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.

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Fundy Royal.

I congratulate the Minister of Public Safety, the member of Parliament for Provencher, for bringing forward Bill C-19. This is an incredible day. Finally, there is a government bill before the House for debate. After all the long years that I have been advocating against the long gun registry, finally we have this opportunity not only to debate the bill, but to vote on it and successfully remove the long gun registry.

I also want to thank the member for Portage—Lisgar, who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, for all the work she has done on the gun registry and for bringing forward Bill C-391 in the last Parliament which we had hoped to get through the House until it ripped my heart out to see it defeated by one vote. However, I know that she has continued to fight for the removal of this wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. She has travelled across the country to hear from Canadians from coast to coast to coast about the horrors of having to deal with such a bureaucratic process, one that made criminals out of law-abiding citizens.

Finally, I have to thank my friend, the member for Yorkton—Melville, for all of the work he has done right back to 1993-94 when this registry was first floated by Allan Rock, the minister at that time, and the Liberal government. The member for Yorkton--Melville has been one of the stalwarts. He has fought against this ineffective and wasteful use of taxpayer money and has ensured that we do the right things in fighting crime rather than penalize citizens who happen to own long guns, whether they are farmers, hunters, or sportsmen.

I was fighting Bill C-68 going back to 1995. The Senate committee was travelling across the country taking testimony on Bill C-68. I appeared before that committee when it was in Manitoba, in Interlake in my riding.

People in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake have long opposed this gun registry. It created a huge stir. There were public protests. Organizations were set up. I joined the Manitoba Firearms Coalition. People wanted to fight this huge impediment to their freedoms and their rights as citizens. Unfortunately, Bill C-68 has pitted rural Canadians against urban Canadians.

Maybe it is not fair for me to say that urban Canadians all support the gun registry, because there are plenty of hunters and sports enthusiasts who live in urban centres who also oppose this long gun registry. Over the last few years as we have been out campaigning, we have been hearing from Canadians in urban centres. They know it is not working. They know the registry has not reduced crime. They have seen gun violence and gang violence in the streets rise. They know the registry is a waste of money. They want more resources put into policing services. They want more money put into gang prevention. They want more money put into youth at risk. They know those will be the right investments, rather than wasting money on a bureaucracy, on a registry that has no impact whatsoever in reducing crime in this country.

I am a licensed firearms owner. I acquired a PAL, a possession and acquisition licence. I took my hunter safety course in 1976 when I was about 14 years old. The hunter safety course is what actually prepared me to get my PAL. I am a licensed firearms owner; however, I have never registered a firearm. I do have a firearm, but it is not registered. I have made that statement before in the House because, as a matter of civil disobedience, I have always said this is a wrong thing. That firearm does not have any impact on the safety of people. It is the people who handle the firearm that are the issue.

If we want to look at reducing crime or reducing accidents that happen from handling firearms, we need to do more in the areas of safe storage, safe handling, in training the people who are going to be using firearms. That is where we would get the biggest bang for our buck.

We know from the statistics that since the late 1980s we have seen a reduction in accidental shootings. We have seen a reduction in misfired guns. We have seen a reduction in suicides that have been caused from long guns.

We have seen reductions in those events because people are practising safe storage. Those firearms are under lock and key. Ammunition is stored separately under lock and key. It is more difficult for children to access those firearms. It allows time for cooling off in instances of heated debates between friends or family members. It allows people to think about what they are doing as they are reaching for a firearm they may want to use in an illegal way.

Much misinformation has been propagated by opposition members and we really need to set things straight. They talk about policing services accessing the gun registry thousands of times a day. They are not actually accessing the registry. They may be checking an address or licence plate and that automatically goes into the firearms registry. If they are looking at a serial number of a gun, it accesses the licensed firearm owner. That is not going to change. There still will be a complete list of everyone who has a licence to possess a firearm in this country. That will not change. We know that police officers on the front line can still enter an address or licence plate number into a computer and they will be told whether an individual is a licensed firearms owner.

