Bill C-21 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (non-registration of firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to repeal the requirement to obtain a registration certificate for firearms that are neither prohibited firearms nor restricted firearms.

Criminal Code

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Trinity—Spadina.

I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-21. I would like to thank the government for finally bringing the bill forward, for finally finding the courage of its conviction at this very late date. If we approached all the bills with the same degree of courage the government has shown with this one, we would be way behind in our legislative agenda.

Coming from the Northwest Territories and being our party's critic for rural and remote communities, I have run in three elections supporting the concept of taking away the registry on long guns and shotguns. Throughout those three elections people across the north consistently said to me that it is not required, it is not necessary and it is not really working for them.

I want to take a step back from that and look at what is working in gun control in Canada now. What is clearly working right now is the registry that is in place for licensing. Quite clearly, we have a better system of licensing now. I guess we can thank the Liberal Party for delivering that in the legislation in 1995. We have a better computerized system. It delivers for licensing. We are more organized and efficient at processing licences. I have heard the number of rejected licences, some 16,000, for people who were not considered appropriate to have firearms. That is a good and meaningful figure. It is a figure that makes Canadians safer on the ground. We can thank the Liberal Party for that.

However, when it comes to suggesting that one party or the other in Parliament has the vision to put everything together, that has the ability to transcend the ideology and politics of the day, whether it is in 1995 or 2007, and come up with a plan that is going to match what is required for Canada, that is a very egotistical approach.

We suffered under that with the majority Liberal government. It did not understand the nature of gun control. The Liberals had a law that tried to do too much. The things that it did not do well are the certificates for individual firearms, for long rifles and shotguns. Those are the things that were not done well. Those are the things that this bill will take out of the system. This is not the end of gun control in Canada. It is an adjustment to the gun control legislation that we have in the country. Quite clearly, that is what we are doing here and that is why we should all look at it in that fashion.

This is not about one party being against the other. This is about looking at what is good for Canadians. As a New Democrat in an open party, I feel very good about standing here today and supporting the adjustment that is being proposed by the government. Why? Because in my territory, before the gun registry, the value of subsistence hunting was some $60 million for 45,000 inhabitants. That same message is repeated right across northern Canada and northern parts of the provinces. For people who use rifles and shotguns for their way of life, the gun registry did not work.

It was said at the time in 1995 in Parliament that it would not work. It was not adjusted to make it work. The importance of that to many people across the country was not recognized. We had a situation where a majority government, not a minority government as we have today, made a decision in its magnificence to create a gun control law that went too far.

We are taking it back now perhaps with this bill. This is a minority government and we may find that this bill will not meet the test of all members in this House. It meets the test of this member standing here right now. I support it because I see it as a necessary adjustment to gun control.

The bill does not pass up the good work that is in gun control now. If the government decides to put more effort into licensing by ensuring that the people who own firearms are capable, competent and not criminal in nature, then the gun registry is an excellent investment of public funds. It is an investment that will be returned to everybody in the country.

Storage is extremely important. Safety is extremely important. Training is extremely important. These characteristics that we have built into gun control now should be enhanced and regulated to a greater degree. Quite often if guns are not stored properly, they become available to people who may use them wrongly. I have seen too many tragedies involving young people or people who are not in their right mind who are impaired in one way or another, taking somebody else's rifles or guns that are not stored properly and either doing themselves in or doing in others. We can control that through legislation. We can make a difference to all legal gun owners and the safety of this country.

There is a huge requirement for the control of handguns in our cities. There is a huge requirement for the control of restricted weapons that are easily concealed and are the basis of the criminal industry in this country. A ban on handguns in the future may be part of the legislative agenda of this House, perhaps not with the present government, but perhaps with the next. There would be an onward evolution of gun control in this country. I hope when we debate it that we make sensible choices about how to put that in place.

There is one other aspect of the use of guns in this country that I want to speak to and that is what guns are being used for. Guns are being used to feed the appetite of Canadians for drugs and illicit goods. The majority of illegal guns are causing death and havoc in our cities.

We say that we have to stop criminals by catching them and putting them in jail. We need to recognize the necessity of adjusting our legislation to truly change the criminal state. We need to take some of the oxygen out of the criminal system, what makes it worthwhile for someone to have a handgun in his or her possession, the tens of billions of dollars of illicit drugs that are being sold in this country.

