, we heard clear evidence from peer-reviewed studies which concluded that the discontinuation of the registration of non-restricted firearms is not likely to result in an increase in the aggregate suicide rate.

Myth number two is that the long gun registry will keep women safer.

During committee we heard peer-reviewed research which demonstrated that the discontinuation of the registration of non-restricted firearms will not result in an increase in homicide or spousal homicide rates through the utilization of long guns.

This only makes sense because the people registering long guns are not committing these crimes. These are men and women who are impeded by the red tape and the stigma of being long gun owners. They do their civic duty, despite the unnecessary and wasteful burden imposed, and register their firearms because their government tells them it is the law. Meanwhile, criminals do not do any of this and enjoy the freedom to operate outside of the law with all the rights and protections of the law. This does not make sense to people in my riding, and it does not make sense to me.

The opposition attempts to position the debate on long guns as men against women, and offender and victim. At committee we heard directly from women, women who hunt, women who trap, women who have represented our great nation in international shooting competitions. The opposition would like Canadians to believe it is only men who own guns, and this is simply not the case.

Myth number three is that guns will now be as easy to get as checking out a book at a library.

The opposition is ignoring the facts and misleading people who do not own long guns and who are not familiar with the process. I can tell Canadians, as can any long gun owner, that the requirements for licensing are not changing and include a Canadian firearms safety course, and for some, additional hunter safety and ethics development courses, and of course pre-screening security background checks.

Myth number four is that police support the registry and the elimination of the registry will put police in danger.

Here is what we heard from law enforcement officers:

I can tell you that the registration of long guns did not make my job as a conservation officer safer.

That was said by Donald Weltz at committee.

We also heard in committee that a survey conducted in April 2011 of 2,631 Edmonton city police concluded that 81% supported scrapping the long gun registry. We heard that the Auditor General found that the RCMP could not rely on the registry on account of the large number of errors and omissions. We heard numerous times that the police state they do not trust the information contained in the registry and they would not rely on that information to ensure their safety.

Myth number five is that the data should be saved and turned over to the provinces that wish to create their own registry.

The registry is the data. Our commitment to the Canadian people was clear that anything less would be disingenuous. The data was collected under federal law for a federal purpose and it will not be turned over to another jurisdiction.

The committee heard evidence that the RCMP had reported error rates between 43% and 90% in firearms applications and registry information. We also heard that a manual search conducted discovered that 4,438 stolen firearms had been successfully re-registered. With these errors, it would be irresponsible to the extreme to allow this unreliable, ineffective and grossly expensive system to be handed over to anyone.

Myth No. 6: Registering a long gun is no different from registering a car. What did we hear in committee on this assumption? Solomon Friedman accurately stated that unlike registering our car, failure to comply or errors in the application have criminal implications. People do not go to jail or receive a criminal record if they do not register their car.

Myth No. 7: Registering a firearm is simple, so what is the harm? Again, the harm is that any mistake has criminal implications, and the mistakes in the registry are staggering.

Furthermore, consider more testimony from Mr. Friedman:

I have two law degrees. I clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada, and I practise criminal law for a living. Even I at times find the provisions of the Firearms Act and the gun control portions of the Criminal Code convoluted, complex, and confusing.

If that is the case, how can we expect average Canadians to navigate this quagmire without error and how can we have criminal consequences as a result? How can we expect our law enforcement officers to interpret and apply complex and convoluted legislation with discretion and consistency if a criminal lawyer well-versed and studied on the subject matter finds it difficult at times?

I will highlight the conclusions of Gary Mauser, PhD, Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Simon Fraser University, when he accurately pointed out that “responsible gun owners are less likely to” commit murder “than other Canadians”. He went on to say that the long gun had not demonstrated its value to the police and that “the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed”.

That is exactly what would happen.

Our government has made a clear commitment. Promise made, promise kept. We know we are on the right track. How do we know this? Two years ago, my hon. colleague, the member for Portage—Lisgar, introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-391. If that bill had passed, it would have ended the long gun registry but it was defeated in this House by a mere two votes. However, those were not free votes. Members turned their backs on their constituents for fear of reprisal from their party. Some stated publicly that they were in favour of scrapping the registry but were not willing to leave their party over it or be removed from it. The only reason the long gun registry has survived this long is that members picked their parties over their constituents. Canadians remembered that last May.

How else do we know we are on the course? Evidence in the committee, as I have already mentioned, was overwhelmingly in favour of getting rid of the long gun registry, and that was empirical evidence, not opinion evidence. Members from the opposition, the members for Thunder Bay—Rainy River and Thunder Bay—Superior North, voted in favour of Bill C-19 but were punished for it. They were punished for doing what their constituents wanted. I congratulate them for that decision. The member for Western Arctic abstained from the second reading vote. One can only hope that the member will remember his commitments to the great people of the Northwest Territories and that he chooses them and choose facts over the hysteria and hyperbole running rampant through the opposition benches.

Regardless, I can tell the citizens of Yukon, NWT and Nunavut that this member and the hon. member for Nunavut will be standing up for their rights and their use of long guns as daily tools to practise traditional, cultural and present day necessities of life by standing up and voting to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the report stage of the bill. The first amendment standing in my name would delete clause 1. One might wonder why I would want to delete clause 1 of a particular bill because it is the short title. We had a debate about this at committee stage. Clause 1 of the bill states, “This Act may be cited as the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act”. The intent of the government seems to be that it wants to end the long gun registry. Instead, it has proposed a bill that would do a heck of a lot more than end the long gun registry.

First, there is no such thing as a long gun registry. We have a registry of guns, which consists of various types of guns and rifles. There are prohibited weapons, restricted weapons and then there is everything else. Included in the everything else category are the ones that the Conservatives have been talking about for years and have done nothing to fix the problems and anomalies that occurred as a result of the failed implementation by the Liberal Party when it was in power. They just talked about the long gun registry as if it were a separate registry that was designed to make criminals out of law-abiding hunters and farmers, which seems to be the common phrase. That seemed to be the mantra. However, what we have is legislation that is reckless in its design.

I moved an amendment, which I could not move here because it was already moved in committee, to rename the bill the “risking public safety act”. That is what Bill C-19 would do. It would risk public safety by treating all non-registered, non-restricted and non-prohibited weapons the same. In that category is included semi-automatic rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, a whole variety of guns that are in very dangerous to public safety. Therefore, they would not be controlled at all.

Second, the bill would prohibit a recording of transfers in certain instances. If I have a shotgun and I sell it, the current legislation requires me to contact the registry to find out if the buyer has a licence that is valid. If the buyer shows me a licence, that would not be good enough. I would have to call and ask whether the buyer's licence is a valid and existing licence. In the interim, from when the licence was issued, the buyer may have been subject to a firearms prohibition for any number of reasons unknown to me, even if I am related to the buyer. The buyer could be my brother-in-law or my first cousin, but I may not know that he or she has a firearms prohibition for any number of reasons, whether it be trouble with the law because of having committed an offence or exhibiting signs of mental instability that I have been unable to detect because I know the buyer so well and he or she seems normal enough to me. Nevertheless, the buyer could be prohibited from having firearms and that licence might not be valid. The registry would inform me of that and I would not sell my rifle to that person.

The provision says that if I am going to sell my rifle, I may call the registry. However, and this is important, the legislation says that nobody at the other end is allowed to record that call, that the registry is not allowed to keep a record of me checking that out.

What is the purpose of that? It serves no purpose whatsoever. In fact, it makes the other provisions requiring an action by the a seller to check a licence unenforceable. That is what the Mounties say about it. The RCMP, which run the registry and which the government does not listen to in this regard, has said that this is tantamount to making the rules unenforceable. One of the consequences of that is it will lead to an underground market in rifles and shotguns and other non-restricted weapons.

By doing this, the government will be removing any requirement for gun shops, sporting goods stores, Canadian Tire stores, to keep a record of to whom they have sold rifles, shotguns or even ammunition. They used to have to do that. That provision lapsed when the gun registry was brought in because it was unnecessary because all guns had to be registered, so that was okay.

By removing the requirement for all non-restricted or non-prohibited guns to be registered, there will be no record. The government has not reinstituted the requirement for gun shops, sporting goods stores, Canadian Tire stores, which are entitled to sell guns in Canada, to do that anymore. We basically have a loosey-goosey system for the registration of guns or police knowledge of guns.

When we wonder why Canadian police chiefs are opposed to these changes, we just have to look at the comments they have made. They talk about the registry being an important investigative tool, that it helps them investigate crimes, that it helps them find the source of guns and trace guns. We have an international obligation to do that.

Something that has been misconstrued by government members and witnesses at committee and members throughout the House is the fact that 14,000 times a day the registry is consulted by police forces and individual public enforcement agencies across the country. If we put all these things together, we understand how important the gun registry is to police services.

A lot of talk was had both in committee and in the House, suggesting that this was really only incidental, that law enforcement was not consulting the registry, but rather consulting CPIC, which has registry information on it. That was the spin given on this. Any time a police officer checked a licence, automatically this picked over a check on the registry and that was part of the use of the registry. It turns out that is not true.

I have a copy of the last RCMP report dated November 2011, signed by previous RCMP commissioner, William Elliott. The report was not released until January. It was not made available to our committee and the House did not ask for it, but it was made available to the Minister of Public Safety. It was one of the last acts of William Elliott as commissioner of firearms. The report said that the 14,000 inquires in 2010 were made to the firearms registry, looking for information on firearms or on individuals.

That shows two things. First, it shows how useful this instrument is for police forces across the country. Second, it shows a bit of a pattern of a lack of full disclosure by the government and government members on this issue. The Conservatives do not want people to know the facts because they do not want the facts to get in the way of the argument that they have made time and time again.

This is of importance to a lot of Canadians, on both sides of the issue. In the government's zeal to kill the registry, it has done unintended things. There is the law of unintended consequences. Many of the unintended consequences have to do with the fact that the Conservatives are risking public safety by making things worse than they were before the registry came into effect. That is wrong. To call it the ending of the long gun registry act is inaccurate and inadequate. We think that should be deleted.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

There are 10 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-19. Motions Nos. 1 to 10 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now propose Motions Nos. 1 to 10 to the House.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

First, let me wish you, and all honourable members, a happy new year. I am looking forward to working with all members of Parliament of all parties to address Canadians’ priorities to the benefit of all Canadians.

In response to the first question from my friend with regard to management of House business and ensuring things actually do make it to votes in the House, I understand that the opposition has adopted a posture where it intends to run up the score. We have had now 13 or 14 occasions where it has refused to come to any reasonable agreement on any length of debate, or on any limitation on the number of speakers. Every time we run up to the point where we are looking at over 50, 60, 75 or 80 speakers, it becomes apparent that its intention is simply to bring paralysis and gridlock to the House.

It is not surprising. The opposition looks to its friends in Europe and in the United States and that is what it sees. That is not our approach. Our approach is to ensure that we have an orderly, productive and hard-working House that actually delivers results, and we will continue to do that.

Of course, our government's top priority is, and remains, jobs and economic growth.

Of course, our government’s top priority remains jobs and economic growth. Tomorrow, we will start debating second reading of Bill S-5, the Financial System Review Act. This bill will maintain and improve the stability of Canada’s banking system, a system that has been named the world’s soundest banking system four years in a row by the World Economic Forum. This bill needs to be law by April, so it is important to have timely passage.

Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, will provide a boost to the digital and creative sectors, which employ Canadians in high-quality jobs. This is another bill that the opposition has opposed and has tried to delay. There have already been 75 speeches debating this bill.

In context, this has been the subject of 75 speeches already in the House and a vote on a motion that it never go to second reading. It is clear what the strategy is. The identical bill in the previous House went to committee after just a few hours. Obviously, the opposition is implementing its strategy of simply running up the score and forcing the government to impose time allocation in order to get anything through the House. That being said, we want to see it go through the House.

I will be calling Bill C-11 for further second reading debate on Wednesday and next Friday. I look forward to concluding the debate and moving the bill to committee, where bills are traditionally studied in detail.

I would be pleased and delighted if they would come to an agreement to limit debate. I have invited them to do that many times. They have never come forward with any proposal on the number of speakers they would like. I invite them once again to present that to us and to do it here in the House.

I am also pleased to advise the House that next week we will start the final stages of scrapping the ineffective and wasteful long gun registry once and for all. I will be calling report stage debate on Bill C-19, Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act, on Monday and Tuesday.

Finally, I wish to designate Thursday, February 9, as the second allotted day.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It's not central to my point. I apologize.

But the issue here is that it was released after second reading debate on Bill C-19. It was released after this committee finished amending Bill C-19. The same thing happened when Parliament was debating Ms. Hoeppner's bill, Bill C-391. I just find it odd that the reports are coming out later and later and they seem to be timed in a political fashion.

I'd like you to give us a bit of background on why it was released so late when it obviously was prepared a long time before, because it had former Commissioner Elliott's signature appended to it.

Firearms Registry

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will take the word of the Minister of Public Security in Quebec City, who is from Beauce, over that of the tourist in chief from Beauce.

I now have a question for the Minister of Justice.

This is going before the courts, where millions of dollars will be spent. I would like to have the assurance of the Conservative government that if there is an injunction, or if the constitutionality of Bill C-19 is challenged, the Conservatives will preserve the information in the meantime. Or are they going to destroy it? Will they respect the court?

Government Priorities

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, last spring Canadians elected a government that is listening and keeping its promises.

Canadians told me they wanted a government that would make keeping their children and communities safe a priority. As promised, within the first 100 sitting days of Parliament, we will pass Bill C-10.

Farmers in my riding told me that they wanted the freedom to market their own wheat and barley. We are delivering by passing Bill C-18.

I regularly hear how wasteful the long gun registry is. I am very pleased that the government is passing Bill C-19 to end this discrimination against law-abiding citizens.

People across Canada have also told me of the need for increased transparency and accountability for first nations governance. I am proud that the government has introduced Bill C-27.

We have listened and we have acted.

Firearms Registry

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, more and more of the Conservatives are showing that they are just not fit to govern.

The member for Lethbridge offended victims of gun violence by mimicking a six-shooter pistol during a vote on the gun registry. Even worse, ministers are tripping over their own logic as they make policy up on the fly.

First the Minister of Public Safety says that Bill C-19 would not impact how gun sales are reported, until the RCMP steps in and says that is just not true.

Then the minister's parliamentary secretary claims, with a straight face, that income tax forms can track firearms just as well as the registry. In fact, the RCMP report on gun control says that the changes will lead to the proliferation of firearms and that private sales will take place without any records and that the rules would be unenforceable.

The government is just making stuff up as it goes along.

The fact is the Conservatives have destroyed our last safeguard against deadly firearms, and they did it on the back of a napkin. The RCMP knows it and victims know it. As the member for Lethbridge should know, that is nothing to celebrate.

Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues who have spoken so eloquently on the bill today.

We on this side of the House generally support the thrust of at least one-third of the bill dealing with the so-called Lucky Moose event a couple of years ago in Toronto. My colleague, the member for Trinity—Spadina, introduced legislation to deal with that unfortunate incident some time ago. It was collected up by the members opposite in Bill C-60, which, unfortunately, failed to pass and died on the order paper.

First, I want to thank my colleague for Kitchener—Conestoga because I believe he said that the government would be willing to listen and to make amendments to the bill. I hope he said that because so far we have not seen a whole lot of willingness on the part of members opposite to accept any kind of reasonable amendments to any of the bills that have been before us.

My other comment has to do with the apparent priorities of the members opposite and the government. It appears that we have an inordinate preponderance of bills dealing with guns, crime, punishment and defence of personal property, but we are not spending a whole lot of time dealing with other very serious issues in our country, such as jobs.

The number one complaint I hear from my friend from Prince Edward Island is that his constituents need jobs. The same is true in my riding. People seem to have given up in large measure looking for jobs because there just have not been any for so many years in my riding.

We also have a serious first nations issue that appears is being glossed over by the government. Apparently no action is being taken to help the citizens of Attawapiskat, except to blame them.

We have reported cuts to services for seniors and for persons seeking EI such that they cannot even get answers on the telephone to their issues. They come to my office, as I am sure they do in many other members' offices, saying that they cannot get through and can I help. Our role should not be to replace the civil servants of the country.

I am hoping that, once this bill is disposed of, we can start moving into some real priorities and move away from the crime, punishment and gun agenda that seems to be dominating what we have been talking about.

The bill contains two essential ingredients. One is to give better permission to a citizen's arrest. There already is permission for a citizen's arrest in the Criminal Code, but citizens have to apprehend people in the act. They cannot find them later and arrest them. That is essentially what the bill hopes to accomplish.

It seems to be fairly clear on the surface. We look forward to the day when the committee will have a chance to study the bill in some depth, have representations from witnesses and experts in the field and to make amendments to make it absolutely certain that what we do will not have any unintended consequences.

I have a personal experience with citizen's arrest. It was a dark and stormy night, if members will pardon the use of the term. One night a couple of years ago, it was pouring with rain when I pulled into my driveway and saw a brand new bicycle sitting at the end of my neighbour's driveway. It seemed quite out of place. I picked up my cellphone and called my neighbour. He did not answer right away, but I heard his car door slam. I thought he was putting the bicycle in his car.

When I went over to his car, I discovered that it was not my neighbour, but somebody else who was about to get on the bicycle. I stopped the gentleman and asked him what he was doing. He said that he flat tire, that he had been at a friend's house and that he was trying to find a way to fix it.

He was quite drunk too. By that time, my neighbour, who had seen that I had phoned but had hung up on him, came out to the street. I asked him if it was his bike. He said that it was not his bike and asked what the gentleman was doing there. I looked at my neighbour and told him that he was just fixing a flat. However, the gentleman with the bike had a little box in his hand. The little box was a very unique piece of equipment for resting the tip of a welding torch that came from Princess Auto.

My neighbour looked at it and said, “I bought one of those today. Where did you get that”? The gentleman said a friend of his had given it to him. My friend went back to his car and looked, and it was gone. He accused the man of stealing it, which he denied. We ended up discovering that not only had he stolen that, but he had a couple of other things from my friend's car. At that point he got on his bike and tried to ride away, and I stopped him. I said, “No you don't. You're not going anywhere”.

This was not an act that was very smart because who knows whether this guy had knives, guns, or whatever else, but it was an instinctive reaction. That is part of what we are trying to deal with here. The instinctive reaction was that he should not go.

I picked up my cellphone and dialed 911 while I was holding his bike. He was too drunk to ride it anyway. I got 911 on the phone. The response was, “Police, fire, ambulance”.

I said, “Police, there is a man breaking into a car and I have apprehended him”.

They said, “Are you sure”?

I said, “Yes, he's standing right here. Do you want to talk to him”?

They said, “No, but we'll send somebody right away”.

Well, within two minutes, there were six police cars in front of my driveway. Clearly, the message is that if we tell them we have apprehended somebody they will come quickly.

Then an ambulance arrived because the guy had a cut on his hand. Then the fire truck arrived. I asked the fireman driving the fire truck why they had come. He said the guy might set himself on fire and they would put it out.

My point is, I acted out of instinct, not out of having read the law that says what I can do in a circumstance like that. That is part of what we are trying to deal with here, to make a reasonable instinctive reaction lawful. If my neighbour had not been there with me, if I had just apprehended this man while he was stealing from my neighbour's car, I would have in fact been in violation of the law. That will not be the case any more under this change, I think. It is a little unclear.

In retrospect, I probably should not have done what I did because who knows what he might have had. As it turns out, when the police did arrive, it was still pouring rain. They made him take off his coat and when they emptied it they found all kinds of stuff that he had already stolen. The bicycle was something he had probably already stolen. He had been out of jail only two days. He really wanted to go back there because it was dry and warm, and this was his way of getting back into jail and to someplace safe in the riding. He was actually, in some way, trying to be a better person because they discovered that he had put some air freshener, that he had stolen from the local drugstore, in his underwear.

The point of the story is, as citizens we react instinctively, not because we have read the law. It is that which we have to keep in mind as we craft these things. We do not actually act, necessarily, in our best self-interest when we are reacting to what we see and know is a crime.

The other story that I mentioned a few moments ago happened a year ago in my riding. An ice cream truck was robbed at gunpoint in the middle of a sunny afternoon, with children and parents all around the ice cream truck, and two very obviously bad people with a gun. The only person, at that point, in any immediate serious danger would have been the ice cream truck driver/operator, who was facing the wrong end of, we assume, a loaded gun.

The current laws on self-defence have given people the ability to defend themselves under the current legislation. They have the right, maybe, if they feel an immediate threat, to pull their own gun, if they have one. I do not know of too many ice cream truck drivers who carry around guns, certainly not in Toronto. Maybe they do in some more rural areas of Canada, but not in Toronto.

The issue then is, at what point does this become dangerous to the rest of the people. The concern I have is that the bill would change the rules from someone who is feeling their own personal threat to a threat of force being used against them or another person. We would expand the notion of self-defence to include another person.

Maybe the jurisprudence actually covered that in the past. I cannot find that on a layperson's reading of the law. I am not a lawyer. I do not have the kind of background that some of our colleagues do. We hope that through committee they are going to be able to tell us that this legislation would actually just repeat what used to be there. However, when I read it, I immediately thought of that incident with the ice cream truck.

If this law had been in place, and if everybody had read it, which I am going to say most law-abiding citizens do not go around reading the law, but if they had read it or if it was common knowledge that we could defend the life of someone else, then the concern I have is that we end up with someone across the street who sees the ice cream truck being held at gunpoint, or who thinks it is being held at gunpoint, maybe they do not actually see clearly enough to know what is going on, and they reach into their cupboard to get their unregistered long gun. I am hearing cackling from the other side of the House.

That unregistered long gun then becomes a use of deadly force in a situation involving children, in a situation involving ordinary civilians. We have now created a situation that should not have been created. We have now escalated this into what is perhaps going to become a deadly shooting spree. We do not need that to happen. We do not need vigilantism. We do not need people to feel they have the right to use force in situations that endanger themselves and endanger others as a result of a bill that may have been written with some unintended consequences in it.

I hope that as a result of serious thought and serious study at committee, the bill will in fact have possible flaws like that one corrected, where we create problems where there are none, where there are unintended consequences, where the mere notion that the law permits someone to use force to defend someone they do not even know and someone that maybe does not need defending, and create a sense of vigilantism.

That is not what we want in this country. We are not a country of vigilantes. We are not a country of people who go around raising arms against other people in order to defend life, limb and property. That is not what we do in Canada. That is not how we behave.

I am not trying to justify, in any way, any criminal acts by people with guns at ice cream trucks. It was one of the most disturbing stories I had heard in a long time about the level to which the violence in my riding has gone to. It is not something that I appreciate. The police are well aware and the police, I believe, have now arrested the perpetrators. They are in jail and we can rest a little easier.

However, my concern is I do not want to have a situation where we pass a law that somehow gives people the thought that they can enter into a fray like this and start shooting. That is not what we want. That is not what we expect from our ordinary law-abiding citizens.

As it turns out, no one was harmed in that robbery, except the owner of the truck who lost some money. However, there were no guns fired. There was no violence and no damage to anyone. Yet, this law might give some the thought that they should enter into this with guns blazing. That is not the country we live in. That is not the country we want. That is not the country I think I want to belong to.

So, we have a situation where this bill ought to go before a committee and be studied in a reasoned and unpressured way. The last two bills that the government brought forward were rushed to the point where closure was invoked on several occasions and in the case of Bill C-10, there were 208 clauses dealt with in clause-by-clause analysis in two days. Two days is not an appropriate amount of time to give serious sober thought to a bill that has enormous consequences.

We understand that the committee was rushed to the point where witnesses were crammed together, were not given sufficient time to answer questions, and questions were not able to be put to these witnesses in a thoughtful and reasoned way because there was so much rush put on this. I hope, based on the statements made by my friend from Kitchener—Conestoga, that the government is actually going to sit down and listen, pay attention, and accept reasoned amendments to this bill put forward by the opposition.

As I understand it, on both Bill C-10 and Bill C-19, many amendments were put forward, but—

Public Safety and National Security

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

My constituents in Crowfoot and millions of Canadians have been waiting for this moment for more than 10 years. Bill C-19 would scrap the failed and costly long gun registry. This bill would decriminalize law-abiding responsible firearms owners and users all across Canada. I am pleased to present this report.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You know, we are talking about the title now. It may seem strange, but, as my colleagues have said since the beginning of our study of this Bill C-19, starting right when the government introduced the bill, it does not come as a surprise, we were expecting it. True, there was an election campaign promise that, as soon as they got into power, there would be a bill to abolish the long-gun registry. That happens after almost every election. No surprise there.

Perhaps what profoundly surprised people this time, ourselves included, was becoming aware of clause 29, which talks about destroying the data. That was never in any previous version.

Though I am against what is now called the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, I am still going to raise my hat high to the Conservatives who have tried, at least for a few seconds here, to hide the truth. By that I mean that, after all the discussions on previous bills, including Ms. Hoeppner's, who has always led the charge on them, they have succeeded in amending it so that it has become worse than it ever was.

Even worse again, people have come here to tell us that they are interested in getting the data and keeping them up-to-date. The government does not want the registry to exist, but it has been so clever about it that it has even taken steps to make sure no one, absolutely no one, can have access to, or use, the data. All this because we know how to collect information in Canada with our legislation on information and preserving information, either through Library and Archives Canada or the Privacy Act.

Let me repeat, I am not quoting raging fanatics, for heaven's sake! I am quoting representatives from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, including Mario Harel, the chief of the Gatineau police service, who was here in his capacity as vice-president of the CACP, together with Chief Matthew Torigian. Calling the bill simply the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act and making us believe that our streets will become extremely unsafe when this bill goes into effect, is tantamount to misleading the public or taking us for fools.

As Chief Harel said, the CACP has always supported the long-gun registry. He told us the reasons for that support. He feels that it is a matter of public safety and part of our responsibility to ensure the safety of our communities, our police officers and the most vulnerable among us.

I know a number of people who are going to feel very unsafe once this bill goes into law. Many people live in surroundings where guns are common. It is no comfort for them to realize that it will be so easy to transfer and sell firearms with no registry, no registration and no permits at all, given the shortcomings of this bill.

Having this bill come into effect certainly is not a matter of public safety. It certainly is a matter of added value in law enforcement in the communities we serve, because it is useful as much in prevention as in investigation.

I agree that the registry is not up to date. It is only that way because the Conservatives themselves have not kept it up to date. At some point, the posturing has to stop, as it simply serves to support our point of view one hundred per cent. But they have no other arguments to make. That is exactly what the Conservatives are doing.

But we can start from that point. Despite the high start-up costs, the long-gun registry operates in a very cost-effective manner today, as an internal RCMP audit shows. Despite that, the Conservatives always come back to the start-up costs, which we can all agree were too high.

We believe that the registry encourages responsibility and gun owners to be accountable. Is anyone around this table against the idea of gun owners being accountable? This is unbelievable!

They also say that it “provides a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege and the broader right of society to be safe”. We are not in the United States, where people have the right to own firearms. Even so, we could debate what that sentence meant when it was drafted. There is no question here, as is the case in some countries, of letting everyone walk around with a gun in his pocket or of opening a bank account in order to get one.

The words “provides a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege” apply to hunting too. I have no objection to that. Over the years, I have had assistants and colleagues who were avid hunters. I respect that. But, when it comes to the broader right of society to be safe, we have to make sure that dangerous firearms, that are now deregulated, will not be handled in ways that the public may have trouble understanding.

Very qualified people came here to tell us that they consult the registry up to 17,000 times per day. The Conservatives tell us that this is because, when one thing is checked, something else is automatically checked at the same time. So what? That's great. It gives additional information and it hurts no one. Mr. Harris talked about that. It happened in my province. Someone did not have the right to own a firearm, true. But instead of letting the story come out in the way that it did, it would have been better to say what really happened: that someone was shot right through a door. The registry did not kill her, an unstable person did.

You will tell me that there will always be unstable people with firearms in their possession. Possibly so, but surely it is only reasonable to give those responsible for protecting us the tools to help them in their investigations. This title is simply bogus. They did not just try to hide the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act—it didn't last very long anyway—but there is also the fact that they want to destroy the data that some provinces, including Quebec, my province, were ready to take—just as they are—so that they can keep them from now on. They already have the data, but they are now being put into the position of breaking the law if they keep them. Look at the position you are putting your supposed partners in this Canadian confederation in. It is incredibly sad!

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Chair, we have very clearly heard that the Government of Quebec wants to create its own firearm registry if Bill C-19 is adopted. It's very clear. The Quebec minister of public safety himself appeared before the committee to share his position on the issue.

It also seems clear to us that the Conservative government has not received a mandate from Quebeckers to eliminate the firearm registry. So we believe that it is important to respect the wishes of Quebeckers and prevent the federal government from destroying the registry. It's a relevant tool for the Government of Quebec. We want to eliminate clause 29 to make it impossible to destroy the information so that it is accessible to the Government of Quebec and any other government that wants to create its own long gun control system.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a good idea about what's coming, but we will still repeat that clause 11 of the bill, as drafted, contains a major gap, which means that we could easily lose control. In fact, I'm going to praise my colleague, Ms. Hoeppner, because I think her bill was better than this one. It did fully cover this gap.

The study of Bill C-19 is going to leave me with a great deal of concern, a concern that was expressed to this committee by many witnesses, including victims of the École polytechnique and Dawson College, the people involved with centres for abused women, and so on. There's a danger that, at some point, over the course of the transactions, we may no longer know who owns the firearm in question.

I repeat that the wording of Bill C-391 was much better in this regard. The NDP and I find it unfortunate that what was in Bill C-391 was not put into Bill C-19 to fill that gap.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome here. This is the 15th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Tuesday, November 29, 2011, and I would like to welcome you to this meeting. As you are all aware, today we will proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.

As you are aware, on November 15 the committee adopted the first report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure, which among other things stated: “That the committee allocate five meetings to the consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, including its clause-by-clause consideration”. That was the motion. As you are also aware, today is the fifth meeting; thus it is my pleasure to inform this committee that I will be reporting the bill to the House in the state in which it exists at one o'clock. As I see we have a number of opposition amendments before us today, we want to deal with those in an expeditious way and hear debate on them. I would suggest we move forward on those amendments and on clause-by-clause as soon as we can.

Without any further ado, I would ask you to take your package that the table has provided for you, a package of each clause and the amendments that have come forward, amendments from the New Democratic Party, the official opposition, and also from the Liberal Party of Canada. Let's move into clause-by-clause if you have your package there.

Public Safety

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, we were very pleased to hear from front-line officers over the last couple of weeks who overwhelmingly supported abolishing the long gun registry. They have asked us to get tough on violent criminals and those who prey on our children, which is what we are asking the NDP to support instead of trying to perpetuate this misleading information regarding Bill C-19, which will not change classifications of firearms, licensing requirements or transfer requirements.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, why should I expect an answer that makes sense from a completely senseless government that will not listen to reason?

There is no justification for eliminating restrictions on powerful weapons that have absolutely nothing to do with hunting. The Conservatives could not care less about the advice of the RCMP, the provinces and their own advisors, who are saying that Bill C-19 will increase the sale and trafficking of illegal weapons. This is not coming from me, but from them.

Why do the Conservatives want to make things easier for criminals at any cost?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, it is very disappointing that the NDP is left with no argument to defend the long gun registry and resorts to trying to mislead Canadians. There are no changes in Bill C-19 with regard to the classifications of firearms, to licensing, or to the requirements to have a licence to purchase or transfer a firearm. The NDP needs to stop trying to mislead Canadians and tell the truth.

Opposition Motion--Closure and Time Allocation

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the thorough examination and debate of proposed legislation on behalf of Canadians is an essential duty of Members of Parliament, and that the curtailment of such debate limits the ability of Members to carry out this duty and constitutes an affront to Canadian democracy; and, therefore,

that the Speaker undertake a study and make recommendations to amend the Standing Orders with respect to closure and time allocation, such that: (i) a Minister would be required to provide justification for the request for such a curtailment of debate; (ii) the Speaker would be required to refuse such a request in the interest of protecting the duty of Members to examine legislation thoroughly, unless the government’s justification sufficiently outweighs the said duty; (iii) criteria would be set out for assessing the government’s justification, which would provide the Speaker with the basis for a decision to allow for the curtailment of debate;

that the Speaker report to the House no later than February 6, 2012;

that a motion to concur in the said report may be moved during Routine Proceedings, and that only when no Member rises to debate the motion, the Speaker shall interrupt any proceedings then before the House and put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, every question necessary to dispose of the motion; and

if no motion to concur in the report has been previously moved and disposed of on the 20th sitting day following the presentation of the report, Standing Orders 57 and 78 shall be deemed to have been deleted.

Mr. Speaker, this motion has been brought before the House at this time because of the government's gross overuse of shutting down debate in the House, whether it is by a formal closure motion, which shuts down debate immediately, or by time allocation motions, which provide extremely limited time for debate on crucial issues facing both the House and the country more generally.

It is important that we recognize the effect of the motion. It is not that you, Mr. Speaker, need a greater workload, but that is the thrust of the motion. The motion would remove a government's unilateral ability to shut down debate in the House and would allow the Speaker, as an independent officer of Parliament, to make the decision as to when it is appropriate to curtail debate and when it is an abuse of the process. Therefore, a request for curtailment of debate could in fact be rejected by the Speaker of the day.

I have done some analysis of other jurisdictions that have similar parliaments to ours, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Going back some 20 or 30 years, all of them moved to provide greater authority to the speaker to regulate when debate should be curtailed, limited or ended. In each of those parliaments, it is quite clear that it is the speaker who ultimately makes the decision in that regard.

The authority is different in each of those legislatures but the general wording and conduct of the speaker has always been: Is the request for curtailment or ending debate an abuse? Oftentimes the term “of a minority segment of that parliament” is used. It may be a large official opposition or it may be a small third, fourth or fifth party, but the speaker has the authority in each one of those parliaments to make the determination as to whether the request by the government to end or limit debate is an abuse of the rights of the members of Parliament.

I will move on to the context in which this motion is being put forward.

In less than two months of sitting days, we have had time allocation applied to Bill C-13, the budget bill, which was 640 pages long. We were given extremely limited time to debate it. It is the only time, that we have been able to determine, in the history of this country that such a limited amount of time has been given to a budget bill. I know the government House leader said that we had some debate on this in the previous Parliament. However, we have 100 new members of Parliament who were not here and had no opportunity to debate this in the last Parliament.

It is fundamental to our process that a budget bill be given a full extensive debate. We can go back to any number of the authorities where that is repeated over and over again, and not just in this legislature, but in every legislature that works off the Westminster model.

We then had Bill C-18 dealing with the Canadian Wheat Board. This is an institution that is well over 70 years of age. It is iconic in this country. However, on two occasions, at second reading and report stage, we were again slapped with time allocation.

The Wheat Board and the farmers in western Canada were entitled to that debate. The opposition should have been given time in both the House and in committee to deal with that issue. We were given extremely limited time given the significance of what was going to happen if the bill passed, especially when the majority of farmers in western Canada, who use the Wheat Board to sell their wheat, oppose the bill. However, again we were slapped with time allocation on two occasions.

Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, is made up of nine former bills brought together. Again the House leader said that we had time to debate this legislation. More than 100 new members did not have time to debate this extremely complex bill because they were not here in the last Parliament.

The Conservatives have accused the opposition of delaying this legislation. On more than one occasion, the NDP has offered to take the part of the bill that deals with crimes against children, sexual predator type crimes, and run it through at all stages. It already passed through the House once before, so we were quite comfortable in having that done. On the more than one occasion that we offered that to the government, it refused and then slapped time allocation on the balance of the bill.

It was the same thing with Bill C-19, the gun control bill. We were given extremely limited time to debate an issue that is topical and very controversial. As the debate has gone on, more and more evidence has come out around reasons to not do away with the long gun registry. There was no opportunity to debate that legislation in the House to any significant degree.

Finally, Bill C-20, the seats bill. The bill proposes to make significant changes to the composition of this Parliament and again we are being limited to a significant degree in our ability to deal with it. I sit on the committee that is looking at the bill and the same thing is happening there. Extreme limitations are being placed at committee with regard to the number of witnesses we are allowed to call.

It just boggles my mind when I try to understand what is going on, and I think I am reasonably intelligent in terms of understanding it. It is a complex process that is being engendered now and it is new. It is not what was here in the last Parliament at all. The bill is a new incarnation of the process. It would make a very significant change and we are being given nowhere near the amount of time that we will need.

If we continue with the practice as it is right now, Bill C-20 will be out of committee and back before the House either by the end of next week or early the week following, when we have limited time to debate it here in the House and limited time in committee. The same can be said about the other four bills that I just mentioned. They all have had limited time in committee.

That is the context that we have. We have a precedent, if we want to put it that way, in other legislatures.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

As I said earlier, we have this other precedent. If the bill passes, it will mean more work for the Speaker of this Parliament and subsequent Speakers. However, we need to find a much more proper balance in terms of our ability as opposition members to do our job. Our responsibility here is to determine whether legislation coming from the government is appropriate but we are not able to do that in the amount of time that we are being given at this point. We need to take the government's ability to limit time and place it in the hands of an independent member and, in this case, that would be the Speaker and his successors.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Your interpretation of Bill C-19 differs from mine and certainly from that of those who have drafted it and others who have appeared before that committee, but I'll leave that there.

Dr. Langmann—

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

If you read the bill.... Let me give you a little hint here: not everything the media says is true. If you have read the bill, and the bill is also on public record...there is nothing in Bill C-19 that affects the licensing provisions of firearm acquisition and purchase. It's only the registration.

Ms. Lacasse, you said the same thing. I'm curious, because you're both being put here as witnesses against Bill C-19. Is it really your understanding that, if Bill C-19 passes, purchasing a firearm will be no more difficult than to

to borrow a book from the library?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Okay. Then I misunderstood you. I apologize.

But you also said something that I know is factually incorrect, and again it might be an issue of translation. You said that assuming Bill C-19 becomes law, it will be no more difficult to buy a firearm than it will be to buy a book at the bibliothèque. That, sir, is not correct. because you know, or you should know—and if you don't know, I'm going to tell you—that nothing in Bill C-19 affects the licensing provisions. An individual would still require a firearms acquisition certificate before he or she purchases either a firearm or ammunition for that firearm.

I need you to reconsider that statement that it is going to be no more difficult to purchase a firearm than it is to purchase a book at the bibliothèque.

Copyright Modernization Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I wish I knew what the Conservatives have against this country's workers. After the tax cuts to large corporations, the subsidies to oil companies and all the inappropriate expenditures for the G8 and the G20—always with Canadian taxpayers' money—the government now wants to target our artists' income.

Many of the artists we love, admire and appreciate are not rich. The majority of them have a very modest income and, because of the nature of their occupation, it is not a stable income. They must accept contracts and work at many jobs to provide for their needs and those of their family.

In Quebec, the average income of artists is estimated at $24,600 per year, based on the 2006 census data. We are talking about $24,600 to pay for rent, food and transportation, to send one's children to school and look after their needs. That amount must also cover heating costs and the material needed to create. What makes things even worse is that, with an annual income of $24,600, Quebec artists are considered to be the richest in Canada. That same year, the average income for artists in Canada was estimated at $22,700 per year.

These numbers reflect the reality of our actors, painters and singers. Our artists are struggling to make ends meet. While all the evidence should convince the government to provide increased support to our creators, it prefers, as in Bills C-10 and C-19, to ignore the facts and please the cultural industry's big businesses. This bill is going to hurt artists and make them poorer. And they certainly cannot afford that.

The Union des artistes is worried about its members' income and so are we on this side of the House. How can artists continue to create if they do not have the means to do so? Copyright royalties are an important source of income for Canada's creators. This government must ensure creators receive their fair share and are paid for their work.

I wish this government would take out its earplugs and start listening to the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, which is asking that the bill be amended so that artists are compensated fairly for the use of their creative work in the new media.

I also wish it would listen to the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada, which is telling it that this bill is going to have a significant impact on creators' income and that it needs to be amended in order to strike a balance between the interests of creators and those of consumers. Unfortunately, as with Bills C-10, C-13, C-18 and C-20, this government prefers to turn a deaf ear.

Passing this bill would have a very negative impact on our country's cultural industry, and it would have a direct impact on creators' income. Moreover, many people are worried about producers and publishers, who would not enjoy the same protection as holders of scientific patents.

We are not stupid. Canada's copyright laws need to be reviewed. Former Bill C-32 was reviewed in committee, but the Conservatives chose yet again to ignore the recommendations made by the witnesses who appeared before the committee.

This bill could potentially create more problems than it solves. That is why I cannot support it in its current form. Even the Union des artistes finds that some of the wording is ambiguous and that court challenges are inevitable. For example, they cite the concept of fair dealing for the purpose of education and that of reasonable grounds.

Why is this government still refusing to listen to opinions that differ from its own? Why does this government not want to work with all the players involved in copyright in order to reform it properly and adapt it to the reality of the 21st century? Such stubbornness would not be so bad if Canadians did not have to bear the consequences of the government's bad bill. Copyright in the digital age has to build on two fundamental principles: accessibility for consumers and remuneration for the artists.

Unfortunately, the Conservative government has not respected either principle. It is directly compromising the millions of dollars in royalties artists receive under current copyright legislation, and it is encroaching on consumer rights by adopting provisions on digital locks.

The fact is that this bill gives consumers rights they will not be able to exercise. The general provisions on digital locks will allow the companies to decide which legal rights can be exercised and which cannot. This unbalanced perspective will end up harming artists and educators. That is also quite worrisome.

I urge this government, the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, to review this bill in light of what was said in committee during consideration of the now defunct Bill C-32 and to listen to what the artists have been trying to get across, in order to ensure that this copyright reform is balanced and beneficial to everyone.

