House of Commons Hansard #217 of the 35th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was guns.

Topics

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4:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

So ordered.

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4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested to hear the remarks of my hon. colleague, the leader of the third party in the House.

I listened with interest because I want to tell him that I would also listen with interest if I heard those loud cries from the civil libertarians in this country. I, for one, would listen to those and I am sure members on my side of the House would also listen with me and react.

The loud voices have not been heard by civil libertarians. They have been heard by a very vocal gun lobby very much supported by the Reform Party, the members opposite.

I want to come back to a statement that concerned me in my hon. colleague's speech about constitutional law which is something that we should be very concerned about.

The charter of rights and freedoms is something of which we must be very cognizant in every piece of legislation. When a minister brings forward legislation he has to sign on that he has taken into consideration constitutional and charter arguments. The charter, I often hear, is something that gets in the way. Our protection in search and seizure provisions comes from the charter provisions. That is why Canadians should not be afraid of the gun control bill.

I also want to talk about constitutionality because my colleague opposite raised it. The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that gun control is a matter of criminal law. It does not matter that all the provisions of the Criminal Code offence be in the Criminal Code.

That the Criminal Code is for crime prevention has been very clearly ruled in the appellate court in Alberta and in the Supreme Court of Canada. It has been stated by Professor Hogg, who is the expert in Canada on constitutional law, that gun control law is a criminal control provision, a crime prevention provision, and is totally intra vires the Parliament of Canada.

What is the hon. member going to say to the Supreme Court justices?

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4:50 p.m.

Reform

Preston Manning Reform Calgary Southwest, AB

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's learned legal opinion but she did not address the constitutional problems that I raised.

I did not argue that the federal Parliament does not have the constitutional right to pass gun control legislation. I did raise the point that it was aboriginal people who were the first to raise the constitutional question about the bill. Their argument was nowhere close to what the member was trying to defend.

They argued that the constitutional documents which constitute the arrangements between the James Bay Cree and the federal government and the Yukon First Nations and the federal government contained a clause that required a type of consultation which was not provided or honoured by the minister. This was raised by some citizens, a completely different lot.

The other arguments that have been raised with respect to constitutionality are with respect to specific provisions. As the member well knows, the provinces are concerned about the clauses that mention ending the right to remain silent, the requirement to co-operate with the police, the presumption of guilt until proven innocent, the assignment of guilt by association, allowing confiscation of property without compensation, the provision of search and seizure without a warrant. The suspicion is they violate sections 7 and 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I suggest it is in these specific areas the bill gets on to shaky ground. The minister would have been well advised to accept amendments and changes in these areas if his interest was in getting a bill that would not be on shaky constitutional ground if enacted.

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4:55 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

With the understanding the hon. leader was sharing his time with another member, the time for questions and comments has expired.

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4:55 p.m.

Reform

John Cummins Reform Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today concerns gun control. When the debate is finished, members on both sides of the House will be asked to say yea or nay. Should I vote in favour of the bill as some polls have suggested, or if on examining the content of the bill I find that on balance it has serious shortcomings not addressed by the pollsters' questions, do I then cast my vote against the bill? If I do vote against the bill, am I then voting against the wishes of my constituents?

I do not need to tell the House one of the most fundamental principles of my party is that Reform members of Parliament vote according to the wishes of their constituents regardless of their personal convictions.

The question of how a member should vote is worth examining in the context of the bill. It is a question that is fundamental to the public's perception of our role as members of Parliament. It is a question whose time has come because with today's technology, members of this place and the public at large could vote on any matter before the House without having to leave home.

What do Canadians expect of their elected officials? Do they simply want us to look at the polls or look at the bill? Do they want us to vote according to the polls or according to the bill? Certainly many polls would suggest Canadians support gun registration. However this bill is about more than gun registration. It raises important questions about fundamental legal rights, about fairness and even handedness in sentencing, important questions about the spending of limited government resources and basic questions about whether the bill meets its stated objectives of making our streets and homes safer.

Asking Canadians if they support gun registration and asking them if they support Bill C-68 are two distinct questions. No poll has adequately addressed the difference between the two. That is why Canadians have sent us to this place: to examine bills and make the distinctions the pollsters cannot or will not, to challenge the self-serving press releases of the government and to advance the real concerns of our constituents.