Police officers will have to deal with every individual as if he or she owned a firearm. We do not want to give them a false sense of security. They have to assume in every situation they go into that there are firearms present. We know that criminals do not register firearms. We know that criminals do not get licences under the current legislation. Criminals do not have possession and acquisition licences for firearms. We know that to be a fact. In every situation for their own self-interests, police officers have to enter a premise or approach a vehicle as if the individual had a gun.

There is all this talk about homicide rates dropping because of the gun registry. We know that homicide rates have been on the decline since the early 1970s. Since the registry came into being in Canada, the rate has stabilized at just under 1.9 murders per 100,000 people. There will not be a huge impact, because homicides have been stable on a percentage basis for the last dozen years or so since the registry has been in place.

If we look at the population of licensed firearm owners, the murder rate is only .38 per 100,000 owners of firearms. These are the most law-abiding citizens in the country. These are individuals who have gone out of their way to become licensed firearms owners and to get the training they need to own firearms. They are the ones who respect the laws of the land. Why are we targeting these individuals when there are so many other people who are involved in gangs, drugs and illicit crimes? Those are the individuals we need to invest in finding, tracking and getting off our streets to make our neighbourhoods safer.

Professor Gary Mauser has said that of all the murders that have been committed since 1997, less than 2% of them have been committed by licensed firearm owners and the guns that were registered to those individuals only represented 1.2% of homicides. The question then becomes, was that a good use of taxpayer dollars? Over $2 billion was spent to track 1.25% of those who committed homicides in this country and owned long guns. That is ridiculous.

In Vancouver in 2003, of all the guns that were taken off the street, 97% of them were illegal handguns that were smuggled in. We have to start looking at the big issue. Let us quit focusing on one group in society that we, unfortunately, made into criminals because they did not register their firearms. Half the guns on the streets today are still not registered. Let us do the right thing and get rid of the long gun registry and invest in front-line policing.

Bill C-19--Time Allocation Motion

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, what is clear is that there has been excessive debate on this, not only debate, but also committee hearings in respect of this matter.

Bill C-391 in the last Parliament was defeated by various NDP members turning tail on their commitment to their constituents and voting to retain the long gun registry.

The interesting thing is the NDP will allow its members to vote their conscience provided it does not interfere with party lines. The NDP knew that the long gun registry would be defeated and allowed only so many members to vote in favour of abolishing it, because the NDP knew it would have no effect.

As for the 34 minutes of debate, I stood up yesterday to speak and the NDP opposition members immediately shut down debate. That is what has prompted this time allocation motion. They are not interested in the debate. There is an ideological bent on the part of most of them to ensure that this matter does not come to a vote, and if it ever does come to a vote and is passed, they will move to reinstate the long gun registry.

Firearms Registry

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

Mr. Speaker, exactly one year ago today, the House voted on Bill C-391, a bill that would have ended the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Instead of representing their voters' wishes, NDP and Liberal MPs turned their backs on their constituents that day and voted to keep the registry. Rather than joining our Conservative government in supporting measures to put those who use firearms to commit crimes behind bars, they stood up for a registry that targets law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters.

Our Conservative government has been absolutely clear about its position. We have to abolish the long gun registry and focus our resources on real criminals.

Thankfully, much has changed in the House in the last year. On May 2 Canadians gave our Conservative government a strong mandate to focus on their priorities, which includes ending the long gun registry.

Canadians can rest assured that we will deliver on our promise and that their Conservative MPs will represent their views in the House. We will end the long gun registry once and for all.

Status of Women

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was recently boasting about his government's accomplishments over the past five years. The real picture, however, is far less impressive, particularly concerning the status of women. Let me refresh everyone's memories.

Since 2005, the Conservatives have slashed Status of Women Canada's budget by 40%, thereby forcing the closure of 12 of its 14 offices. They abolished the court challenges program. They eliminated funding allocated for feminist research and women's rights organizations.

Conservative members have introduced bills attacking women's rights and the gains we have made. Consider for example Bill C-391 to abolish the long gun registry or Bill C-510 on abortion. Even more recently, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development suggested that women who have other people care for their children are inferior mothers.