[Eve-Marie Lacasse, Main Coordinator, Fédération des femmes du Québec]

Good morning. Thank you for welcoming us here today. We are grateful to the members of the Opposition who have lined up on the side of public safety. We note that this is not what the government has elected to do.

One of the FFQ's objectives is to combat all forms of violence and to stand up for the right to live in an atmosphere free from violence, especially for women, and the right to life and safety. We are of the opinion that this bill is inconsistent with these fundamental rights. Violence, and particularly firearm violence, still affects the lives of too many women. In Quebec, from 1997 to 2006, firearms were the method used in nearly two thirds of spousal and familial homicides, while in Canada they were used in nearly a quarter of spousal homicides between 2000 and 2009.

We observe, however, that firearms control works because, despite these high percentages, overall, the number of homicides by shotgun or rifle has fallen by 41% since 1991, while the number of non-firearm homicides fell by only 6%. The Firearms Act has therefore brought about significant progress by reducing the number of firearm assaults in spousal or family violence contexts.

Thus the number of murdered women killed by gunshot fell by nearly 50%, from 43 in 1995 to 22 in 2008. The rate of spousal murders committed with a rifle or shotgun has fallen by 70%. Although obviously there are multiple factors explaining that decline, such as more access to resources for women who are victims of violence, greater public awareness and improvement in women's socioeconomic situation so that they are able to leave a violent relationship faster, nonetheless this substantial decline is also, in part, a result of changes in gun control policies.

In terms of preventing violence against women, without the information in the long-gun registry, which the authorities can use to determine who has how many and what kind of non-restricted weapons, in real time -- according to a very recent study by the RCMP, the Canadian police consult the registry an average of 17,000 times a day -- it will be difficult for police to enforce prohibition orders imposed by the courts.

Although the government claims that Bill C-19 is an uncomplicated bill that simply eliminates the registration procedure, that is clearly not the case. The changes proposed, by clause 23, among others, will have serious consequences for public safety. This clause makes it optional for gun dealers to verify firearms licences when a gun is purchased or transferred. The only way to tell that a licence is not valid, the individual wanting to purchase a gun has a prohibition order against them, or the licence presented is forged is to check with the Firearms Officer. If the check is not done, a dangerous individual could easily purchase a non-restricted firearm, or more. Does the fact that in 2009 there were 254,036 firearms prohibition orders in force not highlight the need to preserve preventive measures like these, including the need to verify that licences are valid? Verifications, when a gun is purchased, should be of a higher degree than those carried out when a book is bought or borrowed from the library. I am using the example of the gentleman seated beside me. I'd also like to recall that the verification of licences became mandatory in 1998 to make up for the deficiencies of former measures, following the murder of a woman by her spouse.

In closing, we firmly believe that the safety of all Canadians should prevail over what some people regard as bureaucratic hassle, hassle that saves lives. In our opinion, the question should not even asked.

[Bruno Marchand, Director General, Association québécoise de prévention du suicide]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In addition to being the Director General of the Association québécoise de prévention du suicide, I am also a member of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

Suicide is a major public-health problem, a significant one that is recognized by everyone, that takes the lives of 10 Canadians daily. Tomorrow there will be another 10 people who will die and again the day after tomorrow. It takes the lives of three Quebeckers every day. Contrary to what was said earlier, in Quebec the suicide rate has not been declining since the 1960s or 1970s. The suicide rate rose until 1999. The decline began that year and continued up to 2008.

We're opposed to C-19 and profoundly worried about its consequences. Suicide is a complex problem, which will not be controlled solely by the control of firearms. Still, it is one of the ways that may have an effect on in the lives of our fellow citizens.

I wish to refer to the World Health Organization, which on its Web site answers the question "How can suicide be prevented?" as follows:

Not all suicides can be prevented, but a majority can. There are a number of measures that can be taken at community and national levels to reduce the risk, including:

reducing access to the means of suicide (e.g. [...] guns [...];

I remind you that this is the first measure mentioned. Why is that? Because, as rational people who enjoy sound mental health, we might think that the means is only a means and that, if a firearm is not available, well there is a rope or drugs. For someone who is vulnerable, someone who enters a process of cognitive constriction and whose condition deteriorates and who doesn't find ways of ending their suffering in their life other than this poor option, the means is not just a means. It's not as though they were choosing a car, a means of transportation to get from one place to another; it's much more than that. If we take away this means from them, there's a good chance of keeping them alive and with us.

By means of a process both rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious, related to their values, culture, themselves, a person chooses a means. If they have chosen firearms and if there is less access to firearms, a definite advantage is created. This is why we're convinced that we've prevented suicides by putting up anti-suicide barriers on the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal. When the means was no longer available, the person who had selected this as their means of committing suicide didn't seek another one, even though there are other bridges around Montreal Island.

The same is true in Toronto regarding the subway and anti-suicide barriers. It was the same in the Northern European countries, when the quantities of acetaminophen and ibuprofen available over the counter were reduced. Yes, someone could go back to the drugstore 50 times. But this had a direct effect on the number of suicides because barriers were put up for the person who was vulnerable and wanted to put a permanent end to some temporary problems.

The firearms registry and all its components have prevented 250 suicides a year. Mr. Blais came to this figure and it's also what we believe since we see that the trend has declined. This cannot be compared with the relative importance of other means used. Obviously, the less firearms are used in suicides, even though the number remains more or less constant, the more the relative importance given to hanging increases as a percentage.

The registry affords more time for a vulnerable person. It means we can intervene. It allows the authorities to take the action required by a situation, and it also enables us to link the firearm to its owner. The registry ensures an accountability and traceability that most certainly allows us to let people who have a weapon and are completely entitled to have one know that they must act appropriately by protecting the people around them.

The registry enables us to take action that would not be possible with other means, for example, taking firearms away from people who are temporarily going through difficult times in their lives and who, if they had a weapon, might commit an irreparable act.

We strongly believe that the registry has had some positive effects. We're convinced of that. I wish to quote a Public Security Canada document from the government of the day in 2006 when it wanted to make some changes to the registry:

The amendments made to the bill tabled today will force current owners to check, by contacting the Chief Firearms Officer, that potential buyers of firearms and any other future owner of a non-restricted firearm have a valid firearms licence. This measure will help to ensure that weapons do not end up in the hands of individuals who should not have access to them, [...]

[Étienne Blais]

Mr. Chair, distinguished members of the committee, good day.

Allow me first to introduce myself. I am Étienne Blais, a criminologist and associate professor in the School of Criminology at the Université de Montréal. I was hired for my expertise in research and crime prevention methods.

Since I was hired, in 2006, I have developed a research program on the prevention of crime and injuries linked to firearms. From the start of my career, I have had the opportunity to publish numerous articles with peer committees and give many lectures on the issue of gun control in Canada.

Before presenting my position on Bill C-19, I would like to recall that the issue of those injured by firearms goes far beyond that of criminality, or violence associated with criminal groups. Of the 800 or so annual deaths associated with firearms, 75% are suicides. Furthermore, about 85% of suicides by firearm involve long guns. In many cases, suicides involve people who are suffering from mental disturbances or who find themselves in a momentary crisis.

Suicides are very often committed in the victim's home. Many studies demonstrate that access to a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide in general. This is also so for spousal homicides. The presence of a firearm in the home increases the risk of spousal homicide. In these homicides and suicides, firearms are the perfect facilitator enabling those with suicidal or homicidal thoughts to act on them. Moreover, it is with a view to preventing such suicides and homicides that certain provisions were made in Bill C-68, respecting firearms and certain other weapons, and its regulations, including a provision to advise current spouses or spouses of the past two years of their spouses' or former spouses' intention to purchase a firearm and of the registration of all firearms.

In my research, I have focused on the effect of these laws on homicide and suicide rates. The results of my studies have been published in reviews, with peer committees, or presented at scientific conferences, also with peer committees. In one such study, my colleagues and I evaluated the effect of Bills C-51, C-17 and C-68 on homicide and suicide rates in Canada between 1974 and 2004.

First of all, our results show that the passing of Bill C-68 was associated with a significant decline in homicides committed with a firearm, and more specifically homicides involving long guns. This decline varies between 5% and 10%, depending on the province. This corresponds to the prevention of some 50 homicides a year in Canada.

The preventive effect of the law is all the more probable in that the decline in the number of homicides by long arm is not offset by an increase in homicides committed by other methods. Furthermore, this decline may be observed solely in homicides committed by long arm. Homicides committed with other weapons, such as knives and blunt instruments, have not budged. This means that the decline that may be attributed to Bill C-68 is indeed attributable and that it is not attributable to other factors or prevention measures put in place to prevent homicides.

Second, Bill C-68 was associated with a significant decline in suicides by firearm. Once again, there is no increase or decrease in the number of suicides committed by other methods. This suggests that the decline in suicides by firearm is not offset by a rise in suicides committed by other methods, and the decline is not attributable to other suicide prevention measures. We estimate at about 250 the number of suicides prevented annually in Canada since the introduction of the Firearms Act in 1998.

Recently, we conducted other evaluations, which consolidate our conclusions that Bill C-68 helped to reduce homicides and suicides. These recent results even suggest that Bill C-68 helped to prevent spousal homicides. The effects of Bill C-68 began to appear gradually from 1998, as the provisions of this legislation were implemented.

Many studies have now been conducted on the effect of Canadian legislation pertaining to firearms control. Why look at our results? How are our results more credible than those of other studies?

First, we take into account other factors, such as the proportion of young men, beer consumption, the number of police per inhabitant, incarceration rates and unemployment rates, to name but a few of other concomitant factors.

Second, we employ statistical methods enabling us to obtain valid estimates.

Third, we distinguish homicides according to the weapon used and the relationship between the parties. However, the chief advantage of our studies resides, in my opinion, in the use of the province as an analysis unit, which many studies do not do.

For example, in our latest study, we take account of the various homicide rates in the six Canadian provinces and the Atlantic region for the period from 1974 to 2006. That enables us to have a sample of 231 observations. This is a large enough sample to detect the effects of the laws. A simple sample of 30 or 35 observations would be completely inadequate, for lack of statistical strength.

In addition, this enables us to take into account provincial jurisdiction respecting law enforcement. Laws come into effect at the same time throughout Canada, but it is the provinces that are responsible for enforcing them. So any evaluation of the laws respecting firearms control in Canada must take this into account.

Finally, using the provinces as an analysis unit enables us to take into account crime rate variations among them. Canada in itself is not representative of the problems experienced in the provinces.

In conclusion, the results of our studies demonstrate that Bill C-68 has helped to prevent 300 deaths a year. On the basis of data on the direct and indirect costs of deaths by firearm, we estimate that over $400 million a year is saved in costs from the prevention of those 300 deaths. This amount compares favourably with the $63 million dedicated annually to the operation of the Canadian Firearms Program and the $9.1 million dedicated to registration activities, according to the RCMP report.

On the basis of our results, we think that eliminating the firearms registry may compromise the health and safety of Canadians. The requirements to obtain a firearms licence and to register firearms are two necessary and complementary measures. These measures allow us to link each firearm to its owner...

[Heidi Rathjen, Spokesperson, Students and Graduates of Polytechnique for Gun Control]

Good morning. I will continue in English.

Up until now, the debate surrounding Bill C-19 has mainly focused on the registration of guns. However, the impacts of this legislation reach well beyond the issue of registration.

For example, clause 11 eliminates the requirement to keep any record of the transaction involving long guns. This means that there won't be any more paper or electronic traces indicating that a sale has taken place. There are more than 1.5 million of these private sales in about two years.

The requirement to record sales was introduced in 1977 and, in the absence of a more effective centralized registry, was at least able to serve the public safety by helping police in some criminal investigations. For example, sales records allowed police to identify the perpetrator of the Polytechnique shooting, who was unrecognizable, having shot himself in the face.

So unless a store voluntarily keeps a detailed sales record, there will no longer be any trail linking a seller to a buyer or to a gun that was sold, nor will there be any trace indicating that the sale took place. The sales will be taking place in the dark.

Bill C-19 will also critically weaken a second crucial component of gun control: the controls on ownership or licensing.

When in 2006 the Conservative government tabled Bill C-21, an earlier attempt to abolish the registry, it nevertheless recognized the importance of verifying the validity of a licence to own when selling or transferring a gun--any gun. In the accompanying fact sheet, the Conservatives reassured the public that the proposed amendment would still “require current owners to verify that a potential purchaser or another new owner of their non-restricted firearm has a valid firearms license by contacting the Chief Firearms Officer”. It stated, “This measure will assist in ensuring that guns do not end up in the hands of individuals who shouldn’t have them, such as convicted criminals”.

Yet clause 11 also repeals the obligation for anyone selling or transferring a long gun, whether it is a gun store or a private individual, to verify the validity of the buyer's licence. All they have to do is have “no reason to believe that the transferee is not authorized to acquire and possess that kind of firearm”. Technically, they don't even have to ask to see a licence.

In order to properly understand the implications of this incredible loophole, consider this. Someone about to purchase a long gun can simply hold out something that looks like a licence. It could be a revoked licence, a counterfeit licence, or even a shabby but slightly official-looking plasticized card that could be produced in any copy shop.

With Bill C-19, there would be no obligation for the seller to check the validity of the licence with the Firearms Centre or to record anything about the licence, its number, the rifle being sold, or the person he is selling it to. He just has to believe that the owner is authorized to own a gun. The buyer can convince the seller: “I promise that I have a licence”. Is that enough?

In the event that the rifle is used in a crime, it will be practically impossible to hold accountable the person who sold the gun to an individual without a licence. All the person has to say is: “Yes, I sold a gun to someone. I seem to remember that he or she had a valid licence. At least, I believed he or she did at the time, but I didn't verify its validity or write down the licence number or the buyer's name”. There is no technical violation of the law unless the police can prove that this person didn't believe something.

[Nathalie Provost, Students and Graduates of Polytechnique for Gun Control]

Hello. Thank you to all of you for inviting us to appear before this committee.

My name is Nathalie Provost, I am an engineer, a 1990 graduate of the École Polytechnique, and a mother of four. I represent, with Heidi Rathjen, the Student and Graduate Student Associations of the Polytechnique, the board of the Alumni Association, and many witnesses and survivors of the massacre and their families.

I was injured on December 6, 1989, at the École Polytechnique by a shot with a semi-automatic rifle while other more seriously wounded students died around me. Long guns are dangerous, as I know only too well. The shootings at our school triggered a Canada-wide movement to improve our gun control laws. The massacre highlighted the weaknesses in Canadian legislation.

At the time, it was relatively easy for a 16-year-old to be authorized to acquire an unlimited number of firearms. There were millions of long guns in the country that were invisible to the police. Soon after the murders, students at the École Polytechnique launched a huge petition calling for stricter gun control.

In 22 years, we have been able to contribute to impressive legislative and public progress, particularly with respect to the substantial decline in gun-related death and suicide rates. When Conservative politicians argue that long guns are not a problem because they are not the weapon of choice for criminals, they are ignoring the evidence and basic common sense.

The Supreme Court underscored what is obvious to all but the Conservatives. Guns cannot be divided neatly into two categories -- those that are dangerous and those that are not dangerous. All guns are capable of being used in crime. All guns are capable of killing and maiming. It follows that all guns pose a threat to public safety.

Out of respect for the memory of victims of long guns, including the 14 victims at the École Polytechnique, and out of compassion for all those who, like me, have felt the burn of a gunshot, could you, Conservative Members of Parliament, stop pretending that long guns are not a crime-related problem?

In fact, every year, police revoke the licences of over 2,000 potentially dangerous individuals and confiscate the weapons in their possession. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews recently admitted to the House of Commons that in a little over two years, 4,612 long guns were seized in connection with licences revoked for public safety reasons. In all, 111,000 firearms are currently in police custody, of which 87,000, or close to 80%, are long guns.

These actions, supported by the registry, prevent tragedies and save lives. Which ones exactly? We don't know -- because they haven't taken place. No massacres, no headlines, no list of names of people saved. When prevention measures work, there are no incidents to document. Just don't try and tell us that the registry is not effective.

In 11 days, it will be the 22nd anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre, in which I was injured and escaped death. So it is with a very heavy heart that I am witnessing the legislative process leading to the dismantling of one of the few positive outcomes of this tragedy: the law that helps save hundreds and hundreds of lives.

With Bill C-19, we are allowing the gun lobby to dictate the kind of society we want to live in, a society that is irreversibly going backwards towards easier access to firearms, which will doubtless lead to more lives and families being destroyed with the pull of a trigger.

[Dr. Gary Mauser, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, and fellow panellists. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you.

I am Gary Mauser, professor emeritus, SFU. I am here as an individual criminologist to present facts, not myths. I will use my time to highlight a few issues referred to in the longer written brief that I have provided to the clerk.

For the past 25 years as an academic criminologist, I have focused on evaluating firearms legislation. The government is to be congratulated for proposing that the long-gun registry be eliminated. When a government program has failed to meet its goals, it should be shut down rather than permitted to drain funds for no good reason.

In my brief address, I will hit four points. First, responsible gun owners are less likely to be accused of homicide than other Canadians. Second, the police have not been able to demonstrate the value of the long-gun registry. Third, the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing homicide. Fourth, the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed.

My first point is that law-abiding gun owners are less likely to be accused of homicide than other Canadians. This should not surprise. Firearms owners have been screened for criminal records since 1979, and it has been illegal since 1992 for people with a violent record to own a firearm.

Gun owners may be compared with other Canadians by calculating homicide rates per 100,000 people. Based on a special request from Statistics Canada, I calculated that licensed gun owners had a homicide rate of 0.6 persons per 100,000 licensed gun owners, while over the same time period there was an average national homicide rate of 1.85 per 100,000 people; thus, Canadians who do not have a firearms licence are roughly three times more likely to commit murder than those who do.

Despite these facts, the RCMP budgets more than $20 million annually for the long-gun registry.

The second point is that the police have not been able to demonstrate the value of the long-gun registry. Scrapping the registry could not appreciably compromise law enforcement's ability to trace firearms. Statistics show that the police recover registered long guns in exceptionally few homicides.

During the eight years from 2003 to 2010, there were 4,811 homicides, and 1,485 of those involved firearms. Data provided by Statistics Canada reveal that only 135 of these guns were registered. In just 73 cases, that is, fewer than 5% of all firearm homicides, was the gun registered to the accused, and some of those, of course, may be innocent. Only 45 of these 73 cases involved long guns--fewer than 1% of all homicides. The long-gun registry could not, therefore, significantly compromise law enforcement's ability to trace firearms.

The police have not been able to show that they have solved a single murder by tracing a firearm using the long-gun registry. Nor has the long-gun registry proved useful in solving police killings. Since 1961, 123 police have been shot and killed. Only one of these murders involved a registered long gun, and it did not belong to the murderer. It is a truism that the most dangerous criminals have not registered their firearms. Unsurprisingly, serving police officers say the registry is not useful to them.

Worse, the long-gun registry has reduced the effectiveness of the police by driving a wedge between them and responsible citizens who own firearms.

My third point is that the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing homicide rates. There is no convincing evidence that the registry has reduced criminal violence. Not a single refereed academic study by criminologists or economists has found a significant benefit from the gun laws.

Two examples illustrate this: the homicide rate fell faster before long guns were required to be registered, and the homicide rate fell faster in the U.S. than in Canada over the same time period of 1991 to 2010. Needless to say, the U.S. did not share Canada's gun laws. Also, the rate of multiple murders has not changed since the long-gun registry began.

The fourth point is that the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed. The many errors and omissions in the long-gun registry vitiate its utility for police and courts. The Auditor General twice found that the RCMP could not rely upon the registry on account of the large number of errors and omissions.

In closing, I wish to thank you for your attention and leave you with a few thoughts.

The long-gun registry is misdirected because it focuses on law-abiding citizens rather than violent criminals. To do their job, police require the support of those they police. Ending the registry will help to heal the rupture between the police and responsible citizens. I urge that BillC-19 become law and the data in the long-gun registry be destroyed.

By the way, there is clearly precedent for destroying such data. During World War II, all guns, including long guns, were registered. After the war, this information was discarded in the trash bin as no longer of value or utility.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Good morning. This is meeting number 14 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Thursday, November 24, 2011, and for our orders of the day, we have Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

We will be hearing witnesses this morning.

I should say just before we begin that we had an agreement among all parties that these sessions would be televised. There was a competition for resources on the Hill this morning. There are only two rooms that can televise at the same time, and the common phrase is that we came third, so this session unfortunately will not be televised.

Yes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Bill C-19.

[Kenneth Epps]

Thank you.

In response to the first question about a potential new system to meet Canada's obligations, clearly something will be needed, if Bill C-19 is passed, for Canada to meet existing obligations, some of which are political rather than legal, and that's a point to be made. But as I pointed out, it will make it difficult for Canada to ratify conventions that are already in existence that have been ratified by other states in the hemisphere and worldwide that are important instruments for dealing with illicit trafficking of firearms. These instruments have been developed by states based on the understanding that to deal with trafficking of firearms one has to have good systems in place for legal firearms. I'm not sure if an entirely new system is going to be needed, but something definitely will be needed to fill those gaps if Canada is to meet its commitments.

With regard to the arms trade treaty, I quite deliberately did not mention it in my remarks because it's yet to be a treaty. It's still in negotiation, so it's unknown what its commitments will be. But certainly the strong treaty that is desired by many states, and certainly by NGOs like Project Ploughshares and many states that suffer from illicit trafficking, will require all firearms to be covered by the treaty. The point to make here is that this is about transfers of firearms from one state to another. It's not about domestic ownership or internal transfers of firearms, but it would require commitments similar to things like CIFTA and other existing instruments. And it would require all firearms to be covered because under international law there are no distinctions.

I hope that answers your question.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to say to Mr. Norlock that I can sympathize. We have been treated as though we were

defenders of child molesters and lobbyists for criminals. So for it to be said or implied that you don't love your community: ouch.

However, the problem in this debate over the firearms registry is that the reality lies somewhere in the middle. No one in this room thinks that the long-gun registry is going to eliminate all conjugal violence or all individual deaths. It remains that it's a tool. Likewise, I have a hard time listening to arguments by people who don't think the registry serves any purpose. The reality lies somewhere in between.

Unfortunately, we are not dealing with a government that is prepared to listen to reasonable positions. We hear speeches from athletes like you, Ms. Thom, from police like Mr. Gayder and from hunters and, since the debate has been raging, we've known that some very minor amendments might succeed in reconciling all positions. Unfortunately this isn't the path the government has decided to take, and so we're struggling with Bill C-19.

I have a question for Mr. Epps.

I'm curious because sometimes governments create laws like this without having some type of long-term, overall, or further vision. They are so on their little thing that they want to correct and make the hunters and athletes happy that they forget we have some international obligations. Do you believe that Canada will have to introduce a new tracking system for firearms to meet international obligations because of Bill C-19?

Also, am I correct in saying that at the United Nations arms trade treaty preparatory meetings in July, the Government of Canada sought to include in the preamble of the treaty that small arms have certain legitimate civilian uses and to exclude sporting and hunting firearms for recreational use from the scope of the treaty? And would you agree that Canada's position misunderstands the purposes of the treaty and confuses legitimate ownership of legal guns with the arms trade that fuels conflicts around the world?

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd also like to thank our witnesses.

I want to make it known that I don't believe any member of Parliament around this table loves his wife or community, or cares about the people in those communities—whether they be women, children, or the disadvantaged—more than anyone else.

I take great exception when somebody says that someone's stand on a particular issue shows that he or she doesn't care about a certain segment of society. That tends to be the leftist way of arguing, often when their argument begins to lose.

I want it known that I respect everyone around this table. Just because some people don't agree with the stand that I and my party have taken doesn't mean they don't love their community as much as anyone else. So I took exception to Mr. Sandhu's preliminary statement. I hope we can get away from this business of “we care more about people than you do”. We just see things differently.

Ms. Thom, as a woman, wife, and mother, and as a gun expert and someone who knows the benefits and dangers surrounding the ownership of firearms, do you feel that Bill C-19 does away with your feeling of safety and security in your community?

[Constable John Gayder, Constable, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, sir, and thank you also for your very kind introduction earlier. I do need to clarify the fact that I'm here as an individual. I'm not here representing any agency.

I have reviewed the excellent testimony of Mr. Weltz, Mr. Grismer, Mr. Kuntz, Mr. Bernardo, and Mr. Farrant in relation to how expensive and ineffectual the long-gun registry is. I am in complete agreement with them.

The long-gun registry has become the symbolic focal point in the gun control debate. But it is really just one of many elements within the Firearms Act that are odious to law-abiding gun owners and a detriment to law enforcement.

The Firearms Act and its long-gun registry were marketed to law enforcement as a tool to target the criminal misuse of firearms, but only six of its 125 pages deal with increased penalties for criminals. The other 119 pages are aimed squarely at law-abiding Canadians who own or seek to own firearms. It is a political constant that people will only have respect for a legal system when the legal system has respect for them.

Of course, we're talking about the same Canadian citizens who went to war twice in the last century to successfully rescue Europe. It was Canadian farm boys and hunters who especially showed that the firearms skills they had learned at home, at high school gun clubs, and in the woods were useful in defending freedom. In doing so, these citizen soldiers showed the awesome content of our national character. At the time, firearms ownership was a natural and respected element of our national makeup.

Unfortunately, by the 1990s, we were told by the Coalition for Gun Control and other groups that Marc Lépine now defined our national character. Canadian citizens who wanted to possess firearms were to now be treated as potentially ticking time bombs.

How did that happen? How did we as a nation allow our national character to be defined by a single madman?

Canadians are great people. Sure, there are occasional, rare, and bitterly unpleasant problems. But the idea of using these abominations to instruct how we govern our entire good nation is foreign to the historical traditions—being innocent until proven guilty, trusting in our fellow man—that have made our nation great. If the human race were really as homicidally inclined as the Firearms Act treats them, we would have been extinct eons ago.

Peace officers could not do their jobs, nor would they want to, if the vast majority of Canadians were not good people deep down. What would be the point? Disgusting, misogynist kooks like Marc Lépine need to be captured alive and brought before the courts. If that's not possible, it is wrong to honour them by creating expensive and ineffective laws that insult good people. When we think of Marc Lépine, we must not allow ourselves to succumb to dismal prejudices that if not checked would instruct us to treat everyone as a pre-criminal.

In World War II, Canada registered and confiscated firearms belonging to Canadians of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry. We subjected their homes to warrantless searches, just like those found in the Firearms Act. Recently we have been very careful to prevent committing similar injustices in the war on terror. Yet we have submitted Canadian firearms owners to the same type of treatment. In fact, today, convicted pedophiles and bank robbers are not even subject to the kinds of intrusions visited upon gun owners by the Firearms Act.

Some of the groups subjected to the wartime registrations and confiscations based on hysteria have received official government apologies. I'll submit to you that a case can be made that Canadian firearms owners are also owed an apology for being the victims of unwarranted suspicion. Bill C-19 is a good start down that road.

With regard to the long-gun registry being useful for enforcing prohibitions or for removing weapons from the home of a dangerous spouse, the registry should never be trusted as an accurate inventory or checklist. A home in which the threat of violence is real still needs to be checked for weapons as if the registry never existed, because real or potential weapons beyond what are contained in the registry could exist in that home.

You'll remember that we've heard a lot about the errors and omissions in the registry. It's the information not in the registry that is the most dangerous. Gang members and other sociopaths don't register their guns, so the registry is useless when visiting their homes or stopping their cars.

Supporters of the registry claim it is a useful tool for alerting officers to the presence of a firearm in a home, but what are the responding officers to do with that information? Even the smallest-calibre firearm represents a potentially large danger area. When responding to a call, it's still going to require a patrol officer to go up the front steps to find out what is going on in that home, either through conversation with the participants or through direct observation. At that distance, those conversational distances, they could be stabbed or clubbed in an ambush almost as easily as they could be shot. This is the same way officers have been doing business since before the registry. The registry changes nothing.

I'll close by stating that front-line officers, the ones who are at the interface where the laws created by Parliament get applied to the public, want Parliament's attention. They want funding to go toward things that have been proven to assist in the detection and apprehension of real criminals. They don't want money wasted on dreamy, ivory tower ideas like the long-gun registry, which are costly, ineffective, and drive a corrosive wedge between them and the public they are sworn to protect.

Thank you.

[Kenneth Epps, Senior Program Officer, Project Ploughshares]

Thank you.

Thank you for the invitation to address the standing committee on Bill C-19. As you heard, my name is Ken Epps and I am the senior program officer at Project Ploughshares, which is a project of the Canadian Council of Churches on peace building and disarmament issues and is based in Waterloo, Ontario.

My statement today will focus on the international dimensions of Bill C-19, in particular on the implications of the act for Canada’s international commitments related to reducing and eliminating firearms trafficking and on Canada’s controls for the export of firearms to other states.

Every UN member state recognizes that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons is a widespread and persistent problem. This is because international arms trafficking coincides with and supports other illegal activities, such as drug and human trafficking, and it feeds lethal violence worldwide. In spite of a general global decline in the number and lethality of armed conflicts, the devastation from criminal, urban, domestic, and other forms of violence persists and is even growing in many states. The authoritative 2011 publication, Global Burden of Armed Violence, estimates that more than half a million people die each year as a result of violence.

In the past decade and a half, Canada has actively supported the development of several regional and global agreements designed to establish international laws and norms to reign in the illicit trade in small arms. I would like to briefly mention four of the most important of these agreements for which Canada will not be able to meet core commitments as a result of Bill C-19.

Canada signed the CIFTA firearms convention of the Organization of American States in 1997. CIFTA is a hemispheric, legally binding agreement to tackle illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms and related materials. Canada has yet to ratify the treaty, largely because it cannot meet CIFTA requirements for marking of firearms imports. The elimination of registration of non-restricted weapons under Bill C-19 will mean that Canada also cannot meet record-keeping and exchange of information requirements of CIFTA, especially those related to international tracing requests. This means that Canada will not soon become party to the most important anti-firearms trafficking agreement of the Americas. Only three other OAS states have failed to ratify CIFTA, including the U.S., where President Obama has called on the U.S. Congress to pass the treaty into law.

Canada also has signed, but not ratified, the firearms protocol of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which entered into force in 2005. The protocol contains provisions similar to CIFTA, and for the same reasons, Bill C-19 will likely condemn Canada to not be party to the protocol for some time. This is despite the fact that at the recent Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Australia, Prime Minister Harper agreed to the outcome document that called on all Commonwealth states to ratify and implement all the protocols of the UN crime convention.

The third agreement, the 2001 UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons, is arguably the pre-eminent global agreement on small arms and light weapons. It was agreed upon by consensus at the United Nations and calls on all states to prevent, combat, and eradicate small arms trafficking by strengthening national, regional, and global legal systems. Canada, like all other UN member states, is politically bound to implement its provisions. At the national level, the Programme of Action calls on each state to implement provisions related to improving national standards and in particular “to ensure that comprehensive and accurate records are kept for as long as possible on the manufacture, holding and transfer of small arms and light weapons under their jurisdiction.” The elimination of registration requirements for non-restricted firearms by Bill C-19 will mean that Canada cannot meet this commitment and others in the Programme of Action.

Finally, as an additional product of the Programme of Action process, the UN international tracing instrument was agreed to by the UN General Assembly in 2005.

ITI provisions also include commitments to keep accurate and comprehensive records for all small arms and light weapons in their jurisdiction. Bill C-19 will create a significant hole in Canada's firearms record keeping that will reduce Canada's ability to participate in international cooperation on firearms tracing.

Bill C-19 will have an impact on the Canadian implementation of each of these four international instruments. At a time when the emerging international norms on firearms trafficking require more cooperation among states, based on greater firearms accountability by states, Bill C-19 will open significant gaps in Canadian commitments.

State partners will conclude that Canada has withdrawn support for strong regional and global action on firearms trafficking and on the proliferation and misuse of small arms. Canada's influence in multilateral small arms forums will be weakened accordingly.

I would like to conclude my remarks with a few words and a question about Bill C-19 and Canada's export controls. Canada's control of military exports governed by the Export and Import Permits Act is important to the practice of foreign policy and international security. Canadian export control guidelines call for the close control of military exports to states that are strategically or legally problematic for Canada. Bill C-19 does not refer to the Export and Import Permits Act, and consequently, in principle, regulations and procedures for Canadian firearms exports should be unaltered. Firearms, including non-restricted firearms, are included in items 2-1 and 2-2 of the group 2 military goods within the export control list.

[Daniel McNeely]

Yes. I was going to add to that, Mr. Leef. I also understand where my northern colleagues are coming from. But by the same token, we shouldn't mix with the amendment process, or the direction to amend domestic violence, in saying that this is the way it is. Maybe there's a reason for the registry being accessed or used in the Northwest Territories. Let's take one out of ten. I would probably say nine times out of ten the registry is being used for domestic violence, as you were saying. In our part of the world I think it's more an education than opening the issue of amending Bill C-19.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

You're the Information Commissioner. We know about the Federal Court decision in the Bronskill case. I thought we were heading towards more open government when it came to information. Information should be public and retained. There's a lot of talk about transparency.

Doesn't it worry you, as the Information Commissioner, that a bill like C-19 should be passed and that all the rules of access to information should be changed? It's one way of looking at it. It seems somewhat inconsistent with what we're always trying to do, namely to be as transparent as possible. We're destroying instead of retaining. Doesn't that worry you a little, in terms of your role as Information Commissioner?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you.

Please excuse my being late. A lot of things are going on at the same time on this Hill, particularly with regard to Bills C-10 and C-19.

My questions will focus mainly on one extremely worrisome aspect, which you have spoken about. You are worried about the fact that enforcement of sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act is being overridden. I have read the document you submitted to us, and I'd like it if you could explain to us further.

Do you think that Bill C-19 contradicts section 67 of the Access to Information Act? Under this section, no one can destroy, mutilate or alter a record. Do you also think this is so for sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act? I think I know what your answer will be. Do you think there will be grounds for a legal challenge?

[Ann Decter, Director, Advocacy and Public Policy, YWCA Canada]

Good morning.

As you know, I'm Ann Decter, and I'm the director of advocacy and public policy at YWCA Canada. I'm here today with my colleague, Lyda Fuller, who is the executive director of YWCA Yellowknife, and has obviously travelled a long way to speak with you.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our concerns with Bill C-19, which would end the long-gun registry; erase registration records for over seven million firearms; allow unrestricted firearms to be purchased without licence verification or point of sale registration; and eliminate registry-generated warnings about stockpilings of weapons. These will have very serious consequences for women experiencing violence in this country.

YWCA Canada is the nation's largest single provider of shelter to women and children fleeing violence. Every year, 100,000 women and children leave their homes seeking emergency shelter. Almost 20,000 of them come through the doors of our 31 shelters looking for safety, for a roof over their heads, and for some care and some support.

Our shelters tell us that the long-gun registry is useful and needed. Our rural shelters—and those include Sudbury, Brandon, Prince Albert, Lethbridge, Peterborough, Saskatoon, Banff, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit—tell us that police consult the long-gun registry every time they go to a domestic violence incident, not automatic checks, but deliberate and specific searches for firearms in the home, especially long guns.

There is unanimous support for the registry among service providers working in violence against women. In every province and territory, the shelter and transition house association supports the long-gun registry. Why? Because shotguns and rifles are the guns most commonly used in spousal homicides, and especially when women are the victims—not handguns, but shotguns and rifles.

Ending violence against women, which is a goal of YWCA Canada, will require much more from Canadians than willingness to complete a registration form in order to own a hunting rifle.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who spoke to this committee last week, has described the long-gun registry as providing “a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege and the broader right of the society to be safe”. What hangs in that balance is the safety of women and children.

Thank you.

Lyda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome. This is meeting number 13 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Tuesday, November 22, 2011. Today we are continuing our study of Bill C-19, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

I will remind our committee that we will try to keep each of the next two hours to 55 minutes each so we can have 10 minutes at the close for committee business to deal with Mr. Chicoine's motion. Hopefully the transition between the two meetings can be very quick so we can give proper attention to Mr. Chicoine's motion.

We will begin by hearing from the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, Ms. Suzanne Legault, Information Commissioner. We welcome you here. It's always good to have you before the committee.

From YWCA Canada we have Ann Decter, director of advocacy and public policy. We also have Lyda Fuller, the executive director of the YWCA Yellowknife.

Appearing as an individual we have Daniel McNeely. From 1998 to 2006 he was involved with Northwest Territories Business Development and Investment Corporation. He has travelled northern Canada extensively.

We have three presenters here this morning. One was unable to make it, so we will stretch it out and give you a little more time. We've been giving about seven minutes to each one. As long as we're done before nine or ten minutes, we should be all right.

Madame Legault, we look forward to your comments.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

We have a budget. You have a copy of the budget. I have to go to the Liaison Committee on Thursday, I think, when they meet next. Have you all had the opportunity to take a very quick look at it? It's standard. The total package is for $69,900 for the study on Bill C-19.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Ms. Cukier, the minister came before the committee. I thought he said that--even with Bill C-19--store owners would still be required to keep records of who they sold guns to. I reread the testimony and he didn't actually say that. He kind of skated around it.

But the point has been made that Bill C-19 will not remove that requirement, so there is some confusion around it. I'd like to get your opinion about that.

[Cst Randall Kuntz]

I agree with Bill C-19. It's a good start.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

So you disagree with Bill C-19, I guess, because you wish it would go on for everything....

[Donald Weltz, As an Individual]

I would like to thank the chair and the members of the committee for allowing me to appear before you today.

My name is Donald Weltz. I come before you in support of Bill C-19, an Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

I will attempt to briefly outline my introduction to firearms and my enforcement background so that you have a more informed understanding of my experience with long guns.

As was stated earlier, I retired in 2007 with 32 years of service as an Ontario conservation officer with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and was named officer of the year in 2007.

I have owned long guns since I was 12 years of age. I was instructed in the safe use and handling of those guns by a police sergeant with the Kitchener Police Department, as it was known then, and by a World War II vet who was a lifelong friend and father figure for me over the past 46 years until his passing in February 2009. I also hunt, although as I get older I find that I spend less time hunting.

My primary duty throughout my 32-year career as an Ontario conservation officer was fish and wildlife law enforcement. I was issued with and I carried a side arm as part of my uniform and was required to qualify yearly in its use. I was trained in the powers of search, seizure, arrest, and the use of force, similar to the Ontario Provincial Police. In 1975 I attended the Ontario Police College in Aylmer, Ontario, for my basic enforcement training.

Throughout my career as a conservation officer I have personally checked thousands of long guns being used by hunters in the field, and I have been required to search under warrant numerous homes and other buildings to secure evidence of crimes. These searches included buildings located in isolated bush areas in remote parts of the province, and dwellings, outbuildings, and commercial buildings in rural and urban areas.

I can tell you that the registration of long guns did not make my job as a conservation officer safer. It doesn’t matter whether as an officer you search one house in your career or 2,000; the legal requirements are the same, and the possibility of violence and resistance from the occupier of the building you are about to search is always present. To go into a search with a semi-complacent attitude, believing that there are no guns present--and thereby being left with a perceived diminished risk to your safety and that of your fellow officers because a check of the firearms database has indicated there are no guns registered to the individual at that location--can be a deadly mistake.

As an officer, I was trained to expect the unexpected. I preferred to enter situations relying on my training, my fellow officers, and my heightened awareness of what might be waiting for me. An officer who enters a building in a search situation and who lets his or her guard down as a result of relying on information relayed to the officer that there are no firearms registered at that location is placing himself or herself and others in a dangerous situation.

Although as a conservation officer I had the ability to run checks through the firearms data centre, I can only remember doing so once or twice, and those were on occasions when I was trying to determine whether the hunter I had stopped for a routine check legally owned a specific firearm in the hunter's possession.

Similarly, the registering of long guns does nothing to increase the safety of the public. The fact that a long gun has been registered does not prohibit that firearm from being used by an individual with criminal intent. It is not the long gun that commits the criminal act, but the individual in control of that long gun who has spontaneously, or through deliberate and premeditated intent, taken it upon himself or herself to carry out a criminal act.

How does the registration of a long gun stop someone in a fit of rage induced by drugs, alcohol, or a nervous breakdown from going to the locked gun cabinet, unlocking it, taking out that registered firearm, removing the trigger lock, loading it, and hunting down and shooting the people he believes are responsible for his problems? The act of registering long guns does not stop this type of situation.

I have heard people ask why individuals would be upset with registering their long guns. We have to register our vehicles, they say, so what's the difference? In looking at that analogy of registering your vehicles, I would ask this question: has the fact of registering our vehicles reduced the number of impaired drivers? In an impaired driving situation, is the vehicle the problem or is it the driver who decided to drive while their ability was impaired with alcohol?

To the best of my knowledge, I do not know of any criminal who has registered their firearm knowing that they intend to use that firearm during the commission of an offence. Long guns, as their name suggests, are just that: long guns. They are not the weapon of choice of criminals because they cannot be concealed easily. Long guns are typically used by hunters, target shooters, and farmers, who generally are regarded as law-abiding citizens.

As for the destruction of firearms records upon removal of the long-gun registry, I am in favour of that data being destroyed, as there will be no legitimate reason to keep it when the long-gun registry is repealed. The police already have driver's licence and vehicle registration information on file for millions of individuals in Canada.

Of all the tragedies that have occurred in Canada involving firearms, did the firearm actually commit the offence, or was it the person in possession of the firearm who caused those devastating events that changed so many lives?

In conclusion, I believe that firearms owners should be licensed and that firearms should be stored safely, which will go a long way towards reducing careless or accidental firearm incidents. I also believe that the registration of long guns in the current registration system is costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year and is doing absolutely nothing to make our police or the public safer. Therefore, I would ask this government to repeal the long-gun registry.

Thank you again for this opportunity.

[Mathieu Murphy-Perron]

When the votes were read, we were deeply saddened to see that the Conservative Party's elected representatives had laughed in the faces of mothers who had lost their children because of gun-related violence.

