Public Safety Committee on Nov. 29th, 2011

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

I'm sorry, Chair. Are you saying I have to give this speech over again now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No, we've heard it a number of times now, actually.

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

Well, I don't think you've heard this speech a number of times, sir, with respect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead.

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

I'll wrap up. As I said at the beginning, and nobody jumped in then, I was actually debating clause 1 as well as introducing my amendment. The point of this amendment is that this bill represents an increase in the risk of public safety in the disguise of ending the long-gun registry. And that's very unfortunate. There are an awful lot of people in this country, including law-abiding gun owners, who are quite happy to register their guns. They believe that's a part of the responsibility of being a gun owner. They are going to be disappointed that this whole approach has been taken.

We look to our national police force, I hope, for guidance on this. They talk about the proliferation of guns that are going to result. They talk about the unenforceability of the transfer proceedings. They talk about how this is going to decrease public safety and not increase public safety. I'm very disappointed to be a witness to this. I'm very disappointed we have not been able to persuade members opposite to accept any of these amendments that would in fact increase public safety. They seem to be blinded by some political motivation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris, for introducing that amendment.

The table deems this amendment as being inadmissible. You can only alter a title when the bill has been amended in such a fashion as to necessitate such an amendment.

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

Then let's go the other way: it hasn't been amended in a fashion to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That doesn't work. That would be inadmissible.

So now we will move to—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Can we debate article 1?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No.

Now we come back to clause 1, and we can—

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

Point of order, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead.

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

Can we not debate clause 1?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We're coming up to it right now.

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

So there can be a debate on the clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, we're coming to it right now.

Clause 1 is the short title, and we'll have some debate on clause 1.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'll try to be brief, considering the committee's time.

I think what Mr. Harris attempted to do was to more accurately reflect what is going on in this piece of legislation. I think the name is no longer accurate.

We'll be voting against the name of this bill because it is inaccurate. It doesn't do what the name suggests, which is ending the long-gun registry; it does so much more.

We haven't heard a single counter-argument from the government in terms of the concerns we've raised here today. I would be more content if the government had actually brought some of their own information, their own facts, to present and say “We are voting against this amendment because of the following...”. All we've heard is that they were voting against this amendment, period. It seems a shame that when government seeks an ideology, they're at times blinded by that ideology.

I had hope over experience in this committee meeting, Mr. Chair, and my hope was that reason could prevail. The government is entitled to their opinion but not their own facts, and the facts as presented by New Democrats here today clearly point out some critical flaws in this piece of legislation.

Yet the government sees this bill as perfect, immaculate, and not a period, not a comma, should be changed. When we presented some serious concerns from victims groups, from the police, whose work we all respect and honour, even that evidence meant nothing to this government.

The previous bills that were once moved by Madam Hoeppner and this government had stipulations in them to prevent the proliferation of guns. They were outlined and they were declared by the government itself. Yet somehow they've learned that some new piece of information says there's not a risk any more, as it was a risk last year, the year before, and the year before that.

It seems to me that this government ran on a mandate to end the long-gun registry. That is correct, and that's how politics works. But it didn't run on a mandate to do this.

I was able to support the previous mandate to end the registry, which I did, as the honourable members will know. But I can't support this. I can't be associated with something that law-abiding gun owners don't want to see done. There's no law-abiding gun owner any of us represents who would want to see more sniper rifles in Canadian society, or more urban combat weapons. That's not what this is about. When did it become that kind of debate?

There have been some mistakes made. I hope the mistakes were unintended. The government didn't design a bill that would allow urban assault rifles to be more easily acquired by organized crime. That's clearly not what the government should be doing, and I hope that's not what they've done. Yet when we tried to correct the measures the government has introduced here today, they were unthinking, unwilling to even have the conversation.

Guns are perhaps one of the most emotional issues we deal with as parliamentarians, on whatever side of the debate you fall. We must find ways to remove that emotion and look at the facts as presented.

This bill, as presented, opens up a dangerous precedent for our society. Now there will be political consequences for the government doing it, and I am loath to attempt to predict that. That's not my concern. Those consequences pale by comparison to the consequences to public safety.

Is this government doing something here today they will later most seriously regret? You cannot suggest that allowing more sniper rifles into society or more assault weapons into society somehow has no consequence, that everyone will buy those weapons, secure those weapons, transfer those weapons, without any record or acknowledgement, any verification that the person is allowed to actually have the weapon and there will be no consequences to it.

A mistake is being made here today, and it's a potentially deadly mistake. I can only plead that as we move the very final stages of this bill into the Parliament that the government reconsiders, because they're associating themselves to something that's very nefarious.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Madame Boivin.

[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!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madame Boivin.

I would just remind the committee that we do want to have about ten minutes reserved for committee business. I think the NDP have a motion they want to deal with. I have two more on the speakers list—Mr. Bevington and Mr. Harris—and we still have to go through the rest of the clauses and the questions to the committee in regard to the reporting.

Mr. Bevington, very quickly, because I don't want to take time away from Jasbir.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm very disappointed here in what's happened. I suppose on my particular amendment, I could have put forward a challenge to the chair. I didn't do that, because the reality of it is, it's going to be upheld by the Conservatives. So what we have here is a situation where very good amendments have been put forward, but the Conservatives don't even care to discuss the problems within legislation that we've identified.

You know, in the House I've heard over and over: unfit to govern. Conservatives stand up and call us unfit to govern. Well, I'd say that this Conservative government is unfit to legislate. The process of legislation, where you put in place laws that affect Canadians every day, is extremely important. It's not something to blow off like a cheap suit. These are things that are going to make a difference over many years, and the fact that the Conservatives have refused to countenance any of these amendments is just simply bad legislative practice. It's something that I don't appreciate, and I know that we'll pay the price for this later on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Bevington, may I just correct you on one thing? You've continued to say “the Conservatives have, the Conservatives have.” When you bring forward amendments, they go to the legislative clerk, who looks at it from very set guidelines, and the table has said that they were inadmissible. Some of your amendments were admissible, we've dealt with that, but there have been no Conservatives that have just willy-nilly said they weren't going to accept these as being admissible or inadmissible. It comes from the clerk. And if you're questioning the professional abilities of our legislature and our legislative clerks, then that's a different debate.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Well, what you said was that the amendments were deemed admissible by the chair and the table. Is that not correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

By the legislative clerk and the table, that's correct.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I don't have the opportunity to challenge that, in terms of—