Canadians expect us to vote on the merits of the bill. I want to emphasize I do not have any reservations about gun registration as a policy. However I cannot support the bill because I believe it is fundamentally flawed. It does not advance the cause of justice or the safety of the citizens one iota.

I cannot support the bill because it diverts scarce public resources and energies to policies which will not truly enhance personal and community safety. Members cannot transfer support for gun registration to Bill C-68.

There is another side of the issue I would also like to address. Why has the government not devoted its energies and resources to measures that will truly lead to safer communities? Consider the tragic case of Christopher Stevenson. Members may recall Christopher was an 11-year old Ontario boy who was raped and murdered by a psychopathic pedophile and a nine-time child rapist, Joseph Fredericks.

Recently Dr. Jim Cairns who headed the inquest into Christopher's death warned that our children remain targets of dangerous sexual predators because governments are not moving in a meaningful way to protect them. The evidence presented at the inquest was that these offenders cannot be treated and the only way to protect society is through indefinite detention. Yet the principal recommendation of the Stevenson inquiry that repeat child sex offenders be jailed indefinitely has not been implemented.

Why has the government not enacted sexual predator legislation which puts the rights of the victim and the protection of society above all else? Why has the government diverted energies and resources of the Department of Justice and the House from addressing real solutions to the problem of violence in our homes and neighbourhoods?

These are the real questions. These are the questions members opposite must answer. These are the questions to which Canadians want answers.

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5 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Waterloo-National Defence.

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5 p.m.

Kingston and the Islands Ontario

Liberal

Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I do not claim to be an expert on hunting and guns but I know the hon. member for Delta may be of some assistance. How can his party justify not supporting the bill?

I will put it in terms of what I understand from hunting. I have seen a hunting expedition. I saw the hunters arrive in their vehicles in northern Canada, in the Northwest Territories. They were in licensed vehicles. Presumably they had stopped at licensed gas stations along the way to pick up gas. They got on a licensed aircraft on a licensed airfield and flew to some remote lake where they hunted. They had to have a hunting licence in order to hunt. I presume the licence was specific as to the species of animal they were able to hunt.

They got the animal. They then applied for a licence to export the horns from the Northwest Territories because they could not not export from the Northwest Territories without a licence. They got back in their licensed vehicle, having travelled with a licensed guide on their hunting trip.

If everything else about the sport is licensed except the most dangerous part of it, that is the gun, why is there objection to proceeding with the licensing of guns? There is no objection to licensing game wardens. There is no problem with getting a licence to hunt. There is no problem with licensing the guides, the aircraft, the cars, the gas station and everything else. Yet Reform members have a mental block with respect to licensing guns. Could the hon. member enlighten me? I cannot understand this attitude.

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5 p.m.

Reform

John Cummins Reform Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, the issue of licensing put quite simply is that if I have a car that is not used on the highway I do not need to register it. If I am not using the vehicle registration is not required. That applies to many elements in society.

The issue is not about licensing. The issue is about public safety. The gun handler is licensed. The legislation requires a very stringent test and personal interventions by police authorities to ensure that the person can adequately operate the weapon and so on. We have given very careful consideration to dealing with the issue of licensing.

However the issue is not licensing; the issue is public safety. We are opposed to the bill because licensing will not advance the cause of public safety one iota.

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5 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Speller Liberal Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's speech when he talked about licensing. Yesterday I talked about the importance of representing one's constituents here. As I did so members of the Reform Party kept yelling at me and telling me that somehow I was not representing my constituents by making a decision to vote in favour of the bill.

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5 p.m.

An hon. member

We all know that you will do what you are told.

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5 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Speller Liberal Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Do what I am told? Look at the hon. members who are falling in line with their leader.

Their leader lives in an urban area that is in favour of the legislation. All the polls that have been taken across the country have clearly shown that. How can the hon. member and members of his caucus stand here to say that those of us in Ontario, for instance, who are trying to best represent our constituents, who have taken polls and have spoken to many constituents, are not representing our constituents? His own leader comes from an area of the country where polls have shown that the majority of the people are in favour of the legislation. His leader is going to vote against it, against the wishes of his constituents. That party's key point during the election campaign was to represent

its constituents and have free votes. How does that align with party policy?

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5:05 p.m.

