Debates of Oct. 27th, 2011

Jack Harris St. John's East, NL

Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that the government House leader talked about the clear mandate the Conservatives received and therefore they are going to put time allocation on this legislation. All we have had is 34 minutes of debate on this legislation. There is no indication that anyone wants to carry this debate on forever, yet they brought in time allocation immediately.

It is one thing to say they have formed a majority government, and I think we acknowledge that, but to suggest it is a strong mandate from all Canadians to do everything the Conservatives want to do and to ram it through Parliament is another question entirely. It was not only government members who were elected in the election, but our party is the largest official opposition party the country has had in 30 years. Members deserve an opportunity to participate in this debate. There are more than 60 new members in our caucus alone who have not had an opportunity to participate in this debate. The minister is saying that they will not be allowed to participate because the government has brought in time allocation.

Does the minister not recognize that is not just the Conservatives who were elected? They got a majority government, but there is a very strong opposition, and in fact, 60% of Canadians voted for parties other than the Conservative Party.

Vic Toews Provencher, MB

Madam Speaker, I would reiterate that this is a very clear question. It has been the subject of numerous debates not only in the House and in the other place, but also in the public generally. This has been a matter of debate in every riding prior to every election.

Three days are being allocated for the further discussion of this bill. It has been very clear what the opposition coalition of the Liberals and New Democrats want. Those members have indicated that they simply want to retain the long gun registry and will take every step to delay this process.

Those members do not want this matter to come to a vote for another reason as well, which is that their members are divided and they do not want the public to see the division between their members. That is why they will use every procedural trick in the book, as we have seen in the past little while, to delay the meaningful debate on the bill.

Three days of debate on this simple question gives a meaningful period for debate.

Matthew Dubé Chambly—Borduas, QC

Madam Speaker, the positions may be clear, but the goal of a debate is not only to describe a position but also to explain why one espouses it. Although this debate has been going on for a long time, as the minister pointed out, many things have changed. For example, the government did not say that it would destroy the information in the registry instead of transferring it to the provinces. That had not been said before and is new information. Now, we should have the opportunity to discuss it.

Incidents continue to happen and new statistics on crime in our communities are published. We should have the right to talk about them.

Vic Toews Provencher, MB

Madam Speaker, this is an amazing argument that somehow the government said it would not destroy the data. Our government has been very clear and our party has been very clear. We are getting rid of the registry. We are scrapping the registry.

What is the registry? The registry is data. There is no distinction. Like a Philadelphia lawyer, the member opposite says we said that we would destroy the registry but not the data. The two are inseparable. It is similar to a farmer saying to his neighbour, “I know you wanted to buy my farm. I am willing to sell you the farm, but I'm keeping the land”.

Joyce Murray Vancouver Quadra, BC

Madam Speaker, I want to respond to the statement that the data is equivalent to the registry. That is not so at all.

The registry is a process in a system for ensuring that there is a record of guns. It is a requirement. It is a regulation. It is an understanding. It is a process for putting that understanding in place that the government will actually track these weapons that are used in so many tragedies of suicide and domestic violence.

There is data collected, but the registry is actually an information technology system. It is a system for tracking, registering and providing information. That is what the registry is about.

The government has gone beyond the ideological elimination of something that the police, citizens, women and victims' spokespeople say is an important tool for saving lives and protecting people. It has gone well beyond that with the elimination of the data.

Why is the government going beyond ideology and slapping the faces of those who might want to—

The Deputy Speaker Denise Savoie

Order, please. The hon. Minister of Public Safety.

Vic Toews Provencher, MB

Madam Speaker, I would invite the member to review her question and her comments. That is one of the most unintelligible comments I have heard in this House: we are not dealing with data when we are dealing with the registry; we are dealing with information. I would ask the member to tell us what the distinction is between data and information. She indicates that the registry is more than information or data, that it is a process. It is a process to do what? It is a process to collect information and data.

Our government said that we would get rid of the registry. We are getting rid of the registry, which is a process that collects data or information. That is what we are doing. That is what we promised the Canadian people.

Now members are saying to tell the Canadian people that we are getting rid of the registry but we are keeping the data. That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Garry Breitkreuz Yorkton—Melville, SK

Madam Speaker, I would like to provide a historical perspective on this issue.

Some of the opposition members may not be aware of the fact that we have debated this now for about 15 years. The comment by the member from Newfoundland that we have only had 34 minutes of debate on this issue is absolutely absurd.