How do we stop the appetite of Canadians for illegal drugs and illicit goods? Are we doing a successful job at that through enforcement, through all the tricks of the trade that we have developed in our war on drugs? I do not think so. I think it has been an abject failure. If this legislature does not come to grips with that, we will never truly understand how to deal with crime in this country.

On the one hand I support this legislation. It is a great adjustment to the gun control legislation in Canada. On the other hand, we have so much work to do to reduce crime in this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Western Arctic for his support of this bill. He is a member from rural Canada and understands the importance of legitimately owned firearms in our areas.

He mentioned and I agree with him totally that Bill C-21 does not change the screening process of ownership of a firearm. A person still has to become licensed to own and purchase firearms. There are still the areas of safe storage which are so important to us.

The member mentioned the problem in urban centres. What we are seeing across Canada are illegal guns and how they are tied to the drug trade. I know in Manitoba we see a lot of people growing marijuana and then trading that for illegal guns in the United States and bringing those back so that they can carry out their crimes.

I want to get back to this issue of legitimate ownership. I know that one of the things we both talked about was the need for subsistence living. We have a lot of Métis and aboriginal hunters in our ridings that use their firearms as part of their daily living. I know in my riding a lot of people hunt for geese, ducks and deer in the fall, and they stock up their freezers and they are good for the year. The member mentioned that and that is important to me as well.

Also, what has been affected in my riding is the outfitting business. It has become difficult for people to transport their firearms across the line. We do not have those international visitors coming in any more and supporting these people. That has hurt our local economy.

Would the member expand upon that and explain if that is one of the same concerns that they have in the western Arctic as we have in Selkirk—Interlake? Again, I want to thank the member for his support of this bill.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, the basis of my support in three elections was the failure of the previous Liberal government to understand the impact of the gun registry on hunters, trappers, subsistence users of wildlife across the country, whether they be aboriginal or non-aboriginal.

We could say why not just register them. It does not work like that. When people are part of that subsistence economy, they may borrow guns and use guns. It is a tradition and a lifestyle that has been upset and changed without careful attention to what it meant. I think that is the key and that is where the strong reaction comes from.

In the words of Charlie Snowshoe, an elder from Fort MacPherson who has run the game council there for many years, he is totally opposed to this. He said that it has taken the young people out of hunting. It is taking the tradition out of hunting and trapping. It is changing it and turning people away from a pastime which has been so valuable to them.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to elaborate on how northerners feel differently.

I spoke strongly against the registry and explained how passionately many of my constituents feel about it, the northern trappers, hunters, fishermen and outfitters. They feel that it is a way of life. They do not consider a gun a weapon. They consider it a tool in their way of life.

They have learned from childhood that guns are there as part of their life. They use them safely and they see this as an unnecessary imposition and that this money could be spent to save some lives in the cities. From their perspective the money could be invested in health care or some other system that would have more effect on saving lives.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. Everybody wants to stop accidents with guns, the kinds of things that happen without trained people, without safety as a paramount issue in the use of firearms.

I think that fits with the hunting and trapping tradition as well, where individuals go out in the bush by themselves with a gun and they have to survive. If by chance the gun does not work or the people run out of ammunition and they have to borrow some from someone else, that should not be a crime. There is that tradition. Interestingly enough, we have focused on gun control, but we--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order. It is with regret I interrupt the hon. member for Western Arctic. I have been trying to give him signals. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, “first mourn, then work for change”. That was the rallying cry 18 years ago and every year on December 6 tens of thousands of women and men all across this country say, “Yes, we will mourn, but we will work for change”.

In the Montreal massacre 18 years ago, an assault rifle was used. Every year, when we have the candlelight vigil, we make a commitment to ban violence and to reduce the gun culture.

An assault rifle is a long gun. It is a gun that is used to kill animals sometimes in rural Canada, but in a lot of other places, especially urban centres, assault rifles and long guns are used to kill people and a lot of those people are women.

I do not know if some members of Parliament were here 18 years ago, but for every year since, on December 6, we wear white ribbons. The white ribbons are from the families in Montreal who say they want to work for change. It is also a symbol, saying that we want to stop men's violence against women. I hope members of Parliament remember that moment.

We know that 88% of women killed with guns are killed with shotguns or rifles. We know that 50% of family homicides end in the suicide of the murderer, indicating that key to protecting women and children is licensing and screening, including the renewal.

Of the gun deaths in Canada, 80% are suicides, most by using rifles or shotguns that were readily available. Access to guns is the fifth highest risk factor in spousal homicide.