We know that Canadians don't like this type of governance. We hope that this committee will agree to undertake a careful and lengthy study to better analyze the potential consequences of Bill C-19 before referring it for a third and final reading without any amendments.

We thank you for your time and would be more than happy to answer any questions from the committee members.

[Mathieu Murphy-Perron, Executive Director, Dawson Student Union]

Some people may say that the required debate took place, since previous incarnations of the bill have been before Parliament. However, those incarnations did not contain measures that would eliminate the mandatory licence verification for individuals who buy weapons and the mandatory keeping of firearm sales records by vendors. Those two measures date back to 1977.

They are healthy and rational measures. Doing away with them quickly, in the wake of the debate on the long-arm registry, is very worrisome, especially considering the limited debate the government held on this bill.

We at the Dawson Student Union are used to hearing the tired old argument that the registry did not stop the shooting from taking place at our school. We tell cynics that it's precisely because we were victims of violence caused by firearms that we are deeply interested in working with all levels of government on improving the current system and reducing the risk of future shootings.

Consider the following. In the months preceding the shooting at our school, Kimveer Gill tried to join the Canadian Forces. He was rejected because of mental instability. If licence security control had included the information exchanged between our military forces and the registry, Mr. Gill's file would have been flagged and the events of September 13, 2006, might have never happened.

When our laws let us down, we mustn't just shrug and accept defeat. Our collective responsibility is to find the holes in the system and fill them. Students know that. Students also know that it is better to fix and improve than to forget and set aside. Elected representatives should know that as well. They mustn't let themselves be guided by ideology alone. They have a moral responsibility to strengthen the programs society has paid for.

All Canadians have paid for the registry. Quebec has paid for it. Quebec sees the registry as an integral part of its pacifist values. On three occasions, Quebec's National Assembly voted unanimously to keep the registry data in order to facilitate the creation of its own provincial system. Every elected representative of the Quebec nation voted to keep the long-gun registry.

Why does the federal government seem to think that it has the power to refuse a national assembly the information paid for by its constituents?

Even the handful of Quebec's Conservative MPs have at times spoken out in support of Quebec's right to keep the registry. The federal government has no reason to deny Quebec its portion of the data it has paid for. The cost of maintaining the current registry is less than $4 million dollars a year, or 15¢ per Canadian.

At Dawson College, a survey was conducted 18 months after the September 13 shooting. Almost 1,000 individuals took part in that survey. Fifty percent of the respondents said they had heard gunshots, 54% hid during the shooting, 35% witnessed an injury or murder, 13% saw the shooter and, finally, 24 people helped an injured person.

Eighteen per cent of those asked showed signs of developing psychological problems after the shooting. Those problems ranged from post-traumatic stress disorder to social phobia, from alcohol dependence to suicidal tendencies.

A number of participants also said they had attempted suicide in the 18 months following the shooting. Those people are students, professors, administrators, and cafeteria and maintenance staff. They are all real people who were left with very deep, sometimes permanent, scars after the September 13 events.

We are talking about thousands of adolescents who will forever live with the memory of bullets whistling through their school's hallways. We are talking about hundreds of students with the image of the shooter running through their school etched into their memory. We are talking about dozens of people who helped get their blood-covered schoolmates out on the morning of September 13.

The lives that were lost and scarred by that event need not have been in vain. If the registry can help save one more life or help one less person be affected, is it not worth keeping?

With such a low operating cost, why do anything but try to improve the system?

We have had productive discussions with the members of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party. They all have very interesting ideas on how to improve this registry to better serve all Canadians.

We understand that some Canadians have doubts about the program's usefulness. We understand that some of them see registering their firearms as a difficult and complicated task. We extend our hand to you with an open mind, so that we can find common ground.

We were there when the vote was taken to refer Bill C-19 to this committee.

[Audrey Deveault, Chairperson, Dawson Student Union]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Audrey Deveault, and I chair the student union of Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec. The union represents 10,500 students.

As students, we are encouraged to show curiosity, criticism, respect and involvement in terms of the world around us. We are taught that this is the foundation of a functional society.

On September 13, the fifth anniversary of the shooting at our school, we tried to get an audience with the Prime Minister in order to discuss his government's plan regarding the long-gun registry.

We had hoped that, as the Prime Minister, he would show a willingness to meet with us, his electors. Our invitation, phone calls and e-mails were ignored. We were not refused an audience; we were completely ignored. The way the government is rushing the passing of Bill C-19 and all the other bills is very worrisome.

At school, we are taught to be mindful and understanding. Yet, our elected representatives are exhibiting a closed and narrow-minded vision. We feel that society benefits more from a government that consultants individuals and groups.

A country cannot be governed for four years based on the platform of a three-week election campaign. We are worried by our government's refusal to hear from just over 300 groups that have data to share about the effectiveness of the long-gun registry.

We are worried by our government's blatant disregard for reports from doctors, nurses, psychologists and law enforcement officers.

We are worried by the fact that our government prefers to orchestrate a war that sows discord among Canadians, rather than to help us find common ground.

We are worried by the fact that, not only is our government refusing to talk to Canadians, but it is also using procedure to try to silence the opposition parties and its elected colleagues.

In light of the way the government is dealing with bills C-10 and C-19—coupled with the suppression of Statistics Canada and the elimination of the long-form census—we, as students, have a hard time holding back our skepticism when our elected representatives chose to govern blindly.

Statistics, research and science should be the pillars upon which policies are built. Students are urging all elected representatives to distance themselves from political games whose goal is to silence all those who do not agree with the ideologies of a controlling and power-hungry individual.

Do the right thing. Don't agree to pass Bill C-19 quickly so that it becomes law. Give yourselves and your voters the opportunity to thoroughly study Bill C-19 and its repercussions on public health. You were elected to listen, debate and be open to discussion.

Please, keep in mind that the country's students and youth are watching you and looking up to you for guidance on how society should work. Keep that in mind that over the coming days, months and years.

[Professor Wendy Cukier, President, Coalition for Gun Control]

Thanks very much.

I'll try to be brief because I want to save some time for my colleague, Dr. Barbara Kane, to speak.

The Coalition for Gun Control is a non-profit organization. It was founded more than 20 years ago. Its position on firearms regulation has been supported by more than 300 public safety and community organizations across the country. We maintain that Canada's Firearms Act as it is written is an important piece of our national strategy to prevent gun crime and injury and to support law enforcement, and considerable research has shown that effective regulation of firearms is linked to reductions in firearm homicide, suicide, accidents, and crime.

In our opinion, the amendments contained in Bill C-19 will put Canadian lives at risk. Like previous legislation aimed at ending the requirement that individuals register their non-restricted firearms--guns that include the powerful semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14, which was used in the Montreal massacre, as well as sniper rifles, including some .50 calibre variants--this bill will allow a licensed individual to acquire an unlimited number of guns without even checking if their licence is valid, which was an important improvement in the 1995 legislation. There will also be no means of knowing who owns these guns, who sold them, and how many are owned.

There will be no way to trace a gun recovered at the scene of a crime back to its original owner. We are losing not only an important public safety tool, but an important investigative tool.

Briefly, registering all non-restricted firearms to their legal owners is key to the effectiveness of our gun control policy, because these guns are used in homicides, suicides, and unintentional injury. They account for a substantial proportion of firearms recovered in crimes and for the majority of guns used in the murder of women, in suicides, and in the murder of police officers. It isn't just an urban issue, as you will hear from Dr. Kane, and it's important to emphasize that the registration provisions in the legislation reinforce the licensing provisions by reducing the chances that legal gun owners will divert their firearms to unlicensed owners.

The link between the licensing of firearm owners and the registration of firearms was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in its unanimous decision on the Firearms Act in the year 2000. The firearm registry has demonstrably helped remove firearms from dangerous individuals. It was also significant in aiding police investigations, including the prosecution of two men as accessories to the murder of four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alberta.

In Canada, the rates of firearm death and injury have fallen dramatically with successively stronger firearm regulation, and the costs of maintaining the registration of rifles and shotguns are dwarfed by the cost of gun death and injury.

However, Bill C-19 goes far beyond simply repealing elements of Bill C-68, the 1995 legislation. It removes critical measures that have been in place since 1977, including the following measures.

It eliminates the requirement that businesses keep a record of sales. In 1977, the government introduced the requirement that all gun transactions be recorded in firearm business records. Your legislation makes no requirement to reinstitute this.

It also eliminates the requirement that a firearms licence be verified when guns are purchased, increasing the chances that someone who is prohibited from owning firearms and represents a risk to public safety will be able to access guns.

Of particular concern is the fact that this legislation requires the erasing of the data on 7.1 million rifles and shotguns currently registered, in spite of the fact that the data is essential as an investigative tool for police officers. Several international treaties require that countries maintain these records.

We may not be able to prove exactly how many lives the registry has saved. We know for certain, however, that the firearms registry never killed anyone, and this legislation may in fact put Canadian lives at risk.

I would like to give my remaining time to Dr. Kane.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you very much.

Yes, I've followed this for quite some time, and I just want to comment on the previous exchange before I pose my question.

The many people who are watching this debate may find it confusing, because I think it has intentionally been made confusing by the people opposing Bill C-19. They confuse licensing and registration. Many of the benefits they attribute to the registry are actually from licensing, such as making sure that certain people who may have psychological problems don't have firearms. That's the result of the licensing system. I just want to clarify that, because many people watching this may not understand that.

I want to pose my questions to Ms. Larente and Ms. Cabrera.

Could you elaborate on your comments that this is a women's issue? The argument has often been made that this legislation, the registry, is needed to protect women. I hear that all the time. Could you please, maybe just briefly, comment on that?

[Robert Dutil, Minister of Public Security, Government of Quebec]

Thank you, sir.

I am very pleased to be here today for this presentation. Good morning to all the committee members.

I am going to go over the various positions on the firearms registry. We know that, since 2006, the Conservative government's position on the firearms registry has been very clear. It has presented several bills to abolish the non-restricted firearms registry many times. But it is important to understand that in Quebec, our position is also clear. We believe in a universal firearms registration system, which is very useful for crime prevention and police work. This position is also unanimously shared by all parliamentarians from Quebec, Quebec police organizations, organizations that work in public safety and security and the families of victims of tragedies in Quebec.

In addition to the Conservative government's firm position on abolishing the registry, the federal government has had an amnesty on the registry of long guns, which has been renewed every year since 2006 and has contributed to weakening the application of the Firearms Act.

Bill C-19, as presented and studied, is aimed not only at abolishing the firearm registry, but also at destroying all the data related to the registration of non-restricted firearms entered in the registry since it was created, something we deplore.

Bill C-19 is even a step back in terms of the rules that existed before the Firearms Act came into effect in 1998. Actually, before that time, there was an obligation for the merchant to keep a registry of their firearm inventory and information about the firearm sales transactions, including information on the purchaser. Bill C-19 does not provide for keeping this obligation in place. According to Bill C-19, when someone who wants to purchase a weapon enters the merchant's store, the merchant will no longer have to verify whether the purchaser has a firearm possession and acquisition licence, which we think is a major step backwards.

If I may, I would like to give you some historical background on the events. Since 1984, several Quebec families have experienced tragedies involving firearms. There was the attack in the National Assembly on May 8, 1984; the killing at the École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989; the shooting at Concordia University on August 24, 1992; and the tragedy at Dawson College on September 13, 2006.

Since these tragedies, we have strengthened our measures to exercise better control over firearms in Quebec and participated actively in drafting the Firearms Act, which came into effect on December 1, 1998, as you know. After the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec also adopted the Act to protect persons with regard to activities involving firearms and modifying the Act respecting safety in sports, an act that was called “Anastasia's Law”, in memory of Anastasia De Sousa, a student who died during that incident.

Quebec has also put in place operational measures, which has included strengthening the Sûreté du Québec's cybersurveillance and monitoring unit. It implemented a joint unit against firearms smuggling. But it wasn't enough. The firearm registry is an essential tool for police investigations and interventions. According to the latest statistics from 2011, the registry is queried over 700 times a day by police officers in Quebec, not just automatically—I'd like to clarify—but through a voluntary query by police officers who need this tool.

Consulting the registry helps the police make informed decisions during their operations, particularly by making it possible for police to establish the number and type of weapons that the targets of interventions have, and to subsequently intervene.

Querying the registry may also be the starting point for an investigation, when a firearm has been found at the crime scene, and helps to establish the chain of possession. So far, 1,560,359 non-restricted firearms have been registered by individuals in Quebec, or 91.2% of all firearms. Abolishing the registry means that we would lose track of these weapons.

Spousal abuse is a phenomenon in our society, and the registry also contributes to preventing tragedies and crimes against the person. In Quebec, between 2006 and 2010, we counted 264 incidents of spousal abuse involving rifles or shotguns. The statistics show that hunting weapons are used more often than handguns when it comes to spousal abuse. When the police enter these types of situation, consulting the registry lets them know quickly whether a violent spouse is in possession of any firearms.

As a result, the police can tailor their interventions or even remove them for preventive purposes.

As for suicides, statistics from the Institut national de santé publique du Québec show that, of the 650 suicides committed using a firearm reported in Quebec over a four-year period, 565 of them involved a non-restricted firearm, so close to 9 out of 10 suicides.

So the firearm registry is a very important tool for suicide prevention. Registering non-restricted firearms makes them less accessible to people who are likely to misuse them, individuals suffering from depression, for example.

It also contributes to protecting individuals with mental health problems and their loved ones. Universal registration enables the chief firearms officer of Quebec to determine whether the weapons are in the possession of people under an application for an order to confine them to an institution, or calling for a psychiatric assessment.

Under Anastasia's Law, the chief firearms officer is systematically informed of these applications. Between January 1, 2008 and November 1, 2011, 18,661 applications for orders were reported to him, and consultation of the registry made it possible to conduct more than 1,000 interventions to ensure the safety of persons. I am convinced that many lives were saved because of this. Abolishing the registry will limit the application of Anastasia's Law.

For all these reasons and many others that I do not have time to list, I would like to repeat that the government is against the abolition of the firearm registry.

We are in no way questioning the legitimacy of activities such as hunting or target shooting, when practised in compliance with the law. Rather, we aim to raise citizen awareness of the need and importance of registering their firearms, as they agree to register their other personal belongings.

I would also like to mention that, in most cases, it takes only three minutes to complete the registration.

To conclude, the Canadian firearm registry is of considerable importance for Quebec. All Canadians, including Quebeckers, have participated financially in the program.

For all the reasons mentioned, I am reiterating the Government of Quebec's position and am requesting that the firearms registry be maintained in its entirety and that failure to register non-restricted firearms be decriminalized.

Failing that, I ask that you amend Bill C-19 by removing the provisions relating to the destruction of information and begin discussions as soon as possible to transfer the information to Quebec, information that the citizens of Quebec have paid for.

If the registration of non-restricted firearms were to save just one life, from a moral standpoint, we would be justified in continuing our efforts to keep it. But we already know that the firearms registry has saved more than one life. It has saved many.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome.

I'm encouraged to see the amount of interest there is in our meeting here today, as is evident by the good attendance and also by the cameras and the media.

This is meeting number 12 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Thursday, November 17, 2011. Today we are continuing our study of the consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

In our first panel today, we will hear from Robert Dutil, Minister of Public Security, from the Government of Quebec.

Welcome to Ottawa and to our committee.

Also, from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we have Mario Harel, vice-president and chief of police, Gatineau Police Service; and Matthew Torigian, chief of police, Waterloo Regional Police Service. From the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, we have Tony Bernardo, executive director, and Diana Cabrera, administration manager. Also, from the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs, we have Hélène Laurente, volunteer coordinator of the women's hunting program.

Our committee wants to thank all of you for appearing before us today. I understand that each one of the groups or organizations you represent will have a member who will make the presentation to our committee, so we thank you for that. We're going to try to keep these to about seven or eight minutes. I'll let you know when we're at about that seven-and-a-half-minute mark so that we can get as many questions in as possible.

I would like to begin with the Minister of Public Security from the Government of Quebec.

Monsieur Dutil, please.

Firearms Registry

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated at committee earlier this morning, the analysis presented by this official is misleading. It is flawed. Contrary to the suggestion made in the analysis, neither Bill C-19 nor the prior bill removed any controls on the import of firearms.

The member is deliberately trying to paint a different picture than is actually true.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, that is rich coming from a member who voted against increasing penalties for those who imported firearms into this country illegally.

In respect of the analysis presented by the officials, it is misleading. It is flawed. Contrary to the suggestion made in the analysis, neither Bill C-19 nor the previous Bill C-391 remove any controls on the import of firearms.

Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all, and that is exactly what we are doing.

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer, Sergeant, As an Individual]

Mr. Chairman, honourable committee members, and fellow witnesses, it's an honour and a privilege to appear before you today to assist you in your deliberations regarding Bill C-19.

I'm a sergeant with the Saskatoon Police Service, with almost 25 years of service protecting the citizens of Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. I supervise a team of 10 constables, front-line men and women responsible for policing the second-largest geographic area in the city of Saskatoon. The courts of Saskatchewan have qualified me as an expert witness, enabling me to give opinion evidence on firearms. In that capacity, I've provided assistance in over 50 cases to both federal and provincial prosecutions. I'm a master instructor for both Canadian firearms safety courses and an approved verifier certified by the registrar of the Canadian firearms program.

I want to make it clear from the onset that my comments here today are mine, and mine alone. They do not reflect the opinion or opinions of my employer, the chief of police or police service. That said, I am the appointed spokesperson for the Saskatoon Police Association on the Firearms Act and the firearms registry. Further, until the fall of 2002, I was a spokesperson for the Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers on the issues of the Firearms Act and the firearms registry.

I understand that this august committee will have opportunity to hear from other police officers who share my belief that the registry for non-restricted rifles and shotguns, commonly referred to as long guns, should be abolished. Thousands of police officers across Canada, who are in my opinion the silent or silenced majority, also share this position.

To say that the police community is divided on support of the registry is an understatement. When the Canadian Police Association initially endorsed the registry, they adopted their position without ever formally having polled their membership. The CPA's position is not that of the Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers, nor that of the Saskatoon Police Association. The Saskatchewan federation is the only provincial police association that polled its entire membership on the issue of the registration of firearms. When polled, the Saskatoon Police Association was 99.46% against the registry, while our compatriots in many of the other Saskatchewan police forces were 100% in opposition to the registry.

There are some who would arrogantly or foolishly consider those opposed to the registry as uninformed or uneducated. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, we recognize that the true cornerstone of public safety is training, screening, and the licensing of owners, not the registration of non-restricted rifles and shotguns.

Although the mantra of the former government, the CACP, and the CPA was “gun control is crime control”, the registry misses the target of the criminal use of firearms. Instead, it targets millions of lawful, legitimate firearms owners in the name of crime control. The fact is, the registry can do nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining or using firearms. École Polytechnique, Mayerthorpe, Spiritwood and Dawson College are synonymous with tragic events involving firearms. However, the firearms registry for long guns would not, could not, and did not stop these tragic events. The retention of the firearms registry or records will do nothing to prevent any further such occurrences. Training, enhanced screening and licensing of firearms owners, as we see today, may have prevented those individuals from being able to obtain a firearm in the first instance. However, even Canada's strict licensing regime and firearms registry cannot prevent random acts of violence. The best example of this failure is the shooting rampage at Dawson College by Kimveer Gill.

The CACP contends that Canadians continue to support a registry that costs over $2 billion and which cannot be shown in over a decade to have prevented even one death. Unfortunately, public opinion polls do not support their position. The CACP and others will attempt to convince you that retention of the registry is an officer safety issue. Further, they will advocate for the retention of the records accessible on a database to police investigators if the registry is abolished. To the layperson having little or no knowledge of firearms or the registry, this may appear reasonable. However, once one knows and understands the failing of the registry, the issue of officer safety takes on a far more sinister meaning. For the officers using the registry, trusting in the inaccurate, unverified information contained therein, tragedy looms at the next door.

The argument to retain the registry for investigative purposes is disingenuous or specious at best. Once the registry is abolished, the information contained therein is immediately stale-dated. The limited evidentiary value of such erroneous information deteriorates by the minute as firearms across Canada are acquired, sold, altered, or destroyed.

Knowing what I do about the registry, I cannot use any of the information contained in it to square with a search warrant. To do so would be a criminal act. Thus, I cannot in good conscience tell any officer—junior or senior—to place any faith in the results of a query to the Canadian Firearms Registry.

Projections from within the Canadian Firearms Centre privately state that it will take 70 years of attrition to eliminate all of the errors in the registry and to have all of the firearms currently in Canada registered. This level of inaccuracy is unacceptable for any industry, let alone law enforcement. Police officers deserve better. The public and the courts demand better. If the National DNA Data Bank or the automated fingerprint identification system had the same potential error, the public and the courts would be outraged, and with just cause. Every entry in these latter databases is empirical--a level of accuracy that the registry has not attained.

As a team leader for the Olympics security force, I had the opportunity to speak with officers from across Canada. The vast majority of those I spoke to do not support the registry. They do not trust the information it contains, and see it as a waste of time and money.

Again I take you back to the issue of officer safety. Police across Canada cannot and must not place their trust in, or risk their lives on the basis of, the inaccurate, unverified information contained in the registry. From my perspective, if doing away with the registry saves one of Canada's front-line police officers, it's elimination is worth it. Retaining the registry at the risk of one police officer's life is too great a price to pay.

In closing, I wish to thank you for your attention and will leave you with these thoughts. Polls indicate that the majority of Canadians want the registry for non-restricted rifles and shotguns abolished. This position is supported by a majority of front-line police officers in Canada. Further, this government ran on a platform of ending the long-gun registry. The last election represented a referendum on that platform, and a majority of Canadians voted to support it.

Bill C-19 is worthy of your consideration and support, for it brings to an end a registry that represents the largest and most contentious single waste of taxpayer dollars. It is full of errors and inaccurate data. It is a registry that front-line police officers do not trust, use, or support. More importantly, it risks the safety of front-line police officers across Canada.

Thank you.

[Solomon Friedman, Criminal Defence Lawyer, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, vice-chairs, honourable members, good afternoon.

My name is Solomon Friedman. I'm a criminal defence lawyer in private practice with the Ottawa firm of Edelson Clifford D’Angelo LLP. Although I maintain a comprehensive criminal law practice, I specialize in defending persons charged with firearms offences. My clients, and I as their counsel, experience on a regular basis the onerous and deleterious effects of the long-gun registry.

You will no doubt hear in the coming days and weeks from various interest groups about how the long-gun registry is a minor inconvenience, merely a matter of paperwork. We register our dogs, our cats, and our cars, they say. Why not register our shotguns and rifles, as well?

As you know, the registration scheme for non-restricted long guns, and for prohibited and restricted firearms as well, is enacted as federal legislation under the Criminal Code and under the Firearms Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in the Firearms Act reference, held that the Firearms Act is valid federal legislation, because it is enacted pursuant to the federal criminal law power. Indeed, this very aspect of the Firearms Act that makes it valid federal legislation ensures that those who fail to comply, inadvertently or otherwise, are punished harshly and in many cases unjustly. With the criminal law power comes criminal law procedure and, most importantly, for the nearly two million law-abiding licensed gun owners in Canada, criminal law penalties. Unlike a failure to register a pet or a motor vehicle, any violation of the firearms registration scheme, even the mislaying of paperwork, carries with it the most severe consequences: a criminal charge, a potential criminal record, detention, and sometimes incarceration. This is hardly comparable to the ticket under the Provincial Offences Act or the Highway Traffic Act that goes along with the failure to register a vehicle.

In addition, registry violations are often grounds for colourable attempts on the part of police, the crown, and the chief firearms officer to confiscate firearms and revoke lawfully obtained gun licences. As defence counsel, I have seen time and time again alleged long-gun registry violations used as a pretext to detain individuals, search their belongings and their homes, and secure evidence to lay additional charges. It is absurd to think that through the requirement to register long guns and possess and carry registration certificates, it is the law-abiding citizen who is subject to greater police scrutiny than the unlicensed individual, who is truly in unlawful possession of a firearm.

Next, the long-gun registry is simply one more layer of paperwork and complexity in a system of firearms regulation that is already overwrought with process and procedure. I have two law degrees. I clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada, and I practise criminal law for a living. Even I at times find the provisions of the Firearms Act and the gun control portions of the Criminal Code convoluted, complex, and confusing. The long-gun registry is simply one more trap for the unwary, a stumbling block for the blind.

Parliament ought not to be in the business of transforming licensed, law-abiding, responsible citizens into criminals, especially not for paper crimes. Should this piece of paper really determine the difference between lawful possession of a rifle or shotgun and an illegal act punishable by criminal sanction?

I am certain that you will hear about the symbolism of the long-gun registry. Enacted as a knee-jerk reaction in the aftermath of tragedy, the gun registry, like much of the current gun control scheme, was seen as a tribute to individuals who lost their lives at the hands of gun wielding madmen. Honourable members, I can tell you firsthand, from my vantage point in courtrooms across eastern Ontario, laws make terrible memorials. They fail to honour the dead and instead punish only the living, in this case the law-abiding and responsible. In fact, I hope that Bill C-19, the repeal of the long-gun registry, will itself be a symbol. It will be symbolic to millions of licensed gun owners and stand for the proposition that the government will no longer punish the law-abiding for the acts of the lawless.

I hope, and I know many of my clients share this hope, that Bill C-19 will serve as a memorial of sorts, a tombstone marking the final resting place of wrong-headed policy-making. There are millions of Canadian gun owners who will be glad to know that in the halls of Parliament Hill, hysteria and hyperbole no longer trump reason, facts, and empirical evidence. The long-gun registry has been used as a means to target licensed gun owners for too long. I urge you to pass Bill C-19 without amendment, and end it.

Honourable members, long guns are tools used lawfully and peaceably by Canadians countless times a day without incident. Responsible citizens do not cease to act responsibly due merely to the presence of tools. Similarly, the registration of firearms, aside from having no discernible impact on crime or public safety, has merely alienated law-abiding firearms owners and driven a deep wedge between gun owners and law enforcement.

Gun owners have long been the whipping boys of Canadian politics. I hope that this bill symbolizes a change in attitude by our parliamentarians.

Thank you very much.

[Greg Farrant, Manager, Government Affairs and Policy, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, members of the committee, and my fellow panellists. On behalf of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, one of the oldest and largest non-profit conservation-based organizations in Canada, we appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today to comment on Bill C-19.

Although we've provided the clerk with a longer written presentation, it will not meet the seven-minute test, so I'll use my time to home in on a few specific issues referred to in that document.

As I noted during my appearance before this committee last year in support of Ms. Hoeppner's private member's legislation, Bill C-68, as has been noted by Ms. Byers, was born partly out of tragedy attributable to public concerns in the aftermath of the horrific 1989 shooting at École Polytechnique. There's no doubt that the impact of that event on the families of the victims and the survivors cannot be underestimated or understood by those of us who have not experienced such loss. However, that loss cannot be used to justify a system that has been an abysmal failure, and we strongly support the fact that the Harper government has moved quickly to introduce a bill to address this issue.

When Bill C-68 was created, the Coalition for Gun Control attempted to explain the need for this registry and other components in the bill, and I quote:

The argument for gun control has never been based on individual cases.... [It] has always been based on the general principle that if you have adequate control of all guns you reduce the chances that dangerous people will gain access to them.

At best the coalition was being disingenuous. The entire debate over gun control and the creation of a long-gun registry under Bill C-68 was in fact a direct result of the misguided actions of a lone individual. Prior to that, gun control in Canada was not a major public policy issue, and the creation of a regime to regulate legal firearms, particularly non-restricted long guns, as a means of protecting the public from individuals with a grudge was flawed from the start.

A paper trail of trained, legal, licensed firearm owners does not address the real problem. Even a well-run registry, which this is not, will not prevent random violent crime. Believing in that ignores the glaring reality that the vast majority of criminals don't register firearms; and in the rare case when they do, a piece of paper and the creation of a system where possibly 50% of the firearms in Canada are not included does nothing to anticipate the actions of an individual, nor do anything to prevent such actions in the first place.

It also ignores the fact that police in this country have noted repeatedly that anywhere from 70% to 90% of illegal guns in Canada are smuggled in from south of the border. Despite this, we hear little from gun control advocates about the need to address this serious problem, which is indeed directly linked to dangerous people gaining access to these guns.

The OFAH represents a large number of hunters and recreational sport shooters in Ontario, responsible firearms owners who believe in effective gun control. In the early 1960s, we called upon the provincial government of the day to create a formal structure for the delivery of hunter education. For more than 26 years, we have delivered some form of hunter education on behalf of the provincial government, and since 1998 we have done so under formal agreement.

The success of that program is readily apparent: 310 hunter education instructors, most of whom are also firearm safety instructors, have trained over 170,000 first-time hunters. The program has an admirable safety record, as do the majority of responsible firearms owners in this country who understand how to use them safely, how to store them safely, and how to transport them safely and use them precisely for what they are intended for—recreational shooting and hunting.

As a conservation-based organization, the OFAH is involved in a vast number of conservation programs based on the best available science. Science relies on fact. Scientific theory is tested, and if the facts are found wanting, a theory is rejected and the search continues for a rational explanation. In the case of the long-gun registry, there's a glaring absence of fact-based evidence to support its existence. Suggestions that gun crime in Canada has declined since the introduction of the long-gun registry under Bill C-68 ignores the fact that gun crime, particularly gun crime using long guns, has been on the decline in this country since the 1970s, two decades before this registry ever came into being. Crimes committed with long guns have fallen steadily since 1981. Bill C-68 was not introduced until 1985 and wasn't mandatory until 2005.

Noted academics like Rosemary Gartner of the University of Toronto have recently commented that experts have had difficulties in accounting for the decrease, and Dr. Ron Melchers, professor of criminology right here at the University of Ottawa, recently stated that the decline cannot be attributed to Canada's gun registry.

Believing that something works without evidentiary material to support that belief is nothing more than supposition and conjecture.

The present system focuses all of its efforts on law-abiding firearms owners and includes no provisions for tracking prohibited offenders, who are most likely to commit gun crimes. Witness the recent arrest of an individual in Newfoundland for gun crimes, an individual who has been under a prohibition order for 10 years.

This should be about who should not have guns rather than about who does. We strongly support the creation of a prohibited persons registry to focus on real, not perceived, threats to public safety.

Another prominent argument we've already heard here today is how many times per day the system is used by police. Some say 9,000 times. Some say 5,000. We've recently heard 14,000 and 17,000. Liberal leader Bob Rae has suggested 11,000. The vast majority of so-called hits on the registry have little or nothing to do with gun crime. The majority of these are cases of an officer maybe stopping a vehicle for a plate identification or an address identification, which automatically touches all databases, including the long-gun registry, despite the fact that the check has nothing to do with firearms in the first place.

The Canadian Labour Congress, with all due respect to my colleagues here on the panel today, suggests that social workers, paramedics, firefighters, and other first responders use the information to keep themselves safe on the job. These groups and individuals do not have access to the database. So unless the CLC is suggesting that each and every time a social worker, firefighter, or paramedic responds to a call, they first contact police and have the database queried specifically to determine if firearms may be present, it's difficult to understand how this happens. In fact, for police to share the information on the database may well be a breach of privacy.

Over the last few years, public support for the registry has eroded. While this confidence has waned, the level of rhetoric from supporters of the registry has increased exponentially. This has resulted in an increase in unfounded generalizations, devoid of factual evidence. For instance, on second reading of Bill C-19, members of the official opposition who voted with the government were punished. The irony of this is not lost on us, nor is the discrediting of these two members—which is interesting given that when Bill C-68 was created, eight of nine NDP members at the time voted against the bill that they so vigorously defend today.

Recently some media sources, members of the official opposition, members of the third party, and registry apologists have suggested that the introduction of Bill C-19 will do various things. For example, they say that scrapping the registry will involve delisting various guns and sniper rifles; that lawlessness will rule the day; that solving gun crimes will end, because police will have no more tools at their disposal; and that this is a Conservative plot to undermine a Liberal-created program.

[Barbara Byers, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress]

Thank you very much. On behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, we want to thank you for this opportunity to be here.

As you know from our previous appearances, we represent Canada's national and international unions and provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils. Our members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy in all occupations in all parts of Canada.

The CLC opposes Bill C-19 and urges the standing committee to ensure that the long-gun registry is maintained. We support the long-gun registry as an effective tool for workplace and community safety. Eliminating it will put workers and Canadians at risk. Our brief to you outlines some of the legislative and political context, but in the interests of time, I'm not going to repeat all of that. I think you're certainly aware of some of the background.

As we stated 15 years ago to the parliamentary committee of that day, there are compelling arguments in favour of a gun registry: to ensure safe storage requirements, to ensure that gun owners are held accountable for the guns they purchase, to compel gun owners to report missing or stolen firearms, to reduce the illegal trade in rifles and shotguns, to give the police and first responders modern tools to take preventive action, and to trace stolen guns to their rightful owners.

After a decade of use, we've seen crimes solved and criminal prosecutions because of the registry. For example, two people were convicted as accessories in the 2005 killings of four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, in part because a registered rifle left at the scene was traced back to its owner through the registry. That's a real example of law and order results. That's going after the bad guys.

The CLC has a long history of support for campaigns to end violence against women. Women's equality is a fundamental component of trade union policy in Canada. For more than 20 years, we have joined with women's organizations to commemorate December 6 and to propose actions to reduce violence against women. Our support of the gun registry has always included an understanding of its importance as a tool to help reduce violence against women. It was the massacre of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989, that prompted the creation of a federal gun registry.

Gun violence is one very dangerous component of the issue of violence against women. More women are killed by their intimate partners than by strangers. Sixty-five percent of women are murdered by intimate partners compared to 15% of men. Most are killed in their homes. In 1991, before the first restrictions were introduced, one-third of the women who were murdered were killed with guns, and 88% of the guns used were long guns. A study conducted between 2005 and 2007 of rural domestic violence in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick showed that 66% of the women interviewed felt that having a firearm in their home made them fearful for their safety.

Since the Firearms Act was introduced, the rate of women murdered with firearms by their intimate partner has decreased by 69%. That's not just making women feel safe, it's helping them be safe. There's no question that the gun registry has helped save women's lives. This government has said that one of its priorities is to reduce violence against women, yet this legislation will have the opposite effect by putting women's lives at risk.

Rifles and shotguns are the guns most available in people's homes. They are the guns most often used to kill police officers. Rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in suicides, particularly those involving youth. In communities where there is high gun ownership rates, you see higher youth suicide rates. However, since the gun registry and its related requirements for safe storage of guns were introduced, youth suicide rates by firearms have declined in relation to suicide rates by other means.

Also because rifles and shotguns are the firearms that are most readily available, they also figure prominently in workplace violence involving guns. In 1999, a devastating incident of workplace violence occurred right here in Ottawa at the OC Transpo bus yard on St. Laurent Boulevard. Those murders were committed by a gunman with a high-powered hunting rifle.

Increasingly, as we learn more about the challenges of maintaining healthy and safe workplaces, we are paying more attention to the importance of understanding the risk factors associated with both suicide and interpersonal violence. The risk factors for suicide and violence are closely linked. Access to a firearm coupled with a personal or a job crisis is a lethal combination. We need to promote more awareness of the real risks associated with any firearm in the hands of a depressed or stressed individual. We need to ensure that police, who are the first responders to these situations, know as much about the situation as possible, including what kind of gun is involved.

Everyone on this committee knows how useful the registry is to our nation's police forces and first responders. The registry provides police with vital knowledge of the number of guns and, more importantly, the types of guns owned. That vital knowledge allows them to assess risk to themselves and to others and to remove guns from homes in situations that are a risk to the home and the public. It lets firefighters know when guns and ammunition are likely to be stored on a property, which is a lifesaving piece of information when you're about to enter a burning building.

For law enforcement, firefighters, emergency personnel, and social workers--like I was--information about potential risks is crucial in ensuring their safety on the job. Like any worker, they have a right to a safe workplace. By denying them access to information about the possibility of guns in a home, this legislation puts their safety at risk.

Destroying the data is the real boondoggle. Most of the costs associated with setting up the registry were incurred a long time ago and will never be recovered. The taxpayers of Canada will never get their money back. The annual costs of maintaining the registry today are cost-effective for the job that it does—and the registry is even more efficient now that it no longer receives a revenue stream from licence renewals. Most of the costs of the registry frequently cited by its opponents are in fact costs related to licensing, including background criminal checks of applicants.

Over 7.4 million guns are registered to date, with long gun—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Minister, for coming and highlighting some parts of Bill C-19. This committee looks forward to continuing this study and reporting back to the House.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Minister, thank you for coming here today and being clear about the differences between classifications, licensing, and the long-gun registry, which is Bill C-19.

I'm from Vancouver, and we've had several drive-by shootings in my own riding. In your experience, can you tell me whether criminals register their guns?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

All I can say is that if you have concerns about firearms that should be restricted and are not, that is outside the context of this bill. This bill does not change the classification system.

I don't know about all of the firearms you're talking about, but it is something that the experts do in classifying firearms. If you think there is a problem with that classification, we can have that discussion, but it has nothing to do with Bill C-19, and we shouldn't confuse the registry and the classification of firearms.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am sure that those listening to us, especially the victims, feel some sadness. And today I am thinking about the victims. Mr. Minister, you have reminded us that the gun registry was created under the Liberal government at a very high price, and I agree. As a result, police forces and hunters have been divided. Perhaps because the Conservative government has been relentlessly opposed to this registry for years now, even before being elected, the victims, the Conservative government, hunters, police forces and other groups are unfortunately working against each other instead of working together as they would normally do.

Why is that? You are saying that it is to provide more safety. That is what the government has been telling us all along. But instead, it has managed to pit victims, hunters and police officers against each other. The victims want to feel safe and confident, and they thought they would get that with the registry. The hunters did not want to pay the fees for a registry and they felt they were being criminalized, although I don't think anyone intended to criminalize them. And the police officers have a tough job on a daily basis and their lives are on the line.

Here we are with a tool that may appear to be a lame duck to some. We could work on improving it and removing the irritants. Let us remember what the Conservatives keep saying. They say that we are using law-abiding hunters and citizens of Canada and that we want to criminalize them.

But if we made improvements to this, we would get all police associations on the same side. I understand that there could be views to the contrary.

Sir, you are the Minister of Public Safety. Your top priority should be public safety and communicating this feeling of safety to Canadians.

I have a a bit of trouble when I get emails, as we all do, from Ms. Thibeault, one of the survivors of the École Polytechnique massacre. She is making a heartfelt appeal to us. She is asking us to keep the long gun registry and to make sure that victims will not have to go through what those women have needlessly experienced.

Mr. Minister, I am looking at the types of weapons that are going to be excluded from the registry. When we are talking about non-restricted firearms, such as a Ruger Mini-14, a Steyr HS.50 M1 and a L115A3, we are talking about long range sniper rifles. We are not talking about shotguns that people use to hunt deer or moose. We are talking about rifles that can have rather dangerous consequences.

Previous bills have always included a provision for licence verification when firearms are transferred. Bill C-19 does not include any obligation of verification, which means that the person transferring the gun must simply have no reason to believe that the person they are giving it to is not authorized to have it. But verification is optional, Mr. Minister.

How can we go back to our ridings and tell people that we are feeling any safer by passing Bill C-19?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

No, it does nothing to affect the licensing provision.

As I look at this memo that was produced for a newspaper in the last day or so, perhaps in anticipation that I would be here at committee, even it is based on pretty inaccurate assumptions that somehow the jobs of CBSA officers at the border are going to be changed by Bill C-19. Their jobs remain exactly the same. If you came across the border and you had a firearm, you would have to have a licence for it, whether it was registered or not. The registry has no impact on that scenario.

Unfortunately, it's a misleading discussion paper, which I saw only this morning.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

For further clarification, Bill C-19 does nothing to affect the licensing provisions that are currently in place?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

No. The analysis of whether or not something is a prohibited or non-restricted firearm has nothing to do with the registry. That's an analysis that the officers make at the border and elsewhere throughout the country. Tying that to C-19 is a bit of a red herring. As I said, the analysis is quite flawed.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Just to be clear, C-19 doesn't change the way our border officials are able to monitor, track, or stop legal guns from coming into the country.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I had a chance to take a look at that article. I wasn't familiar with the memorandum, which an official in my department had prepared, I assume, for internal purposes. But now that I've seen it, it's clear that the analysis presented by this official is factually flawed; it's incorrect. I've asked my deputy minister to look into the matter.

Contrary to the suggestion made in the analysis, neither Bill C-19 nor Bill C-391 removes any controls on the importation of firearms. In fact, we have increased penalties for the illegal importation of firearms. Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end this wasteful, ineffective long-gun registry once and for all. That's exactly what we're doing. We're not getting into the areas this memorandum suggested we might get into. I think the memorandum is phrased to suggest that if we did something else, the repercussions would be such and such. But we're not going down that road.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister Toews, I want to thank you personally for your persistent support for those like me in our caucus who stand against the long-gun registry.

Bill C-391 and C-19 are both straightforward bills that end the requirements for individuals and businesses to register non-restricted, non-prohibited firearms. I was concerned this morning when I read media reports of an analysis done by officials. A certain official thought that both C-391 and C-19 could have a number of unintended consequences, including the trafficking of firearms at the border.

I was concerned about this report. Is it accurate? Can you comment on this official's opinion?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My comments this morning will be relatively brief, and if there are no questions after that I'll be out of here very quickly.

I want to thank all of the honourable committee members for the invitation to appear here before you today to help with your deliberations on Bill C-19, the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. So if there are any committee members with some questions about where they stand on this bill, I'd be more than happy to answer those.

For too long, law-abiding farmers, duck hunters, and sports shooters have been criminalized by the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry. Bill C-19 is fulfilling our government's long-standing commitment to scrap this failed boondoggle once and for all.

