Bill C-301 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (registration of firearms)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to modify the conditions under which a registration certificate for firearms is required. It also directs the Auditor General to conduct a cost-benefit analysis once every five years to determine whether existing firearms control measures have been effective at improving public safety, reducing violent crime and keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals.

Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, five minutes is hardly enough time for me to go over all the things I would like to go over, but I will begin and then finish at another date.

I am really pleased to be able to rise and discuss the common sense firearms licensing bill. I am pleased to see the government is standing up for the rights of law-abiding Canadians who enjoy and use firearms.

As members know, I have been fighting for the rights of law-abiding hunters, farmers, and sport shooters for two decades now. I fought the introduction of the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry from the time it was introduced by the Hon. Allan Rock under the previous Liberal government, and I was proud to stand in this place two years ago to support and pass the Ending the Long Gun Registry Act.

The gun registry was the epitome of political pretense. It pretended to protect us by reducing crime, but in fact it did just the opposite. The long and short of it is that criminals do not register their guns and they do not obey laws. It was about time people realized that spending $2 billion of taxpayers' money to keep a list of property of individuals predisposed to obey the law was not a good use of resources.

Equally, I am glad to see that this bill today includes strong measures to focus the use of resources on that which actually prevents crime rather than simply seeking to disarm Canadians.

This legislation will streamline licensing and eliminate needless red tape for responsible gun owners, and it is something that I have advocated for many years. In fact, some measures in Bill C-42 can also be found in my 2009 private member's bill, Bill C-301. They are housekeeping items that will simplify procedures without reducing public safety and include items such as merging the possession only licence with the possession and acquisition licence, for instance, or making the authorization to transport a restricted firearm, more commonly known as ATT, a condition of a restricted licence.

Let me explain, for those in the House who are less familiar with firearms regulations, what an ATT is. An ATT is a document that specifies where a licence-restricted firearm owner may take their property. It may contain a variety of locations or it may be very specific. This is dependent on the whim of the provincial chief firearms officer. It is not in legislation.

If travel to a location outside of those previously approved is needed, more forms must be filled out and more approval must be sought. Some may say that this level of rigour is needed, as restricted firearms can be dangerous in the wrong hands, but the fact of the matter is that those with restricted firearms licences get a background check every day, and the application for an authorization to transport is not even shared with local law enforcement. It is the definition of wasteful paperwork.

It is frustrating for me to sit here and listen to people talk about this thing when they know very little about it. Hopefully, if we get to questions and comments, I can explain more about the lack of knowledge here in regard to this issue.

If the government trusts a restricted licence holder to have a restricted firearm in their home, the government should trust them to travel to appropriate locations to use the firearm. Some have said that this will allow for conceal and carry by the back door; that is absolutely false. All safe transport requirements remain in place, such as unloading a firearm, rendering it inoperable, and placing it in a locked case.

The logic that these ATTs, which are not shared with law enforcement, will somehow reduce crime is the same logic put forward by those who think that registering a firearm will somehow reduce crime. At the end of the day, violent crimes committed with firearms are committed by evil people with evil intentions.

No amount of paperwork or regulation will divert them from their path of wanton destruction. What will stop them is being incarcerated for a lengthy period of time, which is why we passed mandatory prison sentences for those who commit crimes with firearms. As well, we created a specific offence for drive-by shootings.

These measures truly increase public safety and reduce the cost of crime. That is what we are focusing on: tackling those who are predisposed to break the law, rather than those who are simply trying to enjoy a way of life that has been part of Canada's heritage since Confederation.

The focus on safe and sensible firearms policy is the reason this bill amends the Criminal Code to establish firearms prohibition orders for those convicted of domestic violence.

Once this bill is passed, those convicted of serious domestic violence offences, which include offences against a spouse, common-law partner, or dating partner, would be subject to a mandatory prohibition from owning a restricted or prohibited firearm and from owning long guns for a minimum of 10 years.