We have heard from different inquests in domestic violence that a lot of the women are killed because of the gun culture and because of passion, but also because of access to guns.

Perhaps, if more women were elected to the House of Commons, this debate would be somewhat different.

The long gun registry has been working. The gun registry is very mismanaged, but it is working. It is being used. Over two million gun owners are licensed and six million guns have been licensed. We now have police using this registration database 1,500 times per day and are reporting successful use of this tool in fighting an illegal gun trade.

It works. Why? We have seen statistics that say there were 525 fewer gun deaths, which include suicides, homicides and accidents in 2002 compared to 1989, the year I was just talking about. It is a 60% reduction. We are talking about 525 lives. We are talking about 40 fewer women per year being shot, compared to 15 years ago. Every year, 40 fewer women being shot. I want people to remember those lives.

There were 100 fewer murders every year with rifles and shotguns. Think of that number as we are debating this bill today. Think about those women. Think about those murders. In Quebec alone, there were 30 fewer gun related suicides each year among young people in 2000-01, a 50% drop from the average of 56 firearm suicides in this group in the nineties. Obviously, the gun registry is working. Yes, it is mismanaged, but does that mean we need to scrap it? No.

We need a better and improved system. We need better screening, tightening the screening, getting and requiring the gun clubs to provide information on individuals who are having problems, who may be slightly bordering on very dangerous behaviour. There should be at least two references and spousal notification when a spouse is getting a gun.

We definitely should be banning semi-automatic rifles. Because of the registry some who did not need their long guns gave them up because they had no use for them, which means that we are getting the guns out of places where people do not use them, so that there is less chance of accidents, less chance of guns being stolen.

The gun registry is like building a house. We have a foundation; the walls are in and the roof is in. Yes, there are some problems with it. Maybe it has a lousy coat of paint or ugly drapes, but we do not destroy the entire house. We have already spent a lot of money. For us to scrap it now would mean a gigantic waste of taxpayers' money that was already spent.

Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General, said in 2006 that there were problems in this registry. This bill was tabled on June 19, 2006, but nothing happened for an entire year. Why not talk to Canadians? That did not happen. It did not go to committee. If it is so important, why did it not go to committee? Why was there no debate?

Instead, the Conservative government decided to have an amnesty and said it would not charge any more. Each year that has happened $20 million is not being collected. The total for almost two years now is $40 million.

I heard tonight that perhaps we should take that money and invest it in young people, invest it in anti-crime initiatives. The Conservatives, during the election, said that they would provide $50 million in crime prevention programs. That did not happen, did it?

Even today in the House of Commons during question period we heard only $10 million being announced and we do not even know where we can find this $10 million because if we check the website for the National Crime Prevention Centre there are no clear guidelines. How do communities apply? I do not know.

The old program was mismanaged in terms of the anti-crime prevention programs, but we need to improve on that. Improve the gun registry, strengthen it, and manage it well. What we should not do is scrap it and have this bill passed because it would be very unfortunate. We know what the results would be: homicides, suicides, and accident rates would go up. Lives would be destroyed and most of those lives would belong to women.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what the hon. member had to say. She mentioned that the gun registry was like building a house. I suppose, but that house was about a thousand times over budget. The gun registry that was supposed to cost $2 million cost $2 billion. It is like starting out to build a house for $150,000 and accidentally going over budget and costing $150 million. Now we are thinking it might be a nice house except that it leaks and probably was built on a lousy foundation, so it is probably going to fall down, but let us keep spending money on it anyway because it might be a nice house some day.

That is garbage. The long gun registry does not work. The hon. member mentioned homicides, domestic assaults and so forth would go up. First of all, she cannot present any evidence in that regard. Second and more importantly, homicides happen by various means.

Would she propose that we start a parallel registry where perhaps we could ask chefs to register all their kitchen knives because as we know, stabbings kill people. So if we registered every knife and we knew where every knife was, we could probably put an end to stabbings because it is the same philosophy.

If we register every weapon imaginable, surely nobody could commit a crime. This whole philosophy is so flawed. Would she like to recommend to the House that we start a parallel registry to register kitchen knives?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago I met with a mother whose son was shot and killed, not by a rifle but by a gun. If one were to talk with her about guns, she would say that guns, whether they be long guns or short guns, are bad.