For many years it has been clear that the long-gun registry does not work, does nothing to prevent crime or protect front-line officers. We have, on record, testimony after testimony by police officers who have told us in no uncertain terms that they do not trust the accuracy of the registry, and they openly question its value as a tool to protect police officers responding to a house call. These witnesses have provided eye-opening accounts of how truly flawed the registry is. One officer went so far as to say that he wouldn't risk the lives of his own staff, based on the results of a registry search. That is very troubling, Mr. Chair.

Furthermore, we know that the long-gun registry has no ability to prevent crime, and there is no evidence that it has stopped a single crime or saved a single life. It does not prevent anyone from using a firearm for violence and it does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It is clear that on all fronts it is a failure.

Our government believes in measures that actually protect law-abiding Canadian families. As committee members are aware, we have taken decisive action to ensure that those who commit serious crimes face serious consequences. This includes putting in place tough punishment for gun-related crimes such as drive-by shootings and gang-related violence. It includes increasing the minimum penalties for specific offences involving firearms, including attempted murder, sexual assault, and kidnapping, among others.

We have also introduced legislation that requires people charged with serious firearms offences to show the court why they shouldn't be kept in jail while awaiting their trial. They will not benefit from a presumptive entitlement to bail.

We believe that these amendments are starting to have a positive impact on homicide rates in this nation. The fact remains, however, that even one murder a year is too many and we must continue to work hard to improve our laws and focus on the most effective measures to crack down on crime.

It's telling that in a place like Winnipeg, which has the highest per capita murder rate in Canada, the provincial NDP government does not support the long-gun registry and views it as a waste of time, a waste of resources. And it's clearly onboard with our government in respect to the amendments that we're bringing forward in Bill C-10, which police officers admit would do a much better job of focusing on criminals and preventing crime.

It is our belief that laws should protect and not burden law-abiding citizens. That is why, with Bill C-19, we are moving to scrap the failed long-gun registry once and for all.

First of all, Bill C-19 will eliminate the requirement for firearm owners to register their long guns—in other words, their rifles and shot guns.

The second part of Bill C-19 would see the destruction of all records related to the registration information on long guns in the Canadian Firearms Registry and under the control of the chief firearms officers. This item has been the subject of much discussion since we tabled this legislation, but we have plainly stated that we will not share the personal and private information of more than seven million Canadians who have registered their long guns.

These, in simple terms, are the proposed changes to the Firearms Act and the Criminal Code.

I'd like to take just a moment to mention what will not change under Bill C-19.

What will not change, Mr. Chair, is the current and strict licensing system that is in place for controlling firearms. Firearm owners will still require a valid licence to purchase or possess firearms and to purchase ammunition. They will still be required to undergo background checks, pass the Canadian firearms safety course, and comply with firearm safe storage and transportation requirements. We believe this to be a reasonable requirement for those who want to legally acquire and use firearms. Moreover, owners of restricted and prohibited firearms will still be required to register their firearms with the RCMP.

We believe that this is the most effective measure of control regarding restricted and prohibited firearms such as handguns. Handguns are the firearms of choice in homicide crimes in Canada. It's time to stop burdening legal long gun owners with red tape. When you step back and think about it, the long-gun registry isn't actually targeting criminals. Rather, it targets the law-abiding Canadians who own long guns and who have to jump through various bureaucratic hoops to register a rifle or shotgun for which they already have a legal licence. It's an unfair burden, and it does nothing to stop criminals from using illegal or smuggled handguns to commit violent crimes in our community.

In closing, I would urge all committee members to consider carefully the important amendments we are proposing to this bill. After a legacy of waste that has lasted almost 17 years, it is time to swiftly and decisively end the long-gun registry once and for all.

Thank you, and if there are questions, I will take them now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone.

We will call this meeting to order. This is meeting number 11 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Tuesday, November 15, 2011.

This morning we begin our consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act. We will be hearing from the Hon. Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety.

Before we proceed to the panel of witnesses in our second hour, I'll just remind our committee that we're going to pause for about five minutes to do some committee business and ratify our steering committee report. Then we will move to our first panel of witnesses on this very important study that we begin this morning.

Our committee welcomes the minister and thanks him for appearing this morning and for the many times he has appeared before our committee in the past. We certainly look forward to his presentation this morning.

Mr. Minister, we invite you to make your opening comments, and then we'll move into a number of rounds of questions.

Security of Tenure of Military Judges Act

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues said earlier, it is rather difficult to listen to our hon. Conservative colleague tell us that we are politicizing an issue, when all the Conservatives have been doing from the beginning is ramming their bills down our throats. I would like to read a quote and ask him to comment. Manon Cornellier, who is a very respected columnist in Quebec, had this to say:

The Conservatives have a majority. They know that they will get their bills through and that they have the time to honour the best parliamentary traditions, that is, by acting in a thoughtful and insightful way and giving members, organizations and the public an opportunity to be heard. Ideally, this should be accompanied by a willingness to listen.

The government wants its bills, for example bills C-10 and C-19, to be passed post-haste. It is telling us that we are politicizing the debate, but in fact it is the one doing so. That is rather rich.

Firearms Registry

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

But, Mr. Speaker, the government is failing all the victims that we are hearing on Bill C-10 and not Bill C-19.

The government's arguments do not hold water. The hon. member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River said yesterday that if Quebec wants the registry, then it will have to pay for it. However, the Privacy Commissioner refutes that argument. There need only be an agreement to share the information. There is no breach of privacy and there are no costs to cover. The only obstacle is the Conservatives.

Will the government work in good faith with the provinces—

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I count this as an opportunity to again rise in this place to speak to Bill C-19, the ending of the long gun registry.

I will begin by thanking the member for Yorkton—Melville for his many long years of trying to get rid of the long gun registry. I also thank the former member of Parliament for Crowfoot, the one I followed, Mr. Jack Ramsay, who spent a lot of time working on Bill C-68 and also trying to get rid of the long gun registry.

As someone who is not only a farmer but who represents a vibrant and thriving farming community, I feel that it is important to ensure that my constituents' views are heard during the debate. In fact, I am very pleased to be able to chair the committee that will receive the legislation, Bill C-19, study it a bit more and report it, hopefully, back to the House.

I do not know how many of my hon. colleagues have had the pleasure of visiting Crowfoot. It is a riding that I am privileged to represent. My constituents work extremely hard and the folks there make a good, honest living, many of them off the land. My own family has been farming there for generations. In fact, my parents still live on the farm that my grandparents homesteaded over a century ago.

Farmers in Crowfoot raise all manner of crops and livestock. On my own farm, we raise wheat, barley, canola and, before I was elected, we raised cattle and had a cow-calf operation.

However, whether it is cattle or any other livestock, or grain, I can tell members that they can count on one thing being virtually the same in my riding. Every farmer has a long gun. It is one of the tools that they use on their farming operation, whether it is to protect their stock from a coyote, shooting a skunk or shooting gophers so their horses do not break their legs in gopher holes when they are riding through the pasture, long guns are part of everyday life on the farm in Crowfoot.

That is why the long gun registry has been such a thorn in people's sides for many years. For too long, the law-abiding farmers and hunters in my constituency have been made to feel like they have been doing something wrong simply for owning a long gun. They are burdened. They are burdened by the paperwork and by the cost of registry. They are burdened by the fact that many of them question whether they are abiding the very letter of the law. They are burdened by the very suggestion that by owning a shotgun or a rifle, even perhaps a .22, somehow, in the eyes of some politicians, they are made to feel like a criminal.

At the same time, these same law-abiding farmers in my riding open the newspaper every day and are confronted with stories about gun crime in cities across the country. These crimes are being committed by thugs and gang members. After one of those criminal activities takes place, they listen to the Liberals or the NDP talk about the reason that we need the long gun registry. The farmers and the ranchers in my constituency sit back and say, “Listen. I've never broken the law in my life. Why am I being thrown into the same conversation with these thugs and criminals when they talk about the registry and long guns?”.

There are crimes being committed with illegal handguns and weapons that have been stolen or smuggled in from across the border but the opposition says that it is all a gun issue.

The good folks of my riding look at these stories and wonder why they are being penalized for crimes committed so far away by people so very different from them. They wonder what this place is doing to target those criminals, because the long gun registry will not stop them.

We have yet to see any evidence that the long gun registry actually prevents gun crime from happening. It does not prevent guns from being used in a violent manner. It does not stop illegal firearms from getting into the hands of criminals. It does not stop the smuggling of them across the border in the trunk of someone's car who is involved in organized crime. All it does is provide a list of all law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters. All it does is provide a list of all those who own firearms. It provides a list how many firearms are in a farmer's farmhouse. It provides a list as to the types and models of firearms that an individual has.

Like my colleagues on this side of the House, I can see there is a fundamental problem with the long gun registry. It targets the wrong people. It targets people like farmers in my riding of Crowfoot. It targets those who have never perpetrated a criminal offence. It targets the farmer who picks up that 22, puts it into his halfton and rides out to the pasture to shoot gophers and rodents, which the member for Vegreville—Wainwright has been unable to kill with strychnine. That is the problem. At the same time, it does nothing to prevent the gun crime that is happening in cities across our country.

That is why I am adding my support to Bill C-19 today. The first speech I ever gave in the House was on Bill C-68 or the long gun registry. It has been 11 years and I still believe this as much or more than I did when I started.

Bill C-19 is straightforward legislation. Through the bill, our government will scrap the long gun registry. The bill would remove the requirement for law-abiding hunters and farmers to register their unrestricted long guns. It would ensure that the data in the registry would be destroyed. I applaud our government for doing that. In doing so, we will be ending over a decade and a half of injustice and of targeting the wrong people on gun crime.

At the same time, Bill C-19 would keep in place the regulations for restricted and prohibited firearms, such as handguns and semi-automatic rifles. These are the firearms that we read about in the media and which are used to perpetrate crime. These are the guns that are getting into the hands of criminals and being used on innocent Canadians. Putting the focus on long guns and law-abiding hunters and farmers who use them is simply misdirected attention that should be elsewhere.

Speaking of resources, I also want to mention something else I hear a lot about in my riding. People in the riding of Crowfoot, as do most in rural Canada, play by the rules. There is a lot of outrage over the shear waste that we have seen with the long gun registry. The previous Liberal government originally said that the cost would be $2 million, then a year later it would be $80 million, then Anne McLellan said $300 million and then $700 million. Now it is over $2 billion. That is too much waste for no reason at all.

The member for Toronto Centre said that if the registry saved only one life, it would be worth it. That $2 billion could have saved many lives if we had been able to get more resources out on the streets, more police officers on the streets, and if we had been able to crack down on crime like some of our other crime bills have done. That is way too much waste for little or no value.

Our government believes in taking real action to keep Canadians safer, to hold criminals accountable. That is why we have delivered tough on crime legislation to crack down on those who are targeting law-abiding Canadians.

We passed the Tackling Violent Crime Act, which delivered: longer mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes; tougher new rules for bail for serious weapons; mandatory minimum sentences for drive-by shootings; tougher laws to combat organized crime; and mandatory minimum sentences for the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence.

This is the type of crime fighting measures this government is putting before Canadians and before the House. They are crime measures that are focused on the criminal and on criminal activity.

That is what this government is doing. We are committed to keeping its promise. We are committed to living up to those campaign policies and promises that we have made. We realize this long gun registry has been a colossal failure and we will be so pleased when we see the end of it.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased today to speak in favour of law-abiding gun owners.

I am also pleased to speak on behalf of the many Canadian taxpayers who are asking the government for nothing more than to spend tax dollars wisely. I am pleased to support the bill and I know voters back home are watching to ensure I do.

For many years now Canadians who use rifles and shotguns for legitimate reasons have protested against the long-gun registry and increasingly, over the last number of years, taxpayers have joined their protest.

Last May, our government again promised to get rid of the long gun registry once and for all. In the throne speech, we repeated this promise. Now, with this bill, I am proud to say that we are fulfilling that promise.

First, let us look at the bill in the context of our crime reduction strategy.

The proposed legislation would build on a series of initiatives to make our streets safer that have extended over the last five years. During this time, our government created mandatory minimum prison sentences for serious gun crimes. We have created a new broad-based offence to target drive-by and other intentional shootings. We have also given the provinces and territories more money to enforce the law.

The bill is part of our larger agenda to make our communities and neighbourhoods safer. It is also part of an agenda to spend tax dollars in a way that would respect the priorities of Canadians.

The legislation would end the discrimination against rural Canadians for their use of shotguns and rifles. In doing so, it would eliminate the element of the current gun control system that is both wasteful and ineffective. It would also close a sorry chapter in the decade-long abuse dished out to taxpayers.

Moreover, it would retain the best parts of existing legislation which would allow us to focus our attention against real threats to public safety.

I would like to present some evidence in support of these arguments. However, I would first like to quickly explain why the bill before us is so necessary and is long overdue.

There is no evidence that the long gun registry keeps front line police officers safer, nor is there evidence to highlight just how the registration has prevented crime or reduced crime in this country.

This is not about having a system that is better than nothing. The registry has been a failure. It has failed law-abiding Canadians, it has failed the public and, importantly, it has failed Canadian taxpayers.

Let me explain. The current law targets duck hunters and farmers by making criminals of law-abiding citizens. Moreover, there is no evidence that it has prevented a crime before the fact. Police chiefs who support the registry have in fact been asked about this, yet have been unable to come up with examples where the registry was used to foil a crime.

For all this, the price has been an astounding $2 billion. Yet, earlier today, the member for Winnipeg North disputed this figure, saying it was not grounded in reality. This is an outrageous statement.

Let us go over the history very quickly. When the registry was set up, initially, the then Liberal justice minister claimed it would cost Canadian taxpayers $2 million. Yet the price went up and up and eventually hit $2 billion. In fact, the Auditor General herself concluded the price at over $1 billion and then gave up the audit, simply because the paperwork was not there for her to complete it at the time. I do not think there is much of a dispute out there that the registry has cost $2 billion. For an hon. member to suggest otherwise is not being truthful with Canadian taxpayers.

Thus, in addition to being costly and ineffective, the long gun registry places an unfair burden on law-abiding citizens, people who use rifles and shotguns to protect livestock or provide food for their families, or who might use long guns for sports, such as wild game hunting and target shooting.

Ponds and woodlands in Canada's rural areas are often far from the scene of a crime. Forcing farmers and hunters to register their long guns has not protected Canadians living in urban areas. There is no evidence to support the long gun registry, but there is ample proof that the registry is ineffective.

Let me take a few moments to break some time-honoured myths.

First, most violent gun crime in Canada does not involve long guns. Between 1975 and 2006, for example, Statistics Canada showed the use of rifles or shotguns in homicides declined by a remarkable 86%. In 2006 alone, three times as many victims were killed with a handgun than with rifles or shotguns. These statistics are no aberration. In 2009, out of the 179 firearm homicides, almost 60% of the crimes were committed with handguns.

Furthermore, where long guns are actually used in violent crimes, the vast majority of the firearms are unregistered. Between 2005 and 2009, for example, police recovered 253 firearms that were used to commit a homicide. Of these, less than one-third, 31%, were actually listed with the Canadian firearms registry. Members opposite may say that one out of three is not bad, but again, let me highlight that these guns were only seized after the crimes were committed, not beforehand.

What all this means is that law-abiding citizens are spending time and money to comply with an ineffective law. At the same time, and this should come as no surprise to anyone in the House, criminals with guns simply ignore the registry. The result is an ineffective system that discriminates for no good reason, except perhaps prejudice against legitimate long gun owners, and it does nothing to stem the tide of illegal firearms crossing the border.

Again, what did the taxpaying public receive for all of this? An astounding bill for $2 billion. Imagine for a moment if that money had been spent instead on front-line policing, health care, the Canadian Forces, or even going after illegal guns. Members can pick whatever they like, but I cannot think of a program in the last 20 years that similarly failed to deliver on its promise.

With all this in mind, let me recap the provisions of the new bill and how it will address these issues. The most important component of Bill C-19, and the one that has been so long awaited, is the end of the registration for non-restricted firearms. At the same time, the bill will retain the gun licensing system. Licences will still be required to own any type of firearm. An applicant will still need to undergo a background check and pass a firearms safety course. In addition, owners of restricted and prohibited firearms will still need to register these weapons through the RCMP. As such, we would continue controlling the use of restricted and prohibited firearms, such as handguns, which are by far the firearms of choice in the commission of a homicide.

Finally, the bill would address a very important issue that flows from our promises. As members can imagine, the registry has demanded mountains of paperwork from law-abiding citizens. This has long been a source of concern. Canadians are concerned about what will happen to these records. Will they be taken over by another level of government, or by a federal agency?

Earlier I mentioned the voters in New Brunswick Southwest. During the campaign the Conservatives promised to end the long gun registry. When asked what would happen to the data, I replied it would be deleted. After all, the data is the registry. One cannot credibly claim to oppose the registry yet quietly turn around and keep the information. This would make our pledge meaningless. We will instead preserve the privacy of these Canadians and end this failed debacle once and for all. I am pleased to say that the bill requires the elimination of all records related to the registry of non-restricted firearms contained within the Canadian firearms registry.

The proposed legislation is long overdue. It promises to eliminate a wasteful, ineffective long gun registry that penalizes law-abiding citizens and it will do so without weakening gun control. Instead, we can spend the millions we save each year on crime prevention programs that will truly help make our communities safer.

In short, the bill would replace waste and ineffectiveness with efficiency and value for money. For all these reasons, I urge members of the House to join me and countless Canadian taxpayers in supporting this bill.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the gun registry debate has gone on for a number of years, since before its creation, to its creation, to its eventual slow demise and death under the government, to this most radical posture that the current government has taken. I find we are now at a point where the government's ideology has fully taken over any sense of balance or common sense.

I say ideology because when a government says that its mandate, which it believes it has, to do something, in this case destroy records that were paid for by Canadians, was implied in the last election. The Conservatives did not talk about it. They did not ask any Canadians about it. However, it is implied. That is the most dangerous set of principles for a government to run on because, if it believes things are implied, it can read into any decision that voters may or may not have made to arrive at a conclusion that is convenient to the government of the day.

The Conservatives do have a mandate to end the long gun registry. In the unfortunate and broken electoral system that we have, a party can win with less than 40% of the vote but end up with virtually 100% of the power. That is something that we in the NDP seek to correct so that voters can see their votes actually reflected in the government that sits in this place. If there has ever been an example of a government abusing its power and its very thin marginal endorsement from voters, it is the present government on this issue.

The Conservatives hold up the privacy of the people we seek to represent and yet I have a letter here that the government is now aware of from no other person than the Privacy Commissioner of Canada who says that the act permits the disclosure of personal information under an agreement or arrangement between the Government of Canada or an institution thereof and the government of a province for the purpose of administering or enforcing any law or carrying out any lawful investigation.

There are no privacy concerns. One would suspect that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada would be the authority on any concerns with respect to privacy, otherwise, why set up the office? Why pay the salaries and have the staff if we are not going to listen to the advice of an officer of Parliament?

It seems, unfortunately, and too typical of the government to take an issue and then run to the extreme by suggesting that a $2 billion bonfire on Parliament Hill of all the records that have been assorted and assembled would somehow make that $2 billion come back.

I have an interesting moment for my Conservative colleagues who raised the issue of cost. It has been a fair criticism of the long gun registry because it was promised at a much lower cost than it eventually realized. Whether it was between $1 billion or $2 billion, it cost too much. That is a fair and honest concern.

However, we asked the government how much it would cost to delete all the records, because it is not a simple matter of hitting a button to delete seven million records. Each one needs to be done individually. The RCMP says that it is not sure of the exact number but that it would be many millions. When we asked the government if it had an estimate on the cost of destroying all of these records, it said “no, never mind, it is worth it“. Does that sound familiar to the ones who set up the registry in the first place, “no, never mind, it is worth it?”

The Conservatives have now flipped to the other side and, because of their ideology, they cannot find their way to have a simple and honest conversation with Canadians who paid for this data in the first place. The Conservatives cannot tell Canadians that they are going to burn this data and spend many millions more destroying it.

For heaven's sake, the government claims to respect the authority of the provinces and we have a province is clearly asking for the data.

Quebec has publicly asked for the data from the registry. Quebeckers paid for it. Why is this government telling Quebeckers that they need to pay again to get this information, to have a gun registry? It is ridiculous and stupid. This government will now say anything to the people of Quebec. It is saying that it is the Conservative government. It used to say that the opinion of Quebeckers was important. What an insult. It is ridiculous and it makes no sense.

We also see that the government, in its own legislation that it crafted up around Bill C-19, has to take an entire section to subvert and overcome Canadian law that says we cannot destroy records. It seems like a good law, does it not, that a government, whatever its ideological stripe, whatever its persuasion, whatever mandate it perceives, should not be capable of destroying records that were collected from the Canadian public. Does that sound familiar at all?

I wonder if next the Conservatives will destroy any of the votes that the farmers across the Prairies took in respect to the Wheat Board because they did not like the results of those votes. Let us destroy those records too because it is not in line with the ideology and the so-called mandate of the government.

It is anti-democratic. It is against the institution of what this place represents that from time to time we collect records from Canadians, criminal records, health records, in this case gun registry records. It is not for the government of the day to write laws that subvert other laws that exist for good reason.

What is the precedent being set by the government? That if the Conservatives find something inconvenient, they will simply write into legislation, “Never mind all those things we said about keeping records, that should be borne into our laws and Constitution of this country. We will simply override them because it fits our world view”.

The government spends so much of its time claiming that it defends the brave men and women of our law enforcement departments across the country. Then a law enforcement official comes forward and says, and my good colleague from Ontario will know this, “We would like access to the data”.

We have the letter from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police saying, “It is fine that you are shutting down this registry, but please allow us access to the data”. Suddenly the government is not so interested in respecting or listening to the police of this country. Suddenly the government says, “Never mind the expertise or the officials, the folks who run our police department. They do not know”. All the Conservatives have to say is, “I have spoken to police officers who, off the record, say the gun registry is not important to them”.

However, through their own democratic institutions, the people they put forward to head up their police associations, those people are on the record as saying, “Please allow us access to the data to do our jobs”.

It comes to a point where ideology clashes with common sense, and we are at this point with the government. We seek from the government a moment of common sense because there are those like myself, my friend from Western Arctic and others who have for years campaigned and voted on ending the long gun registry because that represented the position of the constituents I represent in northwestern British Columbia. That was their clear and express purpose, and I think we should always maintain that bind, but the Conservatives have inserted into the bill, unlike the last provisions the last time the House voted, a poison pill into the legislation, making it a poisoned bill, and they know exactly what they have done.

The Conservatives are giving the shout out to the most ideological, the most radical elements of this conversation for no good reason because the law-abiding hunters and farmers of this country who use guns to either feed their families or protect their homes, those of which I represent in northern B.C., those people do not care if Quebec wants to set up its own registry, if Montreal wants to enforce a different set of regulations around gun ownership, or if Toronto wants to enforce a more serious provision through the provinces, why, for heaven's sake, would the government care?

When I talk to people in northern British Columbia, rural Canada, they say that they have had their disputes with the registry, but if folks in Winnipeg want to have a different set of rules and guidelines directed to them by their province, so be it. Why would the government intervene? For a government that claims to respect the authority and jurisdiction of provinces, of which the cities are a product, why step in between?

The Conservatives have poisoned the well. They have made this an unsupportable piece of legislation, and there must be Conservatives across the way who campaigned on this, and as well as their right and intention, that understand that the precedent being created here is a dangerous one. It is a damaging one to the fabric of what this country stands for, which is simple and basic representation, that the burning of records is done by a government that holds on to an ideology of the most severe nature.

We should look through the history books. What governments burned records? What regimes burned records? There are not many. This government is about to become one of them. Do the Conservatives not have any pause?

That is right, my friend says. He would like to associate himself with other governments which, through the course of history, have burned public records. Now he scoffs. He cannot figure himself out. We are either for the burning of public records or we are not, and what we have arrived at here is a government that has lost its way.

The practice of wedge politics, of dividing one group of Canadians from another, rural versus urban, the west versus the east, Quebec and all the rest, has to stop. It is destructive and harmful. It does not serve any greater purpose other than some narrow, ideological partisan interest and it has to stop.

Change the bill, correct it, end the ideological attack and make some sense to all Canadians.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to our Conservative government's bill to scrap the long gun registry. Over the course of the debate, we have heard from many hon. colleagues on both sides of the House. I am glad to add my voice and the voices of constituents to this important debate today on Bill C-19, ending the long-gun registry act.

I consider Palliser, which I have the great privilege to represent, a very special riding. It includes Moose Jaw, parts of Regina, as well as 11 rural municipalities. This law targets residents of my riding who are law-abiding gun owners, while doing nothing to prevent gun crime in urban areas.

Ending the long gun registry has been a long-standing commitment of this government. It has been part of our promise to Canadians that we would stand up for law-abiding families and deliver law and order measures that would actually work. That means measures that actually stop crime. That means measures that hold criminals accountable. That means measures that demonstrate real results to keep our communities safe.

Along with a strong economy, these are the priorities of Canadian families. They told us that loud and clear when our government was given a strong mandate on May 2, and we intend to deliver on our commitment.

Let me emphasize this point again. On this side of the House, we support laws and measures that actually work to stop crime and deliver results. We are against burdening law-abiding citizens with unnecessary, time-consuming paperwork that serves no purpose and costs taxpayers. We do not believe in treating hunters, rural residents or outdoor enthusiasts with unfounded suspicion. We also do not want to waste taxpayer money on programs that do not accomplish the intended objective.

For years the registry has been a burden on law-abiding hunters and rural residents. For years law-abiding long gun owners have been forced to comply with useless government regulations. The real question is, has it worked? I am afraid the answer to the question is no. The original intention in creating the long gun registry was to prevent gun crimes. However, when we look at the evidence, the facts are clear. The long gun registry does not prevent crime, does not protect front-line police officers and does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

Registered long guns account for less than 2% of homicides committed with a firearm and less than one-third of crimes committed with a firearm. It is important to note that in the very rare case where someone intends to commit a crime using a registered long gun, the fact that it is registered does not stop that individual. The long gun registry has no preventive mechanisms.

It is also important to be clear which firearms we are speaking about today. We are talking about ending the failed and ineffective long gun registry. We are not talking about handguns. In fact, handguns have accounted for two-thirds of firearm-related violence since 1998. The bill we are discussing has nothing to do with the regulation and registration of handguns.

What about criminals who actually use firearms? Criminals do not register their guns and generally use handguns not long guns, so the long gun registry does nothing to hold criminals accountable. Imagine a criminal or someone with the intention of committing a crime standing in line and paying a fee to register a long gun. That scenario simply will not happen. Criminals do not bother complying with government regulations.

If criminals are not held accountable, who really bears the burden of the long gun registry? The answer to that is law-abiding long gun owners bear the burden. They acquire them legally and operate them responsibly, but they are the people who are saddled with the paperwork and registration fees. The long gun registry also does nothing to ensure firearm safety use. The long gun registry does nothing to encourage the responsible use of firearms. This is a useless burden that does nothing to prevent gun crime or encourage the responsible use of firearms.

This is a burden that signals to Canadians that they are regarded with suspicion and regarded as potential criminals just because they happen to own a legal object, a common item that is part of the lifestyle for many Canadians and common to many communities all across Canada.

I also want to briefly mention the cost. The long gun registry was supposed to cost $2 million.The cost is now up to over $2 billion and we see that the registry does not deter or prevent gun crime. Hard-working Canadians also bear the burden of this pointless registry. We need to scrap the registry and stop wasting money. We need to stop stigmatizing farmers, outdoor enthusiasts and rural residents and we need to stop targeting the wrong people. We need to target the real criminals instead.

In fact, our Conservative government has been taking measures to target the real criminals already. We have already passed some important legislation on gun crime in previous Parliaments. We enacted mandatory jail time for drive-by shooting and tougher sentences and bail conditions for serious gun crimes. These are important steps that target real criminals. We have cracked down on reckless street racing. Street racing is a crime and it should be recognized that way.

Again, we are creating measures that hold criminals accountable and leave law-abiding Canadians to live their lives in safety and security. We are proud of our actions. Our government is taking action to keep families safe with our recently introduced safe streets and communities act. This act includes preventing serious criminals from serving their sentences in their living room. We are taking steps to ensure that criminals face real consequences for their wrongdoing.

The safe streets and communities act includes tougher penalties for those who would sell drugs to our kids and it would prevent serious criminals and those convicted of sexual assault from ever being able to receive a pardon. In Canada, serious crimes deserve a long-lasting consequence.

We need to move away from past mistakes by scrapping this registry that puts the burden on the wrong people. I suggest that we move forward to deliver results for Canadians. We need move forward and build on progressive legislation that we have made in keeping our communities safe over the past two years. We need to target criminals and help stop real crime.

On behalf of the residents of my riding, I strongly support Bill C-19 that would put an end to the long gun registry.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, last year I voted in favour of a private member's bill put forward by the member for Portage—Lisgar that would have done away with the long gun registry. That bill was a blunt instrument; however, it restricted itself to eliminating the need to register long guns. Now in front of Parliament we have the government's Bill C-19, which is not only a blunt instrument but a wrong-headed and meanspirited instrument, a bill that would drive a greater wedge between rural and urban Canadians.

The Conservatives are supposed to be the Government of Canada, a truly national government that is supposed to govern for all Canadians, not just the less than 40% who voted for it.

I have never hidden my position on the long gun registry. My position has always been that the long gun registry does not belong in the federal Criminal Code. Provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments should be the ones to determine how long guns are registered in their various jurisdictions. In 2000 the Supreme Court agreed with that position and said that every government has the right to register firearms. Firearms registration is not something that goes against our laws; it fits with the property laws of the provinces, and it would not be within the Criminal Code if the provinces took it over.

Bill C-19 goes against my position because the data would be destroyed without those other governments first being asked if they wished to use the data as the basis for their own registries.

The government has foisted upon Parliament a bill that is a slap in the face to Canadians in those parts of the country that favour a long gun registry, like Quebec. Before the federal registry, Quebec even had a plan to put in its own provincial registry.

The Conservatives claim they have to destroy the data because of privacy concerns that would make it impossible to transfer the data. I asked the Privacy Commissioner about this aspect. Here is her response:

Generally, s. 8(2)(f) of the Act permits the disclosure of personal information “under an agreement or arrangement between the Government of Canada or an institution thereof and the government of a province ... for the purpose of administering or enforcing any law or carrying out a lawful investigation.” Therefore, in appropriate circumstances, an information sharing agreement or arrangement put in place for the purpose of administering or enforcing any law (including provincial law) could assist to ensure any transfer of personal information was in conformity with the Privacy Act.

For those on the other side, this means that as long as there is an agreement allowing the transfer of the information, there are no Privacy Act concerns.

This ill-considered bill would cause farmers, hunters and trappers nothing but headaches and cost all Canadians more money in the end.

One of the advantages of a registry is that it provides an accurate means to show lawful transfer of firearms, but confusion will be the order of the day after the passage of Bill C-19. For instance, the Conservatives have not taken the safe storage provisions out of the Criminal Code. They remain, and will likely be more rigidly enforced by the police in the future.

Because of this poorly thought out bill, a number of important questions will have to be answered. For example, will someone who lends his or her gun to someone else be responsible for its proper storage? If a person gives a family member a gun and does not record that transaction in a proper fashion, will that individual still be liable for any unfortunate results of unsafe storage? Will the individual end up with a criminal record because he or she will have no simple, legal and effective way to mark this transaction?

It is vital to offer something for gun owners to reduce liability in sale, possession, responsibility for safe storage, and transfer of ownership. An effective, simple and reliable non-criminal registry at the local government level is something the vast majority of Canadians can accept and should be entitled to, without having to pay for it all over again; however, because the Conservatives did not think this through, by the time Canadian firearm owners begin dealing with these headaches, the data will have been destroyed.

The bill means that gun owners who live in those parts of Canada that want the registry will have to go through the process of re-registering their guns. Reburdening gun owners like that shows exactly how little the Conservatives have thought the bill through.

If Bill C-19 passes as presented, provincial, territorial or aboriginal governments that want to establish a registry will have to go back to square one, at great taxpayer expense, and redo the whole thing.

Gun owners in the jurisdiction will be forced to fill out more forms and pay more fees. Police will have to wait years to have a useful tool to work with. One province has already said that it wants to reconstitute a provincial registry, that being Quebec, and more may consider the options too. No one will end up with a criminal record by failing to comply with these provincial or territorial registries.

Because of the flaws in the bill and because I support the purpose of getting the bill out of the Criminal Code, I intend to move amendments that would put in place a three-year waiting period before the data could be destroyed. The Conservatives claim the NDP government, if elected in 2015, would want the data preserved to recreate the registry. My amendment would see that the data that was not picked up by the provinces would be destroyed in 2014.

As an aside, it is pleasing to hear that even the Conservatives could recognize the potential for the next election.

My amendments would require the government to consult with the provinces, territories and aboriginal governments to see if they wanted to recreate their own non-criminal registries.

Finally, my amendments would require that the data for those jurisdictions that wanted a registry would be transferred to the respective governments. This amendment would save Canadians hassles and money.

What we have in front of us is a government that is full of its own majority. It is full of the direction that it can take without responding to the needs of Canadians. It is a government that wants to do everything its own way.

When we talk about a band of lemmings charging over hill, it strikes me that is what is happening with the registry right now.

There are important and significant legal issues with the bill. They are issues that take time to debate and understand. We have seen the Conservatives put closure on the debate.

I am sure we will see the bill go to committee. I hope at that point in time the Conservatives will listen to reason and will take the time to understand the issues that are presented with the creation of Bill C-19.

The effort to remove the long gun registry from the federal Criminal Code is a useful thing to do. What has been layered on top of it is a slap in the face to co-operative federalism, to registered gun owners who wish to have some measure of liability protection as easily as possible and to a lot of Canadians.

The government does not have to do this. It does not have to be didactic about this. It should understand that it is making laws that will affect the lives of Canadians and legitimate gun owners and impact the liability of many people. It can make the right choice and support an amendment which would allow the data to be shared with the rest of the country, with the other jurisdictions that have a right to the data, as the Supreme Court said in 2000.

The government can do that. It does not have to turn its back on Canadians. It does not have to turn its back on the provinces. It does not have to act with its shirt full. It does not have to act puffed up and proud of what it is doing. It can act civilly for Canadians.

If it wants the approbation from other political people in the country, then the government should act civilized, do the right thing and follow the amendments.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in favour of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill.

I beg to differ with previous speakers from the other side that this particular subject has not been exhausted. We debated this subject in previous sessions of Parliament. I want to revisit a few of the discussion points from that time, but I will start by saying that our government believes strongly that to keep our streets and communities safe, we need to give the police the tools they need to do their jobs. I think we can all agree on that.

We need to continue to invest in smart crime prevention measures and ensure that dangerous criminals are taken out of circulation so that they can no longer victimize innocent Canadians. I might add as a substantive point, there is a need to deal with gun-related crimes. This is action this government has taken in the past.

As all members of the House know, our party's position and commitment dates back to 1995 when the previous Liberal government inflicted this lack-lustre attempt to deal with gun related crimes. What we wound up with was legislation that put gun control on law-abiding hunters, first nations, Inuit, farmers and sport shooters across the country. For these reasons the Conservative Party, now the government, has long opposed the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

By eliminating the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, we instead can focus our efforts on more effective measures to tackle crime and protect families and communities.

I want to re-emphasize for the purposes of this debate what this bill would do. It would repeal the requirement to register non-restricted firearms, long guns; provide for the destruction of all records pertaining to the registration of long guns in the Canadian firearms registry and under the control of the chief firearms officer; and maintain control over restricted and prohibited firearms.

I also want to re-emphasize the fact that the ending the long gun registry bill would not in any way derogate from important legislation and policy that will continue to meet the important public policy safeguards around legal long gun possession and acquisitions. Specifically, firearm owners, or those who wish to acquire a firearm or ammunition, would continue to be required to undergo a police background check, pass a rigorous firearms safety course, and comply with all firearms safe storage and transportation requirements. Furthermore, firearms owners would also still require a valid a firearms licence to purchase and possess long guns and to register restricted and prohibited firearms, such as hand guns.

Obviously, these are important measures that we have actually fortified, not to mention of course making sure that the screening process has even more rigour to it to ensure that responsible long gun owners have their affairs in order to possess these types of long guns.

We are investing in a number of effective measures in this regard and in the broader public safety initiative. We are fighting organized crime, which is where many gun-related crimes occur, almost always with illegal weapons and prohibited firearms. We are introducing mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes. We are combatting gun smuggling. Those are measures that we have taken and ones which we will continue to take.

I want to take a moment to summarize some of what has been presented to the House by my colleagues. There are two particular points.

First and most important, in the recent election Canadians from coast to coast to coast gave our government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all, and that is exactly what the bill would do.

I would say by way of extension, the great Kenora riding has a rich tradition in hunting. Our first nations communities, many of which are isolated, depend on the safe possession and acquisition of long guns and ammunition for their traditions and way of life. They gave me a strong mandate to carry this message forward to our government.

Second, in contrary to what some special interest groups tell us, the bill does not weaken gun controls. I have alluded already to the fact that real gun control in this country is done through an effective licensing program, good legislation and public policy around prohibited and illegal weapons and the crimes that are committed with them. Licensing is what affects people, and it is how people who should not own firearms are identified. Bill C-19 simply does not change or address licensing at all. To say otherwise would be a misstatement of fact.

Third, the destruction of records is a necessary part of fulfilling our commitment to Canadians. I find this new hedging argument quite interesting. If the registration list still occurs, then it is in fact, by simple logic, still a registry. More importantly, in my respectful view, this is private information that was given by law-abiding citizens under federal legislation at the time. I do not believe that it is available for the opposition parties to raise what has become a new dimension to their debate. Perhaps it is out of exasperation that some of their members and others of the third party have lost seats in the House over this issue. Perhaps that is why they would create something out of what I believe is not just insignificant, but a misstatement of facts.

I want to remind members of the fundamentals of the long gun registry. It is a process by which law-abiding long gun owners are compelled by force of law to disclose personal information to the state. Those data are then stored and used as part of a gun control system. If we accept that this is neither an effective gun control system nor an appropriate use of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, then by default we logically must agree that these data must be destroyed. It is also widely accepted that the data are incomplete and out of date and will become increasingly so over time.

As well, in an effort to grasp at any argument they can get their hands on, the NDP suggests that the destruction of these records would cost “untold millions”, in the words of the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. This concerns me. The destruction of records contained in the long gun registry will not result in additional costs to Canadian taxpayers.

I will use my last couple of minutes to reflect fondly on the rich traditions of many northwestern Ontarians including, perhaps critically, our first nations communities.

I appreciate the countless number of chiefs, particularly those in isolated and remote first nations, who have laid out the problems that the gun registry has posed for them in their communities, not just in terms of possession and acquisition but also in the challenges with respect to ammunition. They have spoken loud and clear.

I am here as part of a bigger northwestern Ontario picture on this particular piece of legislation. With great honour and respect, as a long gun owner myself, I would impress upon the House that we must consider the rich traditions of many rural and northern Canadians, particularly those in isolated and remote communities. For example, I have had an opportunity to spend some time in the western Arctic, where I have engaged in hunting and the like.

Coming from northwestern Ontario, I realize that the opposition, particularly the NDP, are firmly divided on this issue. We have seen colleagues across the floor who are from my region vote in support of abolishing the registry, and I encourage those members to maintain their position. We know how northwestern Ontarians feel.

I agree with the intellectual point that there may be a desire for us to move on from this debate. Northwestern Ontarians want to participate in other regional issues and issues of national interest. However, I do not accept what is being proffered by members of the opposite party, particularly the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who says that the passion has been lost.

To the contrary, we have never felt stronger about this. We want to move on, and I am asking members to support this important piece of legislation.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak against Bill C-19 and show my strong support for maintaining the long gun registry. I recognize there is division among Canadians, and in my riding, on this point, but what evidence tells me in the end is that this registry saves lives.

Members opposite like to say that we have already debated the bill in full. There are a few things wrong with that argument.

First, nearly a third of the members in the House are new members and so we would like to have our say. We would like to be able to represent our constituents, those who sent us here to bring their opinions to the House.

The second thing that is wrong with the argument is that this is a different bill than was originally presented in the private member's bill introduced in May 2009 by the member for Portage—Lisgar. That bill simply removed the requirement to register long guns. This bill goes far further than that, in a sense that it is proposing to have a bonfire of the data and to destroy the very important data that has already been collected under the gun registry, data which plays a very important role in keeping both our police officers and the public safe.

Both police organizations and the provinces want us to maintain that data and use it to enhance public safety. The money has already been spent gathering the data and it should not be destroyed. It should be shared with the provinces who wish to continue a registry on their own, should this legislation pass.

There is an additional complication here because prior to this registry, businesses were required to keep records of the sale of non-restricted firearms. This bill does not make any provisions for reverting to this process and, as we heard earlier today in question period, this means that weapons that were earlier used in incidents, like the Montreal massacre, weapons that were used in the terrible incident in Norway, will no longer be subject to registration at sale or any registration at all in the country.

While New Democrats acknowledge that first nations and rural Canadians have some problems with this registry, we have tried to address those points that would make the registry less burdensome to them. We believe we can find a way to address the problems with the registry, while at the same time strengthening gun control.

What are our proposals? We have agreed that we ought to decriminalize the first time non-registration of long guns, making a one-time offence a non-criminal ticket. This would go a long way toward the objections that Conservatives like to raise that law-abiding Canadians are being hit by the gun registry. They would be given a chance to register their weapons without acquiring a criminal record.

We would also agree to enshrine in legislation that there would never be a fee charged for registration under the long gun registry. This would reduce the objection that there is a high cost to many in rural areas who have low incomes and who need firearms for hunting or other farm related usages.