I am sorry that I had to split this bill and speak to it at a later date, but I look forward to some healthy debate in this House, because there are some serious misconceptions that need to be addressed.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Finally, you supported the private member's bill, Bill C-301, that would have relaxed controls on prohibiting restrictive weapons--

Criminal Code

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am hearing from the member that that is wrong. I heard from her when she stood up to attack the police chiefs and the leadership of the police associations in this country by calling them people who sit behind their desks and do not know what is going on in the street. Every single one of those men and women who lead the chiefs of police and the professional police associations came off the street. There is not one of them who did not come off the street. They know what they are talking about.

The information I just gave the House on the incident in Mayerthorpe came directly from Mr. Momy. I invite the member for Portage—Lisgar to have a meeting with him. Maybe she would find out that in fact they have surveyed their membership on an ongoing basis. The last time there was a survey was in 2004. That survey was based on if we had the gun registry under financial control, which we were beginning to achieve at that time--I think we had finished it around 2005-06--the police officers across the country by an overwhelming majority said to get the costs under the control and if that was the case, and it is now, then they support the long gun registry.

It is impossible to go through this in any kind of detail, but I want to cover one more point on the cost issue.

I have studied this extensively, as I sat on the public safety committee for a number of years. We know that we brought the cost under control. It is irrefutable, and we heard it from the Auditor General, from the RCMP which is administering the registry now, and from some of the other speakers today, that if we get rid of the long gun registry, the savings would be somewhere between a minimum of $2 million and a maximum of $5 million.

Again, we heard from the member for Portage—Lisgar, who has brought forth this bill, that we should be using all that money, and of course the Conservatives think in terms of the $2 billion, which is a totally fabricated figure, mostly coming from the member for Yorkton—Melville. The savings this year, and for the last three to four years, would be in the range of $2 million to $5 million. I will use the example of a police officer on the street. Somewhere between $150,000 to $200,000 a year has to be spent for the officer's wages, benefits and all the required equipment. It costs between $150,000 to $200,000 a year to equip and staff one police officer in this country. If we do the math fairly quickly using the figure of $200,000, we would get 10 more police officers and if it is the higher figure of $5 million--my math is going to fail me here--it would be 25 police officers.

If we do that we are going to see a proliferation of long guns in the country. After we brought the registry in and we were charging people to register their long guns, the number of weapons in this country dropped dramatically, we think by as much as several million and maybe as high as seven million. Corresponding to that drop we saw a drop in the number of suicides and accidental deaths, and that one was very significant. We saw fewer deaths as a result. We can do all sorts of analyses but there is no other explanation for the drop in the suicide rate and the drop in the accidental deaths as a result of the use of long guns than the fact that there were fewer of them in our country.

There is not a Canadian, and I do not think there is a member on the opposite side, as strong as they are against the long gun registry, who would say that spending between $2 million and $5 million on the long gun registry to save 20 or 30 and maybe as many as 100 lives from suicides and accidental deaths is not worth it. Again, if we get rid of the long gun registry, other than some attempt by the member for Yorkton—Melville in a previous incarnation of this bill, that being Bill C-301, there is nobody who wants to either curtail the use of and certainly not get rid of the registry that registers restricted weapons, mostly handguns. That savings is minimal. We need the long gun registry in order to ensure that we do not have a proliferation of guns back in the hands of people who are careless with them. That is really what the number of suicides and accidental deaths mean to us.

Mr. Speaker, I am really sorry that I ran out of time. I think there is work that can be done on the registry, and in fact on the acquisition certificates, that would make it a better and more effective system. That is what we should be driving at, not getting rid of the long gun registry, because getting the long gun registry out of our system is going to save very little money and we are going to have additional deaths in this country.

Firearms Registry

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-301, a private member's bill that would have repealed the long gun registry, fell just shy of majority support in the Commons, because it contained some additional rule changes that made opposition backbenchers uncomfortable. So the member for Portage—Lisgar introduced her own bill, Bill C-391, which seeks to repeal the registry and nothing more.

Based on their public statements, enough backbenchers support this bill to put it over the top, but the opposition leaders are so anxious to kill this bill and preserve the firearms registry that they are prepared to flout parliamentary rules.

At first, they tried to make the bill non-votable by arguing that it was the same subject matter as Bill C-301, but when Bill C-301 was dropped from the order paper, the opposition parties dropped their pretense that procedural considerations were relevant. They are going to keep this bill non-votable and they do not care what the rules permit.

