Bill C-391 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry)

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.

Firearms Registry

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his hard work and dedication to ending this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

At committee we have heard real police officers with real front line experience and they agree. The registry is not reliable and does not protect police officers.

I call upon the Liberals and NDP, especially those who voted for Bill C-391 at second reading, to listen to their constituents, not the Liberal leader, and keep Bill C-391 as is.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this week, the public safety committee will start clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-391 to scrap the wasteful long gun registry.

Front line police officers from across the country, as well as four key provincial attorneys general and justice ministers have all been clear. They oppose keeping the wasteful and inefficient long gun registry, and yet Liberal and NDP members continue to ignore these voices.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Public Safety tell the House why the Liberals and the NDP should avoid political games and support this bill?

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government broke its own law by withholding a report from the Commissioner of Firearms showing that police forces are using the gun registry more than ever before. According to the law, the Conservative government had until last October 22 to table the report. It did not release the report until November 4, which was two days after the vote on Bill C-391 to eliminate the gun registry.

Why did the government wait so long to table the Commissioner of Firearms' report?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this week is an important one for those of us who have long opposed the long gun registry.

Tomorrow, the public safety committee will start clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-391, which would end this registry.

However, Liberal MPs such as the member for Ajax—Pickering, as well as the NDP justice critic, have hinted that they are ready to play political games by introducing amendments to Bill C-391 that would actually keep the long gun registry.

It has been well known for some time that the Liberal leader's plan is to force his rural MPs to support this boondoggle. What is not so well known is that the NDP leader and his justice critic have hinted that they too will move amendments to keep the long gun registry, a move that may surprise the 12 NDP MPs who supported Bill C-391.

It is time for NDP MPs who voted against keeping the long gun registry to speak up. Their voters deserve to be heard.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, we do not agree with the Liberal leader's smoke and mirror unconstitutional proposals or that law-abiding gun owners should be criminalized. On this side we stand with rural Canadians, front line police officers like Murray Grismer, and the justice ministers from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Yukon, all of whom remain firmly opposed to the long gun registry.

I urge all NDP and Liberal members who voted for Bill C-391 at second reading to listen to their constituents and not allow their vote to be determined by the Liberal leader.

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

Mr. Speaker, the public safety committee heard yesterday from a front line policeman who stated that the long gun registry “represents the largest and most contentious single waste of taxpayers' dollars and that it can do nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms”. Our Conservative government continues to stand with rural Canadians and against the unfair targeting of law-abiding gun owners.

Would the parliamentary secretary please tell the House why NDP and Liberal MPs should listen to their constituents rather than their party whips before voting on Bill C-391?

[Tony Bernardo]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and members of the standing committee.

I would like to focus on the current and future costs of the long-gun registry.

First, it's important to establish a few basic facts. In 1998 the Canada Firearms Centre polling figures showed that there were 3.3 million firearms owners in Canada. When program results indicated poor compliance with the new laws, the CFC manufactured their consent for the new legislation with their fall 2000 survey. They indicated that gun ownership in Canada had declined since 1998 to only 2.3 million gun owners.

Over 1 million Canadians became instant criminals on January 1, 2001. This was done by asking the poll question, “Does anyone in your household own a functioning firearm?”, the nuance--“functioning”--not being understood.

To accept this reduced number, one must also accept, without any evidence at all, that 1 million firearms owners and 2.87 million firearms vanished in two years. This would surely have been noticed either by used firearms sales or by police turn-ins. Coincidentally, that is a sufficient volume of firearms to bury every police station in Canada to a depth of 32 feet.

In 1976 Liberal justice minister Ron Basford tabled a 19-page document in Parliament, showing 11.2 million firearms in Canada, based on import-export, manufacturing, and RCMP data.

Using the same methodology, we can make a reasonable estimate of the number of firearms presently in the country, while allowing for lost, destroyed, and misreported firearms. This calculation results in the net figure of about 13.8 million firearms in Canada in the hands of some 3.4 million persons.

Why is this important? Because the Canada firearms program currently reports a total of 7,493,033 firearms registered in the hands of 1,835,319 owners--or approximately half of that estimate.

The above numbers of 13.8 million firearms possessed by some 3.4 million are now close to the 3.3 million firearms owners reported in the Canada Firearm Centre's initial 1998 study, each now known to possess four firearms each, for some 13.2 million firearms.