We have also agreed that we could prevent the release of identifying information about gun owners, except for incidents which would protect public safety, or under court order, or by force of law.

We have also suggested that guarantees could be put together to ensure that aboriginal treaty rights would be protected. I have talked with first nations in my riding and this is a concern of theirs. It is not that they object in principle to the gun registry, it is not that they do not have concerns about public safety, but they do, as they always should, object when their aboriginal treaty rights are ignored and things proceed without any consultation or talks with them. We would like to work with rural and aboriginal Canadians. At the same time, we would like to continue to give the police the tools they need to keep our streets safe.

From my point of view, firearm registration is already a one-time only procedure. It would never expire unless the weapons were transferred to a new owner. Under those conditions, to me, it seems much like the conditions by which we require people to get both a driver's licence and to register their cars; in this case, a firearms acquisition certificate and registration of the actual firearms.

While we would work to make it as non-burdensome as possible, to make it as easy as possible to register those, I still believe in the registration of long guns as an important part of public safety.

What has convinced me? What persuades me that we need to keep the registry? I want to talk first of all about police. I am a former police board member in my own community. At the time the registry was introduced, it was seen as a very important tool by the police that I worked with every day.

The registry gives real time access to information. It is regularly updated when the public safety threats are identified and used when police respond to calls and referenced during important investigations. The police officers in my riding have told me again and again that it does provide them with the information they need to solve crimes involving firearms.

As of September 11, 2011, the Canadian Firearms Registry has been accessed 17,402 times per day. Again, there is no alternative being presented by the government that would allow the police to have similar information that would prevent crimes before they are actually committed with firearms.

In one survey which was conducted, 92% of general duty police officers said they use the Canadian firearms information system and 74% of those front line general duty police officers said the results have provided and proven beneficial during major police operations, that they have helped keep police officers safe and that they have improved public safety.

When we look at the unfortunate deaths of police officers in this country over the past 10 years, it is important to remember that long guns killed 10 out of 13 police officers who died in service of the public. This registry has been supported by police officers across the country.

Chief William Blair of Toronto said, “The registry gives officers information that keeps them safe. If the registry is taken from us, police officers may guess, but they cannot know. It could get them killed”.

That is the first reason that persuades me that we need to keep this registry. The second is the evidence on the public record about public safety.

Since the introduction of stricter gun laws in 1991, there has been a 65% reduction in homicides by long guns. This is data from Statistics Canada. These are facts; these are not opinions. The reduction in homicides involving any type of firearm, in other words, other types of firearms, was only 37%, so there has definitely been an impact that would cause the reduction in long gun homicides to go down again by 65%, almost double the rate of reduction in other firearms.

From 1995, when the firearms registry became law, to 2010 there was a 41% reduction in homicides by long guns. Rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in unfortunate suicides, particularly those involving youth. While these have decreased by 64% in nine years, from 329 in 1995 to 121 in 2005, there has been no evidence that other methods have been substituted. So again, an important role in reducing the number of suicides among youth.

The third reason is my contact with women's groups in my riding and across the country. They have paid particular attention to family violence and the role of long guns in family violence in this country. When we look at the case of spousal homicides involving firearms from 1980 to 2009, there is a decrease in those figures, but on average one of three women killed by their husbands were shot and 88% of them were shot with long guns legally owned.

Since the introduction of the gun registry, gun-related spousal homicides are down by 50%. So still a significant problem, but a problem which has been greatly reduced.

Members on the other side are fond of saying “when police officers go to domestic violence, they cannot trust the gun registry 100%”. Well they can have fair warning if there are large numbers of weapons in that household. But that is not actually the issue.

The issue is, can guns be removed from households before there is an incident where someone is shot because police are aware, the weapons are registered, and lower levels of violence have indicated this may become a more serious problem in the future. That is where, in my mind, the real value of the registry is when we talk about family violence, the ability to identify weapons and remove them from the home before they are used for a terrible purpose like spousal murder.

The Conservatives like to argue that homicide rates have simply been on the decline and that our facts around public safety for women simply reflect that decline. But I have already said in my speech, we can show that there have been differential effects and greater decreases in the use of long guns in family violence, suicide and other public safety incidents.

When I stand today in opposition to this bill, I stand with police officers, women's groups, victims groups and the majority of Canadians.

Chief Daniel Parkinson of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police said, “Scrapping the federal Firearms Registry will put our officers at risk and undermine our ability to prevent and solve crimes”. Battered Women's Support Services in B.C. supports the registry and has gone so far as to ask the Liberal premier to set up a provincial registry if this legislation passes. The Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime says the majority of victims groups in this country support the registry.

I stand with the majority of British Columbias, 61% in the most recent public opinion survey, in support of the gun registry, and ask the government to abandon this reckless law.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Firearms Registry

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to address all the glaring factual inaccuracies that the NDP has been spewing recently in the Toronto Star, but let me try.

The NDP has claimed that we are delisting and declassifying firearms. This is completely false. Bill C-19 does not address the process in which firearms are classified as non-restricted.

The process in which firearms are determined to be non-registered was laid out by the previous Liberal government of 1995. Our government has made no changes to that process since coming into office.

Let me be clear: the ending of the long gun registry act does exactly what that title suggests. We are putting an end to the wasteful, ineffective system that has not prevented one single crime. We promised to end the long gun registry, and rather than flip-flopping like the NDP, we are keeping our promise to Canadians.

I would like to call on the NDP to stop its false and misleading statements, get on board and support Bill C-19 when it comes to a vote right here in just a few short hours.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, over 17 years ago the government of the day was promoting gun control in the form of Bill C-68.

After receiving a challenge from my constituents to look at the facts, I realized that the legislation did nothing to stop crime and protect Canadians.

To date, the long gun registry has cost taxpayers over $1 billion. This money could have been, and should have been, used to crack down on real criminals, not law-abiding Canadians. The long gun registry unfairly targets farmers, hunters and sport shooters, not criminals.

I am very proud to be part of a government that, after working for so long on this important issue, is making good on its commitment to end the long gun registry. Bill C-19 would reward those law-abiding citizens who have been patient and supportive. This legislation is a step in the right direction as we bring a bit more common sense to our laws.

We thank the thousands of Canadians who took the time to share their stories and their opinions that the registry should be scrapped. It has been a long haul, but in the end they have made a difference. Bill C-19 is proof of that.

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand and add my voice to the debate on this important piece of legislation, the ending of the long-gun registry act.

Today we are speaking on behalf of Canadians in rural and remote parts of our country who have been unfairly targeted for the simple and legal act of owning a long gun. I want to talk to that issue briefly.

I grew up in a city and probably would not have understood this issue, but in my mid-twenties I moved to a rural community, and my understanding became much more robust. I hit a deer on the road, and a hunter was able to put the deer down. My children played, but there were cougars in the area, and we came to count on these tools. I also came to appreciate how important this issue was for the farmers and hunters.

Who are these Canadians? They are our friends and family members. They are responsible, law-abiding individuals who use rifles and shotguns to legally hunt for sport or sustenance or both. They are athletes who participate in sharpshooting events, such as biathlons and skeet shooting, and who are internationally recognized for their impressive conditioning and skills. They are hard-working farmers protecting their livestock and their livelihood in the same manner as those who worked to settle in the west did for generations before us. For many of these individuals, their rifles and shotguns are simply the everyday tools of their trade.

Each of these firearm owners has had to undergo proper steps to obtain a firearm licence before acquiring their gun. The wasteful and ineffective long gun registry simply adds another layer of red tape to this process. It also carries with it the uncomfortable stigma that makes these long gun owners feel like criminals. In fact, it is putting more burden onto legal long gun owners while having zero impact on criminals.

Are we really to believe that violent criminals are going to register their long guns and firearms? It is not likely. Therefore, we are left to draw the obvious conclusion: the 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 take the bite out of crime. It is entirely the opposite. For example, we are proud of our efforts to augment and strengthen our police forces. We have committed $400 million for the police officer recruitment fund to assist provinces and territories in hiring additional officers and in addressing their unique public safety priorities and policing needs. This is a significant federal contribution to policing costs over a five-year period, and it is helping the provinces and territories in their efforts to recruit new police officers and make their communities safer. In this way, since just 2009, our government has contributed to the addition of over 1,800 police officers across Canada.

We are also investing in policing through other partnerships with the provinces and territories and 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 infrastructure at the RCMP training academy, depot division. These are all worthy investments in our front-line law enforcement.

Another key piece on reducing crime, and another area worthy of investment, is our effort to prevent crime before it happens. This includes supporting community-based crime prevention programs that help at-risk youth make smart choices and avoid criminal activities. Last year alone, our government funded 160 community-based crime prevention programs through the national crime prevention strategy, which had an impact on the lives of nearly 10,000 youth at risk.

We are proud that the next phase of Canada's economic action plan includes $7.5 million annually towards the youth gang prevention fund. These are investments that are making a tangible difference in the lives of at-risk youth. We are proud to support 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 direction of 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 society is far higher. According to the Department of Justice, the cost of crime, including everything from property damage to the emotional impact on families and victims, totals nearly $100 billion every year. In the face of this statistic, we stand firmly behind our decision to invest in effective crime prevention and appropriate reforms to law and justice sectors.

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

We know that most homicides committed in Canada do not involve rifles or shotguns. We know that in 2006 alone, three times as many homicide victims were killed with handguns than with rifles or shotguns. In 2009, we saw that two-thirds of homicides committed with a firearm were carried out with handguns, not rifles or shotguns.

It is obvious that the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry is not worth the billions of dollars already spent on it. It is nothing more than a bureaucratic database with questionable benefits. In a time of a fragile economic recovery, that money could be diverted to more effective programs that prevent gun crime and protect our police officers. That money could better be utilized in our efforts to strengthen our border enforcement and crack down on illegal smuggling of firearms across the U.S. border, which is where most of the firearms that are illegally smuggled into Canada come from. To those who argue that ending the long gun registry will weaken our gun control legislation, I reply that it does nothing of the kind; rather, it will free up resources to reinvest in programs that actually work.

We will also ensure that all data currently contained in the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry is destroyed. We will not stand for the creation of backdoor registries.

Equally as important as what the bill will do is what it will not do: it will not remove the requirements for Canadians to have a licence in order to use long guns; it will not undo the requirement to pass a background check and complete a safety training course. In addition, Bill C-19 will not make changes to the current requirement for owners of restricted and prohibited firearms to register these firearms through the Canadian firearms program.

These are reasonable and fair measures. I therefore call on all hon. members to support the speedy passage of Bill C-19.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in Bill C-19, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

The NDP recognizes that there were improvements to be made to the firearms registry from the moment it was implemented. In fact, our party has proposed a number of changes to improve this registry and make it a more effective tool that does not interfere with the rights of the public. What is more, our late leader, Jack Layton, introduced a very positive proposal, which included decriminalizing the failure to register one's firearm when it was the first failure to do so. His proposal also allowed the benefits of this registration program to be maintained. As my colleague mentioned a little earlier today, the registration fees would also be dropped under this proposal.

Instead of bringing people together, finding solutions, bridging the divides between the various positions and trying to reach a general consensus, as advocated by the NDP, the Conservatives are once again imposing their vision and their ideology just for the sake of keeping their election promises, without any consideration for the thoughts and concerns of all the groups in society that are saying they are against abolishing the firearms registry. The Conservatives are moving ahead without listening and without considering the countless police officers who use the firearms registry every day in every region of Canada.

The Conservatives prefer to take a step backwards, waste taxpayers' money and erase any trace of progress. The Conservatives want to eliminate all the data at all costs, regardless of how useful it is and regardless of the estimated 2,100 lives that have been saved because of this registry.

In Quebec, we recognize the importance of such a registry in protecting the public and reducing violence against women—women who live in abusive situations under constant threat.

After the Polytechnique massacre and the Dawson College violence—we bring this up every day because these events left their mark on Quebec—women's groups said that it was important to keep the gun registry to better track licence holders and to help police locate criminals, even murderers. This is unfortunately still the reality in 2011. The gun registry is a tool that allows us to verify the licences of gun owners and to run checks on these people. If the government abolishes the registry, it will remove the obligation to verify information about licence holders or those who buy and sell guns, which runs the risk of weakening the usefulness of a licence.

In addition—we have said this a number of times but it bears repeating—the National Assembly of Quebec, the elected officials who represent all Quebeckers, last week voted unanimously to keep part of the gun registry.

However, the Conservatives are ignoring the will of Quebec's National Assembly and are telling Quebec that if it wants to create its own registry it should go ahead, but without the federal data. Once again, it is a question of public safety. The Conservatives want to tax the provinces as much as they can.

Instead of wasting the money of Quebec taxpayers, who funded the registry, why not act in good faith, in a positive and constructive manner, and give them access to the data and the information, which, I would remind members, saves lives. Furthermore, on the issue of public safety, the Conservatives are really contradicting themselves with this bill.

For example, in my riding of Beauharnois—Salaberry, which is on the U.S.-Ontario border, we know that there is definitely a problem with the trafficking of guns, drugs and cigarettes. An increasing number of issues that people find to be worrisome and alarming are being raised.

Just last Friday, I met with the mayor of Dundee, who spoke to me about a growing problem: for the past year at least, landowners have been feeling more and more intimidated every day because RCMP and Sûreté du Québec police surveillance has diminished. An excellent pilot project was implemented west of the Franklin border crossing in Venise-en-Québec. However, between Franklin and Dundee, there is a section of the border where surveillance is lacking and crime is on the rise.

I have a very real example. Last winter, the home of a person who was not involved in crime in any way was set on fire by criminal groups that have not yet been identified. People are terrified by the idea that other homes may also be burned down. People are being intimidated but they do not dare to report the crimes that are being committed around them, on their property or against them.

In June, the Minister of Public Safety himself went to Dundee to determine the extent of the problem. He met with the mayor of Dundee. He assessed the situation and acknowledged that action needed to be taken to make the community safer. Yet to date, the mayor of Dundee has not received any information and the government has not followed up on the situation.

People want an increased police presence to increase surveillance, whether it be ground or maritime surveillance, as my riding borders Lake St. Francis.

Could RCMP officers not form a task force in co-operation with the Ontario Provincial Police, police on the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve and the Sûreté du Québec? Is it too much to ask the Conservative government to make sure that these areas are safe? The various jurisdictions could work together to break up these crime networks, which have not stopped growing since security was increased west of the Franklin border crossing.

With respect to the Franklin border post, I will say the same thing. The post was closed in April. This is a factor that reduces public safety in my riding, given that the customs officers who watched over that post no longer work there, so there is no longer any surveillance at that location on the Canadian side. On the American side, however, they have strengthened security. Is what has happened not absurd? We have tried to work with the Conservatives to reinstate this border crossing, but have been unsuccessful to date. We still have hope.

Instead of spending time tearing down what we have managed to build up over the years, why not think about concrete solutions to concrete problems of public safety that are increasingly of concern not just for the people in my riding, but also for people in Ontario and Akwesasne and the Americans?

There is a glaring problem in terms of the firearms registry and the borders. The Canada Border Services Agency does not exchange information with the people in charge of the registry when it comes to long arms imported under a licence to operate a business. As a result, some firearms have turned up on the black market.

My time is running short, so I would like to give two very quick examples. In British Columbia in 2007 an RCMP report explained how some firearms had turned up on the black market. Some film production companies had claimed that they needed firearms in their films and so were allowed to bring the weapons in legally. The weapons then turned up on the black market, sold to the highest bidder.

The second example is something that happened as recently as October 25, last week. The RCMP had to conduct raids at gun shops because some replica AK-47s had been imported from China in shipments of goods where they were recorded as being mere toys. The RCMP then realized that the firearms could easily be converted and that by changing no more than two or three parts, they would become deadly weapons, so they all had to be recalled. It is unbelievable that this could have happened.

I will conclude by saying that the registry is consulted by police more than 17,000 times a day. Is this useful information? I think it is. There is no consensus on this bill, and it must be rejected so that it can be reworked to take all opinions into consideration.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Yes, but let's invite him and we'll see. My motion would be that we invite him to appear on Bill C-19 this Thursday.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I know we're past our time right now, but I would be happy to put a motion that we ask the minister to appear on Bill C-19 this coming Thursday.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to join in the debate on Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. This is an important issue that has been very important in my riding of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley.

Last fall I presented a petition before this House signed by thousands of members of my riding, all of whom wanted the government to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. I also want to note that our office did a survey on this very issue within our riding, and again the constituents of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley spoke loudly and clearly. Of the 2,600 people who responded to the survey, 2,200 said they wanted the long gun registry scrapped, so when I speak today, I feel I am honestly and fairly representing the views and wishes of my constituents.

I wonder if the hon. members across the floor who represent rural ridings can say the same. I will come back to that point a little later.

Let me tell members a bit about Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, the area that I am so proud to represent. It is a beautiful part of northern Nova Scotia. It is a rural riding; the largest community is 12,000 people. Families there have a wonderful tradition of enjoying Canada's outdoor heritage.

Members may know that as an educator by profession, I spent many years working to help young people become responsible citizens and lead healthy and rewarding lives. I am happy to say that thousands of young people in the riding enjoy hunting and fishing as part of healthy outdoor living. Being close to nature is one of the great benefits of living in the rural parts of our country, and those are also activities that families enjoy together as part of growing up in these rural communities.

That is one of the reasons that there is so much opposition to the long gun registry in communities that I represent. Law-abiding hunters, farmers and fishermen for whom responsible long gun ownership is the norm are being made to feel that there is some questionable aspect to their lifestyle simply because they own a firearm. They feel that they are being penalized for a way of life by a far-off threat of illegal handguns in urban areas. This is both wrong and unfair. It is something I hear about on a daily basis from those who live and work in my riding.

I also hear a great deal about the wastefulness of the long gun registry, something I have spoken about in the past and something I will continue to speak about in the future. As a Conservative and a taxpayer, I find the cost of the long gun registry to be unacceptable. When this measure was first introduced by the previous Liberal government, Canadians were told the cost would not be more than $2 million; today we are looking at costs as high as $2 billion. Canadians have been made to bear the cost of this bureaucratic exercise, yet it delivers no tangible benefits to prevent crime or help front-line officer safety. In fact, there is a fundamental disconnect between what the long gun registry was created to do and what it actually does.

We know the long gun registry was set up with the intention of preventing gun crime, yet we know that by their very nature, criminals do not follow the rule of law, and they certainly do not register their firearms. In the years during which it has been in effect, the long gun registry has failed to do anything to prevent criminals from picking up a firearm and using it in a crime. It has no preventative capacity whatsoever. Despite hearing many of my hon. colleagues across the floor express their belief that the long gun registry saves lives, I do not believe we have been presented with any evidence that it helps in this manner.

The result over the years has been a large, wasteful and ineffective exercise that has done nothing to prevent crimes but has done a great deal to burden law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters. It is bad policy, which is why our government is moving to scrap the long gun registry once and for all.

Let me be clear about what Bill C-19 would do and what it would not do.

The ending the long-gun registry act would remove the requirement for law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters to register their unrestricted long guns. We would also ensure that the data collected as part of this registry would be destroyed and would not be available to create another long gun registry. Our government has made a commitment to scrap the long gun registry, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Throughout this debate, I have seen many of the members opposite try to confuse this issue. Many members have incorrectly suggested that by ending the long gun registry, we would somehow weaken gun control in Canada. There is simply no evidence to back up that claim. The long gun registry has nothing to do with licensing or the control of restricted and prohibited firearms. The rules and regulations surrounding those types of firearms would remain unchanged.

To close, let me remind the hon. members that November is the start of hunting season. For many years and throughout many hunting seasons, members of constituencies like mine have waited patiently for the end of the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. Thousands of Canadians, both in my riding and across the country, are waiting for action from their members of Parliament on this issue. Specifically, they are waiting to see how members on both sides of the House will vote on this legislation.

That is why I am calling on members of the House who come from constituencies like mine to do the right thing and vote in support of Bill C-19. When we vote on this issue, I will be voting on behalf of the constituents of my riding. I have a responsibility to those who elected me and I hope that all other hon. members will respect those who elected them and do the same.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as members are aware, I am rising to speak to Bill C-19, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

In this very emotional debate, we have had members from all sides of the House rise and quote from either families of victims, police officers, or from other organizations that are for or against the registry. I think that the kind of debate we have heard in the House emphasizes how divisive this particular issue is in this country. No matter which side of the issue, people have passion when speaking to their beliefs on the matter.

I will address one aspect of that belief. I come from the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, a very beautiful riding, but I think it epitomizes the divide in this country around this particular issue.

My riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan is an urban-rural riding and members can imagine the kind of discussion that has taken place there on the registry. I would have one group of constituents come before me to say that I absolutely must vote to get rid of the gun registry. Then I would have an equally passionate group of people coming from exactly the opposing point of view. However, I have heard members in the House say that the reason they are here in the House is because people in their riding voted to send them here based on their position on the gun registry, either pro or con.

I think many of us sometimes face very difficult decisions when we have a riding that is just not that clear cut. What do we do? I have had people, whether they voted for or against me, say that I have to represent their views here in the House. With an individual who says that to me, I always raise this question. There are roughly 127,000 people who live in my riding, it is 4,000-plus square kilometres and I could conceivably have 127,000 different points of view on any particular issue. So how do I best represent my constituents?

It is incumbent upon us, when we are talking about representing our constituents, to look at the country as a whole. Right now we have before us an issue that is dividing our country. It is dividing the urban versus the rural. It is pitting the hunters and farmers against some of the city dwellers and sometimes against people whose families have suffered as a result of gun violence.

It would be far more useful if we could talk about gun control rather than the gun registry. If we want to keep our communities, family members and officers safe, that may be the best way to tackle it. However, instead of having that conversation, we are having a deeply divisive conversation about the gun registry.

I want to quote the late Jack Layton. Jack, in this House and in other places, has said that one of the roles of a national leader is to look for ways to bridge those divides in our country. One of the roles of a national leader is to take those deeply divisive issues and ask where we can find common ground so that we are not beating up on each other over issues.

Years ago when I was doing work on conflict resolution and mediation, one of the things that some of the professors used to say about this issue is to be hard on the problem and soft on the people. However, I find in this House that we are being very hard on the people, but not dealing with the problem.

I want to read into the record parts of a speech that Jack gave on August 20, 2010. Jack said:

I’ve heard from countless gun-owners who say the registry treats them like criminals. Discounts their way of life...their regional roots. I’ve heard from Canadians who hate what the registry seems to represent — another city-driven idea that forgot rural reality. I’ve spoken to First Nations hunters who resent hearing they should “just get over it” and register their rifles. They talk about respect, and treaty rights, and slippery slopes.

The concerns of rural, northern and aboriginal Canadians are real and honest. But I’ve also heard from countless citizens, equally impassioned, who take a different view. Emergency Room doctors, victim service workers, police officers and their unions, parents, teachers, Members of Parliament, ordinary women & men in cities like Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.

Many agree that the way the registry was implemented was deeply flawed, but they ask a compelling question: Shouldn't we Canadians do anything in our power that might reduce gun violence? Stopping gun violence has been a priority for rural and urban Canadians. There is no good reason why we shouldn't be able to build solutions that bring us together, but that sense of shared purpose had been the silent victim of the gun registry debate.

He goes on and, I think, very ably outlines in that speech the very difficult decision facing our country, but I only have 10 minutes.

I know from my own riding that, although the gun registry has been an issue either for or against, is not the number one issue that people come in to my riding office to talk about. They want to know how come they cannot get their employment insurance claim cheque because of delays in processing. They want to know where is the national housing strategy because my riding has a situation where there are very few rental units that have been built over the last 10, 15, 20 years. They want to know what is happening with health care because they cannot get a family doctor. They want to know what is happening with the roads and all of those other day-to-day things that people face in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan. The gun registry is not the number one issue that they say we should be spending our time and energy in this House debating.

Now, Jack and the New Democrats did have some proposals around this deeply divisive issue. This included things like decriminalizing first time non-registration of long guns and making a one time offence a non-criminal ticket, enshrining in legislation that gun owners will never be charged for registration, preventing the release of identifying information about gun owners except to protect public safety by court order or by law, and creating a legal guarantee for aboriginal treaty rights.

I know that as a former aboriginal affairs critic I did hear many times from first nations about their concerns around the possible abrogation of treaty rights in this piece of gun registry legislation. I know the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, myself and others in this House have talked very passionately about the need to consider aboriginal treaty rights in the context of gun registry or gun control, whichever way we are looking at it.

As in many pieces of legislation, there are often opportunities for unintended consequences. We have seen this in legislation that has been before this House before. I was talking earlier to a member of the press about the former voter identification registration, where the initial piece of legislation disenfranchised nearly a million Canadians because the House did not get it right. It did not do its due diligence.

An article in the November 1 Toronto Star begins with “Tory gun bill delists sniper rifles, semi-automatics”. In here some concerns have been raised about some, one can imagine, unintended consequences of the bill because I am sure nobody would actually want this to happen. I am going to read from the article about some of the weapons that are affected. It states:

They are all weapons that will soon be declassified under the Conservatives’ bill to kill the long-gun registry and freed from binding controls that now see them listed with the RCMP-run database.

They fall under the class of “non-restricted” weapons and they are about to become unregistered. Restricted or prohibited firearms such automatic assault rifles, sawed-off shotguns or handguns are not affected by the bill and would remain under current controls.

But under Bill C-19, the law would no longer require a licensed gun owner to hold a registration certificate for “non-restricted” weapons.

It further states:

The [Coalition for Gun Control] is still analyzing the legislation. But in information sent to the Star, its researchers point out that under the Conservative bill the Ruger Mini-14, the .50-calibre sniper rifle...a sniper rifle that can pierce light armour from a distance of up to 1.5 km—and [another] Long Range Sniper Rifle, which can accurately hit a target 2 kilometres away will no longer require registration certificates.

I am sure most Canadians would not want this to happen. It would seem important that what we do is take a step back, think about the divisions that this is creating in our country, and think about what Canadians actually want when they are talking about gun registry versus gun control.

I would urge all members in this House to vote against the bill because the bill simply does not address some of the key issues that are facing our communities, our police officers, and families of victims of gun violence.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to add my voice to this important debate on Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, which would finally put an end to what was an unnecessary, wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. It is a bill that has been a long time coming.

For too long, the failed long gun registry has been in place making criminals of law-abiding hunters and farmers, while doing nothing to prevent gun crime in Canada. The majority of homicides committed in Canada do not involve long guns at all. Statistics have shown that rifles and shotguns are not the problem because they are the not the weapon of choice for criminals.

There seems to be a misconception that keeping the long gun registry will somehow prevent gun crimes with illicit handguns from happening. The truth is that those gun crimes have happened despite the long gun registry being in place.

The long gun registry is a waste of taxpayer money and it is ineffective. One of the responsibilities of government is to put in place programs that are cost-effective and which actually work. The long gun registry accomplishes neither. For many years, we have seen ongoing discussions in the media, in government and by the Auditor General of just how wasteful and ineffective the long gun registry actually is.

With costs reaching as high as $2 billion and no tangible evidence that a long gun registry does anything to reduce crime, there have been continuous calls to end this boondoggle. Despite the attempts of long gun registry supporters to convince Canadians that the long gun registry is saving lives, there is simply no scientific data to back this up. It is clear to many millions of Canadians that the long gun registry is both wasteful and ineffective. It is for these reasons that our government has worked, since taking office, to end the long gun registry.

Over the last several days of the debate, we have heard a great deal of hyperbole from members of the opposition about what the scrapping of the long gun registry will actually mean. The way some members have been talking, one would think that this bill would remove all restrictions on firearms. This is misleading and it is wrong.

Bill C-19 is about ending the long gun registry and destroying the records that make up the long gun registry. Other tools and controls on firearms will remain in place. To lawfully possess a firearm, every Canadian must be in possession of a valid firearms licence, and anyone who wants to acquire a firearm must undergo the required Canadian firearms safety course. This is a comprehensive 10-hour classroom course that gives students a working knowledge of safe firearms handling and it ensures that they are familiar with the laws and procedures regarding the ownership of firearms.

As part of this licence application, all individuals are also screened. They are screened to ensure that there is no reason to believe that the public will be in danger if that individual gains a licence. This includes checking the people's criminal record to see if they have been prohibited by law to own a gun or if they pose a danger to society. Once individuals do acquire a licence, they must renew it regularly.

As noted, none of that will change with the legislation that is being discussed today. In fact, to strengthen the components of the licensing system that actually work, we have invested $7 million annually to improve the screening process for first-time firearms licensees, and we believe there is help keeping firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them.

Our second area of focus is the work we have done to strengthen the punishment for gun crimes. We passed legislation that sets out mandatory prison sentences for serious gun crimes, as well as reversed bail provisions for serious offences. We have put in place laws that target drive-by and other intentional shootings that demonstrate a reckless disregard for safety of others.

There is now a mandatory minimum sentence of 4 years in prison, up to a maximum of 14 years for these crimes, and minimum sentences go up to 5 years if the individual committed the act on behalf of a criminal organization or using a restricted or prohibited hand gun or automatic weapon. These are tough measures that send a strong message. They send a strong message that those who commit violent crimes will face serious consequences.

We have also taken decisive action to boost the number of police officers on the ground to combat crimes in our communities. We have invested significant funds into helping prevent crime through programs like the youth gang prevention fund and the national crime prevention strategy.

In addition, we are taking real action to strengthen our borders. These borders are strengthened to stem the flood of illegally smuggled firearms from the United States. Our efforts to crack down on this illegal activity have taken many forms, including the deployment of integrated border enforcement teams at strategic points along the border, as well as making key improvements to border infrastructure, which improves the way that travellers are screened.

I have listened to the opposition question what lessons we have learned from the tragic events of Polytechnique and Dawson College if we scrap the long gun registry.

I will quote Darrell Scott, whose daughter Rachel was killed at Columbine, the first high school tragedy shootings in 1999, as he testified before a House judiciary subcommittee on firearms legislation. He stated:

In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughters death.

Mr. Scott went on to state:

And when something as terrible...politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that continue to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws.

He continued:

Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our OWN hearts. Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the answers. The young people of our nation hold the key.

In light of what we know about the long gun registry, our government is making the responsible choice. We know the long gun registry is wasteful. We know it is ineffective against real crime. We know that we have a strong mandate from Canadians to pursue law and order measures that really work. That is why our government is choosing to deliver on our promise to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

The long gun registry has cost Canadian taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money. We hear from front-line police officers that the long gun registry is not reliable, is full of errors and has done nothing to help the officers who it was meant to protect.

There is no statistic showing us that the long gun registry has had any impact in terms of saving lives or deterring individuals from committing violent gun-related crimes.

This is a matter of common sense, and our government has a strong mandate to deliver measures that work and that protect law-abiding Canadians. The long gun registry does neither.

I ask all hon. members to vote according to the facts and end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry today.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to debate Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill.

Many of my hon. colleagues on both sides of the House have spoken on this topic. I am glad there has been such robust debate happening over this important issue. In fact, we know this is a topic that evokes strong emotions in the hearts and minds of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. For my part, it was certainly an issue that I heard a great deal about as I went door to door during the most recent election campaign. I am very glad, therefore, to have the opportunity to speak about it today. This is a very important issue in my riding in British Columbia, where many farmers and hunters live.

As members know, Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to deliver on our law and order agenda. We have been clear that we will pursue tough on crime measures that work and that protect law-abiding Canadian families.

We were also clear, completely clear, about our government's position on ending the failed long gun registry. For many years now, we have said that we disagree with it on principle, that it is wasteful and ineffective, and that there is no evidence that it prevents crime or protects front-line police officers.

Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill, is the manifestation of an ongoing promise on which, as Conservatives, we have been working to deliver for many years now. We have been working to end the registry because it simply is not working. For example, the registry is quite incomplete and the information is inaccurate. We have heard from many front-line police officers who are simply not confident in this information. This means that as a tool, it could do more harm than good.

In addition to being incomplete and inaccurate, we do not have any statistical evidence that the long gun registry has made a difference to crime rates. We hear from some hon. members that there is a decline in the crime rate as a result of the long gun registry. In fact, when we look at the numbers, the long-term trend in firearm-related homicide has nothing to do with the long gun registry. In fact, it has been in steady decline since the 1970s.

In addition, the overall rate of firearm-related violent crime was driven primarily by the use of handguns. Long guns do not factor heavily into crimes. In the instances where they do, there is absolutely no evidence that the registration of a long gun as part of the registry program has any impact on combatting crime.

In terms of how police officers use the data, for too long, all Canadians were led to believe that the long gun registry would help make us safer. We were told that it is a tool our police depend upon. This is simply not accurate. For example, we have heard numbers quoted that police use the long gun registry up to 11,000 times a day. The reality is that when a police officer accesses the Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC, for any reason, including a simple address check, an automatic hit to the registry is generated. This hit will always be generated whether the information from it is desired or not.

In addition, the long gun registry does not enhance public safety because it does not put the focus on stopping real crime. The emphasis is not placed on stopping criminals from using firearms to commit crimes. In fact, the emphasis is placed on ensuring we have a list of law-abiding long gun owners. This does not prevent criminals from obtaining firearms.

In Canada a person should not be deemed a criminal if he or she owns a long gun. Bill C-19 would end this unfortunate episode of penalizing law-abiding hunters and farmers, such as those I have come to know in my riding, and would help us continue our government's focus on action that would actually help to prevent crime.

On that note, let me take a moment to review what Bill C-19 would actually do, as we have seen a lot of hysteria from the members of the opposition which does not accurately reflect what this legislation would accomplish.

First, the ending the long gun registry bill would do just what it says it would do. It would end the failed long gun registry.

In ending the registry, the bill would also make provisions for the destruction of the records that were collected as part of the long gun registry. That means the names and information collected from law-abiding long gun owners would not be shared, stored or sealed. The information would be destroyed and would not be held in the event that a new registry or a renewed registry could be created at any time, either soon or years down the road.

We have certainly heard a great deal from the opposition on this issue. Hon. members want to know why we will not share this information with the provinces. As the Minister of Public Safety quite rightly pointed out, we made a commitment to Canadians that we would scrap the long gun registry. This means that in destroying the registry, we would destroy the data as well. Ending the registry but then sharing the data would be akin to selling the farm but keeping the land. We will fulfill the promise that we made and that includes doing the right thing and ensuring that no other government could use the information to resurrect the failed long gun registry.

I also want to note, as several of my hon. colleagues on this side of the House have noted as well, that Bill C-19 would not alter existing registration rules for restricted and prohibited firearms. The same rules and regulations would apply concerning handguns, semi-automatic or any other currently restricted and prohibited firearms. The application for ownership of these types of firearms is much more vigorous, even more so for those which are prohibited. Police would still have access to all of this information to ensure they know who owns a handgun or a semi-automatic firearm, as well as where they live. Police would still have access to the licensing data of any type of firearm should this bill pass.

However, Bill C-19 would finally put an end to an expensive bureaucracy that criminalizes the honest, that does nothing to deter those who commit gun crime, and that simply does not do what it was supposed to do.

I have heard from countless Canadians especially in my riding of Delta—Richmond East that the long gun registry is simply not worth it. It has always been the focus of this government to take concrete action for the safety of Canadians. That is always uppermost in our minds. We have a proven record of delivering measures that not only crack down on criminals but also protect victims and give law enforcement the tools it needs to get its very important job done.

From our Tackling Violent Crime Act in 2006, which created longer mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes and drive-by shootings, to delivering initiatives that help prevent crime before it happens, such as the youth gang prevention fund, this government is serious about tackling gun crime the right way.

A government's job is to enact policy that works. As we stand here today, for far too long it has been clear that the long gun registry does not work. It is time to end this registry once and for all.

[Peter Penashue, Conservative, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Bill C-19, ending the long-gun registry act.

It is a subject that is of real importance to the good people of my riding in Labrador. In fact, it is an issue that people from across Newfoundland and Labrador feel strongly about. I am proud to stand here today and ensure that their perspective is heard.

As members know, Labrador is one of the more rural ridings in Canada. That is a source of real pride for us. It is also one with an unavoidable reality.

In Labrador many people rely on hunting. That does not mean they do it from time to time. It is part of their way of life. It is part of putting food on the table for their families. It is the way people make ends meet. It is the way of life in Labrador. We enjoy that life.

This may seem unusual for those members who live in urban areas. Maybe those members would find many things unusual about daily life in the north.

For example, one would not expect to see a bear in the city when putting out garbage in the morning. In the city people are not expected to have killed and skinned the animal they would be serving their families that same evening. That is what makes Canada great. We are a country made up of distinct regions and cultures.

Canada is a strong country because we stand up for and respect each other's differences. That is part of why the long gun registry is so particularly offensive to the people of Labrador. Not only does it question the way of life that has been part of Labrador for generations but it criminalizes people who have as much right to their way of life as any other Canadian across the country.

I will begin with one of many stories I know from the people of Labrador who are firmly against the long gun registry.

I am proud to say that I have been a responsible long gun owner for many years. I was raised by my grandfather, Matthew, and from a very young age I was taught how to use a long gun as a hunting tool. I was taught to respect it as well.

Every year from September until December and April until June we would spend time in the country out on the land. Managing our long guns in a safe and responsible manner was essential to our survival and maintaining our way of life.

There is a respect and discipline that comes with responsible firearm ownership. It is something that is not discussed enough in the debate surrounding this issue. I often find that the critics who are the most vocal about long guns are also the ones who least understand the issues.

Like other members in the House, I will admit that I own unregistered long guns. Like many Canadians across the country, I did start the process of registering my guns.

There are those who say that the process of registering a long gun is easy and straightforward. My own experience and the experience of many millions of others suggests that this is not always the case. The process is confusing and complex. On top of that, the only available help that is provided for people who live in the north is a telephone number. That telephone number can be called multiple times and it will ring and ring some more, but there will be no one to pick up the phone at the other end.

I know I am not alone on this issue. I have spoken to many others who have found the same thing. In addition to this, I know that many of my constituents do not speak English or French. The situation is the same for many first nations, Métis and Inuit in ridings across the north. These are hard-working people who have lived their way of life for generations. On top of that, they are being made to comply with regulations that cast them as potential criminals. They have to contend with the language barrier which makes the process even more confusing.

There we are, at the mercy of a process that makes us criminals if we do not comply. But by virtue of who we are and where we come from, we find it virtually impossible to obey the law. In effect, we are being set up to fail, to be criminalized, and to be on the wrong side of the law.

Why, one may ask? It is because who we are and where we come from is fundamentally misunderstood by the people who created this law. In fact, it is clear that either they did not understand or they did not care. The result is the same.

Which brings me to another point that I want to bring up behalf of all northerners. The long gun registry was set up because the Liberal government of the day was trying to respond to a terrible crime that had happened. Indeed it was terrible. We still mourn that tragedy today.

However, the long gun registry was put in place because those who created it said it would help prevent gun crimes. I believe what this debate over the past few days has shown is that the long gun registry does nothing to stop crime. It does nothing to stop criminals from using guns to harm innocent people. It was intended to be a solution against crime, but all it does is target those who live off the land and make their living by hunting while it does nothing to deliver an actual solution to a problem.

Yet, for too many years, it has been acceptable to other governments to pretend that one problem is being addressed while completely ignoring the impact that the problem is creating on millions of Canadians across the country.

It has been our government and our government alone that has consistently stood against this fundamental miscarriage of justice. It is our government that has stood for the law-abiding hunters and farmers. That is why, today, I will be voting with my fellow members on this side of the House to abolish the long gun registry.

I will also take the opportunity to point out to members from the other parties who sit on the fence that the people of Labrador spoke clearly on this issue in the past election. They wanted the long gun registry eliminated and placed their vote with the party they knew would deliver.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Madam Speaker, I recognize that the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac has worked long and hard, trying to see that this type of legislation gets passed in the House.

Since 2006, our government has introduced three bills to repeal the long guns registry. We introduced a bill in 2006, again in 2007 and again in April 2009. We did this for the very reasons my colleague raised. Some individuals collect guns and feel like criminals if they do not want to register them. That is truly one of the issues we have heard over and over again from constituents.

By introducing Bill C-19, we are following through on our government's commitment to eliminate this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. We are following through on a commitment that Canadians want.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Madam Speaker, last spring, Canadians elected a government that was listening and keeping its promises. They told us they wanted a government that would make keeping their children and communities safe a priority. As promised, within the first 100 days of Parliament, we introduced Bill C-10.

My constituents spoke of wanting a strong and stable economy. Again, we delivered with the budget implementation act, making job growth and strengthening families a priority.

Farmers in my riding told me that they wanted freedom to market their own wheat and barley. Again, we delivered by introducing Bill C-18.

Finally, I regularly hear how wasteful the long gun registry is. I am very pleased that this government has now introduced Bill C-19 to end this discrimination against law-abiding citizens. We have listened and we are acting.

I am also very pleased to have this opportunity to speak in support of Bill C-19. This has been a long time coming. Certainly there are some members on this side of the House who have been dealing with this issue, debating it for approximately 17 years, and I am honoured to be among those who will rise in the House to debate this important legislation.

To be clear, there is no debate about the fact that we need effective ways of dealing with gun crime. That is not the issue. The issue is that the long gun registry does not deal with gun crime. It is wasteful, ineffective and does nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The simple fact is that long guns are not the weapon of choice for criminals. For the most part, criminals use handguns and the registration requirement for handguns is not going anywhere. What we are doing is ensuring that law-abiding hunters, sports shooters and farmers are no longer being treated like criminals simply because they own a rifle or a shotgun. We are doing this because it is the right thing and because our constituents have told us for years that it is what they want.

Since taking office in 2006, our government has taken decisive action to put the rights of victims and law-abiding Canadians ahead of the rights of criminals. We have taken decisive action to make our streets and communities safer, to crack down on criminals and prevent crimes before they happen. Ending the long gun registry act is about ensuring that we continue to preserve and enhance those measures that do work to reduce crime and protect Canadians. It is also about ensuring that we do not unnecessarily penalize millions of honest and law-abiding citizens with rules that have little effect on crime prevention or on reducing gun crime.