In the old days, maybe in the 1950s, when kids got into fights they may have pulled knives on each other or fought with their hands but not many of them had guns. Today, even though the youth crime rate has gone down, we are seeing that the rate of kids using guns to shoot each other has gone up. We cannot compare knives to guns.

I will go back to the example I was using. If someone were to spend $150 million building a house, I cannot imagine that person would bulldoze it to the ground just because the roof was leaking. The person would spend a bit of money to repair the leaky roof. The member would not get a bulldozer and scrap the entire house. I cannot imagine anyone would do that to a house that is worth a bit of money.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for referencing the massacre that happened 18 years ago in Montreal, a very sad and tragic event. Violence against women is an almost daily event in our country. All of us as parliamentarians should speak up and voice our concerns about these horrendous and terrible crimes that are committed against women every day in our country and throughout the world.

I am obviously very concerned, coming from an urban city like Toronto, as she is, about violence and guns on our streets. I am certainly concerned about the constant use of guns.

I do not understand why there is this gun loving culture that exists with some members of the government. What is the importance of a gun? A gun cannot be compared to any other weapon. A gun has only one purpose and that is to kill. If the Conservatives can give me another rational reason or purpose for a gun--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I interrupt the hon. member. The hon. member for Trinity—Spadina has 30 seconds to respond.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish that the gun clubs, some of which are for profit, would have detailed screening and that the guns would be stored in the gun clubs rather than allowing people to take their guns home because many guns are stolen from residences, which is most unfortunate because many of the guns being used on the street are in fact stolen.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand this evening and participate in the debate on Bill C-21, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

Where I come from, predominantly a rural riding in Alberta, this bill is one of the most important changes that my constituents, over the seven years that I have been a member of Parliament, have asked for. They want to see the gun registry changed and the long gun registry dropped.

This bill is the start of a process that would reverse the burden that has been placed on rural Canadians by Liberal governments for far too long, approximately 10 years. Farmers and ranchers, those of us who live in remote and rural communities, have been taxed and red-taped by the Liberal government's failed gun registry for a decade now and they are saying that enough is enough and that it is time to make changes.

We have lived with this type of registry for a long time but we have lived with firearms, and long guns specifically, for generations in rural Canada. We have lived with them safely as responsible and law-abiding owners and users. However, when urban Canada, and our largest cities in particular, began to suffer from gun violence on an increasing basis, the Chrétien government launched a long gun registry. However, it did not address the problems in these urban centres and caused considerable hardship to rural Canada.

The Conservative Party campaigned on a promise to address what some estimate to be now a $2 billion waste of taxpayer dollars and to remove the yolk that the Liberals placed on rural residents when it comes to firearms ownership.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

Unlike the current Liberal leadership, Canada's new government is committed to effective gun control in tackling the criminal misuse of firearms. We understand that serious gun crime problems are very evident in our urban areas. They continue to rise and this government will do something about it.

The truth is that the vast majority of these firearm homicides are committed with illegal, unregistered firearms. That is why we believe in targeting the criminals themselves, the criminals who use and traffic in illegal firearms, not the duck hunters, not the farmers and not the ranchers who have nothing to do with the criminal element or criminal activity.

The Liberals continuously neglected our licensing system. We allocated $14 million over two years in budget 2007 to improve front end screening of first time firearm licence applicants.

I have listened to people tonight from the other side say that we were getting rid of every type of regulation. That is not right. We want to ensure that those who apply for a firearms licence will be trained and screened so they will be responsible firearm owners. Those are very important measures that will help prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands. It was the aspect of a licensing and screening system that was totally neglected by the previous government.

Instead, over more than a decade the Liberal Party wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a long gun registry that could have been used for fighting crime and the sources of criminal behaviour.

The other failure of the Liberals' long gun registry is well-documented by the Auditor General. Data was too often inaccurate and costs skyrocketed while Parliament was, in my opinion, intentionally misinformed about the progress that was being made.

As a government, I am proud to say that my party has changed the focus from paperwork and charging fees to farmers and duck hunters to focusing on dealing with crime on the front lines.

We have invested $161 million over two years to add 1,000 more RCMP personnel to focus on law enforcement priorities, such as gun smuggling, a very real problem in this country that needs to be addressed.

Since taking office, we have brought forward 11 new legislative proposals that will help crack down on crime, proposals such as restricting conditional sentences such as house arrest for serious crimes, imposing mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes, and keeping in prison the most violent, most dangerous repeat offenders in the country.