The long-gun registry is by no means complete. It's been stated often that the registry is virtually useless unless all or most of the firearms in it are properly registered. But there's a major discrepancy here between what is and what should be. It seems that numerous Canadians have withdrawn their consent to be governed through a mistrust of the motives of government and authority.

The firearms registry has exceeded the $2-billion mark, and now supporters of the registry vow it will cost a mere $4.1 million per year to maintain it and track down and bring the other 6 million firearms and their owners into the system.

If the total cost is not accounted for, what are we maintaining? A registry of half the guns in Canada, many improperly registered, so a police officer can be assured of maybe a 50-50 chance that the registry's right.

For the registry to achieve its creators' goals, the remaining 6 million firearms and their owners must be brought into the system. But is that possible? When the registry was created, we warned of unintended consequences. Many experts warned how enforcement of repressive legislation would lead to a breakdown of trust between government, law enforcement, and the firearms community. And now, in economic hard times, untold millions of dollars are contemplated being spent on an error-ridden registry, on registering an unknown number of firearms, into the hands of an unknown number of Canadians.

Two weeks ago, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association conducted an anonymous survey of 2,018 random legal gun owners from across Canada, with the results only being published in this presentation and not before. The survey is accurate to 2.2%, 19 times out of 20. The survey dealt with the respondents' opinions of the relationship between law enforcement and firearms owners, and asked the following questions and recorded the following answers.

Question one: as a legal firearms owner, who are you more afraid of, police or criminals? The answer: police, 63.93%.

Two: since the implementation of the Firearms Act, do you still trust Canada's police? The answer: no, 74.28%.

Three: do you believe police associations represent their members' views regarding firearms issues? The answer: no, 94.49%.

Four: do you believe police associations are misrepresenting the facts regarding Canada's long-gun registry? The answer: yes, 96.73%.

Five: do you believe police associations should be involved in the creation of law? The answer: no, 87.87%.

Six: do you believe police target firearms owners? The answer: yes, 83.26%.

And seven: do you personally know someone unjustly charged with a firearms offence? The answer: yes, 46.29%.

These numbers are shocking. How did people, the most supportive people of the law enforcement community, return these results? How did this serious unintended consequence come about?

Well, after hearing Chief Blair yesterday on his preference for the registry over additional personnel, the survey results may take on more meaning.

The spectre of confiscation has never disappeared, and truthfully, why should it? When the Canada Firearms Act was enacted, 585,000 registered firearms were instantly put on the prohibited list. Recently the RCMP moved two types of registered firearms to the prohibited list, with no explanations to their owners, demanding their surrender or else.

In short, the firearms community has much to fear regarding confiscations. When firearms owners come into your constituency offices and complain about aggressive law enforcement, apparently they're telling the truth: 46% say they personally know someone charged.

How will the remaining millions of unregistered firearms and their owners ever get brought into the system? It's clearly going to require huge commitments of financial and human resources. When one begins with the premise that guns are bad, that legal gun owners are potential criminals, that firearms ownership is, of itself, a questionable activity, the system is doomed to fail. Experts have warned you about this repeatedly.

The long-gun registry is a hugely divisive issue, a decade-long tear in the social fabric of the Dominion. The passage of Bill C-391 is a demonstration of faith in lawful, trustworthy Canadian firearms owners, and would go a long way towards healing this gaping wound in our society.

Thank you very much.

[Diana Cabrera, Member, Canadian Shooting Sports Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of this committee, for having invited my colleague and me to present our members' point of view on Bill C-391 and to answer any questions you may have in this regard.

My name is Diana Cabrera, former Canadian national shooting team member and currently on the Uruguay national shooting team. I am also a recipient of the 2009 athlete of the year award for Uruguay.

I would like to say that Canadian Shooting Sports Association fully supports the proposed changes in this bill. At this point, I would like to focus on the effect of the long-gun registration on sports competitors and users.

There is no question that the long-gun registry has deterred individuals from entering the shooting sports. The inclusion of specialized air, target, and muzzle-loading firearms in the registry seems predetermined to achieve those goals. These firearms are virtually never used in crime just by the nature of their physical makeup and cost, yet they are treated to the same legislative zeal as more common firearms. In Canada, unlike Britain and the United States, exemptions have been made in law for these types of firearms, as many are not even considered to be firearms. This situation often leads to an adult or a coach having to acquire a junior's competition firearm, being responsible for its possession and for the regulatory care of these firearms while in use.