As members have heard in the House, Bill C-19, first and foremost, would remove the need to register non-restricted firearms such as rifles and shotguns. Today, such non-restricted firearms are primarily used by farmers, hunters and residents of rural Canada to protect their livestock, hunt wild game or to otherwise earn a living.

Bill C-19 would not do away with the need to properly license all owners of firearms. In fact, it would retain not only the licensing system but also the strict system of controlling restricted and prohibited firearms. Nor would it do away with the need for the owners of restricted and prohibited firearms to obtain a registration certificate as well as a licence. Registration of restricted and prohibited firearms, including all handguns, would continue to be maintained by the RCMP firearms program. Our government has invested $7 million per year to strengthen the licensing process by enhancing front-end screening of first-time firearms-licence applicants. This funding allows officials to screen an additional 20,000 applicants per year, including all applicants for restricted licences.

Under Bill C-19, farmers, duck hunters, target shooters and other law-abiding Canadians would still need to go through a licensing procedure. The bill would not change those measures. In determining eligibility to hold a licence, a person's criminal record, history of treatment for mental illness associated with violence or history of violent behaviour against another person would still be examined.

Therefore, for those who have the misconception that we are somehow easing all of the checks and balances when it comes to gun ownership, as we can see, that is not the case. Rather, what is proposed are changes that would do away with the need to register long guns. The registry is wasteful, ineffective and unfairly targets law-abiding hunters and farmers.

I know I have said this before, but it is important to repeat because some of my colleagues across the aisle just do not get it. By scrapping this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, we can, instead, focus our efforts and resources on measures that actually tackle crime and make our communities safer. This is why Bill C-19 has the support of our government, as well as millions of Canadians. It is also why many hon. members on the other side of the House have voted to support similar legislation in previous Parliaments.

Our government's main priority is keeping our streets and communities safe. We will do that through programs and initiatives that work. That is why we moved quickly to reintroduce and pass the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which contains many important measures to protect families, stands up for victims and holds criminals accountable.

We have also introduced and passed mandatory prison sentences for serious gun crimes and we have passed legislation to initiate reforms to the pardons system. A lot of changes have taken place over the last five years that go a long way to keeping Canadians safe, changes that work, changes that make sense and changes that Canadians want. Personally, this is an issue I hear about from my constituents all the time. It is something they speak to me about at town halls, on the street and at meetings. They call, write letters and send emails, and I know my colleagues have experienced the same thing.

During the last election, we heard over and over again on doorsteps that it was time to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. I am very proud that we can move forward in doing away with the Liberal legacy of waste and ineffectiveness. It is time for a new chapter. It is time to stop treating law-abiding Canadians like criminals. It is time to focus on measures that actually prevent crime. It is time for the opposition to support the bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to stand today to speak in favour of Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act.

On May 2, Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. That is exactly what we will do.

For the past seven years I have heard concerns from my constituents about the effectiveness of this registry and the fact that it targets law-abiding citizens and not criminals. My constituents want effective solutions that keep their streets and communities safe. That is why our government has taken concrete steps to improve our justice system. We have put forward tough new sentences to keep dangerous criminals where they belong: behind bars. We have also made major investments in crime prevention.

This is how we keep Canadians safe: tough sentences and smart crime prevention funding. It is not by promoting a measure that is essentially a glorified list of non-criminals that has cost billions of dollars and focuses on people who are already, by nature, law-abiding citizens. Targeting people like hunters, farmers and sport shooters is not going to stop crime, and in fact it has not.

I would like to focus my remarks today on the dictatorial legislation that is the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

As I have already stated, the registry is a collection of data regarding law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters that is held by the Government of Canada. These data had been collected with a gun to our heads, so to speak, and under the threat of extreme punishment, including serious jail time. In our view and my view, this is simply wrong.

I am one of those individuals who reluctantly registered my long guns under this threat. I waited until the very last minute in 2003 to register my rifles and shotguns. I was the mayor of my municipality at the time, a role that I took just as seriously as my role as a member of Parliament. I feared that should some overzealous conservation officer or policeman charge me for owning an unregistered gun that had been legal for all my life, it would give me a criminal record that would disqualify me from holding public office, including as a member of Parliament.

Registering my long rifles, many of which are family keepsakes, was one of the toughest decisions I have ever had to make. I was made to feel like a common criminal if I did not comply, and it still sticks in my craw.

The previous Liberal government foisted this measure on law-abiding Canadians under the guise of preventing tragedies perpetrated by individuals who use firearms for criminal purposes. However, there is absolutely no evidence that the long gun registry has prevented a single crime or saved a single life.

I have heard the arguments from the opposition members, whose misguided view is that since Canadians must register cars, boats, ice shacks and so forth, then something as potentially dangerous as a shotgun or a rifle must also be registered. The key discrepancy shows, at best, a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between administrative and criminal law or, at worst, a deliberate effort to muddy an important issue of fundamental liberty.

Guns do not kill people. Bad people with guns kill people.

If someone does not register their car, they will face a small fine, determined by the province in which they reside; if someone does not register their shotgun, they face the prospect of a criminal record or serious jail time or both. As Conservatives and as individuals who care about the protection of fundamental freedoms, we must stand up to say it is wrong to put people in jail for what amounts to paperwork errors.

My family, by nature, consists of law-abiding members of our community. My father, who is now 79, still hunts with me, my four brothers and many of his grandsons, including two of my sons. In fact, we will all be doing some deer hunting next week, which is an annual fall tradition. It is not just about the hunt or the kill; it is a family thing that has been going on for years in our family, and it will continue.

My dad also reluctantly registered his rifles and shotguns. He was issued a possession-only licence, or a POL, and was able to purchase ammunition for five years until his POL expired. Now, under the long gun registry, he is made to sneak around like a criminal and ask me or someone else with a valid POL or PAL to buy ammunition for his rifles, some of which he has owned since he was a teenager. This is just simply not right.

Bill C-19 is just a starting point. Bill C-19 does what we said we would do, eliminate the long gun registry.

As I said earlier, a person will still require a licence to own or purchase guns and ammunition. Further legislation will be required to make further improvements to this farce that the Liberals created. In my opinion, we need to merge the PAL and POL, so that there is one licence, and extend its duration from five years to ten. Also, anyone like my father, and thousands more across this country who, like him, have had a valid PAL or POL or a legal hunting licence in the past should be grandfathered into the system so that they do not have to prove again what they proved years ago, which is that they can safely operate a firearm.

Another change that I will push for is the creation of a prohibitive offenders registry. This registry would target people who have committed and are convicted of a firearms crime, the very people who give law-abiding gun owners a bad name. As I stated earlier, the gun registry is simply not an effective way to reduce crime.

As the hon. Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism so succinctly stated, “We measure results, not intent”. The results simply are that there is no correlation between crimes committed with long guns and the implementation of a measure that needlessly targets law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters.

I would also like to discuss a portion of the bill that has received significant attention from both the media and the opposition, and that is the destruction of the records contained in the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

The fact of the matter is that on May 2, and for the last five years, we have told Canadians we would get rid of the long gun registry once and for all if given the opportunity, and Canadians can take that promise to the bank. Let us examine what that means.

The registry is composed of a few components. It is compelled by the force of criminal law to collect the personal information and data of law-abiding gun owners. We will end that. It is also the retention of records of law-abiding gun owners. Obviously, when we said we would scrap the long gun registry, destroying those records was implicit. I might add that it should also include the records of individuals who buy ammunition. I license my truck, but when I buy brake pads or tires for my truck, I do not need to show my driver's licence. Neither should someone have to show a gun licence to buy ammunition. I will work hard to change that.

The registry is the records and the records are the registry. I realize the NDP and the Liberals would have us hang on to those records so that they could more easily recreate a backdoor registry should they ever have the chance to do so. Our government will not allow for that.

As the Minister of Public Safety said, claiming you want to scrap the registry but keep the records is like a farmer saying he will sell you his farm as long as he can keep the land. That is the way some of the opposition members think on this.

Frankly, it comes down to a single imperative. We made a commitment to Canadians that we will no longer target law-abiding hunters, farmers, and sport shooters through the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and this is exactly what we will do. We believe, as I stated earlier, that Canadians should be able to trust their politicians. When they promise to do something or vote for something, there should be no question and no second thought.

On that note, I would like to remind the members from Skeena—Bulkley Valley and the Western Arctic, who have recently decided to turn their backs on the wishes of their constituents and turn their backs on the commitments that they made on May 2, that they are breaking their election promise to their constituents. The memories of voters are long, especially on this important issue. Several of my new colleagues on this side of the House know this very well. The members from Yukon, Nipissing—Timiskaming, Sault Ste. Marie, and Ajax—Pickering are here in large part because their predecessors forgot that they are supposed to represent their constituents to the government, not the other way around.

I hope that members opposite will listen to the views of Canadians and vote to end the nearly 17-year-old legacy of waste that is the long gun registry. In closing, as deer hunters in my riding, including myself, head to the bush next week, they can take solace that the government is finally getting rid of this hated, useless long gun registry.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today on my own behalf, on behalf of Quebeckers and on behalf of my constituents in Alfred-Pellan in particular, to speak about government Bill C-19.

Today, I would like to begin by speaking about the gun registry from my heart and from personal experience.

I come from a Quebec family of hunters who have been hunting for many generations. And for the past two generations, there have been female hunters in my family as well. My older cousin was the first female hunter in the family, and I was the first on my father's side. I am proud of that. I began about four years ago, when my father decided to introduce me to hunting. There is an introductory program for new hunters who use rifles. This program allows anyone who has never had a hunting licence to get one and go hunting with an experienced hunter, who will show the new person the basics. This licence allows the holder to participate in any kind of hunting throughout the year. I began with deer hunting four years ago and fell in love with it. I loved being in the woods, walking, being there in the fall, feeling the wind and seeing how hunting works. I loved the experience.

The following year, I decided to take classes in order to get my hunting certificate. So that is what I did and now I have had my hunting certificate for two years. When my father explained to me how it all worked, he felt like a real mentor. He taught me with the help of my cousins, my uncles and that one female cousin. He taught me that safety is very important, that a firearm could not only hurt someone, but could even kill someone automatically, and that one must be very careful. He also told me how much he valued the firearms registry and how important it is. And he explained how easy it is to register a firearm in Canada.

In my family we are hunters and we all must register our firearms. We have to go through quite a process to prove that they are legal. It does take several weeks to register one's firearms, but that does not bother us. We do so quite willingly.

I am lucky to have been born and raised, and to still live, in the riding of Alfred-Pellan. Above all, I am lucky to represent the people of that community. Alfred-Pellan is a rather unique riding. It is located on Laval Island. Some 80% of its surface area is agricultural land, where there is nothing but fields and farmers working the land. However, the rest of the area is densely populated, with many young families moving there. There are lots of apartment buildings, some low-income housing and many condos. Two different worlds can be found there: one urban and one rural. It is rather unique. We are also fortunate to be very close to Montreal Island. We are lucky to have the best of both worlds.

When I learned that we were going to be debating Bill C-19, I went to speak with the people of Alfred-Pellan to hear what they think. I live in the part that is mainly agricultural. I know many of my neighbours, for I used to play in their fields when I was growing up. They were the first ones to come and see me when the discussions began. They told me that they were very conscious of just how important it is to keep the firearms registry. They are hunters and farmers themselves, and yet they want to keep it.

The people who live in the more urban area of my riding said the same thing. The people living in Alfred-Pellan are almost unanimous: they say it is critical to keep the firearms registry. Unfortunately, Bill C-19, which was introduced by the government, will eliminate the federal firearms registry.

What we are asking, and we are not the only ones, is that the data from the firearms registry be kept. Last week, the Quebec National Assembly voted unanimously to demand that the data be kept so that Quebec can create its own firearms registry.

It makes complete sense. As the Conservative member just said, if the provinces want to create their own firearms registry, they should go ahead and do it. Thus, the government is acting in extremely bad faith when it says that it plans to destroy the registry data, which cost $2 billion, that it is going to destroy all the data, and that the provinces will just have to make do. It will cost millions of dollars to recover all that data and it will be an extremely long process. I find it very sad to think that we cannot work as a team, all together, so that the provinces that want to keep the firearms registry are able to do so and those that do not want to keep it do not have to.

I live in a riding that includes both rural and urban areas. I am there every day. I am very close by. I also find it sad that the Conservatives are seeking to separate these two worlds. They are trying to divide Canadians on this issue. I find it very sad.

The NDP is trying to respond to the concerns of aboriginal and rural communities. At the same time, we also want to ensure that the police have the tools they need to keep our communities safe. The members opposite talk a lot about their bill, which seeks to make our streets and communities safe, but they also need to listen to what we have to say on the subject.

This bill was previously introduced in 2010 by a member, not by the government. At that time, we proposed a certain number of ways to resolve the various problems with the registry, since we are indeed aware that the registry is not perfect. However, rather than destroying all the data and destroying the registry, it is more important to improve it. So much money has been invested in the registry that the least we can do is try to improve it.

I will mention some suggestions made at the time. It was suggested that failing to register a gun be decriminalized for a first offence and that the person involved be fined instead. This would be a good way to decriminalize the registration of firearms. We could write into the law that long gun owners would not have to absorb the registration costs. It was also suggested that information about gun owners not be divulged, except when required to protect the public or when ordered by a court or the act. There was also the creation of a legal guarantee to protect aboriginal treaty rights. Members did suggest these different things.

I would also like to talk a little about the province of Quebec. Quebeckers unanimously declared that they want to keep the gun registry data. The politicians and the people want the registry and it is a tool that the police use every day. I know a number of police officers in my riding who have told me that they never enter a house without consulting the gun registry. Who knows how many times this has helped them before they have gone inside. It is very important for the safety of the police and the public.

What I have mainly been hearing from my constituents is that, right now, they are angry with the Conservative government. They are very disappointed and angry about what the Conservatives are proposing. What I hear people say most often is that we paid for the gun registry, we paid for the data. People are wondering why the government wants to destroy the data that taxpayers paid for.

As I mentioned earlier, the Liberals invested $2 billion in this gun registry. It has already cost a great deal more than what it was supposed to. Now it will cost another $2 billion to destroy it. It is unthinkable that a government that is trying to save money would destroy it. My suggestion is that the provinces be allowed to decide and that that the gun registry data be retained.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the members for Portage—Lisgar and Yorkton—Melville for their work on this important issue. Their efforts have helped ensure that the government could bring forward Bill C-19 and finally rid Canadians of the failed and ineffective long gun registry.

As a retired member of the RCMP, I would like to relate what I saw as someone who was on the street for 20 years. Before I do that, I would like to speak to the amount of money that has been wasted on this registry and provide a different view on what that money could have been spent on. We know that when the long gun registry was introduced, the previous Liberal government indicated that it would only cost about $2 million. Yet, we hear that number is as high as $2 billion to date. If that money had been invested in crime prevention programs, such as youth or women at risk programs, they would not only have assisted police in their day-to-day investigations but provided opportunities for those in high risk environments.

This is also money that could have been spent on better investigational tools for the RCMP to investigate complex cases. It could have gone toward surveillance equipment, more police vehicles, a number of things to deal with day-to-day operations or more front line police officers. One thing that I have heard from the opposition is that there is not enough money for new police officers on the ground. In fact, the cost for a member in the RCMP is approximately $130,000 a year. That includes wages and equipment.

That would have equated to a total of 1,538 new members on the road since this gun registry was enacted if we base it on $2 billion. That in itself would have benefited all Canadians. Instead, the previous Liberal government persisted in building and maintaining a gun registry which did nothing to prevent crime and was not a viable tool for law enforcement.

I would now like to speak to my experience as a police officer. We have heard a great deal from the opposition about what a useful tool the long gun registry is for law enforcement. My own experiences do not support that. The point I want to emphasize the most is that whenever I investigated murders, domestic disputes, robberies, break and enters or any other crime, I always assumed there was a firearm involved. It is simply better to be safe than sorry. Gun instincts will serve police officers much better than relying on computer entry data. I want to provide a couple of examples of that.

When police officers approach vehicles during routine stops, they will have done the computer checks to determine who the vehicle belongs to, et cetera, but what they do not know is if there are firearms in the vehicles. Therefore, when officers approach vehicles, they will approach close to and behind the driver's side door, making sure the driver of the vehicle has to look back at them. If police officers walk straight to the door, they leave themselves very vulnerable. That is why police officers will always make the driver look back at them.

Another example is when police officers approach residences. They will always stand to the side of the door before knocking. Why? Because if a bullet is coming through the door, it will not hit them. That is just common sense.

Drug investigations are a different breed altogether. Having been involved in drug investigations for three years, more often than not when we found firearms, they were stolen and not registered. For the most part, criminals do not register their guns and I will explain why. It is due to the fact that when and if criminals apply for firearms licences, they are refused. That is because gun owners must undergo a rigorous police background check as part of the licensing system. Criminals work outside the system, just as they work outside the law.

I would also like to talk about a major flaw in the long gun registry that no one talks about. In fact, I have not heard it once in the debate from either side. In my experience, the system itself is completely unorganized.

Say, for example, that someone owns a long gun which is produced without a serial number, such as a Cooey .22 and there are many others. The process would be to register the firearm and then the sticker would be mailed, which would be attached to the long gun as the serial number. Sometimes, the owner would receive two stickers with two different serial numbers. This happens a lot. Members can imagine the confusion that this creates and also the lack of confidence it brings in the efficiency of the long gun registry. That is why, in my experience, it is simply not a viable tool to prevent crime or help law enforcement.

One of the most compelling things that this government is doing to fight crime in this country is the introduction of Bill C-10, safe streets and communities act. That is what I am hearing from police officers in my riding and across the country. The safe streets and communities act would deliver greater accountability for offenders, better justice for victims of terrorism, and would eliminate house arrest for serious crimes. It would eliminate pardons for serious criminals and sex offenders. It would strengthen penalties for drug crimes, especially for those that target kids, and it would produce better protection for children against sexual predators.

This is real tangible action that would give those on the front line the confidence that we as politicians are doing our job. It demonstrates that we as a government are working to give police the tools they need to get their jobs done. That was a commitment we made during the last election and it is a commitment we are delivering on.

Another commitment our government very clearly made was to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. It is something that Canadians across the country have spoken out against. It is something we received a clear mandate to do on May 2 and it is something we fully intend to deliver on.

The House resumed from October 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Firearms Registry

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the government's abuse of its power and the dangerous path it is taking the country down.

In Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, we see the Conservatives giving in to their worst instincts in proposing to destroy all the data. Their solution to a registry that cost too much to establish in the first place is to commit to spending millions more to wipe out the records from that same registry, untold millions more.

The government was not given a mandate in the last election to have a bonfire of the vanities--in fact, two bonfires, one for the data and another one for the $2 billion that has already been spent.

From shutting down debate on the Wheat Board to building prisons for crimes the government cannot find, the 60% of Canadians who opposed the government are proving it right that we need electoral reform in the country to have it truly represented in the government of the day. If ever a government has made that case, it is this government.

If the provinces and the police want the data, why will the government not simply give it to them?

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in my place and contribute to the debate on Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, also known as the ending the long-gun registry act.

Several members on this side of the House have opened their interventions by talking about their personal history with respect to firearms, and I think I ought to do the same.

I do not own any firearms. I can count on one hand the number of times I have used a firearm, and I can state for the record that I do not even really like firearms. For me, this is not an issue about firearms. This is an issue about liberty. It is about individual liberty and it is an issue concerning the role of the state and, I would suggest, the tendency over the last two or three decades of the state encroaching upon the rights of law-abiding citizens and the individual liberties of Canadians. That is the perspective and the lens on which I assess the merits and the values of the long gun registry that was set up in the mid-1990s by a previous government.

As a libertarian, I must concede that we compromise on our libertarian values every day of the week. For example, when I arrived here on Parliament Hill this morning in a motor vehicle, we need to respect certain rules of the road. We can only drive on the right-hand side. We must observe speed limits and traffic control devices, both for our own individual safety and, obviously, for the safety of other pedestrians and other operators of vehicles. I accept that.

For any law, regulation, registration or registry to be valid and legitimate, it must to pass three tests and those tests are the following: first, it must serve a valid purpose; second, it must be effective in achieving that purpose; and third, it must do so in a cost-effective manner. I would submit to members of the House that the long gun registry fails on at least two out of those three tests.

Is there a valid purpose? I suspect there actually is. The long gun registry was implemented in response to a very tragic event at École Polytechnique in Montreal. It was a tragic incident, one of the black marks in Canadian history, and there was considerable political pressure to do something to protect women and citizens generally against the violence of firearms.

I think the response of the government of the day was legitimate. I do not actually share the view of some of the members on this side of the House that the purpose of the bill was to criminalize hunters and farmers. I do not think that was the purpose. That is what happened, but I do not think that was the purpose. I will give the former government the benefit of the doubt that it actually was a legitimate purpose, although not well thought out.

The second test concerns whether the registry or the legislation was effective in achieving its purpose? I say, unequivocally, that it was not and it was not from the beginning because it was not thought out properly.

Members of the House, such as the member for Prince George—Peace River, who has been here since the infancy of the long gun registry, predicted back then and maintains to this day that we cannot effectively control violence with guns by targeting lawful, law-abiding gun owners.

That is consistent with any matter of policing. I live in the city of Edmonton where there has been over 40 murders this year and, incidentally, not one by a long gun. The weapon of choice most frequently used for murder in Edmonton is a knife, but that is a story for another day.

The police use their resources to police neighbourhoods and parts of Edmonton where they know crime occurs with greater prevalence and where criminals elements are known to exist. They do not routinely and frequently patrol the neighbourhoods where law-abiding citizens are known to exist.

When the authors of the registry decided that they would force legitimate gun owners, such as sportsmen, hunters and trappers, to register their weapons, they went after the wrong people. As was predicted and what should have been known and which was argued, if we check the Debates on Bill C-68, it was known then as it is now that criminals simply do not register their weapons. The program was ill-conceived, ill-thought out and, in fact, has not been effective in reducing crime.

I serve on the public safety committee. I served on the public safety committee in the last Parliament when the private member's bill sponsored by the member for Portage—Lisgar was before our committee. I had the opportunity of examining evidence, in some detail, from the then-president of the Canadian Police Association, Mr. Charles Momy. Mr. Momy came to the committee to tell us that abolishing the long gun registry would be a huge mistake, that it was a critical tool in the arsenal of the police toolkit. However, when pushed on that issue, he admitted to me that the police could not and do not rely on the long gun registry.

I will tell the House why he admitted that. When police respond to an incident, they do a long gun registry search. If the registry shows that there are no registered weapons at the residence, we asked Mr. Momy if the police could safely assume there are no weapons? His answer was, “Of course not”. They have to go in hoping for the best but being prepared for the worst. The police do not rely on it when it shows there are no weapons registered at that residence.

I asked him a second hypothetical question. What happens if the long gun registry search shows there are in fact two weapons at that residence and the police go in, find the two weapons and take them out of play, does that mean they now have a safe crime scene? Can the police assume there is not a third or fourth weapon? His answer was. “Of course not. You always have to assume that there are additional hazards, additional perils at that scene, notwithstanding that the registry said there were two weapons and two weapons were found”.

We have two examples, one where there was a negative result from a registry search and one where there was a positive result, and in neither circumstance did the police actually rely on the data.

We know that the police do not and cannot rely on the long gun registry. We know that it does nothing to deter crime under the very simple premise that criminals do not register their weapons.

The third part of my test regarding whether there is an appropriate legislative or registration response to a problem is the cost-effectiveness. Members will recall that the original estimate for Bill C-68, the long gun registry, was $2 million. Now, that does not sound like a large sum of money to promote a legitimate goal, as I identified, which was to reduce violence, to reduce violence against women and reduce gun violence generally.

As we know, $2 million was a gross underestimate of the actual cost. Was the estimate out by a margin of 10 or a margin of 100? No. It was out by a margin of 1,000. This long gun registry has cost taxpayers $2 billion. It has done nothing and can do nothing to deter crime or prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals. Although chiefs of police like to say that they are in favour of the long gun registry, when pushed and asked if, in a world of finer resources, they would prefer more boots on the ground or a long gun registry, they always answer that they would prefer resources for something other than a long gun registry.

On that test, the long gun registry fails. It is not an effective response to a legitimate goal. It is not a cost-effective response to a legitimate goal.

I am proud to stand in this House and be part of a Conservative government that will actually put an end to what was a train wreck from the beginning. I think the liberty of law-abiding farmers, hunters, fishermen, trappers and others will be preserved. I encourage all members to vote in favour of Bill C-19.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House 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.

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. 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 billions of dollars that have already been spent. According to the RCMP, abolishing the registry would result in direct savings of just a few thousand dollars. That is what the lives of the thousands of people saved by this registry are worth to the Conservatives. If this government claims to want to destroy the registry to save money, then to them, a life is worth nothing. This so-called savings is nothing compared to the unavoidable increase in the cost of police investigations that will result from abolishing this registry. In other words, the Conservatives' main argument for wanting to abolish the registry is simply ridiculous.

The other argument frequently used by the Conservatives for destroying the registry is that it is supposedly ineffective. This argument does not hold water. Police forces, as we have said a number of times today, 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 when firearms are involved. The registry has greatly helped 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 the 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.

On one hand, the Conservatives say that they are on the side of victims of crime but, on the other hand, the Conservatives ignore and turn their backs on those victims when they take a stand that does not correspond with the Conservative ideology. This government is illogical. The Conservatives say that they want to make our streets safer by imposing repressive bills and, yet, they want 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. By giving offenders amnesty since 2006, the 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. Unfortunately, that is not all. Many provinces, including Quebec, are insisting that the registry be maintained and, yet, the Conservatives are completely ignoring them. This government would rather completely destroy the registry instead of giving the data to the provinces. This shows the contempt that the Conservatives have for our constituents.

Must we remind this government that every Canadian paid for this registry, not just the Conservatives or the Conservative Party?

The people of the provinces that want to keep the firearms registry paid to create it. Are they not entitled to keep what they paid for? The Conservatives, blinded by their regressive ideology, absolutely want to destroy the registry without giving the data to the provinces. These same provinces will have to waste our money to recreate a registry from scratch. The Conservatives are showing their contempt for the provinces, especially Quebec, where 84% of voters voted against the Conservative Party. In fact, a motion was adopted yesterday by the National Assembly of Quebec calling on the federal government to transfer the firearms registry data to the Government of Quebec.

Another argument used by the Conservatives to justify destroying this registry is that it would violate the freedom of firearms users by imposing red tape. That does not stand up. Only two 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? That is the argument. Yet there are far more users of vehicles than of firearms. Of course, vehicle registration does not go against the Conservative ideology.

It is appalling that this irresponsible government is again trying to destroy the registry. Once again, this government is lying to Canadians to justify its position. Once again, this government is allowing U.S. interests, in this case the powerful gun lobbies, to dictate policy. It is time for this government to start listening to reason and the facts. Abolishing this registry will result in more suicides and more spousal homicides. Abolishing this registry will make police work harder and more dangerous.

This government is showing contempt for Canadians by imposing this ridiculous bill. The Conservatives always lower the bar simply because their position is dictated by regressive ideology.

I will continue to stand up for all Canadians abandoned by this government. I will fiercely oppose this irresponsible bill. I welcome any questions.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to speak to Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act. My colleagues have spoken very passionately about the need to end this wasteful and ineffective registry, and I am very glad that the moment has arrived when we are actually able to do so.

Since my election in 2006, I have clearly stated to my constituents that I do not support the long gun registry, because it criminalizes farmers, hunters and target shooters who respect the law, but does nothing to prevent criminals from getting their hands on firearms.

I intend to keep my promise to scrap it, which is more than I can say for the NDP and Liberal MPs from rural ridings, who have long spoken about wanting to end the long gun registry but who vote to continue it whenever they are asked to take a stand on the matter. I will do as I said, as will my Conservative colleagues, and we will abolish this Liberal bureaucratic mess that infringes on the freedoms of Canadians.

As members may know, I represent a rural riding where farming is a way of life. Farmers make a living from the land and they have to protect their livelihoods. That means that a majority of the people who I represent own shotguns or rifles to safeguard their livelihoods.

The thrust of the problem is that these hard-working, law-abiding people who grow food for all Canadians are made to feel like dangerous criminals because of the long gun registry.

This long gun registry's criminalization of farmers, hunters and sport shooters is wrong. How is it possible that imposing needless and extensive red tape on these people is going to stop crime elsewhere? What is the connection between regulating the long gun in the hands of a farmer in my riding and stopping gun crime in Toronto, Montreal or Winnipeg? There is absolutely none, and what is worse is that the resources being used to administer the long gun registry could be used elsewhere to actually fight crime and protect victims.

This issue of the long gun registry demonstrates clearly the fundamental disconnect between opposition MPs and rural Canadians, and Canadians see this disconnect. Canadians elected Conservative members of Parliament on May 2, including, notably, not a single Liberal MP from a rural riding in Ontario. It is not hard to see why. Former Liberal minister of justice Allan Rock, the individual who implemented the long gun registry on behalf of his Liberal government, stated that “Only the police and military should have firearms”. This is a ludicrous statement.

Let us take my situation, for example. As the House knows, I served in the Canadian army for 20 years. During that time, I was trained for, carried and fired guns of all description: pistols, rifles, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, et cetera. I also trained other soldiers in their safe operation and acted in the capacity of range safety officer on many occasions.

The Liberal position enunciated by Allan Rock would be that despite all of this training, experience and responsibility, now that I am retired, I should have no access to firearms as a hunter or sport shooter and, to make it worse, I should be criminalized by the long gun registry if, for whatever reason, I missed a long gun registration deadline, even if it was not my fault.

This situation must change, and I am very pleased and proud that we now have the opportunity to change it.

I would also like to draw attention to a statement made by the hon. member for Mount Royal to the effect that destroying the long gun registry is synonymous with destroying evidence. Since I am a generous man, I will assume he misspoke. I say this because, interestingly enough, his statement implies that Canadians living in rural areas are criminals about whom evidence must be gathered, whether or not they have committed a crime. We on this side of the House fundamentally disagree with this attitude of the opposition members.

Hunters, farmers and sport shooters are not the people that we need to target if we want to keep our streets and communities free from gun-related violence. We need to target criminals and continue with the practical and concrete measures that the Conservative government has taken in this regard—measures that, I should add, the opposition has rejected. The opposition parties are speaking out against anti-crime measures that work and they are firmly supporting those that do not.

It is clear to the experts that safer streets and communities come from tough, effective laws and from smart crime prevention programming. Our government has taken concrete actions in both of these areas. Whether it is through increasing sentences for crimes involving guns, increasing sentences for gang crime, putting more police on the streets, or improving investments in crime prevention, our government believes in effective crime-fighting measures.

These are the kinds of measures that keep Canadians safe, not increasing bureaucracy, paperwork and red tape on law-abiding Canadians, with the threat of a criminal record if they do not.

Members need not take my word for it. Let me read the following quote: “The federal government has recently introduced a bill to end the long gun registry introduced by the Liberals in the mid-1990s. University of Ottawa criminologist Ron Melchers said the registry has had little to do with the decline in firearm homicides, adding that its absence will also make little difference”.

This is what the experts are saying.

I would also like to address a common inaccuracy used by the NDP and the Liberals. They say we register cars and boats, so why not guns? The fact of the matter is that if I am late filling out the paperwork to register my car, I get a small fine, but if I am late filling out the paperwork to register my shotgun, under the current system I am threatened with being charged, convicted, given a criminal record and perhaps being sent to jail.

Another point about the registration of cars and boats is that we only have to register them if we are going to use them. We can store a car in the backyard or garage and leave it unregistered for as long as we want. It is only once we start using that car that it has to be registered. However, if I store a long gun in a locked storage container in my basement and I do not look at it for 15 years, it has to be registered that whole time, or else I am committing a criminal act under the present long gun registry.

Turning law-abiding sport shooters, farmers and hunters in rural regions into criminals is not an effective means of gun control.

The bill before the House today is, in fact, very simple. It makes it possible for this government to do exactly what it promised—to abolish the expensive and ineffective long gun registry. It is not complicated. Members simply need to vote for or against it. Are they in favour of imposing useless bureaucracy on farmers because of their occupation? Are they in favour of treating hunters like criminals simply because they own firearms?

I know where my constituents stand, and that is why I will be voting to support the ending the long gun registry act. I call on all members opposite to do the same.

They need not listen just to me. The NDP member for Western Arctic said, “They say [the long gun registry] is effective, but effective for what?”

The NDP member for Timmins—James Bay said, “What rural people were concerned with is wasting money tracking down your grandfather's 20-gauge rifle as opposed to putting money into urban gun violence”.

Many similar statements have been made by both NDP and Liberal MPs who are members of the House today. It is my hope that they will reflect on the words that they themselves have spoken, that they will represent the will of their constituents and that when the time comes to vote, they will do the right thing, stand in their place and vote to end the expensive and ineffective long gun registry, which has criminalized responsible and law-abiding Canadians for far too long.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill.

It has been interesting to hear the different debates in the House over the last few days. Two years ago my colleague, the member for Portage—Lisgar, introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry), which was defeated by a mere two votes in the last Parliament, against the express wishes of responsible Canadian gun owners.

Although my medical practice and home are located in the wonderful riding of Simcoe—Grey, I was born and raised in the west, in Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, and Brandon, Manitoba. Both are areas of the country that have given me a deep appreciation of the quality of life in rural Canada, as does my own riding.

My grandfather was an avid duck hunter as well as a farmer. Today he would be heartened to know that our government stands on the side of law-abiding firearms owners, including farmers, duck hunters and rural Canadians in every region of the country.

In my riding of Simcoe—Grey we are fortunate to have many retired seniors from regions all across the country who have made our riding their home. Many of them have moved from northern Ontario and rural regions across the country where hunting, fishing and sport shooting are common practice.

My constituency is also fortunate to have many members of the farming community, whether that be the Beattie family, the McNabb family or Tom Walsh, the mayor of Adjala.

Members of the community use long guns as one of the main tools to keep their property and livestock safe from coyotes, foxes and other vermin.

When we put it all together it means that there is a great number of my constituents who care very passionately about the long gun registry. It is something that I heard about repeatedly as I went door to door in the last election from Creemore to Stayner to Loretto. It continues to be something my constituents take extremely seriously. My office has literally been getting hundreds of letters on the issue.

Make no mistake, my constituents are expecting the government to deliver on its commitment to scrap the long gun registry. That is what we intend to do.

Clearly this is an issue that brings out strong emotions in people. We have heard passionate arguments from members across the floor. While I respect their passion I also point out that many of the facts are simply wrong.

One of the points we have heard from the opposition is that the long gun registry saves lives. We are told it prevents crimes and violence. We are told that having it in place makes people safer.

These statements are not only incorrect but also create a false sense of security where it should not exist. Registering a long gun does not prevent it from being used in a violent manner. I recognized this when I saw injured people come through the emergency department regularly when I worked as a resident at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

The long gun registry does not prevent crimes from happening. The opposition members have cited many tragic examples of gun crimes that have happened over the past years. The registry did nothing to prevent those crimes. Those crimes took place despite having the long gun registry.

In addition, the registry is not an effective method of gun control. Gun control occurs through the licensing process, which has nothing to do with the long gun registry.

The registry is not an effective tool for law enforcement, to prevent crime or to target criminals. All it does is make criminals out of law-abiding gun owners. Considering its $2 billion cost to date, that is simply not an effective use of taxpayers' dollars.

The long gun registry was one of the key issues of concern to my constituents during the last election. It was an issue upon which the government was clear, that Bill C-19 will ensure that the government ends the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

Bill C-19 includes two important components. It will end the requirement that compels law-abiding long gun owners to register their non-restricted firearms, notably long guns. People wishing to acquire a firearm of ammunition will be required to undergo a background check for a criminal record by the issuer of the licence, pass a firearms safety course and comply with all firearms safe storage and transportation requirements.

The bill will allow the government to end the practice of criminalizing Canadian hunters, farmers and sport shooters for engaging in a way of life that is part of what we view as the fabric of this country.

Bill C-19 also ensures that the records of the registry will be destroyed. We have heard members of the opposition suggest in no uncertain terms that the data that was collected for the purpose of the long gun registry should be shared among the provinces so that they can set up their own registry if they so choose.

When our government made the commitment to scrap the long gun registry there was no caveat. We did not promise to rid Canadians of the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry only to facilitate its creation elsewhere. We said we would scrap the registry. We will do that and we will destroy the records.

What has become increasingly clear over the past few days is that should the NDP ever gain power it would have no qualm about resurrecting the long gun registry. I know that runs counter to the wishes of many of the NDP members' constituents in many of the rural ridings they represent. I cannot imagine turning my back on my constituents in the manner that they are now suggesting.

Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to keep focused on the economy and keep our streets and communities safer. While we are working to fulfill our promise to scrap the long gun registry, we are also continuing to work to deliver safer streets, better jobs and a better future for Canadians. We made a clear point in the last campaign to eliminate the long gun registry. A failure to follow through on that clear promise would only undermine the faith Canadians have in the political system, many of whom already have doubts in the willingness of politicians to live up to their commitments. I am proud to be part of a government that respects its promises, delivers on its commitments and stands for the things that matter to Canadians across the country.

That is why I am proud today to stand in support of Bill C-19. To be clear it is wasteful, ineffective and does not prevent crime. It targets Canadians such as my constituents in Simcoe—Grey who are law-abiding long gun owners. It is time for that to end. I hope that hon. members opposite will take it into due consideration and join the government in its effort to scrap the long gun registry once and for all.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to finish my speech, I would like to mention two main things about Bill C-19, or two arguments that have been repeated and that need to be corrected.

My first point—and we agree with the government—is that the cost of initially implementing the registry—over $2 billion—was far greater than what was planned and announced by the Liberal government in office at the time. The cost of implementing the registry was staggering. However, the registry now exists. I found it interesting that the member for Cariboo—Prince George was asked a question by a member of his own party about the annual costs. He was unable to respond. I can say that the current costs are minimal compared to the program's contribution. The registry currently exists. We can use it.

It is a little bit like if someone decides to renovate his or her basement. That individual is told that the renovations will cost $10,000 but, in the end, they actually cost $50,000. Will the person completely scrap the renovations because they cost too much? No. That person will work with what they have got. The fact that the registry initially cost a lot of money—$2 billion—does not justify eliminating it. That does not make any sense. The registry currently exists. The operating costs are minimal, and the registry has many benefits, as I mentioned in my speech before question period.

The second point that I would like to make is that the Conservatives have now decided that abolishing the registry means that all the data must be destroyed, even though the provinces—Quebec, among others—want to keep this data to manage their own program. The Conservatives are saying that they mentioned doing this in their election campaign, but I honestly did not hear anything about it.

The hon. member for Beauce said that this falls under federal jurisdiction, but justice is a shared jurisdiction. The Criminal Code does fall under federal jurisdiction, but the administration of justice comes under provincial jurisdiction and, as far as I know, the Sûreté du Québec does not fall under federal jurisdiction. So now we should all be able to agree. The NDP did its part to search for a middle ground between the government, which wants to completely abolish the long gun registry, and those who want to keep it, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Such groups suggest, and rightfully so, that the registry is used repeatedly and regularly. Many of my colleagues have made that argument. I know that the police forces in my riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques use it. I know they use it especially frequently in cases where there is a risk of domestic violence. This argument cannot be casually dismissed, which is what government members so often like to do.

The firearms registry should be amended to eliminate the sticking points that we have mentioned, that we continue to mention and that I talked about before question period. Those sticking points can be eliminated. My constituents in Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques have said that corrections must be made, including decriminalizing a first offence when someone fails to comply with the registration requirement. There are other sticking points. The NDP is prepared to sit down with the government to eliminate them and ensure that the registry continues in the same direction.

This is an important policy issue. This is not a trivial matter or delay tactic, but rather a fundamental issue concerning Canada's social fabric. That is why we want to work with the government to amend Bill C-19, but we will not be voting in favour of this bill in its current form.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-19, which would abolish the long gun registry. I am pleased because this is the first time I have the opportunity to speak to this issue, which has been discussed for a long time now. There have not been many debates, but we have had some. The issue has been coming up since at least 2006.

The riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques is half rural and half urban. So I can understand both aspects of the debate. The urban part is Rimouski, which has 45,000 inhabitants. The other half of my riding is much more rural. I have spoken with a number of my constituents who are interested in and affected by this debate. I asked them questions about the registry. They replied with arguments for both sides of the issue, which is not surprising.

I spoke with hunters, collectors and long gun owners about this issue. They are concerned about the registry, with respect to some points brought up by the government. They said that the registry cost too much in the beginning, that it criminalizes gun owners and makes them feel guilty, among other similar arguments. I understand that.

However, I spoke with other people, people who work at a shelter for battered women in Rimouski-Neigette called La Débrouille. There, I heard another perfectly valid argument that the registry saves lives and that police officers in the riding use it in domestic violence incidents.

I would like to talk about these various factors and how to reconcile them. To the hunters, gun collectors and other people I speak to about the registry, I tell them that the NDP has made an effort to reconcile the various positions and to eliminate the sticking points of the bill that have been raised, without eliminating the registry itself. Often, they do not know what those sticking points are, but they include criminalization for a first offence for not registering one's firearm, the fact that it does not recognize traditional aboriginal rights and so on. When I talk to people about what was actually in the bill that my colleague from northern Ontario introduced last year, I tell them that we could keep the registry and eliminate those sticking points. They usually reply that this would be a good way of addressing their complaints, their concerns.