Tomorrow in their caucuses the backbenchers from the Liberals and the NDP have the chance to make their leadership stop trying to kill this bill against parliamentary procedure. They have the chance to ensure that they will honour their campaign commitments to make sure that the gun registry is voted down.

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Yorkton—Melville is not present to move the motion for second reading of Bill C-301, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (registration of firearms), as announced in today's notice paper.

Pursuant to Standing Order 94, since this is the second time this item is not dealt with on the dates established by the order of precedence, the bill will be dropped from the order paper, and the sitting will be suspended until 12 noon.

Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Recently the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville rose in the House to express his support for private member's bill, Bill C-391, standing in the name of our colleague from Portage—Lisgar. On June 10, the member for Yorkton—Melville sought unanimous consent to withdraw his Bill C-301.

I note that the subcommittee on private members' business has yet to report back on the votability of a number of items within the order of precedence, including Bill C-391.

While the two bills are substantially different, and our rules and practices would warrant that Bill C-391 remain votable, people do play politics in the House, and unfortunately sometimes it is politics that governs procedural decisions. It would be unfortunate if the presence of Bill C-301 was used as a political reason to impede the votability of Bill C-391.

I have spoken with the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville, who cannot be here today, so on his behalf I seek unanimous consent of the House to withdraw Bill C-301

Income Tax Act

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. According to the rules surrounding private members' business, if a member wishes to withdraw a bill, he needs the consent of the House. I am therefore asking for the consent of the House to withdraw Bill C-301.

Firearms Registry

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to enthusiastically support private member's Bill C-391 to scrap the useless long gun registry. This bill, which was introduced by the member for Portage—Lisgar on May 15, 2009, is the only bill currently before Parliament that focuses solely on closing down the registry.

The members opposite complained that previous bills, including my own Bill C-301, contain unpalatable legislative details. Hopefully, opposition members will see fit to support this new revised bill.

The registry has not saved even one life during its 10 years of operation. Incredibly, now $2 billion later, the 1995 legislation has run 1,000 times over budget without any tangible result beyond creating a paper-pushing bureaucracy.

The time has come to cast aside politics and deal with reality. The time has come to support Bill C-391 so we can write the long gun registry into Parliament's history books once and for all.

(Bill C-301. On the Order: Private Members' Business:)

February 9, 2009—Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of Bill C-301, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (registration of firearms)—Mr. Garry Breitkreuz.

Opposition Motion—Gun Control

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite right. Bill C-301, if passed, results in less frequent screening, weakens transportation rules for restricted and prohibited firearms, makes it easier to transport machine guns and assault weapons to shooting ranges, allows individuals in illegal possession of prohibited handguns to keep them, and makes it easier to transport restricted weapons across the border. That does not sound to me like a particularly intelligent or appropriate step to be taken today in Canada, in 2009.

To get to my friend's comments about the chiefs of police, I will just quote the association:

We need to be able to track firearms to enforce laws and combat the illegal gun trade in cooperation with other nations. Without the registry, Canadian police will no longer be able to trace unrestricted firearms and will become dependent upon police in other jurisdictions—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking a lot about the issue of amnesty, and of course, that is appropriate with the motion in front of us, but I am gravely concerned about the Conservative private member's Bill C-301.

I am going to read something very briefly from the Canadian Police Association with respect to its concerns about what Bill C-301 would do:

[Relax] controls on handguns and semi-automatic weapons, allowing licensed firearm owners to obtain as many handguns and restricted weapons as they want without any approval process. It also removes the requirement to have authorizations to transport restricted weapons and handguns.

This includes weapons that were used in Dawson College, if members can believe it.

The report goes on to say, further, this bill would:

[Allow] those firearms owners who have been previously “grand-fathered” to permit ownership of prohibited firearms, such as military assault weapons, fully automatic AK-47's, and prohibited handguns.

There is a reality here that this is about a lot more than just long guns. There seems to be an agenda to also really gut the registry when it comes to dealing with other types of restricted and prohibited weapons. So I wonder what the member's comment would be in response to the Canadian Police Association's concerns on this Conservative bill.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with the greatest of respect, my friend should read the motion that is before the House. It says, and this is what we are debating:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should not extend the amnesty on gun control requirements set to expire on May 16, 2009, and should maintain the registration of all types of firearms in its entirety.