This government has done nothing for women. If anything, it has compromised the gains women have made over the years. That is a more accurate portrait of the Conservatives.

Opposition Motion—Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor for preceding me in this debate, but it is with some sadness that I rise to speak here today on the motion moved by my hon. colleague from Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been enshrined in our Constitution for nearly 30 years, yet here we are still having to raise our voices to defend it. I find it extremely unfortunate that Canada, a country once recognized as a shining example of how to defend and exercise human rights, must now face censorship under the yoke of this outrageously undemocratic government. I especially object to this fear-mongering and blackmailing regime that is forcing the lifeblood of our society to choose between silence and survival.

The Canada to which I pledged my heartfelt loyalty and allegiance on April 17, 1982, is a Canada where freedom of expression and the right of dissent are intrinsic parts of our vibrant democracy. Coincidentally, I became a Canadian citizen the same day the Canadian Constitution was patriated, the same day the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in that Constitution, which is so fundamental to our democratic maturity.

This serendipity, this stupendous fact of my civic coming of age, has influenced and guided my whole and utter devotion to this country I call mine. As much as I have studied, read and learned about other democracies, none has ever reached for me the standard which I found so uniquely successful in Canada.

It saddens me to no end to stand in the House today to acknowledge the erosion of all that we have achieved as a country at the hands of a Prime Minister who has no other ambition but to exercise power for the sake of power. We do not see the slightest intention of offering Canadians the good governance for which our Constitution and the charter were the guiding principles.

We see no evidence of respect for the enormous effort it takes to reconcile the diversity of our differences while defending the most fundamental of human rights and freedoms. The bottom line is that all we see is a fanatical disregard for the principles of equality that took us so long to achieve.

It saddens me to stand here and defend the essence of Canada. Our charter sets us apart from other countries in the world. Many countries are democratic and have parliaments, presidents or prime ministers, but what sets us apart from them is our charter.

Afghanistan is supposedly a democracy. It just held elections and has a government, but without a charter that frames that government, there is not much in terms of human rights that could be rightly seen to be upheld.

Our charter is what guarantees rights and freedoms to our minorities. The Prime Minister says that we are in Afghanistan to help women and children benefit fully from their fundamental rights. However, here in Canada, he has no problem recklessly ignoring them. What is he doing to us?

It saddens me to no end that in 2010, after so many years of fighting to get recognition of the fact that we are all connected by our humanity, we are still here today debating the substance of our charter and the principles behind it. Instead of moving forward and raising the bar, this government is doing everything it can to set us back a few decades.

Fear is the new principle of governance, and the Conservatives know that the charter prevents them from building the fortress state that they have envisioned. The government has determined that Canadians are guilty until proven innocent. We have all become criminals hiding behind the charter.

It saddens me that more prisons and a tough-on-crime agenda are all that this government has to offer to Canadians.

It saddens me that it has come to this, that the government, the so-called Conservative Party, has set out to wedge our great country apart.

When the government that was duly elected by Canadians is the first to be found guilty of violating one of the freedoms entrenched in the Charter—freedom of thought, belief, opinion or expression—it becomes clear that our democracy is experiencing troubled times.

The charter protects and governs the right of all citizens to freely express their opinions. This also includes those who, in the name of accountability, ensure the proper governance of our institutions. Since January 2006, the Conservative government has not stopped dealing blows, each more vicious than the last, to the supervisory authorities Canada has put in place over the years. Here are a few examples.

Peter Tinsley, chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission from 2005-09, his contract not renewed because:

Too often, he said, political "horsetrading" and unelected staffers play key roles in hiring and firing watchdogs that serve at the whim of the government they are appointed to criticize.

The bottom line is that Mr. Tinsley became inconvenient when he started asking for documents that would allow him to do his job well.

Chief superintendent, Marty Cheliak, former head of the Canadian firearms program, was sent off to follow intensive French language courses, which was undeniably urgent, when his report on the effectiveness of the gun registry threatened to rain on Bill C-391's parade.