I believe that it is our duty as members, as representatives of our constituents, to get away from polarizing debates like this one, in which things are very black and white and we are forced to take a position either for or against. Instead, I think we must try to find a middle ground between the two sides. Honestly, as long as I have been in this House, I have never seen that happen. I have seen many polarizing positions. In the case of Bill C-19 or that of the long gun registry in general, the government has been having a field day with this issue. It was pretty easy to do from a financial perspective, which is too bad.

When I mention this position of conciliation to firearm owners, they understand and they are willing to comply. I would have liked the Conservative members to do the same thing in their ridings, instead of trying to antagonize the situation and polarize people further, which is what they have been doing for the past five or six years.

To those wanting to keep the registry, I submit as an example the situation of the shelter called La Débrouille in Rimouski-Neigette. This shelter says—and this might be news to the hon. members opposite—that when an abused woman stays at a shelter, she can choose to file a complaint against her attacker, her spouse. If she chooses to do so, the police consult the registry to see whether there are any firearms in the family home. If there are, the police can, depending on the situation, get a search warrant and remove the firearms. We are talking about a situation in which a woman is abused, where her life is definitely at risk.

The signs are clear: that woman's life is in danger. In Rimouski-Neigette, which constitutes half my riding—one of the 308 ridings in Canada—the registry is consulted at least once a day by the shelter for abused women, for this type of situation alone. Yes, the registry is useful. Yes, the registry can prevent crime.

I would also like to point out that the statistics do not lie in this case, either: 88% of the spousal homicides committed with a firearm in Canada are committed with a rifle or a shotgun. These are ordinary firearms. That is not to say that hunters or people who own firearms and rifles are potential killers or murderers, but given the number of firearms, it is clear that these firearms are more likely to be used in cases of domestic abuse.

The police have to verify whether there is a firearm, as has been mentioned in a number of debates. The police presume, when they intervene in a case of domestic violence, that there is a firearm in the home being investigated. Knowing human nature and what might be going through the mind of the police officer who has to intervene in all sorts of situations, his intervention will be much more effective if he knows that there is a firearm rather than if he simply presumes there is.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I said, when Bill C-68 was introduced, the minister of justice at the time said that it would cost Canadians about $200,000 to $400,000. Even if he had said that it would cost $2 million, it would not have matter. However, It actually cost well over $2 billion and is now costing us somewhere around $2 million to $4 million a year and is not doing anything more than it did back in 1995 when it was first introduced.

All of the money that we would be able to save by getting rid of the long gun registry through Bill C-19 would go into our anti-crime fight, which is where it should be. Instead of chasing farmers, target shooters and sportsmen and spending time checking out whether they are still law-abiding, all of our resources should be put toward counteracting crime in this country and going after the people who commit crimes.

I am really proud of our Prime Minister and my colleagues who have had to fight against the registry for so many years. Bill C-19 will do the job.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is really an honour to follow my colleague, the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, an MP who has fought long and hard to get rid of Bill C-68. The people in the riding she represents have appreciated that to the extent where they have elected her on five consecutive occasions. They have worked with her and have been of enormous assistance particularly in the fight against Bill C-68 and the efforts to scrap it.

I am pleased to add my voice to those who support C-19, the ending of the long-gun registry bill. It is long overdue. As many of my hon. colleagues have observed, this is not a new issue; we have been discussing this for many years.

I have to mention that some of us who are still in Parliament remember that fateful day, December 5, 1995, when the then minister of justice, Allan Rock, because of a Liberal majority was able to get Bill C-68 passed, despite the mountains of evidence that simply registering a firearm would not stop criminals from using firearms in a violent fashion, to rob somebody or to intimidate somebody. There was no evidence that would stop that at all.

Instead, with the passing of that bill, Mr. Rock turned millions of law-abiding firearm owners in this country into what the Liberal government determined to be criminals, despite the fact that the firearm owners had observed every firearm safety law that there was. They had shown their competence to own and use a firearm. They had licences. Despite all that, the Liberal government said that it did not trust them. The fact that they had used their firearms peacefully for many years, and some for many decades, was irrelevant. The Liberal government said that it did not trust them to be competent and experienced, and to obey the law.

The Liberals decided to make people register their firearms and put their names on a list that would give the government and the police authorities all kinds of unconstitutional powers to monitor and check on them. Notwithstanding that these people had never committed a crime in their lives and that they were law-abiding people with families, people who used their guns to hunt or for sport shooting; notwithstanding the mountains of evidence that they were competent and capable of using a firearm, the Liberals did not trust them.

The Liberals told people that by passing Bill C-68. On that fateful day, December 5, 1995, I was joined by my colleague from Yorkton—Melville, who has been a champion of getting rid of the long gun registry. I was in the company of the member for Calgary—Nose Hill, who is the current Minister of State of Foreign Affairs for the Americas and Consular Affairs. I was joined by the member for Vancouver Island North, who is the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. I was joined by the member for Vegreville—Wainwright. Indeed, I was joined by the member for Calgary Southwest, who of course is now the Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Our leader promised that we would put an end to the gun registry, and now we are keeping that promise.

In particular, this is an issue of great importance to my riding of Cariboo—Prince George. It is a fairly rural riding with about four areas that we would call cities and towns. There is a lot of rural area.

There are many farmers, outdoor enthusiasts, forestry workers, miners, and many people who spend their time making a living in remote areas of my riding. These are folks who grew up using long guns and who use them sometimes in their day-to-day lives for work and recreation. It goes with the territory of the riding of Cariboo--Prince George. In short, long guns have been in use for many decades in my riding and they are used in a lawful fashion by law-abiding citizens.

Of course, every part of the country has people who use firearms for criminal intent, but they do not much care whether the firearm they are using is registered or not. As a matter of fact, they spend a lot of time looking to purchase or acquire smuggled illegal firearms that come from all parts of the world into Canada through criminal organizations. They do not really care much about the long gun registry and they are going to commit their criminal offences with firearms anyway.

The use of long guns has been a fairly normal part of life in Cariboo--Prince George for hunting, outdoor activity, sport shooting, and on the shooting range. What else is normal is that in my riding office since 1995, we have literally received thousands of cards, letters and phone calls from concerned constituents who want to know when we are going to get rid of the long gun registry that the Liberals put in. It started one day after December 5, 1995. We were charged with the responsibility of getting rid of the long gun registry. It has been a long fight. I have to admit sometimes it seemed like it was just a dream, but we are here with a strong, stable, majority Conservative government, and a Prime Minister who made this promise that we would get rid of the long gun registry. He is keeping his promise. This bill, Bill C-19, is going to do exactly that.

Our Prime Minister made that promise. The member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke made that promise. I made that promise. The member for Yorkton—Melville, my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright, my colleague from Vancouver Island North, my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill all made that promise. Led by our Prime Minister, we are keeping that promise today, which is more than we can say for some of the NDP members who made that promise to their constituents and had no intention of keeping it.

The people who have been calling us and asking for our help to get rid of the long gun registry are good people who care passionately about this issue. These are not criminals who are calling us, because after all, criminals do not care whether the firearm they are using in a criminal activity is registered or not.

As a matter of fact, I believe that the criminal elements in this country are responsible for bringing in illegal firearms. In December 1995 they were cheering on the then minister of justice, Mr. Rock, because all of a sudden, their market became pretty darn good for criminals who wanted to acquire firearms. I do not doubt that the price went up considerably when Bill C-68 was brought in.

We have been dealing with that criminal element by bringing in a multitude of anti-crime bills, and we are going to keep doing that. We are going to show the criminal element in this country that they cannot commit crimes under a Conservative government and get away with it. We will put them in jail. We will give them meaningful sentences that fit the crime that they commit.

When Bill C-19 passes, we will have fulfilled our promise to law-abiding firearm owners that we do not consider them to be criminals as the Liberals did and the NDP do. We are going to recognize they are law-abiding citizens capable of owning long guns without having onerous legislation like Bill C-68 breathing down their necks every single moment of their lives.

The House resumed from October 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, 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 so offensive. When gun crimes are committed in far-off big cities, who gets punished? We do.

Parties opposite make a great show of their support for the working people and the “common man”. I am particularly reminded of the old NDP versus the new NDP. The old NDP had a modicum of respect for the people who live on the land, work hard and play by the rules. I am thinking of that party's former leader, Audrey McLaughlin, who, as I discovered after reading some Hansards from years back, had some serious doubts about the long gun registry. All parties opposite have evolved into parties of the big-government elites and union bosses, who strive to expand government control over the lives of these same working people that those members purport to support.

I am especially puzzled at the support for the long gun registry by Liberal and NDP members from Newfoundland and Labrador in the Maritimes, where they have such grand hunting traditions, such as the seal hunt in Newfoundland, moose hunting, bird hunting and all of that. I have even travelled to Newfoundland myself and have enjoyed the particular local delicacy called bottled moose. Those from Newfoundland know exactly what I am talking about.

For those of us who represent rural constituencies, and for my constituents in particular, I would say that our innate country common sense tells us that punishing law-abiding gun owners is simply not right.

To the people in my constituency a firearm is a tool, like a chainsaw or a tractor, that obviously must be used with care, but as freedom-loving Canadians, people in my constituency view firearms ownership as a symbol of their Canadian citizenship or a symbol of the trust that should exist between the people and their government.

I am reminded of what George Orwell said many years ago when he was commenting on firearms ownership by ordinary British citizens. It perhaps does not quite apply to us here, but it does have some wisdom. He said:

That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.

Most firearms in Canada are owned for the purpose of hunting. For many of us who grew up hunting, it is a sacred activity that is often difficult to describe, so I will quote the eminent evolutionary psychologist Randall Eaton, who said of boys in particular in his book From Boys to Men of Heart: Hunting as Rite of Passage:

The instinct to hunt awakens spontaneously in boys, but the taking of a life opens the heart and tempers that instinct with compassion. If we want to transform boys into men who respect life and are responsible to society and the environment then we need to mentor them in hunting as a rite of passage.

He further notes:

The hunt is the ideal way to teach universal virtues, including generosity, patience, courage, fortitude and humility.

Others may not agree with that, but I am describing a true, honest and active culture in this country that is very important. Members opposite may laugh, but to many of us, and to me in particular, it is important.

I used to be the hunting columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press, and I remember interviewing a young man who had just taken his very first deer. In his own words to me, he said:

Even though it was just a doe, that deer was better than any fantasy I ever had, and it was even better because my dad was there with me every second and I could share my excitement with him...I could no longer understand how people could be against hunting since it was now something that was so dear to me and it is a passion that I can share with my dad and will share with my children when the time comes.

What happens as well is that people who hunt and have a relationship with wildlife and the land often take up careers in conservation, myself included. I caught my first fish when I was 4 and I got my first ruffed grouse when I was 14. I have had a wonderful 35-year career in conservation, and it started there. These experiences with my dad affected me profoundly.

There is a vast array of grassroots conservation activities in my own constituency. I went on at some length about hunting because without firearms we cannot have hunting, and the long gun registry is actually an attack on a culture and on an innocent, productive and wonderful way of life.

Bill C-19, the bill to get rid of the long gun registry, represents a real and tangible victory for those who cherish the particular way of life that I have described. It is a way of life that understands where our food comes from, reveres nature and values hard work and family traditions. Quite simply, this culture makes our country what it is.

Over and over again in the campaigns I have been in over the last year, my constituents have told me about how important the issue of the long gun registry is. In my constituency we have many issues that deal with agriculture, health care, rail service, and so on; however, the long gun registry came up as a particularly egregious affront to the innate country common sense that is represented by my constituents. The communities in my constituency have a very deep and profound relationship with the land. They are confident people who work hard and, as I said, value the fact that they play by the rules. Those are the people in this country whom we should be rewarding, people who work hard and play by the rules.

For me as an MP, those people are my top priority. Many of them are employed in the natural resources industries of farming, ranching, mining, energy production and so on. We know the importance of the natural resource industries and of our rural communities, and it can almost be said that the people who work and thrive in our natural resource industries are carrying the country. They, in effect, make our country what it is.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour to speak on Bill C-19, a bill to eliminate the long gun registry. I would like to add my thanks to the member for Yorkton—Melville for his years of work on this file, and to thank as well the member for Portage—Lisgar for her terrific work on it.

My colleagues on this side of the House have spoken very well on the legal, law enforcement and financial downside of the long gun registry. I would like to add a slightly different perspective, that of a hunter.

I represent a vast and beautiful rural constituency in western Manitoba. Farmers, ranchers, loggers, hunters, outfitters, anglers and trappers are many of my constituents. It is a beautiful place with abundant wildlife and, like many of my constituents, I am a hunter.

Hunting is part of my culture and a way of life, as it is for many of my constituents. Interestingly, almost all the homes in my constituency have one or more firearms, yet the crime rate is very low.

Why is that? It is because where I live, we have a culture of respect for each other, our community and the land that sustains us. In fact, one could call it a peaceable kingdom. That is why I found the words of the member for Lac-Saint-Louis somewhat offensive when he assumed that people who had firearms were automatically suspect, or at least that is now I heard it.

My constituents are honest--

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette.

It is a privilege to contribute to the debate and speak in support of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill. It is a registry that has been wasteful and ineffective and should have been scrapped years ago. It has not prevented crime and has created criminals out of law-abiding farmers, hunters and sport shooters instead of tackling the real criminals.

I will speak to why it is crucial that we finally scrap the wasteful, ineffective long gun registry and will outline some of the important steps our government has taken to help Canadians be safer and deter criminals.

The government has delivered tougher sentences to deter serious and violent crimes, especially gun crimes, and keep dangerous people off our streets. It has provided our provincial and territorial partners with funding to put hundreds more front-line police officers on our streets. It has brought in new measures to fight organized crime, white-collar crime and human smuggling, and has made new investments in prevention to attack the root causes of crime to stop it before it happens.

We are doing what works. We are doing what makes sense, which most certainly includes firearms control. Canadians expect effective measures to prevent and deal with gun crimes. That is what we are committed to delivering. However, that does not mean wasting millions of hard-working taxpayers' dollars to maintain a system that does not work.

Hon. members who followed the committee hearings for Bill C-391 last year know that we heard highly credible testimony from a number of respected experienced police officers who told us that the information provided by the long gun registry was not reliable. Some of these officers have estimated there may be as many as one million long guns that have never been registered. Thousands more have not been registered properly because model or catalogue numbers were used instead of serial numbers, while others have been registered multiple times. The long gun registry is not removing the guesswork; it is adding to it. It does not help anyone. It does not contribute to public safety.

The long gun registry has been in place for over a decade and we have yet to hear of a single instance where it has even been given partial credit for preventing a crime. If that were happening Canadians would support it. All indications are that they do not, and that includes Canadians who live in rural areas. Canadians are spending millions of dollars to maintain the registry with virtually no evidence to indicate it has any effect whatsoever on reducing gun crimes. That is not a good record, nor is it a good investment. It is not making our streets safer.

Our government believes in effective gun control. It believes in measures that work to prevent crime and are worth the money we invest in them, such as the requirement to have a licence before people can buy an unrestricted firearm, i.e., a rifle or a shotgun. Before they can get a licence they have to pass the Canadian firearms safety course. Before they can get a licence to buy and own a rifle or shotgun they also need to pass a background check which involves a criminal record check to ensure the individual is not under a court order prohibiting him or her from possessing a firearm as well as determining whether allowing the individual to have a firearm would pose a threat to public safety.

The Government of Canada is now investing $7 million a year to make the screening process for people applying for a firearms licence even stronger with the very reasonable goal of preventing crime by working to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them.

I want to emphasize to the House and to Canadians that Bill C-19 does not change these requirements. No one will be able to buy a firearm of any kind without passing the Canadian firearms safety course and a background check, as well as possessing a proper licence.

The bill will eliminate a law that places an unnecessary burden on law-abiding Canadians and on Canadian taxpayers. In doing so, it will free up resources for investment in anti-crime initiatives that will help make our streets safer.

We have to be honest with ourselves and face reality. The long gun registry is only effective and efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts. It does not prevent crime because we know that criminals do not register guns. Illegal handguns are the primary problem. The problem is not the legally acquired shotguns and rifles found in the hands of our farmers, hunters and target shooters. The firearms involved in the majority of gun crimes are not purchased by farmers for the protection of their livestock, are not owned by your neighbour down the road who goes moose hunting every fall with his brother or the aspiring athlete hoping to shine for Canada in the next Olympic biathlon, yet these are the people the long gun registry affects.

We all want to reduce crime, especially gun crime. Therefore, I ask hon. members to support Bill C-19. Let us invest in programs that are effective and eliminate those that are mere window dressing that divert our attention and our resources away from the real problem. It is time to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but notice that a number of Conservative members speak with a great deal of passion on this issue, and I appreciate that. I suspect that some of them might have even built their entire political career on the gun registry issue. I must admit that I felt like I almost had to ask one of the pages to bring a box of Kleenex over to the member.

I suspect a huge vacuum will need to be filled. I am wondering what the next mission will be. Will the next mission be the NRA directive to amend the Constitution so that every man has the right to bear arms? One of my favourites would be to fight for universal health care across the country.

After Bill C-19 is disposed of, what will the member's next mission be going forward?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Fundy Royal.

I congratulate the Minister of Public Safety, the member of Parliament for Provencher, for bringing forward Bill C-19. This is an incredible day. Finally, there is a government bill before the House for debate. After all the long years that I have been advocating against the long gun registry, finally we have this opportunity not only to debate the bill, but to vote on it and successfully remove the long gun registry.

I also want to thank the member for Portage—Lisgar, who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, for all the work she has done on the gun registry and for bringing forward Bill C-391 in the last Parliament which we had hoped to get through the House until it ripped my heart out to see it defeated by one vote. However, I know that she has continued to fight for the removal of this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. She has travelled across the country to hear from Canadians from coast to coast to coast about the horrors of having to deal with such a bureaucratic process, one that made criminals out of law-abiding citizens.

Finally, I have to thank my friend, the member for Yorkton—Melville, for all of the work he has done right back to 1993-94 when this registry was first floated by Allan Rock, the minister at that time, and the Liberal government. The member for Yorkton--Melville has been one of the stalwarts. He has fought against this ineffective and wasteful use of taxpayer money and has ensured that we do the right things in fighting crime rather than penalize citizens who happen to own long guns, whether they are farmers, hunters, or sportsmen.

I was fighting Bill C-68 going back to 1995. The Senate committee was travelling across the country taking testimony on Bill C-68. I appeared before that committee when it was in Manitoba, in Interlake in my riding.

People in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake have long opposed this gun registry. It created a huge stir. There were public protests. Organizations were set up. I joined the Manitoba Firearms Coalition. People wanted to fight this huge impediment to their freedoms and their rights as citizens. Unfortunately, Bill C-68 has pitted rural Canadians against urban Canadians.

Maybe it is not fair for me to say that urban Canadians all support the gun registry, because there are plenty of hunters and sports enthusiasts who live in urban centres who also oppose this long gun registry. Over the last few years as we have been out campaigning, we have been hearing from Canadians in urban centres. They know it is not working. They know the registry has not reduced crime. They have seen gun violence and gang violence in the streets rise. They know the registry is a waste of money. They want more resources put into policing services. They want more money put into gang prevention. They want more money put into youth at risk. They know those will be the right investments, rather than wasting money on a bureaucracy, on a registry that has no impact whatsoever in reducing crime in this country.

I am a licensed firearms owner. I acquired a PAL, a possession and acquisition licence. I took my hunter safety course in 1976 when I was about 14 years old. The hunter safety course is what actually prepared me to get my PAL. I am a licensed firearms owner; however, I have never registered a firearm. I do have a firearm, but it is not registered. I have made that statement before in the House because, as a matter of civil disobedience, I have always said this is a wrong thing. That firearm does not have any impact on the safety of people. It is the people who handle the firearm that are the issue.

If we want to look at reducing crime or reducing accidents that happen from handling firearms, we need to do more in the areas of safe storage, safe handling, in training the people who are going to be using firearms. That is where we would get the biggest bang for our buck.

We know from the statistics that since the late 1980s we have seen a reduction in accidental shootings. We have seen a reduction in misfired guns. We have seen a reduction in suicides that have been caused from long guns.

We have seen reductions in those events because people are practising safe storage. Those firearms are under lock and key. Ammunition is stored separately under lock and key. It is more difficult for children to access those firearms. It allows time for cooling off in instances of heated debates between friends or family members. It allows people to think about what they are doing as they are reaching for a firearm they may want to use in an illegal way.

Much misinformation has been propagated by opposition members and we really need to set things straight. They talk about policing services accessing the gun registry thousands of times a day. They are not actually accessing the registry. They may be checking an address or licence plate and that automatically goes into the firearms registry. If they are looking at a serial number of a gun, it accesses the licensed firearm owner. That is not going to change. There still will be a complete list of everyone who has a licence to possess a firearm in this country. That will not change. We know that police officers on the front line can still enter an address or licence plate number into a computer and they will be told whether an individual is a licensed firearms owner.

Police officers will have to deal with every individual as if he or she owned a firearm. We do not want to give them a false sense of security. They have to assume in every situation they go into that there are firearms present. We know that criminals do not register firearms. We know that criminals do not get licences under the current legislation. Criminals do not have possession and acquisition licences for firearms. We know that to be a fact. In every situation for their own self-interests, police officers have to enter a premise or approach a vehicle as if the individual had a gun.

There is all this talk about homicide rates dropping because of the gun registry. We know that homicide rates have been on the decline since the early 1970s. Since the registry came into being in Canada, the rate has stabilized at just under 1.9 murders per 100,000 people. There will not be a huge impact, because homicides have been stable on a percentage basis for the last dozen years or so since the registry has been in place.

If we look at the population of licensed firearm owners, the murder rate is only .38 per 100,000 owners of firearms. These are the most law-abiding citizens in the country. These are individuals who have gone out of their way to become licensed firearms owners and to get the training they need to own firearms. They are the ones who respect the laws of the land. Why are we targeting these individuals when there are so many other people who are involved in gangs, drugs and illicit crimes? Those are the individuals we need to invest in finding, tracking and getting off our streets to make our neighbourhoods safer.

Professor Gary Mauser has said that of all the murders that have been committed since 1997, less than 2% of them have been committed by licensed firearm owners and the guns that were registered to those individuals only represented 1.2% of homicides. The question then becomes, was that a good use of taxpayer dollars? Over $2 billion was spent to track 1.25% of those who committed homicides in this country and owned long guns. That is ridiculous.

In Vancouver in 2003, of all the guns that were taken off the street, 97% of them were illegal handguns that were smuggled in. We have to start looking at the big issue. Let us quit focusing on one group in society that we, unfortunately, made into criminals because they did not register their firearms. Half the guns on the streets today are still not registered. Let us do the right thing and get rid of the long gun registry and invest in front-line policing.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism)]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Yukon.

I, like many of my colleagues before me, am very pleased to rise in this House this afternoon to support Bill C-19, a bill to abolish, to completely do away with the long gun registry, just as we promised in the election campaign. This is very important to me because I am a politician who keeps his word, and I am glad that my government is also keeping its word.

As you are aware, this registry is useless and costly. The reason so many Conservative members are so adamant about dismantling the registry is because they have listened to years of consultations with our constituents about the registry. A number of my colleagues, including the member for Yorkton—Melville, have held countless meetings throughout the country. They have listened to Canadians tell them what they think about the registry. We have heard from honest firearm owners, including hunters, farmers and sport shooters, and we have also heard from people who believe that the way to fight crime is to have tougher laws.

We have also listened to the victims of tragedies such as the ones at the École Polytechnique and Dawson College. I would like the victims and their families to know that we share the same goal, the same objective in the fight against crime, and that is to ensure that these heinous crimes do not reoccur.

It is a shame that these crimes were committed with registered firearms. Registering a weapon—and by that I mean hunting weapons, rifles and shotguns—does not help to combat crime. I have a strong conviction that together we can convince our opposition colleagues to support this bill.

I have heard many of my colleagues talk about the cost. Yes, it was disastrous. The cost of setting up this registry in the late 1980s and early 1990s was astronomical. Why was it astronomical? You will recall that it was the first Liberal scandal. Some say that the registry cost over $1 billion, others that it cost up to $2 billion. Those are the figures the CBC came up with following a number of investigations that were conducted at the time under the Access to Information Act. So we all agree that it was a waste of taxpayers' money. We are still trying to determine where this money went.

Then there was a second Liberal scandal, the sponsorship scandal, mainly in my own province. More billions of dollars were spent, and they were spent to keep a party in power that was corrupt at that time. This was an intolerable waste. I agree with the opposition. At the time, they should have invested that money in crime prevention. How many crimes could have been prevented with rehabilitation programs for criminals, with tougher laws to make sure that criminals are not tempted to commit these crimes?

The truth is simple and clear, and people do not want to hear that truth. There is no proof that the long gun registry helps to prevent crime. It must be pointed out that the bill covers only the long gun registry. This is one section of the registry, which has four sections. One section relates to handguns, and that will be retained in full; another section relates to prohibited weapons, and that will be retained in full; and a third section relates to licences for individuals. That registry has the name, address and contact information for individuals who want to obtain a firearms possession and acquisition licence.

In this registry we have the names of honest citizens: farmers, hunters, people who use their rifles for sporting purposes. These data are going to stay in the registry. It is important to point that out. What is going to be done is very precise: the registry that relates to long guns is going to be destroyed. The registry is made up of data. The registry is composed of information about those weapons. The data are part of the registry and the data will be destroyed. That is very clear in the bill.

Some people say that statistics show there has been a decline in homicides and suicides in Canada. I agree with the people who talk about those statistics. That is the statistical reality. However, what they are not telling us is that this is nothing new. The decline in homicides and suicides in Canada does not date from the creation of this registry in the mid-1990s. It is a trend that goes back a long time, to 1979 to be precise. There is a perfect declining curve for suicides and homicides. It has been declining since 1979. That is what has to be pointed out. The statistics cannot be interpreted to our own advantage. We have to look at the statistics overall and see what they tell us.

What strikes me most about this registry is how it treats honest citizens as potential criminals, forcing them to register their guns. These people abide by Canadian laws, and this registry was introduced under the Criminal Code. That needs to be said. Firearms need to be registered every year; it is a tax grab. Each year, you have to pay to register your firearm. Yet if ever an honest citizen, an honest farmer or hunter, forgot to register his gun, it would be a criminal offence. He would become a criminal. We do not want to treat these honest people like criminals.

This registry has affected rural areas in Canada and aboriginals as well. Their culture and way of life have been changed by the requirement to register their guns. They are simply asked to take a firearms safety course. And they are asked to take a test. Then, the RCMP does a criminal background check and, if necessary, a background check for violent offences. The RCMP does detailed checks on people who apply for a gun permit. That will stay; it will always be there. The RCMP will continue to investigate these people. And people will agree to those investigations because they know that they are honest and have done nothing wrong. They are prepared to do that. The RCMP does it because they want to protect the public and ensure that a person who has the right to a permit has been investigated.

It should also be said that this permit is good for five years. If something happens during that time, the permit can be taken away. That needs to be said. These measures are in place to protect society and prevent crime. We are taking other measures in this Parliament, such as Bill C-10 to implement tougher sentences. And I think that is the direction we need to be moving in. We drafted a bill that ensures that a Canadian who commits a gun-related crime will be given a minimum sentence. It is important for Canadians to know that.

I am extremely disappointed to hear that kind of demagogy concerning the registry. Some people are suggesting that we want to destroy all of the information in the registry, which is completely false, because the registry has four sections, as I said earlier. We want to destroy only the section that has to do with the registration of long guns, because that information is not in line with this government's priorities.

Any government policy must always be examined based on its effects, not its intentions, and in this case, the registry has had no effect on crime prevention.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Second Reading

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today and speak in support of Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.

On Tuesday, the hon. Minister of Public Safety tabled in the House this very important legislation that would end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. This was, and will be, an important moment for so many Canadians across the country who have been waiting so very long to see this happen.

It is also an important moment for every government member who has fought so hard against opposition blocking, obstruction, games, false accusations, and so many other sad attempts to stop ending the long gun registry. I am so proud of our government members, my fellow members of caucus in the Conservative Party, who have stood up long and hard against some of these terrible tactics in their commitment to their constituents to end the long gun registry.

I am especially thankful to our police caucus. We are very proud to have at least seven, I think now 11, members of the police force, either active or former police officers, as part of our caucus. They have also stood with us, shoulder to shoulder, in ending the long gun registry.

Today, I stand here proudly, a Conservative member of Parliament, representing the riding of Portage—Lisgar, together with my fellow colleagues to see this bill passed and to see the long gun registry finally ended.

With this new legislation before the House we will all have the chance to do the right thing and vote against the long gun registry. In the past, we have seen members on the opposite side who have made very strong commitments to their constituents, publicly, in some of their ten percenters, some of the mailings they have sent out and in newspaper articles. There are members across the way who have made firm commitments to their constituents to vote against the long gun registry, and I trust that when this bill comes forward for a vote that they will honour those commitments to their constituents, do the right thing, and vote to scrap the long gun registry.

Like my colleague, the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville, I do have a deep and very strong interest in this issue. I want to say why this is an important issue to me.

I am not a gun owner, I am not a hunter, and I have only shot a gun a few times. However, I grew up in a rural community in Manitoba where guns were used by the people that I lived with. I live in a very strong Mennonite area and there are a lot of farmers and people who grow crops and have livestock. I know it might be difficult for people who live in large cities to relate to, I can understand that, but I want to describe where I live. In my neck of the woods, if I walk onto a farmyard and see a farmer carrying a shotgun or rifle, I would have no fear of that individual at all because he may be trying to shoot a rodent or a skunk. He may need it because there are coyotes attacking his livestock. He needs it as a tool. Just like many of us in this room use our BlackBerrys every single day as a tool, there are farmers who use it as a tool to do their work.

I grew up in an area like this. I grew up where individuals went hunting. They used guns for sport shooting. A lot of my brothers and my cousins loved to go shooting. It was a great activity for them to do with other family members.

When I decided to run for office and I had the honour of becoming the member of Parliament for Portage--Lisgar, ending the long gun registry was one of the top issues that my constituents brought forward to me. They saw the incredible waste of money, almost $2 billion, that was spent on the registry and they knew that they were being blamed, as rural Canadians, for the horrific crimes and the horrific tragedies that were happening in big cities. It was wrong then when it was introduced, and it is wrong today.

I am very proud to stand up for gun owners in Canada. I am proud to stand up for sport shooters and hunters, and I am proud to stand up for taxpayers today to speak against the long gun registry and in support of Bill C-19.

Throughout the debate on ending the long gun registry there have been so many myths that have been perpetuated. I am going to take a few moments to go through some of the key ones and try to bring some clarity on these issues.

First, there is the myth, and it has been talked about a bit today, that police officers use the registry and the numbers have gone from 8,000 times a day all the way to, I am hearing now, 16,000 times a day. The myth is that they are using it in their tactical decisions, when they go on calls, and to actually look at how to approach a home or a situation.

Sometimes the facts do not always tell the truth of a situation. The fact might be that the long gun registry in the Canadian firearms database is touched or is hit 8,000 to 10,000 or 11,000 times a day. However, the truth is officers are not purposefully going in and checking the information, as the hon. member, who is a former RCMP officer, already mentioned.

Even if a police officer pulls over a vehicle and punches in a vehicle licence plate, an automatic hit is generated on the firearms database, and many times it is generated and specific queries are looking at the name and the address of the person being searched. A specific serial number or certificate number is not being looked at, which is what is associated with the long gun registry.

To sum this up, police officers are not specifically going in. The reason they are telling us that they are not doing it on their own, and that it is only happening automatically, is they cannot count on the information contained in the databases. The long gun registry is inaccurate in that there are thousands of wrong addresses, thousands of wrong names associated with the wrong serial number of a firearm. The majority of the time, police officers find that whatever the registry says is not actually true if they go to confirm it.

These are well-trained professionals. They are not going in specifically to look at the registry. It is automatically making a hit on the registry and counting in this so-called 11,000 to 15,000 hits a day.

I want to quickly read a letter that was just passed to me. The Minister of State for Finance just received this email yesterday from a front line officer. His name is Gary. The riding is Macleod, so it is in Alberta. I will not give any further specific information.

Gary wrote:

I am a serving Policeman and have been for over 23 years. I am a front line cop whose career has been dedicated to hunting and capturing society's worst. For the past 12 years, I have worked exclusively on a big city (SWAT) Team and have arrested countless rapists, armed robbers, armed drug dealers, violent gang members, and murderers, including one who was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.

I know very little about running a Police department, writing traffic tickets, lifting fingerprints, or investigating shop-lifters...I do know about hunting armed violent desperate men--and I do it very well.

The long gun registry does ZERO to help me do my job. 99% of frontline cops that I know feel the same way.

I have received hundreds of emails from front line police officers. I have not received one email from one police officer who said he or she wants us to keep the long gun registry. I would challenge any opposition member to show me an email from a front line officer who is on the streets arresting drug dealers, arresting violent criminals. The reason is that it does not help them. They do not use it.

Now, they have told us what they do want us to do to help them do their job. We are working very hard with our Tackling Violent Crimes Act that we passed, and other measures, and so, I do want to talk about that.

I also want to talk about another myth, and again it was discussed a bit today; that is, that the long gun registry protects women and specifically protects women against domestic violence.

I come from a family of six girls. I have daughters. I have nieces. I come from a family of a lot of very strong women, my mom being one of the strongest women that I know. I can tell members with all sincerity that if I ever thought that I was ending a process or ending a registry that would help women, I would not do this. There is no way that I could do this. There is no way I could go to sleep at night if I thought that I was taking away something that would actually protect women. That is because I have looked at the evidence as to what the registry does and what the registry does not do.

The long gun registry is not gun control. The long gun registry does nothing to stop people from getting guns who should not have guns; for example, men who are going to harm their spouse or harm their family. The registry does not stop them from getting a gun.

Let me explain what would stop them. The licensing process, of which we are strong believers. Gun owners are strong believers in the licensing process. That is where individuals will go through a background police check. They will have to take a safety course. Many times, their spouse is actually spoken to and asked, “How do you feel about your spouse getting a firearm? Are you concerned?”

I fully support that process. If we can flag it, and there are times we cannot, but if we can stop it, that is where we can stop individuals from getting guns who should not have guns. However, once they have a licence to own a firearm, actually counting their long guns, it might make those of us around here feel better. Maybe we think we are doing something but we are not doing anything by counting their guns.

There are we things we can do, like licensing. There is also a lot of things we can do regarding prevention, working with families that are going through crisis and ensuring there are women's shelters, which we have done so much work on, but counting long guns of licensed gun owners does not stop them from using them.

I would urge the opposition members, if they are not aware of all of the issues surrounding the registry, to become educated, because when they understand what the registry does and does not do, they will see that even if costs, whether it is $4 million or $100 million, it is a waste of money and a waste of resources that could be used elsewhere to help stop domestic violence and violence of all kinds.

I do want to mention very briefly that there are things that we are doing to fight violent crime in Canada. We have introduced a number of pieces of legislation. Any individual who commits a crime with a gun should receive a mandatory minimum sentence, which is exactly what we put in our tackling violent crimes legislation. Some would say that it should even be longer. Our legislation has mandatory minimum sentences of four years. If it is a gang-related gun activity, it will be five years.

I hear from some people who say that maybe we should have even longer sentences than that, but the bottom line is that, in Canada, if people commit a crime with a gun, they need to be in jail and there needs to be a minimum time that they are in jail. I am very proud that we have done that.

We have also introduced our safe streets and communities act, which is another good piece of legislation that would help us in tackling drug crime. The majority of the time, drugs, gangs and guns are completely inter-related and, sadly, when we are seeing crime in our city streets, so many times those three factors are part of it.

We have also brought in tougher bail provisions for those who use weapons in the commission of a crime. We have delivered mandatory minimum sentences for drive-by shootings and we are helping to stop crime before it happens. This includes investing in the youth gang prevention fund. Our government is very proud of that.

We have also delivered on our promise to provide more police officers across the country. Police officers come up in discussion so often and I am very happy that we have a very strong, open dialogue with the Canadian Association of Police. We talk to police chiefs across the country all the time. We meet with front-line officers who tell us that if we put someone in jail, we need to ensure they stay in jail. One of the most frustrating things for police officers is to arrest a drug dealer or arrest someone who has committed a crime with a gun and then they get out of jail before they do their time. I am very proud that we are doing that.

Ending the long gun registry is part of keeping the focus on making our streets safer, not on policies and laws that do not actually prevent crime. That is really the point we have been trying to make all of these years.

Another very interesting statistic on licensed gun owners in Canada, according to a Simon Fraser report by Professor Gary Mauser, is that if people have a licence to own a firearm in Canada, they are 50% less likely to ever commit a crime with a firearm.

It would be interesting to go around the chamber and each of us give thought to that. If there are licensed gun owners in the chamber today, they are 50% less likely to ever commit a crime with a firearm because they are law-abiding citizens. The reason the long gun registry has been so flawed is that it does so much to focus on them and to penalize them for being gun owners.

I now want to talk about the third myth that has been talked about a lot, even today it was talked about, and that is the ongoing cost to keep the long gun registry.

I think we all agree that it costs almost $2 billion to register just over seven million long guns. Right now, there are just over seven million long guns in the database, and that costs about $2 billion. We can all try to guess why. Only the Liberals would be able to tell us what was really going on during that time. We do not know. That was also during the time of some other scandals, and we are certainly concerned about where the $2 billion went.

There are at least 16 million long guns in Canada, which means that not even half of all the long guns are registered. Can members imagine the cost to register the other seven million to eight million long guns that are in the country, as well as trying to get this inaccurate information up to date? I cannot imagine, if we did not end the registry, the cost of trying to make it up to date, current and a database that could be counted on. I fear to think of what it might cost.

The Liberals said that it would cost $2 million and it cost $2 billion. Now they are throwing other figures around. We have heard $4 million. I really cannot count on any kind of Liberal or NDP figures.

As we look at the actual cost today, for example, if we look at the government estimates, it is costing about $22 million right now just for the federal government portion of the prohibited, restricted and non-prohibited, non-restricted firearms registry. That would be long guns, handguns and short guns. We know that the majority of those are the seven million long guns. We know that it is costing approximately $22 million right now.

When the Auditor General testified a few years ago, she talked a lot about hidden costs. Her estimation was probably around $70 million. From the work that we have done with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and in talking to other groups that are called upon to actually enforce the long gun registry, the municipal and provincial police who are not receiving any direct funding from any government but who must use their funding for their policing, the hidden costs that are being passed down to different agencies is huge. I would say that there is evidence that to maintain the long gun registry just as it is would probably be over $100 million a year. Then we would also have to talk about re-setting it up.

The bottom line is the cost. Some people say that it is $4 million and some say it is $100 million. I guess we could discuss it forever. We continue to stand with law-abiding citizens in saying that is money that could be spent elsewhere. I think all of us would have great examples of where it could be spent, on deterring crime, on prevention or on treatment. There are many great ways we could spend that money, other than on the long gun registry.

I am extremely pleased that the government bill includes the provision to destroy all of the records. That would have been the intent of the bill that I introduced but it was not laid out specifically. I am pleased that we were able to see it included in the bill that the government introduced.

The fact is that law-abiding gun owners should not have any of their information gathered and kept by any level of government once the long gun registry has ended. I am very pleased that we can look them in the eye and commit to them that their information will never be passed to any other level of government, any other party that would like to try to use it to create a registry, nor will not be passed to any polling group. That information will be destroyed and it will never return under our watch.

I am grateful for the men and women across this country who have stood with us, supported us, sent us emails of support and said that they will stand with us, as they have. Some of them helped us get more Conservatives elected to help get the majority in this House. I thank the men and women of Canada, hunters, farmers, sport shooters and their families who have stood with us. I am very proud that we are delivering on our commitment. We will end the long gun registry.

I call on all opposition members to look at the facts, do not look at this with emotion or political skew, and support this legislation to end the long gun registry.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this extremely important debate. For us in particular—not just for us, but for many of my colleagues from Quebec—this is a rather sensitive issue. Why? Because a big part of this debate centres on events that occurred in Quebec.

Everyone remembers this, or perhaps not. Sometimes I say that we must never forget the past, so that we do not repeat it. As you know—we commemorate this event every year—on December 6, 1989, a young man named Marc Lépine entered the École Polytechnique and, for personal and anti-feminist reasons, decided to shoot a group of women. Fourteen women died: 13 students and one secretary.

This is the first opportunity I have had to talk about this and I want to take advantage of the time I have to say that, indeed, we all have our own experiences, but sometimes we have to remember that the firearms registry was created because of the events at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

I would like to read out the names of these women, because we do not talk about them enough and we must not forget them: Geneviève Bergeron, Nathalie Croteau, Anne-Marie Edward, Maryse Laganière, Anne-Marie Lemay, Michèle Richard, Annie Turcotte, Hélène Colgan, Barbara Daigneault, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Leclair, Sonia Pelletier, Annie St-Arneault, and Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz. They lost their lives that day. It is important to remember that.

I understand what the hon. member who spoke before me is saying. He is speaking in this House on behalf of a group of individuals who are targeted by the bill in question and by the firearms registry as a whole. However, there are also people who are targeted by the implementation of this registry. We all agree that the registry was not set up very well and that it cost a fortune. Nevertheless, despite what I hear about Bill C-10 every time I am at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I realize that when it comes to the victims, no price is too high. Sometimes in life things are expensive and we deal with it, but that is not how we should look at things.

On this side of the House, we are trying to piece together all these versions and views. What I find unfortunate in the debate on the gun registry—as with many debates here in this House—is that the government is trying to polarize the debate. It claims that its position, the position of the hunters, is the right one and that others are completely wrong. Some people claim that the victims' position is in the right and that the hunters are completely wrong. But sometimes, reality and truth are found in the middle, somewhere in between, and on this side of the House, that is what we have tried to bring to the debate and will continue to do. Yes, I can understand the frustration of the hunters or of some aboriginal peoples who feel that this registry forces them to do things, but we must look at what the original objective was.