In fact I was here yesterday after those 34 minutes, and it was the NDP that decided it was not going to have any more debate on this issue. It was that particular opposition party that shut this down. It is a bit hypocritical for the NDP to complain that it needs more time to debate.

We just finished the Canadian Wheat Board debate, and I was here for most of that as well. After the first hour, not one new element was presented. After those 34 minutes, and after the opposition gave its first speech, not one single piece of new evidence came forward.

We have been debating this now for 15 years. In the last Parliament we debated it ad nauseam. I am not sure how many hours we debated it.

Does the minister think there is any new data coming forward that we might wish to consider? If so, would three days be enough time to present that data?

Vic Toews Provencher, MB

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his very hard work on this file over the last 15 years.

Rather than provide my own comment, I will go right to what the Canadian Police Association said about this issue:

The Government received a clear mandate from the last election to proceed with their proposed changes to the long-gun registry....We respect the message that voters have sent on this issue.

The CPA has indicated that I have consulted with them regularly on issues affecting public safety and front-line officer concerns. It concludes:

We're quite satisfied with the efforts the government has made to work on behalf of front-line police officers, specifically with respect to the comprehensive justice legislation [Bill C-10] that has been a priority since the last election.

The police are saying that this debate has gone on long enough. Let us get on to substantive issues that actually deal with public safety.

Peter Julian Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Madam Speaker, this is an outrageous abuse of Parliament that we are seeing from the government again.

There were a lot of commitments made in the spring. The government said it would be moderate. The Conservatives hauled out the sweater vests during the election campaign and said that they would be listening to the public and respecting Parliament.

We have seen, as our House leader, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, has pointed out, a more excessive use of closure, a more excessive use of the sledgehammer in this Parliament than by any preceding government in Canadian history. We have seen a government that has an appalling level of arrogance, unparalleled in Canadian parliamentary history.

That is not what the Conservatives promised. What they promised was to actually listen to Parliament. They promised to respect Canadians.

Let us set the record straight. The actual debate that we have had since I have been in Parliament is the following. There was one hour on a government bill back in June 2007 and then the government withdrew the bill. There were two hours of debate on a private member's bill. That was it, until last night when the Minister of Public Safety spoke for half an hour putting out facts that clearly are contradicted by the reality, and then there were four minutes of debate from the opposition. That is the sum total of the last five years: three and one-half hours of debate and four minutes of opposition discussion on the bill itself. And now the government has brought in closure.

I just want to ask very simply why the Conservatives promised moderation, when on the floor of this Parliament they have delivered everything but.

Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Madam Speaker, as an elected member from the province of Quebec, I am outraged today. The Government of Quebec recently took a clear stance. It made demands of the federal government, but the federal government decided to simply ignore these demands, which are very reasonable in my opinion. And now the government is trying to silence the opposition, which is made up almost entirely of members from the province of Quebec.

Why is this government silencing not only the Government of Quebec but also the members of Parliament from this province?

Vic Toews Provencher, MB

Madam Speaker, our government made it very clear when we went into the last election, the unnecessary election, that we would be bringing in legislation to abolish the long gun registry. That is nothing new. It is clear.

We have limited the bill to a very clear question: “Do you want the long gun registry or not?” If we do not want the long gun registry, that involves a destruction of the records, records which relate to law-abiding Canadian citizens who were compelled by the Liberals and the NDP to put that information forward for no valid public safety reason. What we are asking the House on this particular bill is: “Do you want the long gun registry or not?” There is not a member in the opposition who has not already made up his or her mind. It is clear. We all know where members stand.

Now it is time for this matter to come to a vote. We are allocating three days of debate. If there is any opposition member who wants to speak, members will have that time within the context of those three days.

André Bellavance Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

Madam Speaker, what is fundamental in this debate is that Quebec is clear. Quebec's public safety minister did not know that the data in the firearms registry would be destroyed. The minister can tell us today that we should have known, but Robert Dutil, his Quebec counterpart, just found out and has said that he is officially and strongly against the destruction of this data.

In addition, Quebec's minister of Canadian intergovernmental affairs, Yvon Vallières, has said that Quebec also paid for the firearms registry. We paid for that data, in part, of course. If Quebec and the other provinces want to retrieve the data, I do not understand why the minister is stubbornly refusing to allow them to do so.

The minister is telling us today that he does not respect the provinces' wishes, that he does not respect the wishes of Quebec, which were clear: the registry belongs just as much to Quebec as it does to the federal government. The federal government does not have to keep the registry, but it also does not have to destroy it. Why is the minister not listening to Quebec today?