Reform

John Cummins Reform Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, the issue is whether the question the poll has asked can be equated to Bill C-68. In my view asking the question "are you in favour of registering firearms" does not equate to Bill C-68 because Bill C-68 goes far beyond that. That is the point. The question that gets answered is the one asked.

In this instance the pollsters are not asking the right question. At best a series of questions would have to be asked regarding Bill C-68. Then we as members of the House would have to balance it off and ask what would carry the most weight, the registration of guns or the violation of the human rights or legal rights that we believe are inherent in it.

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5:05 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Gallaway Liberal Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for London West.

I express my support of Bill C-68 that has been before the House for several months now. The Minister of Justice has travelled the country in consultation and the bill has been scrutinized by the media. It has been studied by the standing committee of which I am a member. Over 70 groups and approximately 35 members appeared before the committee. The time has arrived for the House to act on the legislation.

Certain colleagues in the House frequently look to the United States to cite examples of public policy which in their view should be adopted in this country. I often question whether certain members opposite are more familiar with the American constitution as opposed to the Canadian Constitution.

Canadians have looked to the United States and at its pervasive gun culture. One need only watch the nightly news on any American station to realize the tragic consequences of the pro gun movement, a movement that shares the common beliefs of many people and parties in the House.

My own riding of Sarnia-Lambton borders on the community of Port Huron in the state of Michigan. Last September just as children were going back to school two individuals who were repairing a roof at a school got into an argument. One went out to his truck, got a gun and shot his co-worker in full view of the children.

In the same city, which is a relatively prosperous community of 100,000, there were seven shootings in schools last year. Children as young as 12 were bringing guns to school in their gym bags so they could settle a school yard dispute. This was all happening in a very middle class prosperous community 400 yards away from my riding. This is terribly anecdotal material but I suggest it draws a distinction between our two countries.

Bill C-68 is an opportunity to define and shape the type of attitudes we as Canadians have toward the flow of guns, the possession of guns and the usage of guns in the country. It is a step toward recognition of the type of society based on our history and our values, one of which is to let other people speak without being interrupted. It distinguishes us absolutely from our neighbours to the south. It recognizes that there are legitimate uses for firearms and that there are concurrent obligations in such ownership.

As someone who sat on the committee I can quite safely say that the quality of the testimony and the evidence was of great concern to me. It was readily apparent that there were doctors appearing before the committee who were quite willing to give legal opinions and there were lawyers appearing before the committee who were quite willing to give medical opinions. Many individuals who appeared as members of responsible firearms groups or gun owners groups offered advice on accounting principles even though they had no background in it. They would offer advice on certain belief systems that bordered on religions.

As a result I suggest to those here and those watching that it is necessary to weigh the probative value of the evidence of an expert, for example in business administration, who because he has a doctorate in business administration transfers his advice to the National Rifle Association and the Fraser Institute, all the time posing as a criminologist.

Similarly one would question the opinion of a medical doctor who appeared before the committee and formed conclusions regarding suicide that fly in the face of empirical research on the subject, as well as the evidence of a group representative who purports to speak for veterans buried in Europe, victims of the second world war.

It is safe and true to say that there was a continuum of opinion before the committee on the bill, some of which quite frankly bordered on the absurd and some of which resembled reasonable, objective and logical suggestions.

Those who belong-and I would suggest there are some in the House-to the show me school, that is those who demand mathematical equations empirically setting out reductions in murder, accident and suicide rates, are demanding a burden of proof that from a logical perspective is false and perverse. We are hearing a lot of it tonight. I am referring to those who demand no registration but implicitly know that locking up one

spouse in jail for shooting the other spouse will somehow deter others from the same behaviour.

If we take the punishment versus prevention logic and follow it through to its conclusion, surely punishment would be a sufficient deterrent to allow banks to transport money without armoured cars. Surely the threat of a sentence for holding up a bank employee transporting cash would be sufficient to prevent such a criminal act and banks could cut the cost of doing business by not spending money on such preventive safety measures as armoured cars.

We know there are still robberies of armoured cars. The fact that banks have taken reasonable measures to prevent acts that are reasonably foreseeable is accepted by society as the prudent course of action.