The hon. member would do well to read the motion under debate.

I would also point out that both of the bills before the House, the one emanating from the Senate and the one emanating in this House, reduce the gun registration requirements in this country. Bill S-5 removes the requirement to obtain a registration certificate for firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted. Bill C-301, a bill introduced by my friend's colleague, would end the registration requirement for long gun owners.

Lastly, before I conclude, my friend called this rhetoric. Let me quote from the chief of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police:

The report also underscores that rifles and shotguns account for a substantial proportion of crime guns seized. Recently police in Surrey seized over 200 rifles and shotguns. In Toronto a significant number of crime guns seized were once legally owned rifles or shotguns.

When my friend stands up and calls that rhetoric, perhaps he should direct his comments to the president of the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs and ask him why he is using such language.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi.

The Conservative government is determined to weaken the gun control legislation. After declaring an amnesty for owners of unregistered long guns three years ago and twice renewing it, the government is planning to change the gun registry with Bill C-301, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (registration of firearms), sponsored by the member for Yorkton—Melville, and Bill S-5, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, which was introduced in the Senate.

The Conservative government, which is trying to please its militant base, wants to remove non-restricted firearms, meaning rifles and shotguns, from the current gun registry. In fact, the Conservative government wants to do away with the requirement to possess and present a registration certificate for a non-restricted firearm.

The Bloc Québécois has made a firm commitment to improve gun control and maintain the registration of all types of firearms in its entirety. Gun control is one of the most effective ways to prevent crime. That is why the Bloc Québécois is debating the following motion today:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should not extend the amnesty on gun control requirements set to expire on May 16, 2009, and should maintain the registration of all types of firearms in its entirety.

Even though the rate of homicides committed with rifles and shotguns continues to decline, the fact remains that of the 188 firearms that were used to commit a homicide in 2007, 32 were rifles or shotguns, which is still far too many.

Hunting is a popular sport in my riding. I myself have taken a firearm safety course. I know that some hunters probably do not appreciate having to register their guns. But registering a gun takes only a few minutes and does not cost the hunter a cent. It is a simple procedure that can help save lives.

The Bloc Québécois is in Ottawa to defend the interests of Quebeckers. Public safety is not negotiable. Even if Canadian gun control legislation is for the most part under federal jurisdiction, the Government of Quebec has come up with a few tools to improve public safety. It has passed the Anastasia Act designed to protect the people of Quebec by tightening gun control, regulating gun ownership in certain places and creating a system to control the practice of target shooting with prohibited or restricted firearms.

If the Conservative government wants to deregulate gun control, let it transfer those powers to Quebec so that it can administer the firearm registry itself. Quebec MNA's all agree on the necessity of gun control legislation. On March 31, the National Assembly voted unanimously in favour of this motion by the member for Mercier:

THAT the National Assembly of Québec demand the maintaining of the firearms registry, including hunting weapons, and denounce Private Bill C-301 introduced by the Federal Member for Yorkton-Melville... which dilutes the application and scope thereof.

There is no lack of support in Quebec for the gun registry. Police forces report that it is an appropriate and effective tool. Front-line organizations involved in violence and suicide prevention as well as public health agencies report marked decreases in homicides, suicides and accidents involving firearms. They are all opposed to Bill C-301 and call for the registry to be kept as it is.

The Barreau du Québec has expressed the opinion that “the Firearms Act should be kept as it is at present, and that abolition of the gun registry constitutes a threat to public safety.”

Yves Francoeur, president of the Montreal Police Brotherhood, maintains that the gun registry must not be weakened in any way. Even with its limitations, the registry is still a useful tool for Canadian police forces, and it is consulted by them an average of 6,000 times a day.

According to him, since the registry was created in 1998, about 20,000 licences have been revoked or denied, and this has undoubtedly averted a number of tragedies, particularly in spousal violence situations. To all appearances, a large proportion of the Quebec public believes that we need to maintain the gun registry as it is, and end the amnesty granted by the Conservative Party in May 2006.