The main issue for competitive participants is the fear of imminent criminality. We may easily find ourselves afoul of uninformed law enforcement or CBSA officers. Any paperwork error may lead to temporary detention, missed flights, missed matches, and confiscation of our property. There is a primal cringe every time I am asked for my papers, knowing what could be next and fearing what could happen as officers apply personal interpretations to our confusing laws.

Law enforcement and media coverage of firearm issues have made the situation worse. We are treated to spectacular press coverage of very ordinary firearms described as an arsenal, and taking guns off the street when in fact these belong to ordinary firearm owners who had simply failed to renew some paperwork.

How do you think these things make legal firearms owners feel? Am I next? Did I somehow forget some nuance of my paperwork that will bring police to my door? Will my face wind up on the six o'clock news, vilifying me to my friends, my family, and co-workers? Will I be targeted at a traffic checkpoint by a CPIC verification?

Firearm owners live with these fears every single day--all this to justify a failed system that never prevented a crime.

I thank you. I will now pass this presentation to my colleague, Tony Bernardo.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I wish the member would stop misleading the public.

Let me be clear. While we support licensing of individuals, we do not support the long gun registry. It is wasteful, and it is time to end the criminalization of our hunters and outdoor enthusiasts once and for all.

A police chief recently called the long gun registry a placebo and said that it creates a false sense of security.

We hope that members of the Liberal Party and the New Democrats who voted for Bill C-391 vote again to end the wasteful registry.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday at committee we heard from front-line police officers with real experience. Officer Dave Shipman said that the long gun registry is not working to prevent gun crime. Criminals do not register their stolen or smuggled guns that are being used to wage war in our cities.

I think this indicates that there is a failure of that long gun registry. Front-line officers are saying that.

I would encourage those who voted for Bill C-391 to vote that way at third reading.

[Dr. Pierre Maurice, Chief, Scientific Unit, Safety and Injury Prevention, Institut national de santé publique du Québec]

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished committee members, allow us first to introduce ourselves.

I am Dr. Pierre Maurice, and I am an injury prevention expert at the Scientific Unit, Safety and Injury Prevention, of the Institut national de santé publique du Québec. I'm accompanied by Mr. Étienne Blais, who is a criminologist on my team and assistant professor at the School of Criminology of the University of Montreal. Mr. Blais has, in recent years, developed a research program on firearm-related injuries.

We thank you for this opportunity to present our analysis on Bill C-391. We decided we wanted to be heard by this committee after seeing that the debate on the Canadian Firearms Registry was focused solely on crime-related issues. The issue surrounding Bill C-391 goes way beyond crime, and that is why we think it essential today to view the debate from a public health perspective as well. This perspective leads us to consider the potential consequences of this bill for all firearm-related deaths and injuries, not just those related to crime.

We should note from the outset that suicides are by far the leading cause of firearm-related deaths in Canada and represent more than 75% of the total number of deaths related to that type of weapon. Most of those deaths involve non-restricted firearms. In overall terms, the data show that the problem of firearm-related deaths mainly concerns people dealing with personal, marital or mental health problems, rather than the criminal milieu. The figures also show that the home is the main place where those deaths occur, which makes it a significant focus for education in a prevention perspective.

Numerous studies have shown that access to firearms is the main risk factor for suicide, homicide and accidental death. That is why Quebec's national public health program includes a specific measure to support the development and implementation of legislative and regulatory measures to make firearms less accessible to individuals who may misuse them.

In the past 30 years, the Parliament of Canada has implemented a number of measures to control the problems associated with firearms. Most of those measures focused on the control of non-restricted firearms such as rifles and shotguns. Since 1998, following the adoption of Bill C-68, all owners of non-restricted firearms have been required to hold a licence to possess firearms and to register each firearm that they own.

From a public health perspective, we must ask ourselves the following question: have the measures introduced following implementation of Bill C-68 helped reduce the number of firearm-related deaths? A study was recently conducted to assess this effect taking into account the downward trend observed since 1974 in homicide and suicide rates and the concomitant impact of other factors associated with firearm-related deaths.

The observed results show that the coming into force of Bill C-68 is associated, on average, with a reduction of 50 firearm-related homicides and 250 firearm-related suicides per year in Canada. The results of this study also show that no substitution effect has been observed since Bill C-68 was implemented. In other words, the decline in the number of firearm-related suicides and homicides has not been offset by an increase in the number of suicides and homicides committed by other means.