Linda Keen, former president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, was fired for acting on security concerns about the Chalk River nuclear reactor.

Paul Kennedy, former chair of the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, did not have his contract renewed for reasons that remain highly suspicious.

Robert Marleau, former Information Commissioner of Canada, resigned after just two and a half years of service when he realized that the Conservatives were making his work practically impossible.

I could give a number of other examples of the government's shameless acts of censorship since 2006. However, I believe that the argument has been established and shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Conservatives blatantly despise the most fundamental principles of freedom of expression.

The motion put forward by my party today is a warning to Canadian citizens: the government of this Prime Minister sees the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as an obstacle in its quest to conquer and divide.

It is up to each of us to insist that the government respect the Charter and all the rights and freedoms entrenched therein.

Member's Voting Record on Bill C-391

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, as I rose yesterday on a point of order regarding the Conservatives' misrepresentation of my voting record on Bill C-391, I am rising again today because, of course, the member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin also did that.

This is not a subject of debate. This is a subject of the record of this Parliament for the voting that took place in an orderly fashion on Bill C-391 at second reading, where I voted clearly in one fashion, and also on the motion that was in front of this House on Wednesday evening, where I clearly voted again in a fashion. I stood in my place. This is part of the record of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to rule on this and I would ask the hon. members to withdraw their comments.

Oral Questions

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I refer to questions that were raised by the member for Brant and the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, both of whom referred to the 20 members in the House who voted for Bill C-391 on second reading and then referred to the fact that they voted against that bill on third reading.

Sometimes members opposite do not read the missives that come from the PMO before they stand in front of the House, but quite clearly this is not a point of debate. The record is your record, Mr. Speaker, of the House, of the voting record of every one of those 20 people.

I would ask the members withdraw their statements.

Committees of the House

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security concerning the recommendation not to proceed further with Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry).

Firearms Registry

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader has whipped his members to support the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry by promising to implement unconstitutional amendments to Bill C-391.

We hope that the Liberals who voted for Bill C-391 will not deceive their constituents by changing their votes merely to satisfy the Liberal leader. Think of the victims. Don't think of the agenda of the Liberal leader.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was not able to speak to Bill C-391 yesterday and although I wish I had more time, I will try to say everything I have to say in the next few seconds.

I have no reservations about voting to eliminate the long gun registry, and whether those who claim there is a consensus in Quebec like it or not, I will do so after having met with hundreds of people during the four days I spent at Expo Donnacona. Hundreds of people took the time to answer my question and told me the registry should be eliminated.

As members vote on this bill here today, I hope they will remember that the legislation was passed using political manipulation after the tragedy at the École Polytechnique.

Public Safety and National Security

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to join in this debate on the motion before us today. I am especially grateful for the chance to speak on behalf of tens of thousands of law-abiding constituents in my riding who have already made their views known on Bill C-391, as well as millions of law-abiding Canadians in ridings across the country who have done the same. They have told us loud and clear that they are in favour of effective gun control, which is why they are opposed to the long gun registry. They have told us that the long gun registry does nothing to prevent crime and that even worse, it forces law enforcement officials to focus on the wrong people when trying to fight crime.

It criminalizes law-abiding farmers, duck hunters, and sport shooters, rather than ensuring that guns do not fall into the hands of criminals. It creates the illusion that something is being done to crack down on gun crime, when in fact the resources used to run it could be better spent on measures that are really effective.

Most of all, what Canadians across this country have told us is that we should work together to make sure that Bill C-391 is passed into law, so that law-abiding citizens are no longer penalized according to where they live or how they make a living. I am confident that hon. members will do that and vote to defeat the motion before us today, which clearly ignores the will of a majority of voters, as expressed in this place last fall.

The motion before us today suggests the Standing Committee on Public Safety and Security has heard “sufficient testimony that Bill C-391 will dismantle a tool that promotes and enhances public security and the safety of Canadian police officers”.