In particular, we must not lose sight of a sad but true problem in society: suicide. Every year, there are people who use guns to end their lives, and often the weapon used is a hunting rifle. According to Statistics Canada, out of all suicides committed between 1979 and the end of the 1980s, about a third were suicide by firearm. Starting in the 1990s, the proportion began to fall. In 2002, about one out of six suicides was committed with a firearm. The decline in firearms suicides has contributed to the drop in the overall suicide rate. Avoiding easy access to firearms is the best way to prevent suicide. Most suicides would undoubtedly not have happened if the firearms and ammunition had been stored securely.

Firearms control is also a women’s issue. Women account for a small percentage of the two million gun owners in Canada. On the other hand, they account for a large proportion of victims of firearms violence. Over the last decade, the rate of spousal homicides committed with a firearm has fallen by nearly 50%. Is that not excellent evidence that the firearms registry is effective?

In spite of that fact, there is still far too much violence committed against women and children. It is up to the government to invest in preventing spousal homicide. The firearms registry contains tools for that job. The Association féminine d'éducation et d'action sociale, the Fédération des femmes du Québec and the National Council of Women of Canada, which are all women’s rights advocacy organizations, strongly support the firearms registry.

Some women’s organizations are critical of extending the 10-year licence validity period for all firearms owners, which would reduce the number of opportunities to review the information on the licence and ensure that it is up to date.

When it comes to justice and public safety, the Bloc Québécois firmly believes that the most effective approach is still and will always be prevention. This means that we have to tackle the root causes of crime and the conditions that lead to tragedies in the home. We have to tackle the causes that lead to crime: frustration, violence and despair. We have to find tools to combat poverty and inequality in our society.

The Bloc Québécois in fact believes that the federal government must do more to control firearms, including stricter enforcement of its regulations on the storage, display, transportation and handling of firearms by individuals, which provide that firearms must be stored securely so they do not fall into the hands of criminals.

For all of the reasons I gave in my speech, I call on all my colleagues to vote against Bill C-301, and in particular I call on Liberal Party members, the ones who initiated the firearms registry, and on Liberal senators, to vote against Bill S-5.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Québec for sharing her time with me.

As my colleague so aptly pointed out a little earlier, we willingly accept the registration of our cars, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles for safety reasons. Why should it be different for firearms? The gun control bill was passed in 1995. The Bloc Québécois, having demanded it, therefore voted in favour of it.

To justify their opposition to the firearms registry, the Conservatives prefer to hide behind the crimes that are committed with illegal weapons. The Conservative government maintains that the real criminals will always manage to procure firearms. That may be so, but do we have to make the task easier for them? Abolishing the registry may aggravate the contraband weapons problem, since there will be no more control or monitoring of firearms.

For the third time, nay for the fourth time if we count Bill C-301, the government is attacking the firearms registry. This ideological stubbornness is difficult to follow, since we know that the firearms registry has made it possible to reduce the number of gun-related tragedies.

Since they were elected in 2006, the Conservatives have been constant in their efforts to damage this registry. In June 2006, they set the tone for this issue by tabling the bill for the outright abolition of the registry. Unable to convince the opposition, they took roundabout action by declaring an amnesty. That amnesty had been allowed by the Liberals, but the Conservatives extended it until May 2008, then May 2009. They are attempting to extend it once again for another year.

Furthermore, the firearms marking regulations dating from November 2004, which initially were supposed to come into force in April 2006, were pushed back a first time by the Liberals and a second time by the Conservatives, less than a month before they come into force in December 2009. The amnesty announced in May 2006 had a term of one year. However it was renewed twice, and now the Conservatives are trying to extend it another year. This is unacceptable to the Bloc Québécois. We demand that this program be in place by May 16.

There is a direct connection between the ease with which one can procure a weapon and the homicide rate. Quebec has seen a drop in the homicide rate since 1995, the year the registry began.

The hon. members from the Bloc Québécois are not alone in finding benefits in this registry. The police forces of Quebec and Canada indicate that they consider it a very effective tool. The public health agencies, reporting the situation on the ground, say that the registry is an effective means of achieving a lower homicide and suicide rate. Lastly, that is what the statistics say as well. The number of violent crimes has fallen since the firearms registry came into effect.