Based on available data on the direct and indirect costs associated with firearm-related deaths, we estimate the costs saved in respect of the reduction of 300 deaths associated with the coming into force of Bill C-68 at over $400 million a year. It should be noted that the two main measures implemented following the adoption of Bill C-68 are the obligation for all owners of non-restricted firearms to hold a licence to possess firearms and the obligation to register each of the firearms that they own. The effectiveness of the act stems from the interaction of these two measures. More specifically, the licence and registration make it possible to link every weapon to its owner, which has the effect of encouraging the owners of non-restricted firearms to comply with the regulations in effect concerning the storing, selling, lending and donation of firearms.

This possibility of linking each weapon to its owner also helps to support the police in the performance of their duties, for example in the execution of a prohibition order concerning the possession of a firearm. These effects on owners and the police result in a smaller number of non-restricted firearms being improperly stored, lost or stolen and thus make this type of weapon less readily accessible to individuals likely to misuse them. This is important, knowing that access to a firearm has long been acknowledged in the scientific literature as a major risk factor for firearm-related suicide and homicide, a weapon being a factor that facilitates acting out by those inclined to commit suicide or homicide.

The effectiveness of these two measures, the licence and registration, also stems from the fact that they concern all owners of non-restricted firearms, which makes it possible to take action on all weapons falling into this category.

In conclusion, bearing in mind that: the vast majority of firearm-related deaths are suicides and do not involve the criminal milieu; that the coming into force of Bill C-68 is associated, on average, with a reduction of 300 firearm-related deaths in Canada each year, including 250 suicides; that the compulsory registration of non-restricted firearms is one of the key measures implemented following the adoption of Bill C-68; that the Canadian non-restricted firearms registration system is solidly established and operational; that most of the non-restricted firearms now in circulation in Canada have already been registered; that the current operating cost of the registration system is relatively low—we're talking about $9 million in—relation to the 300 lives saved and the avoided costs, approximately $400 million every year since Bill C-68 came into force; that the registration of a non-restricted firearm does not prevent its owner from using it legitimately for hunting or shooting, but is intended instead to make non-restricted firearms less accessible to individuals likely to misuse them; the Institut national de santé publique du Québec recommends: that the firearms control measures implemented following the adoption of Bill C-68, including the obligation for all non-restricted firearms owners to register each of the weapons that they possess, be integrally maintained.

To sum up, from a public health standpoint, this is as though Canadian society had a drug that could make it possible to prevent 300 deaths a year. Two important ingredients go into the make-up of that drug. In this case, they are the licence and registration. We think it is dangerous to change the composition of that drug by removing one of its important ingredients, particularly since the secondary effects associated with firearm registration are minimal.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I call this meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We're continuing today with our study of Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry).

We have representatives from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. We have an individual from Saskatoon, Mr. Murray Grismer, a sergeant in the police force. From Canadians Against Violence Everywhere Advocating its Termination, we have Priscilla de Villiers, a victim's advocate. From the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, we have Monsieur Pierre Maurice, chief of the scientific unit; and Étienne Blais, an assistant professor at the school of criminology, University of Montreal. From the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we have Mr. William Blair, the president.

We would like to welcome all of you to our meeting. We look forward to your testimony. You each have 10 minutes for your presentation, and then we will go to questions and comments from the various political parties.

Monsieur Maurice, go ahead.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his work. The Liberal leader continues to ignore the facts and, more important, ignore the voices of rural Canadians. Why will he not let his members consider what the ministers from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Yukon have to say? All have come out in favour of scrapping the ineffective, wasteful long gun registry.

I remind all members who in fact voted for Bill C-391 at second reading, especially the member for Yukon, that the choice is simple. Either they vote to keep the registry or they vote to scrap it. What will it be?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, if that member were so sure of his party's position, his leader would allow a free vote on Bill C-391.

We know their members do not support the gun registry. Members of the New Democratic Party do not support the long gun registry. Certainly this party does not support the long gun registry.

Front-line officers, like Dave Shipman, said:

The long-gun registry is not working to prevent gun crime...Criminals...do not register their stolen or smuggled guns that are being used to wage war in our cities.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

So in fact, when you come here to speak in favour of Bill C-391, you believe it doesn't go far enough, because it would only abolish the registry of long guns. You believe that no one should have to be licensed to own a firearm. Is that correct?