Similarly we have in the country workplace safety laws that require certain steps to be taken to minimize accidents in the workplace. Such laws are accepted even though there is a cost in implementing safety devices and inspection procedures because certain tragedies are preventable, although by no means can such legislation eliminate unfortunate accidents and occurrences.

If the same burden of proof were placed on the implementation of workplace safety laws or seatbelt laws such as was suggested by members across the way, and if the same quantitative mathematical proof were applied to the laws before passage, obviously none of the statutory provisions would ever exist. We would live in a country without workplace safety laws.

I commend to all opponents of the bill who would prefer to talk rather than listen the testimony of public health experts who appeared before the committee. They recognized that laws such as this one create a change not only in the flow of guns, the possession of guns and the usage of guns, but more important in the attitudes of society toward guns.

Many witnesses who appeared before the committee stated the tired old maxim that we have heard many times: people kill, guns do not. Such simple statements deny the fact that guns are inherently dangerous objects and that in possessing these weapons certain obligations should be imposed.

Is it unreasonable to know who owns the weapons or where they are moving in society? Is it in some way an imposition on someone's inherent right to have some central registry system when the same exists for dogs, cars, houses and securities?

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5:10 p.m.

Reform

Darrel Stinson Reform Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

It stops the dogs that bite and the drunks who drive.

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5:10 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Gallaway Liberal Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Nothwithstanding all the talk across the way, is it reasonable to conclude from the evidence of the police, public health experts, suicide prevention groups and public safety experts that the cornerstone of the bill, the registry system, will cut the rate of crime and suicides in Canada? The unequivocal response is yes, I must acknowledge that there were many witnesses who sincerely denied this to be the case. There are those who cling to the beliefs of the business administrator turned criminologist. Perhaps these people will turn to their accountant the next time they have a medical problem.

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5:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The member's time has expired. Questions or comments, the hon. member for Prince George-Peace River.

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5:15 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, if the government had not chosen to enact time allocation I am sure all of us would have enjoyed hearing the remainder of the hon. member's speech on this issue. He can thank his own party for cutting him off in that sense.

We are talking about effectiveness of this impending legislation. Every time we try to raise concerns about it in this House we are accused of trafficking in fiction. The government says that the people of Canada have to trust it. It will draft these regulations. We have not seen what they are yet. We have to trust the government that once it gets the regulations in place it will effectively address the issues.

I want to briefly read into the record the following:

Registration pertains to things-guns in this case-not people. It records the description, serial number and ownership of each item or weapon. For extremely lethal and easily hidden weapons such as handguns-which in Canada are restricted and of which there are relatively few-it is a workable and relatively effective system that screens owners and weapons alike and inhibits casual purchase. However, for the ten million long guns in Canada I believe that a registration scheme would be unworkable and impractical in comparison with its potential benefits.

This quote was from the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Hansard , Commons debates, page 12627, April 8, 1976, the hon. member who currently sits as the chairman of the Standing Committee on Justice. This is the very hypocrisy Canadians are concerned about, where members seem to change their opinion. They are concerned that this legislation will be simply one more step in the ongoing erosion of the rights of law-abiding firearms owners. I would like to hear the hon. members address that concern from Canadians.

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5:15 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Gallaway Liberal Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is perhaps a hallmark of the member opposite that he is locked in time and that new evidence will not persuade him to change his mind. His mind is made up and that is the way it is going to be.

The member would like to ask the question and continue to talk. I know that the hon. member on occasion appeared at committee. I once again commend to him the evidence of the public health experts. I would also commend to him the change

in technology since the hon. member made that statement in 1976.

Would he only deal with a doctor who used technology that was locked in time at 1976? I think not. I would suggest to him that with the change in information systems today, in 1995, 19 years after 1976, he might want to re-examine the statement made by the hon. member in 1976.

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5:15 p.m.

Reform

Lee Morrison Reform Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sarnia-Lambton has been belabouring the Americans again. I do not know what that has to do with our gun debate.

Since he has raised it, I would like to mention the situation where I live in western Canada on the prairie, very close to the U.S. border. We have great cultural similarities and great economic similarities with the people on the other side. We walk back and forth. As a matter of fact, we have more in common with each other than they have with drug dealers in New York or I have with silver spoon lawyers from Toronto.