Canadians are watching as the opposition parties in this minority Parliament are being soft on crime and blocking our tough on crime bills from moving forward.

Canadians expect action, not further delays, yet that is what the opposition is doing with its majority of votes at the justice committee. They opposition members are slowing down and watering down and doing everything they can to postpone the proposals to strengthen our criminal justice system. Yet again, getting tough on crime was one of our major planks in the previous election and the Canadian electorate supported our proposals.

The Liberals' attempt to count and track every long gun in Canada has been ineffective and costly. It has misdirected police resources from what is most important: going after criminals who use firearms in crime.

Bill C-21 will take the focus back to where it should be. It will refocus our gun control efforts on what works in combating the criminal use of firearms by repealing the requirement to register non-restricted long guns and requiring firearm retailers to record all sales transactions of non-restricted firearms.

Under our Bill C-21, in order for a Canadian to purchase or possess a firearm and to purchase ammunition, a person will still be required to have a valid firearms licence. In fact, when a person purchases a non-restricted firearm, the validity of his or her licence will have to be verified. This can be done relatively simply and not at a huge cost, but we want to make certain that the right and responsible type of firearm owners are the ones doing the purchasing.

Applicants will continue to go through police background checks and safety training. Canadians also will continue to be required to register prohibited and restricted firearms, such as handguns, as has been the case since 1934.

Our intention is not to change the handgun registry. It is not to take that away. We recognize that it is the gun of choice for the criminal element. It is not our intention to touch that.

Again, we are talking about the long gun registry. Through a quick background check, our police officers will be able to determine who is in legal possession of firearms and who is not.

In 1995, the Liberal government told Parliament that the long gun registry would involve a net cost of just $2 million. That is a fact. Anyone can check. That is what was in the Auditor General's report in 2002 in chapter 10.

In May 2000, the Liberals admitted that the cost had actually ballooned to at least $327 million. Again, that is a fact. Members can check the Auditor General's report of 2002 in chapter 10.

By March 2005, the net cost of the firearms program was over $946 million. Today those costs exceed well over $1 billion, according to the Auditor General's report of 2006 in chapter 4.

This $1 billion figure does not even include the costs incurred by law enforcement agencies in enforcing the legislation or the compliance costs for law-abiding firearms owners and businesses, which are astronomical and likely run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What is worst of all is that by 2006 the Auditor General said that the Liberals had misinformed Parliament about the many costs of their failed long gun registry.

In the many towns and villages in my riding, the waste of these taxpayer dollars by the Liberals in a phony attempt to fight gun violence is overshadowed only by the tremendous and terrible burden placed on rural Canadians and, I dare say, also on western Canadians. The Liberal gun registry targeted every rural Canadian and certainly out west it would seem to me that we felt it the most.

The Liberals deny and then after electoral defeat they wonder why they are having problems in western Canada. Their long gun registry is a prime example.

I will not mention the fact that the Liberals ignored and dragged their feet on the agriculture file, that they denied rural Canada a real and useful child care policy, that they refused to appoint our elected senators, that they racked up surpluses while forecasting deficits, and many other things.

Bill C-21 would put an end to the waste of taxpayer dollars being spent on a failed Liberal long gun registry. That is why I am proud to stand in this place and support Bill C-21 and say goodbye to the long gun registry.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard both sides of the issue this evening. I know the hon. member has certainly brought forward his own point of view and the point of view of his government. However, we know guns are not only associated with criminal activity causing deaths. We also have suicides and accidents.

Could the hon. member give us some statistics on the last 15 years of the changes, in terms of the number of deaths from firearms, from those three causes? Has there been a major reduction or not? Could he confirm that to the House?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion I do not believe the registry has in one way helped solve crime. I do not think it has lowered the suicide rate. I think those who have chosen to end their lives will find a method to do it.

We have a long gun registry that costs $2 billion. I heard Liberals tonight say that if it only saves one life, that if it only saves a couple of lives. If we could take the billions of dollars for a failed gun registry and put it into places where we could see front line officers out on the street, if we could take that billions of dollars and make certain that there is more effective education to help fight crime, I think we would see crime lowered even more.

However, to take this idea that property of an individual is wrong, and not the person behind that property, the Liberals are going down the wrong road. They have already argued and talked about different violent, terrible events that have happened.

All I can say is we have had the long gun registry in place and it has not solved those crimes.