I will admit that there are some good arguments on the other side of the House. Sometimes there may have been some information that was taken wrong. Perhaps the registry is not completely wonderful. That is partly their fault as well, because in light of the amnesties granted, the registry has stalled a bit in recent years. It is perhaps not as up to date as I would like it to be, but the information in it is very important.

We know that, for very ideological reasons, the Conservatives have turned the firearms registry into a big issue, an issue of money or all kinds of things. Once again, the victims have been forgotten in all the noise. The government has forgotten that while it is talking to us and we are discussing this, we receive emails and messages from all sides. I am sure that all members in the House receive them, including the Conservatives. They will probably rise at some point and say they do not get them, but maybe that is because they do not look at them.

I receive messages from hunters, victims' parents and victims advocacy groups. They are asking that we not eliminate the registry. For a number of people, it has become symbolic. Some might say it is an expensive symbol, but we are being told by groups like police associations that, on the contrary, this registry is being used. Whether the hon. member who spoke before me likes it or not, and even if the Conservatives say it is not true, I tend to believe our police officers. If our police chiefs are saying they use the registry, I do not see why we would suddenly say they are lying. I do not think that is the case.

I was looking at the background of this registry and I discovered something odd. It has been used quite a bit to divide the two sides of the House, with one side being right and the other side being completely wrong. It is a major source of political division in Canada. Some have tried to pit rural Canada against urban Canada. At first I was interested in this issue as a person who spends a lot of time with groups that protect women who are victims of violence. These groups have taught me a lot about the firearms registry. Perhaps they saw this registry as symbolic, but they also saw it as a possible solution to many domestic tragedies. At the very least, it provides a sense of security because of the additional tools it provides to our police forces to help women in specific circumstances.

In trying to do my job properly, without being too entrenched in my own view, I have learned, since the registry was created, to listen to others' views, including that of the hon. member who just spoke. It is true that there has been endless talk over the years and that the same ideas keep resurfacing. But I am not convinced that the members on the other side of the House have listened closely to the arguments coming from this side or from victims' and police groups. And that upsets me.

Now that it is in a majority situation, the government is saying that it can abolish this registry. But before, the government knew that this move was not possible and did not represent the views of the majority. I have no choice but to point out, once again, that this government only represents 39% of the population. This is an important statistic. Approximately 60% of Canadians decided that they did not share the Conservative vision.

I find it unfortunate that the Conservatives are trying to say that people voted for them and that since they are the majority, they are authorized to destroy the registry. This time, they have decided not just to cancel the registry, but also to destroy it. That is a major problem. The government does not seem to be aware of it this morning, but I get the feeling that the next few hours will be difficult for it. I can feel a storm brewing. I do not want to be alarmist, but since seeing the reactions—and particularly that of the Government of Quebec, the province where I was elected to represent the people of Gatineau—I have various concerns because I get the impression that a major problem is arising. Why? Because the federal government wants to destroy everything. It wants to do more than just block access to the information; it wants to destroy it. It will be shredded or thrown away—like pressing “Delete” on the computer—to ensure that the data will no longer be available anywhere.

The Minister of Public Safety was extremely clear and unequivocal: that is exactly what the government plans to do. It wants to make sure no one ever has access to that information. Yet the Conservatives have been reminding us since the registry was created that gathering that information was very costly for Canadians.

Everyone here in the House can agree on that. Everyone knows that creating the registry was very costly. The Conservatives keep reminding us that it cost $2 billion, but they forget to mention that most of that was spent at the beginning, when it was first created. When the registry was working well and running smoothly, it was costing between $2 million and $4 million, depending who one asks. Even taking the higher amount, $4 million, no one would say that that is a waste of money, except our Conservative friends across the floor. Furthermore, our police forces and victims associations are telling us that the registry is useful. I will never convince the members opposite, because they begin with the premise that police chiefs are lying when they say they use the registry, that victims associations do not know what they are talking about, because the registry does not prevent any crimes. The problem is that we may never know if the registry did in fact prevent crime. We could go round in circles on this for quite some time.

When a crime is committed with a registered firearm, the Conservatives immediately say to us that the fact that the firearm was registered did not prevent the crime. It may not have prevented one crime, but perhaps other crimes were prevented at some point. A police officer told me that he felt safe when he knew beforehand that there were two rifles in a home. When the guy comes out and throws a rifle on the ground, the police officer knows that there is another one in the house. The registry helps police officers to be better prepared. Police officers truly believe that the registry protects their lives, whereas the member who spoke before me firmly believes the opposite.

Finding ways to reconcile all these positions is possible and we can do it. If we used our talents and our energy, not as my colleague who spoke before me did in an attempt to destroy the registry, but rather to find solutions that reconcile everyone's positions, we would all benefit from this experience. But that is not happening. On the contrary, the Conservatives like to divide and conquer. They will tell hunters that the Conservatives are their saviours; that hunters are no longer criminals.

I direct my remarks to all hunters watching us. I have never believed that a hunter is a criminal. I do not think that anyone in this House has ever believed that a hunter, an aboriginal person or anyone who has inherited a rifle is a criminal. If mistakes in the legislation have given this impression, it is up to us, the legislators, to correct them.

As the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas said earlier, we fill out forms and provide information on our cars and boats. This comment may seem simplistic, but it is true. We must eliminate the irritants. This has always been the position of the NDP, both the people who want to keep the registry and its opponents. I want to emphasize that I believe in this registry and that, if there are irritants, then we must work to eliminate them.

The destruction of data presents extremely serious legal problems. The hon. members may find me tiresome but my time at law school has proven useful. I am thinking, for example, about access to information. There are things that are unclear in the current legislation. The Government of Quebec has already announced its stand on the matter and other provinces may do the same. I do not want to focus exclusively on Quebec, but it is my province. It is the province that immediately stood up to protect its people and said that it was prepared to continue the registry. This information belongs to the people of Quebec. The registry contains information that is relevant to them. The federal government does not have the right to destroy data that belongs to all Canadians and that cost a lot of money.

I have said this outside the House and I am not afraid to repeat it in the House. I am not afraid to say things outside the House. I find the Conservatives' position to be extremely mean-spirited. It seems there must be a way to find time.

The Conservatives will succeed in abolishing the registry since they have a majority, but if the provinces and territories want to continue to use it, I think that our Conservative colleagues could consider that and allow these governments and territories to offer the service to law enforcement agencies and organizations in their jurisdiction who need it and believe that they need it.

There is no problem with removing the irritants and I do not think that the province of Quebec will want to get into long debates about hunters or aboriginal nations. But there is a way to keep this data without simply destroying it, throwing it in the trash or taking a match to it.

I think that this is a good time to think about it. This would be the time to have a mature discussion about the gun registry. We must stop focusing solely on the absolutes on each side. Maybe we should think about the victims of the events that led to the creation of the gun registry.

It is not a matter of casting judgment on hunters, aboriginals or people who inherit rifles and other guns, but as legislators, this is our way of respecting people who are going through very difficult situations, like the events at Dawson College. People will tell me once again that the guns involved in this tragedy were not registered, but that does not matter when we know that one of the victims of the Dawson tragedy is still walking around with a bullet in his head. This victim told us, as legislators, that the gun registry is important. If we listen to these victims when studying Bill C-10, maybe it would also be a good idea to listen to them when studying Bill C-19.

We must stop focusing solely on our ideological speeches and on absolutes and try listening to what the others are saying. Women's groups feel safer with a gun registry. It does not solve the problem. I will not claim here in this House that it is a solution to domestic violence or violence against women, but it is a symbol of safety.

Once again, if we eliminate the irritants that are causing the Conservative government to be so insistent on destroying the long gun registry, I do not see why we cannot reach a consensus.

In conclusion, at times, we remember people and we express our respect for them. I am thinking of our leader, Jack Layton, who passed away this summer. In a moment, I will tell the hon. members what he was always telling us about this issue. I know that I will likely have to answer a question from the other side of the House about whether the official opposition intends to force a vote. The hon. members will see that the NDP's position is extremely logical and consistent with what they have heard in the this chamber.

The NDP's position is unanimous: we believe that there are ways of reconciling all the positions in a respectful manner in order to take into account the rights of victims and the rights of those who seriously object to the registry because of certain irritants.

I would like to end by quoting my leader, because I think it is important to remember him. He said:

Stopping gun violence has been a priority [for me and] for rural and urban Canadians.

There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to sit down with good will and open minds. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to build solutions that bring us together. But that sense of shared purpose has been the silent victim of the gun registry debate.

[The Prime Minister] has been no help at all. Instead of driving for solutions, he has used this issue to drive wedges between Canadians.... [The Conservatives are] stoking resentments as a fundraising tool to fill their election war chest.

[The Prime Minister] is pitting Canadian region against Canadian region with his “all or nothing show-down”. This is un-Canadian.

This kind of politics, which seeks to divide and pit people against one another, resembles the poisonous political games in the United Sates. This is not part of our country's political tradition, and I think that all Canadians demonstrated this when Jack Layton died. This is not the kind of political game we want to play.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill.

I would like to take a moment to thank those who helped make this legislation a reality: the right hon. Prime Minister, for his leadership on this issue; the hon. member for Provencher, Canada's outstanding public safety minister; the member for Portage—Lisgar, for recognizing my many years of work on this important file and especially for allowing me the honour of taking her speaking spot in this debate; and indeed all of my caucus colleagues who have supported me over the many years that this issue has been before us.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank my wonderful wife, Lydia, who has been by my side every step of the way for the last 18 years as we have dealt with this issue. She has made the most sacrifice. I thank my staff, past and present, in Ottawa and in Yorkton—Melville, who have worked tirelessly on this file for the last decade and a half. I thank the many organizations and stakeholders who have provided valuable insight and support.

Finally, I thank the thousands of farmers, hunters and sport shooters for their patience and support over the years. Throughout the years they have packed meeting after meeting from coast to coast to coast to ensure their concerns about Bill C-68 have been heard loud and clear.

As my hon. colleagues may be aware, this is an issue that has been of deep interest to me for quite some time. In fact, I would like to tell a story about how this first came to my attention.

In January 1994, before the Liberals had even put the long gun registry in place, I was invited to a meeting by a number of concerned gun owners in my constituency. I remember how cold it was. It was -39° outside in the town of Preeceville, Saskatchewan. I got out of my car, walked through the parking lot and into a hall packed with people. I could not believe how full the hall was. I remember so clearly being overwhelmed by just how many concerned citizens had taken the time to come out on this issue. Obviously I felt it was something they thought was very important to them. It was not really something I had thought too much about before that time.

I was asked by the folks in the room what I thought about the long gun registry that the Liberals were proposing. I had not thought much about it and I said something like, who would not be in favour of gun control, because that was what it had been portrayed as. Right then and there they put a challenge to me. They challenged me to look below the surface at what the proposed long gun registry would do and what it would not do. They challenged me to look at what the purpose actually was and who it would actually help. In short, they challenged me to look at the facts.

I made the commitment that I would look into this issue and I did. I ended up doing a complete 180 on this issue. I had to completely reverse my position once it became incredibly clear to me that it was going to be a totally ineffective long gun registry. It took a bit of time to uncover the facts, but as I looked at it with my helpful staff, I realized this was not going to accomplish what it was purported to do.

Since that time I have worked for years to see the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry scrapped once and for all. It has taken a long, long time. I have talked to thousands of people and have attended meetings on this issue from Vancouver Island to St. John's, Newfoundland. I have lost track of how many meetings I have attended.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many concerned citizens, police officers, hunters, farmers and sport shooters who have told me their stories over the past years. They have shared their experiences. They have been honest and forthright with their opinions on the long gun registry.

It has been a long haul, but in the end, through working for positive change, we have been able to make a difference. This bill, Bill C-19, is proof of that.

I am also very proud to be part of a government which, after working so long to deliver on its promise, is making good on its commitment to end the long gun registry. Despite opposition stalling, blocking and obstruction, we held steadfast in our determination to end what has grown into a $2 billion boondoggle.

There are millions of law-abiding gun owners in Canada. These include the good, honest and hard-working men and women from my constituency of Yorkton—Melville, and across the province of Saskatchewan, and from regions all across the country. These are law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters who feel it is fundamentally unfair they are being persecuted for their way of life. More than that, they feel as though they have been criminalized. They feel criminalized because they own a firearm. They feel criminalized because they may not have done all the paperwork. They feel criminalized because they think that even if they have done everything according to the law, they might have done something wrong.

I hear from farmers in my constituency, farmers who work hard every day and have long guns on their property. They use them in the course of their day. It is a tool. I am talking about doing such things as shooting gophers or other rodents and coyotes that may be going after their livestock. These long guns are tools that farmers use to protect themselves and their business. It is not right that they feel they are doing something wrong just because they have a firearm on their property.

I also hear from young people who are interested in getting into sport shooting, which is part of Canada's rich outdoor heritage and one of our traditional activities. We have enjoyed it for more than a century. These young people feel discouraged from getting involved, again because of the stigma associated with the long gun registry. Healthy outdoor living is nothing to be ashamed of. We should be encouraging young people in these respects. These young people are missing out on participating in healthy outdoor activities because they are not sure what they need to do or how they need to do it. That is a real shame.

Of course, I have heard from many aboriginal Canadians. Hunting is a fundamental part of their way of life. They also feel they are being deeply stigmatized by the long gun registry. This is a way of life. That is no more deserving of stigma than any other honest way of life across this country.

For too long, law-abiding Canadians who own firearms have been made to feel like second-class citizens due to this long gun registry. They have been made to feel that they should be held apart, considered to feel like second-class citizens due to this long gun registry. They have been made to feel that they should be held apart, considered more dangerous and made to endure burdensome regulations. They have not committed any crime. They have not acted in any way unlawfully. Yet they are viewed with suspicion and made to register their long guns as though they had.

Time and again, we see how this long gun registry needlessly and unfairly targets law-abiding Canadians. It does this while doing nothing to reduce crime or strengthen our efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

I could quote statistics to support every single thing I am saying.

I will digress for a moment and give a short example. Ninety per cent of the handguns in Toronto that are confiscated by the police are unregistered, and we have had a handgun registry since 1934. That gives an example of how the registry does not affect the criminal. It does not do anything to reduce crime or strengthen our efforts to keep guns out of the hands of the drug dealers, the criminals, the gangs. Our government has been saying this for years. That is why we have been working to scrap it for years. I stand here today to talk about this important issue. I am hopeful that we will soon see the failed long gun registry scrapped once and for all.

I have heard just about every argument for and against the registry that one can think of. I mentioned that earlier today. However, I have no doubt that there will be some interesting debate in the House with our colleagues across the floor. I am sure they will continue to bring forward points to try to demonstrate that it is a useful tool. When the previous speaker did that I pointed to a couple of examples of how what he had cited is not really true.

The facts speak for themselves. The long gun registry does not put meaningful consequences in place for gun crimes. It does not address gun-related or gang-related crimes in Canada. That has nothing to do with law-abiding gun owners who register their firearms. The registry does not prevent crimes from happening. The opposition places the gun registry and crime prevention side by side as though there were some connection between them. The registry does not prevent crime from happening. I could not be more blunt. The creation of a list of law-abiding long gun owners does not prevent a criminal from picking up a firearm or any weapon and using it to harm an innocent person.

Over the past number of years I have spoken with many front-line police officers, the men and women who put their lives on the line for the safety and security of Canadians every day. Time and again they have said that the registry information is not accurate. Police officers know that it is not accurate. They know that when they walk through the door of a house they always assume there is a firearm located there. They do not trust the information in the long gun registry and certainly would not bet their lives on it. A tool that does not do its job is a tool not worth having and should be destroyed. That is what we are doing. These are good reasons to scrap it.

As an aside, the Auditor General stated in a report several years ago that 90% of the registration certificates contained inaccurate information. A staff sergeant in my riding tells his officers when they come on staff not to consult the registry before responding to a domestic dispute as it may put their lives at risk.

To add to all of this is the registry's sheer size and the waste of resources associated with it. When the Auditor General released her report several years ago and that was exposed, in the entire country there was only one editorial writer who still supported the registry, and even that person had reservations with respect to it. At that time, a survey was taken and 72% of people wanted to get rid of the registry. When the Liberals introduced it they told us it would cost $2 million. Later on it was upward of $2 billion.

There is no evidence that the long gun registry prevents crime, protects Canadians from crime or that it protects the well-being of front-line officers. What other government program has gone 1,000 times overbudget? That is unbelievable. It is bad policy. That is why I have fought long and hard over the past decade and more to see it scrapped.

I ask the opposition members what if that money had been better used to address the root causes of crime in this country? Surely, they would not have been opposed to that.

I will now speak to what Bill C-19 means as well as to what it does not mean.

First and foremost, Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry bill, removes the requirement for Canadians to register their unrestricted firearms, such as rifles and shotguns. In short, that means that law-abiding hunters and farmers would no longer be compelled to register their long guns and no longer be made to feel like criminals in the process.

Second, Bill C-19 would ensure that the records that have been gathered through the long gun registry over the past years would be destroyed. This is a particularly important point. Not only are the details of millions of law-abiding gun owners in this country which are contained within the records inaccurate, they are also a means by which a different government, whether provincial or federal, could attempt to reinstate the long gun registry a few years down the road. The commitment of this government is firm. We would not allow that to happen. That is why we are committed to destroying those records. They would not be shared, nor sealed and kept. They would be destroyed.

As well, Bill C-19 will maintain current regulations for restricted and prohibited firearms. Those firearms will continue to be registered as they have in the past and licensing requirements will remain in place. However, long guns will no longer be required to be registered.

I will touch on another point as well. I spoke earlier about how for many of my constituents owning a firearm is a way of life. I recognize that is not common in many parts of Canada. For people living in large urban centres, the meaning surrounding firearms can be altered. It has become less about a lifestyle and more about what we see in the media.

In many of our urban centres there is a lot of talk about gun crime in the media. That can make some people nervous. I cannot emphasize enough that the Conservative Party believes in keeping Canadians safe. We are delivering measures to ensure families feel safe in their homes and communities. We are delivering better tools for our law enforcement officers and holding criminals accountable for their crimes.

Year after year, that is the promise we as a government have made to the law-abiding Canadian families we stand for in all areas of the country, both rural and urban. That is why we are in support of gun control measures that work, and why we are against measures that do not work, such as the failed long gun registry.

I will mention some of the actions we have taken over the past five years to keep Canadians safer and hold criminals more accountable for their crimes.

Our previous comprehensive legislation, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, has serious penalties for gun offences. Those measures include: longer mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes; tougher new rules for bail for serious weapons offences; mandatory minimum sentences for drive-by shootings; tougher laws to combat organized crime; and, mandatory minimum sentences for using firearms in the commission of an offence. These laws target real criminals.

I have said it before and I will say it again that criminals are not in the habit of obeying the law and they certainly are not in the habit of registering their firearms. They are the sort of individuals who use illegal weapons that have either been stolen or smuggled in from the United States or elsewhere. They have absolutely no respect for the law or the well-being of their fellow citizens.

It is those inidividuals who bring the good names of law-abiding gun owners into disrepute. They are the people who do harm to our homes and communities. They are the people this government is targeting with its tough on crime measures. They are the people against whom we are taking action in an effort to stop them by using tougher laws, by providing better resources for police officers, and by holding them accountable for their actions.

That is how the government believes it should tackle criminals. It is the right way, the effective way and the sensible way. That is why we are in favour of scrapping the failed long gun registry. I hope all hon. members will support us in getting rid of it once and for all.

I challenge members to do the same as I have done, scratch below the surface and look at the facts. If they do I believe they will come to the same conclusion that I did, that the registry is not a cost-effective way of controlling crime or making our lives safer.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, as the member for Mount Royal, I am pleased to take part today in the debate on Bill C-19, the government's bill to abolish the long gun registry. Like many Quebeckers, Montreal residents have indicated their support for the registry and their opposition to its abolition at meetings and political forums.

The government's justification for abolishing the long gun registry is not unlike its support of Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. It has a mandate to enact this legislation. The disposition speaks for itself and all contrary evidence is therefore but an inconvenient truth to be ignored. Yet, ironically enough, the government's legislation to abolish the long gun registry betrays the very principles invoked by the government in support of Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill.

Indeed, the two bills provide an interesting study and contrast that illustrate the incoherence and inconsistency in the government's approach to crime and justice, save for one common feature, the ignoring, marginalizing and mischaracterizing of the evidence.

Accordingly whereas the organizing motif of Bill C-10 is the protection of public safety, which we all support in the House regardless of party, the legislation to abolish the long gun registry would endanger that very purpose of public safety.

Whereas Bill C-10 purports to speak in the name of the victims, this legislation ignores the very voices of the victims themselves who oppose the legislation.

Whereas Bill C-10 purports to rely on the support of police associations, which the Minister of Public Safety yesterday in the House invoked in support of the safe streets and communities act, this legislation is opposed by those very same police organizations.

Whereas Bill C-10 was intended to combat violent crime, this bill ignores the evidence that the long gun registry protects precisely against such violent crime. In particular, it protects against domestic violence, community violence, workplace violence and violence against women.

Whereas 272 members of the House, including many government members, recently rose in support of a motion to adopt a national suicide prevention strategy, this legislation ignores yet again the evidence respecting gun-related suicide.

Whereas Bill C-10 would offload costs of the safe streets legislation on the provinces that must enforce it, this legislation seeks to eliminate all the data, to erase all the evidence that would enable the provinces, such as my province of Quebec, to initiate its own registry, an enormous waste of public investment by a government that professes concern about the registry's waste.

Whereas Bill C-10 purported to consult and consider the concerns of the provincial and territorial attorneys general prior to its introduction, when one reads the letter from Quebec justice minister Jean-Marc Fournier to the current Minister of Justice, it is clear that Quebec's views were not incorporated.

This legislation has been tabled without appropriate consultation with provincial and territorial attorneys general. So much for the open, vaunted, covenantal federalism which the government has professed.

I organized my remarks seriatim around each of these points and principles, the whole anchored in and inspired by the very facts that run counter to the government's proposed legislation.

First, in a manner protecting public safety, despite the government's claim that the long gun registry is a waste and does nothing, as it has been quoted as saying, it is checked by police officers across Canada an average of some 16,000 times a day. Therefore, the question is whether these police officers, the very people the government asks us to heed, are simply wasting their time when they tell us that it is a valuable asset again and again.

The fact remains that having such a database has been a valuable asset, to quote police again, for protecting and promoting public safety. Indeed, in Canada deaths by gunshot are at their lowest level in over 40 years. There were 400 fewer Canadians who died of gunshots in 2007 compared to 1995, the year the Firearms Act was introduced, and estimates directly credit the registry with a reduction of 50 homicides and 250 suicides annually.

Since the first introduction of stricter gun laws in 1991, there has been a 65% reduction in homicides by long guns, as Statistics Canada data shows. Most important, behind every statistic is a human life saved. How can the government look at this evidence and still maintain that abolishing the registry is beneficial to public safety?

Second, in the matter of protecting victims, we need only listen to Sue O'Sullivan, the federal ombudswoman for victims of crime, who said on the occasion of the introduction of this legislation:

Our position on this matter is clear—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.

She added that “the majority of victims' groups we have spoken with continue to support keeping long-gun registry.”

In my own province of Quebec, a similar indictment of this legislation has come from family and friends of the victims of the École Polytechnique massacre, as well as from the Dawson College student association, both of whom I have met.

It is clear that victims groups are against this legislation, particularly in my province of Quebec. If we scrap the long gun registry what lessons, if any, can the government expect to have learned from the Polytechnique massacre, the Dawson College killing, and other similar tragic events.

Indeed, one of the most compelling statements in regard to victims and reflecting the voices of victims and the lessons learned comes from Janet Hazelton, the president of the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union, who said:

Nurses and doctors, particularly those who work in emergency rooms, witness first-hand the horrific injuries and tragic deaths that result from firearms. We meet the victims who fall prey to long-guns and attempt to save them. For those whom we are unable to save in spite of our utmost efforts, we meet their families whose lives are shattered by long-guns. We also treat patients on a regular basis who are suicidal or victims of domestic abuse. A rifle or a shotgun in their homes increases their chances of being victimized. We often work with the police, who accompany these patients to hospital, as they can access the registry to determine if a gun is registered to the home, allowing us to devise a safety plan for our patients. The RCMP has stated that dismantling the registry will save less than $4 million a year, a trivial figure when compared to the costs of gun injury and death.

What does the government say in response to Ms. Hazelton, or is her voice and that of the victims for whom she speaks, to be ignored or mocked yet again as an inconvenient truth?

Third, in the matter of support from police, for the year period ending September 30, 2011, the registry had been accessed more than six million times. Again, this speaks for itself. If it were useless and wasteful, as the government contends it to be, and all these wrongful things that the government purports the registry to be, then why would our first responders rely on it day in and day out? Why would they continue to characterize it as a valuable asset? Simply put, as the police associations themselves have affirmed, the registry is an essential tool for taking preventive action; for enforcing prohibition orders; for assisting police investigations, as when the police recover a gun from a crime they can trace it to the rightful owner; for allowing police to differentiate between legal and illegal firearms; and for allowing police to trace firearms easily.

As Windsor Police Services chief, Gary Smith, put it:

...but it can save lives. Often we would search a registry before we dispatched an officer on a call and if you tell them there’s a firearm registered, they’re a little cautious, depending on the type of call. My detectives would use it quite often, anytime they applied for a search warrant or an arrest warrant.

As for the specific issue of the destruction of data, Denis Côté, president of the Fédération des policiers municipaux du Québec, said, “I am shocked that they are destroying the data.”

Fourth, there is the matter of protection against violent crime, in particular, domestic violence and violence against women.

For example, the RCMP estimated in 2002 that 71% of spousal homicides committed in the preceding 10 years involved long guns.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2009 there was a 74% reduction for spousal homicides involving firearms, from nearly three homicides per million spouses in 1980 to less than one homicide per million spouses in 2009.

Indeed, Pamela Harrison of the Canadian Association of Women's Shelters says:

The rate of spousal homicide by gun has gone down 69 per cent and we attribute most of that to the impact of the gun registry. Without question we need it in Canada.

Accordingly, while women are a small percentage of gun owners, they account for a high percentage of victims of gun crime. The long gun registry is the only way to know how many of such weapons need to be removed from a dangerous spouse.

Since 1995, the rate of women murdered with firearms by the intimate partner has decreased, as I noted, by 69%.

In addition, Paulette Senior, chief executive officer of the YWCA, added that “the threat of a rifle is often a significant reason that women don’t risk leaving to seek help.” The government has to do something about this.

Simply put, the number of homicides involving long guns since the introduction of the Firearms Act in 1995 has decreased by 41%, a figure that can be traced in part to the long gun registry.

Fifth, I will turn my attention to suicide.

Recently, the government stood with opposition parties to denounce the incidents of suicide in this country and vowed to take action. This statement of solidarity and support from the government is directly at odds with the bill.

Since the Firearms Act was introduced in 1995, firearm related suicides are down 23% as of 2009, and we know that firearms are a weapon of choice for those attempting suicide. Indeed, the number of firearm related suicides in 2004 stood at 475, which is 5.4 times the number of suicides with handguns. Again, if the government were serious in its commitment on suicide and the importance of having a national suicide prevention strategy, which I think it is, then it would not scrap the long gun registry.

Sixth, with regards to destroying records, this is particularly troubling for me as a Quebecker.

It should be noted that the National Assembly is debating the creation of a registry for Quebec as we speak.

The government's move to destroy records prejudices the work of the provinces that realize the registry is a valuable tool that saves lives. Indeed, that is at the core of what we are talking about, a valuable tool to protect public safety and human security.

In summary, what we have here, regrettably, is yet another Conservative policy that is ideologically inspired with a wilful and reckless disregard for the evidence. All the facts, the quotes and the statistics that are provided appear almost as a kind of inconvenient truth for the government, but they remain a compelling truth nonetheless.

As I said before in this House, whenever the government talks about having a mandate for the safe streets and communities act and a mandate for the abolition of the gun registry, the point is that it needs to be reaffirmed that all governments and all parties have a mandate for safe streets and safe communities. However, the question is on the merits of the means chosen, whether it be with respect to Bill C-10 or to the abolition of the gun registry.

The abolition of the gun registry, with respect, is without merit and an affront to the very victims whose voices the abolition of this gun registry purports to represent. These voices, however, are speaking for the retention of that gun registry to support the purpose of public safety, to give expression to their concerns and to save lives.

The House resumed from October 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Bill C-19--Time Allocation Motion

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, constituents are concerned with a broad number of issues such as health care, defence, et cetera. However, while campaigning door to door asking what should be changed, almost invariably the response was to get rid of the long gun registry.

It is an amazing issue. I ran in the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections. In the 2008 election I did not put any material regarding the gun registry in my literature because everyone knew where I stood. As soon as I sent out my first brochure without any mention of the long gun registry the phone calls immediately started to come in asking if we had abandoned our commitment.

Bill C-19 is a clear indication that we have not abandoned our commitment. We are prepared to proceed with the bill.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I think that everyone in the House recognizes that our House leader is a reasonable, indeed, patient person and has demonstrated patience and reasonableness on numerous occasions.

In respect of Bill C-19, we need to be clear. This debate has been going on since 1995. There have been countless days before this Parliament and past Parliaments in respect of this issue. The issue here is not a complex one. It is a straight up and down question: Do we want to continue the long gun registry or not? Almost every member, prior to the last election, made a clear statement in respect of their position on the long gun registry.

We are clear and we are providing a rather generous four days as compared to past Liberal governments that only provided one day in order to ram through very complex bills. This is not a complex bill. This is a straight up and down question.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, in relation to Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, not more than three further sitting days shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the third day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Second reading

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I am rising to speak at second reading on Bill C-19.

We have a bill from a government that has spent at least the last five years using the whole notion of the firearms registry to divide Canadians, to bring about a division between urban and rural Canadians, between aboriginal Canadians and the rest, and between men and women.

Even in rural areas, where the government claims a great deal of opposition to this legislation, we find women being supportive of this legislation. In fact, even women whose husbands and family members may possess long guns in their houses are supportive of strong measures of gun control because of the importance to their personal safety.

What we are seeing happening is that all of the problems that existed could have been addressed by the government over the last five years in a co-operative method of bringing people together instead of showing how they could be divided, as the government has done.

Our party has done a tremendous amount of work trying to bring about measures and bring forward suggestions and ideas that would bring people together. If I may, before I finish today, read a quote from our leader, Jack Layton, on the issue from August 2010, he said:

Stopping gun violence has been a priority for rural and urban Canadians. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to sit down with good will and open minds. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to build solutions that bring us together. But that sense of shared purpose has been the silent victim of the gun registry debate.

[The Prime Minister] has been no help at all. Instead of driving for solutions, he has used this issue to drive wedges between Canadians...[The Conservatives] are stoking resentments as a fundraising tool to fill their election war chest. [The Prime Minister] is pitting Canadian region against Canadian region with his “all or nothing show-down”.

This is un-Canadian. This kind of divisiveness, pitting one group against another is the poisonous politics of the United States. Not the nation-building politics of Canada.

I want to ask members of this House and Canadians to reflect on the words of our late leader, Jack Layton, who talked about bringing people together to find solutions that help us stop gun violence in our country. It is a priority for both urban and rural Canadians.

We learned today from Statistics Canada that, happily, the homicide rate in Canada is now at the lowest that it has been in 45 years, and that is a good thing. We do not want to do anything to change that.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Bill C-19 — Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, on another matter, I would like to advise that with regard to Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2), an agreement has not been reached under those provisions with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at said stage.

I want to advise the House that it is my intention to allot three further days of debate, which would bring the total to four sitting days, including today. Following second reading debate, the bill would be referred to a committee for detailed study of this measure which will cease to treat farmers and outdoor enthusiasts like criminals.

On May 2, Canadians, including the good people of Yukon, Labrador, Madawaska--Restigouche, Nipissing—Timiskaming and Sault Ste. Marie, gave our government a strong mandate to follow through on our commitments. Our government has been clear that we will end, once and for all, the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

moved that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to begin debate on Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.

This is a great day for Conservatives across Canada. It marks the beginning of the end for a nearly 17-year-old legacy of waste thrust upon Canadians by the previous Liberal government. I know I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that this has been a very long time in coming. For years, many of us have stood in this place even when we were on the other side and took a stand for law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters.

We repeated time and again that the long gun registry was wasteful. It was ineffective. It did nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Yet still the parties that now form the opposition stood against us and against the law-abiding Canadians for whom we were standing.

It is true that occasionally we found allies across the aisle as long as they could be assured that their vote against the registry would not actually result in the registry being dismantled. Those individuals ended up listening to their Ottawa bosses rather than standing up for the voices of their constituents. However, we are here today to look forward, not back.

On May 2, Canadians gave our Conservative government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all, and this is exactly what we are doing.

I would like to take a moment to discuss that mandate. From personal experience, I have received literally thousands of phone calls and letters advocating a quick end to the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. I know from talking to my colleagues that they have had similar experiences.

Conservative candidates from across Canada stood at doorsteps and spoke to their constituents. Time after time they heard people say “When are you going to end the long gun registry?” Specifically, the members for Yukon, Nipissing—Timiskaming, Sault Ste. Marie and Ajax—Pickering heard from their constituents how important it was to elect a member of Parliament who stood against the wasteful long gun registry.

There have been many discussions over what the bill would do and what it would not do. What it would do is ensure that law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters would no longer be treated like criminals simply because they owned a rifle or a shotgun. What the bill would not do is eliminate effective gun control.

The fact is, and this is no secret, the Conservative government is committed to keeping our streets and communities safe. We have brought in measures to do just that. Specifically, we have brought in mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes and targeted those who engage in dangerous criminal activity such as drive-by shootings. We have also funded numerous programs through the national crime prevention strategy that helps stop gun crime before it happens. That is how we keep Canadians safe, through tough and effective laws and smart prevention programs, not through needlessly increasing red tape and targeting law-abiding Canadians.

The bill would also provide for the destruction of records held by the Government of Canada relating to the registration of long guns and it would only make since. If we are getting rid of the registry, we get rid of the registry. The registry is comprised of information. We are getting rid of that registry.

The reason for this is the simple fact that we do not want to assist anyone to set up a back door registry. As we heard from the NDP members during question period, they have clearly indicated that they will reimpose a long gun registry should they ever have the opportunity to enter into a coalition with the Liberals on that fact.

The reason for this being unacceptable is that it focuses on law-abiding Canadians who should not have been targeted. This information should never have been collected in the first place. To maintain the registry and the information is a complete violation of law and the principles of privacy that all of us in the House respect.

I would like to bring this back down to a fundamental truth. In rural Canada oftentimes long guns are simply a part of everyday life. Whether it is owning hunting rifles for sport or using a shotgun as an everyday tool on the farm to protect their crops or livestock, there are a plethora of reasons that law-abiding Canadians would own long guns.

As we have said consistently, long guns are not the weapon of choice for criminals. Primarily criminals use hand guns or other restricted or prohibited firearms, the registration requirement of which is not affected by the bill here today. I would like to emphasize that.

The current system imposed by the previous Liberal government and supported by the NDP opposition is blissfully ignorant of this fundamental fact. The justice minister who ushered in this proposal, Allan Rock even went so far as to state that it was his firm belief that the only people in Canada who should have firearms are police officers and the military. That is a frightening statement and our government completely disagrees with this premise.

Frankly, the fact is there is no evidence that the long gun registry has prevented a single crime in Canada. Let us think logically about this for a moment. Is it reasonable to assume that thugs and criminals who have no problem committing armed robbery or other serious offences with firearms will sit down and fill out the paperwork? The response is obvious and it is a resounding no.

Rather than preventing criminals, the long gun registry has actually created criminals. The opposition has frequently used the analogy of registering cars and boats or other everyday items. This is simply not an accurate analogy. If people let their car registration lapse, they do not contravene the Criminal Code. They do not receive a criminal record. More important, they do not face the prospect of serious jail time. This is the case with the long gun registry. Again, reasonable people find this unacceptable.

As I stated earlier, one of our government's main priorities is keeping our streets and communities safe. I note the Canadian Police Association just came out with a statement saying that our government has received a mandate from the people on May 2 and that it is moving past the issue of the long gun registry. It wants to work with us on issues like the ingredients of Bill C-10 and the lawful access legislation. We, in fact, are committed to working with the police in that respect.

Some proponents of the long gun registry maintain that eliminating it will cause anarchy. This, again, is simply hyperbole and is not the case.

First and foremost, all individuals will still be required to be licensed to possess a firearm. We are committed to ensuring that only responsible and qualified individuals own firearms. Even after the passage of Bill C-19, to obtain a licence, individuals must still be able to pass the required Canadian firearms safety course and comply with safe storage and transportation requirements. They will also need to pass a background check, including a review of the individual's criminal record, any history of treatment for mental illness associated with violence, or history of violent behaviour against other people.

There will still be proper controls over restricted and prohibited firearms. We will continue to ensure that they are registered, as we have for many years.

In essence, Bill C-19 retains licensing requirements for all gun owners, while doing away with the need for honest, law-abiding citizens to register their non-restricted rifles or shotguns, a requirement that is unfair and ineffective. Let us be clear. Canadian firearms owners are law-abiding members of our society and deserve to be treated as such. Burdening these citizens with unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy at the risk of a criminal record is not only unreasonable, it is unfair and it is wrong.

The NDP members said they had a solution. They said they would not make it a criminal record but rather an offence. If it is no longer a criminal record it is then outside the area of criminal law which makes it unconstitutional. Although they realized that the bill would be unconstitutional, they were trying to foist it on Canadians in order to save this unfair and unreasonable legislation.

We have heard loud and clear from Canadians who own long guns that they want the long gun registry eliminated. They want to ensure that their private information is not distributed to others. That is what is proposed under Bill C-19.

We are not proposing a fundamental overhaul or scrapping of the entire licensing or registration system. Rather, we are proposing changes that do away with the need to register legally acquired or used rifles and shotguns, many of which are owned by Canadians living in rural or remote areas. Put simply, we are scrapping the long gun registry just as we said we would do.

We need a system with effective measures in place to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, not law-abiding hunters, farmers or sport shooters. That means we need to put more police on our streets. The government has acted on that. That also means our laws must be tough and effective. Again, the government has acted on that. The government is determined to ensure that law-abiding citizens are treated fairly while it is combatting the criminal use of firearms and getting tough on crime.

The bill before us today is about making sure that we invest in initiatives that work. It is about making sure we continue to protect the safety and security of Canadians without punishing people unnecessarily because of where they live or how they make a living.

We must ask ourselves how laws that penalize law-abiding citizens on farms or in the north can help reduce gun crimes in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg or Vancouver. The answer is clear: they do not.

When we hear statements made by members of the NDP, such as “Guns gotta go, folks. I'm for a full-out ban on these things” from the member for Davenport or “To destroy the gun registry is to destroy lives” from the NDP leadership contestant from Outremont, it is clear that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues at play in a country like Canada.

I will also touch on the issue of cost. When the idea of registering long guns was first discussed, the Liberals said it would be a simple process and would cost no more than $2 million. I remember Allan Rock coming into my office when I was the attorney general of Manitoba telling me that Manitoba must enforce the long gun registry. I told him that Manitoba would not enforce the long gun registry because it was a bottomless pit and that it was a law the federal government would have to enforce. He threatened to sue me.

Allan Rock is long gone and the lawsuit never materialized. Unfortunately, the effects of what Allan Rock and the Liberals did, which is now supported fully by the NDP, continues on. That is no understatement. The CBC, the state broadcaster, reported that the costs have ballooned to over $2 billion. That is unacceptable.

From 1995 to 2011, the money was spent on a program that did not save one life. Imagine how many police officers that money could have paid for or how many crime prevention programs it could have funded. The legacy of waste is shameful. I am proud to be part of the Conservative government that is putting an end to this wasteful and ineffective boondoggle.

As my time for debate is coming to an end I will sum up my arguments as to why all members should support this important legislation.

First, the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry does not do a single thing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Front-line police officers, notably with the Canadian Police Association, agree with the government that the best approach to combatting gun crime is to ensure tough and effective sentences.

Second, the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry targets law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters. Those people who own guns as a part of their rural way of life or simply as firearms enthusiasts are treated like criminals because of this unbalanced policy. As a government and as a country we must ensure that the measures we take on important public safety issues are effective.

Third, the costs associated with this program are inexcusable. Two billion dollars to implement a policy that does not do a whit to protect Canadians is unacceptable and must not continue.

Most important, Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. Canadians expect no less of us than to implement this key plank of our platform without delay.

As I stated earlier, several former Liberal and NDP members are no longer in this place because they listened to their Ottawa bosses instead of their constituents.

I call on all members opposite to listen to Canadians and pass this important legislation quickly.

I will specifically mention the members for Timmins—James Bay, Welland, Sackville—Eastern Shore, Sudbury, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Nickel Belt, Malpeque, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor and Avalon. They promised their constituents that they would oppose the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. I hope they will live up to their word.

I will reiterate the fact that Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. That is exactly what the bill will do.

Proposal to Divide Bill C-10

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I can assure you and members of the House that my remarks will be brief.

I want to point out to all members of the House and anyone from the viewing public who may be watching that we are now scheduled to be speaking to Bill C-19, a bill brought forward by this government to repeal the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. Instead, we have a frivolous motion brought forward by a member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

I would point out that I find it richly ironic that members of the opposition consistently have stated over the past few weeks that our government is limiting debate on important issues and yet, today, when we were to enter into debate on an issue that has gripped the House for many years, the opposition has chosen to use a procedural manoeuvre to limit and stifle debate. Whenever opposition members stand in this place and accuse our government of limiting debate, I will point to this day.

I would also point out to the House that in order to get back to debating the issues of the day, we have no recourse but to deal with the same procedural manoeuvres that they are trying. Therefore, I move:

That the House do now proceed to the orders of the day.

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)