Is it not interesting that over the last 15 years the homicide rate in the four northern states adjacent to the prairie provinces has been 16 per cent lower than on the Canadian side? It is 3.1 per hundred thousand per year on the Canadian side and 2.7 on the American side. Is that not interesting? Of all the states in the union, these are the four that have the most wide-open gun laws. You can carry anything short of a bazooka down there. But it is not a great big shooting gallery where they run around shooting one another. There is a cultural factor, which this government never takes into consideration, and it should.

I believe the hon. member has a few seconds to respond.

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5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Gallaway Liberal Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I understand why the hon. member opposite thought I was only talking about the Americans. I was trying to draw a distinction. However, having regard to his seatmate, I understand why he could not hear me.

It is very easy to take a very localized area and say that the statistics are different. We are not talking about a registry system that applies in the city of Ottawa or in the city of Calgary; we are talking about a national system. It is very easy to distort reality with these numbers. For example, in the city of Washington, where they have very stringent gun controls, they have an extremely high murder rate but a much lower suicide rate. How would they explain that? It is because you cannot take a localized area-

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5:20 p.m.

An hon. member

They don't live long enough to contemplate suicide.

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5:20 p.m.

Reform

Herb Grubel Reform Capilano—Howe Sound, BC

Can you explain that?

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5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Gallaway Liberal Sarnia—Lambton, ON

I really appreciate the question and I would appreciate an attempt to answer it.

They have a localized area and they are trying to extend that to a national number. The member opposite knows that is false and misleading.

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5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-68 has one simple objective: to reduce death and injuries by firearms. Despite the views of a small and strident gun lobby, which I wish to emphasize does not speak for the majority of Canadians, this bill does not in any way support a hidden agenda on the part of this government to confiscate legally owned firearms or to sanction police state actions against the private dwelling houses of Canadians.

What this act does is limit in some measure access to firearms to people who are qualified, responsible, and knowledgeable about their proper use and storage. The numbers speak for themselves. Nearly 40 per cent of domestic homicides involve firearms. Most of the victims are women and children. Where firearms are used in homicides, 85 per cent were committed with long guns, the vast majority being legally owned.

The risk of death from a firearm discharge in Canada is almost equal to the risk of death from a motor vehicle crash: 2.37 deaths per 10,000 firearms possessed, versus 2.4 per 10,000 registered motor vehicles in 1990.

The opposition to this bill has been intense. They say that guns do not kill, people do. Simply put, people with guns kill, and they do so with frightening efficiency. Let us look at the suicide stats. Suicide attempts involving guns have a 7 per cent survival rate. Where guns are not involved the survival rate rises to 65 per cent.

The opponents of gun control say that if someone really wants to commit suicide they will find a way. However, experts on suicide prevention appearing before the committee testified to the contrary. Suicide is an impulsive act. Even a short delay will often give the person the chance to reconsider, and they often do. Therefore, limiting or delaying access to firearms can and will save lives.

It will come as no surprise that those areas of Canada where firearm ownership is highest also displayed the highest rates of firearm death and injury. Remarkably, these are the same groups that came before committee seeking an exemption from this bill, saying that their traditional way of life was threatened. But I note that the member for Nunatsiaq said that this bill will not result in one less caribou death.

It has been argued that firearm homicide is strictly a big city phenomenon. In Canada this is simply not true. For instance, a study by the Northeastern Ontario Trauma Centre found higher rates of gun homicides in rural northern Ontario than throughout Ontario as a whole.

What about the notion of arming for self-defence? The idea has been discredited. In fact, studies show that people with guns in their homes are 43 times more likely to kill themselves or someone close to them than to kill an intruder. An alarming study by Dr. Scott of George Washington University shows that for every woman who buys a handgun for self-protection, 239 women are murdered by such weapons, many with their own weapon.

There was a very instructive study by the Swiss professor Martin Killias in a May 1993 article in the Canadian Medical Journal . Dr. Killias is very clear on one point: gun ownership directly correlates with gun deaths and gun injury. Noting that 27 per cent of Swiss households have guns, about the same incidence as in Canada, he writes: Contrary to what gun organizations claim, Switzerland pays a high price for this. In suicide, Switzerland ranks third, just behind Hungary and Finland, but far higher than other countries.'' The reason for this isthe unusually high percentage of suicides committed with firearms''.