This request has also been made by the government of Quebec, which repeated it during its last election campaign, when the Quebec premier wrote to his federal counterpart to ask that the firearms registry be maintained. What is more, the elected officials of Quebec have on two occasions voted unanimously in the National Assembly in favour of maintaining this registry.

This evening, to raise awareness among our fellow members of Parliament, the Bloc Québécois will be screening Polytechnique, which relates the events of the 1989 massacre at the École Polytechnique de Montréal.

To prevent events like the ones that took place at the École Polytechnique de Montréal and Concordia University from happening again, the Government of Quebec is trying to protect the people of Quebec. Recently, it adopted the Anastasia Act, which tightens gun control by regulating firearms possession in some locations and creating a regulatory system for target practice in Quebec.

The Government of Quebec talked about its intent to assume greater responsibility for gun control. We know that criminal law falls under federal jurisdiction. If the Conservatives recognize the Quebec nation, they must recognize our right to have different needs. If they do not want to maintain the gun registry, they should transfer the responsibility to Quebec, and Quebec will look after it.

The best way to pass laws that reflect Quebec's needs is, without doubt, Quebec sovereignty. A sovereign Quebec would have dealt with the gun issue a long time ago.

Until then, the Bloc Québécois is the party that will stand up for the interests of Quebeckers and for motions passed unanimously in the National Assembly, including the one on firearms. The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that taking preventive action and tackling factors that lead to crime are sure ways to prevent human and family tragedies.

I said earlier that we set a record when it comes to the decline in crime and homicide rates in Quebec. We can see that creating the registry has had beneficial effects, unlike what is going on in our neighbour to the south. Ten years ago, they too had a terrible tragedy, the Columbine massacre. They did nothing to tighten access to firearms. The only thing they did to prevent crimes like that was to adopt more enforcement-oriented measures, like what the Conservative government is preparing to put forward. We have seen, however, that there were no significant results from those kinds of measures.

Although media coverage of violent crimes may suggest that they have been on the rise over the years, that does not reflect reality. Since the mid-1990s, crime has been falling in Quebec and Canada. Statistics Canada confirms that the overall crime rate has recently fallen in this country. It was the lowest in 25 years, and in Quebec it was the lowest homicide rate since 1962. That is not an insignificant fact.

We also know that violent crime declined by 22% in Quebec between 1991 and 2004. By way of comparison, the homicide rate in Canada for 2003 was three times lower than in the United States. That is very significant. Instead of modelling our policy on the Americans’, what we have to do is continue to work on prevention, and before long it will be the Americans modelling their policy on ours.

The Conservatives’ obsession with talking about nothing but smuggled guns must not be allowed to conceal the fact that the firearms most commonly used in spousal homicides are legally acquired shotguns and rifles. The statistics show that 85% of homicides are committed with rifles. We know that a large proportion of homicide victims in the case of spousal violence are women. That is not an insignificant fact.

We also know that it is not enough just to register a firearm. In 2003, Montreal police responded to a spousal violence situation. The wife was afraid because her husband, who had been hospitalized, was now coming home, and when the police checked the firearms registry they found that the man owned a real arsenal: 26 handguns, 16 hunting weapons and 45,000 rounds of ammunition. The registry made it possible for the police to prepare themselves before responding.

I will conclude by saying that we register our vehicles and we register our ATVs. Is it not reasonable for us to also register our firearms?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, as you know, my riding is home to a lot of farmers and hunters. The gun registry is certainly a controversial issue in my area.

When the registry was put in place, had it been clear and simple, everyone would have been happy and we would not be facing the dilemma we are today. It must be said that the Prime Minister was the only Reform member to vote in favour of gun registration when the Liberals first introduced their bill.

My colleague mentioned a few bills.

The hon. member talked about Bill S-5. What is really interesting about the bill is that it is virtually the same as Bill C-21, introduced by the Conservatives in 2006, and Bill C-24, introduced in 2007, and the Conservatives never allowed either bill to come to a vote.

The other point I want to make is that introducing the bill through the Senate is very unusual and that the Conservatives again seem to be playing partisan games with divisive issues. Senators are already signalling that they will amend the bill, so we really do not know what it is going to look like.

So my question for the member is, what are his concerns with regard to Bill C-301 because he also mentioned that bill?