Dr. Killias' conclusions are confirmed in a similar 1993 study of 18 countries for the United Nations Inter-regional Crime and Justice Institute. Countries such as Great Britain and Germany, which strictly control access to firearms, have much lower death rates by firearms than Canada or the United States.

Gun registration is the rule throughout Europe: in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. Canada and the United States are the exceptions.

What about public support for this bill? I have over 7,000 pieces of mail supporting this bill forwarded to me as an Ontario member by Wendy Cukier and Heidi Rathjen of the Coalition for Gun Control. I especially wish to commend these two remarkable women for so effectively giving voice to the concerns of such a broad cross-section of groups, including police organizations, medical associations, churches, women's shelters and transition houses, teachers federations, municipal councils, including my own, universities, boards of education, labour groups, provincial bars and legal associations and, most important, the overwhelming majority of the Canadian people.

One of my constituents, Dr. Henry Barnett, the most prominent neurologist in Canada, spoke to me about his colleagues south of the border, about their hopes for effective gun control and about their discouragement and their complete inability to effect legislative change in the face of the opposition of the National Rifle Association, America's largest and most influential lobby group.

Let us make no mistake, the American ultra-right are watching this debate very closely. This debate involves more than guns. It is about our way of life, our freedom. It is about the right of Canadians to say no to guns. It is about our right to decide how we want to live.

Opposing the bill we have primarily gun clubs, gun sellers, gun collectors, hunters and outfitters, native peoples, and the Reform Party. To further their own agenda or to protect their own economic interest, some groups capitalize on the fears of their honest and law-abiding members. These self-styled advocacy groups, these so-called responsible firearms groups, have engaged in a deliberate campaign of misinformation. Every time the government proposes gun control, these same groups come out. The same accusations are made: police state, confiscation. But the confiscations do not occur. The police do not come out in the middle of the night.

"Punish the criminal", they say, "not the responsible law-abiding gun owner". "It is just another tax grab". Let us not ignore the real cost of guns. When law-abiding, responsible gun owners kill and injure themselves and others, aside from the lost lives of 1,400 Canadians there is a very real dollar figure, $70 million a year in primary health costs and related public services in this country paid for by Canadian taxpayers.

They complain at the inconvenience of having to register, of having to fill out forms. I remember one witness who came before the committee whose daughter had been shot dead by a long gun recalling her response to a provincial attorney general on the subject of inconvenience: "Let me tell you about inconvenience. The death of your child at the hands of a man wielding a gun is an inconvenience. Do you know how many forms I have had to fill out?" I will always remember that woman's voice.

The cost to the gun owner is nominal. It is $10 to register up to 10 guns, no cost whatsoever to subsistence hunters. Is this an oppressive or punitive tax? Does this in any way impede the gun owner's right to use and enjoy his weapon? Not in the least.

Every time gun controls are brought forward, the same argument is heard: "You will destroy hunting. You will cripple our outfitting industry, on which our remote communities depend." The argument is a red herring. Gun control has no effect whatsoever on a hunter's decision to obtain a hunting licence.

This is Parliament's fourth gun control bill, and our hunting and sports shooting community is in fine shape. In fact, it is stronger, safer, and more responsible than its American counterpart.

We do have gun clubs but we do not have civilian militias. Canadians understand gun ownership is a privilege and not a right. The government is prepared to safeguard that privilege but only if it is clearly understood privilege demands responsibility.

Let us be clear the bill falls squarely within the federal government's criminal law jurisdiction. It does not admit to any exceptions in the application. The government in the interests of all Canadians must ensure coast to coast compliance.

In fairness, many witnesses did draw attention to provisions which if misinterpreted might result in anomalies. In response the minister again appeared before the committee to suggest amendments regarding among other things bona fide inadvertent failure to register, inspection powers and relic firearms. These amendments are fully detailed in the committee report.

I add my voice to the people in my riding and across the country who support the principle embodied by the legislation. It is my pleasure to give Bill C-68 my unequivocal support and I recommend to all members of this House to do likewise.

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5:30 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Pursuant to the order made Thursday, June 8, in accordance with provisions in Standing Order 78(2), it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings.

Pursuant to the order made earlier today, voting on all matters required to dispose of third reading of Bill C-68 will take place at 6.30 p.m.

The House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.