What it fails to point out, however, is that the standing committee heard from scores of witnesses who testified that Bill C-391 should be passed in the interests of doing away with the long gun registry, which does nothing to prevent gun crimes, nothing to promote and enhance public safety, unnecessarily targets law-abiding citizens, and is a waste of money.

The committee heard from front-line officers that the long gun registry is at best an ineffective and at worst a dangerous tool to use, since the data contained are not accurate. Relying on the data, in other words, could in fact put the lives of inexperienced front-line officers at risk, should they choose to base their decisions on the registry alone. As a former police chief, I know that the long gun registry is ineffective and that front-line police officers do not rely on this information.

In my very riding, these concerns have been raised. Listen to what the president of the Woodstock Police Association had to say. He said, “The inconsistencies, inaccuracies and obscene expense of the registry make it a farce. To say an officer is safer for it is unrealistic at best. Any street officer who would rely on the registry as a safety umbrella is only fooling himself into a false sense of security. Officer safety, safe and responsible firearm ownership, has absolutely nothing to do with this registration”.

The opposition continues to push the misleading headline that all police are united in supporting the long-gun registry. This is simply not true. The statement I just read could not be clearer. The testimony we heard at committee could not be clearer.

The committee heard from Chief Constable Bob Rich from the Abbotsford Police Department, who testified that it was his firm belief that the registry is horrifically inaccurate. Chief Constable Rich testified that in conversations with his investigators and gun experts, and in story after story, whenever anyone has tried to use the registry, the information they received was wrong. His conclusion was that a flawed system such as the one currently in place is in fact worse than no system at all.

The committee also heard from Detective Sergeant Murray Grismer of the Saskatoon Police Service. Detective Sergeant Grismer was a team leader at the Olympic security force and had the opportunity during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games to speak with police officers from across Canada. His testimony during committee hearings was that the vast majority of officers he spoke with did not support the continuation of the registry. Why? It was because, in his words, they did not trust the information it contains and they see it as a waste of money. Detective Sergeant Grismer added that police across Canada, in his words, cannot and must not place their trust and risk their lives on the inaccurate, unverified information contained in the registry, and that if doing away with the long-gun registry saves even one life of Canada's front line officers, then it is worth it.

With that in mind, I have to wonder how the motion before us today can even suggest that the existing, ineffective registry promotes the safety of Canadian police officers. The testimony of front-line officers, as heard by the committee, in fact suggests otherwise. It suggests that the existing registry actually puts front-line officers in harm's way. Why then do some hon. members wish to keep it?

Here again the motion before us suggested that the registry promotes and enhances public safety. What the committee heard, however, is that the existing wasteful and ineffective long gun registry does no such thing.

Chief Rick Hanson of the Calgary Police Service testified at committee hearings that in his opinion the registry only marginally addresses the broader issue of gun crime and violence in Canada. The real need, he said, was for governments to deal with the criminal activity of individuals who possess and use guns in the commission of offences. Our government agrees, which is why we have introduced and passed measures to crack down on crime, violent gun crimes in particular.

The committee also heard from Dave Shipman, who served for 25 years with the Winnipeg Police Service and spent nearly 19 of those years investigating violent crimes in the homicide robbery division. He asked the same question that many law-abiding Canadians are asking: How does the gun registry assist the police in preventing gun crime? His answer was that it does not. In fact, he said that it offers nothing to protect our citizenry from being victims of gun crimes perpetrated by well-armed criminals.

Those were his words, and they are words all of us heard time and time again at committee hearings and words all of us have heard from our law-abiding constituents with regard to the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. They are also the words all of us have heard from the Auditor General. In the Auditor General's report from both 2002 and 2006, she noted that the Canadian Firearm Centre was unable or unwilling to provide information to substantiate the need for a long-gun registry as a public safety tool. She stated, “The centre does not show how these activities help minimize the risk to public safety with evidence based on outcomes such as reduced deaths, injuries and threats from firearms”.

The bottom line is that if the long gun registry fails to do what it intends to do, then any amount of money spent on it is a waste. As the Yukon minister of justice wrote, “Canadians would be better served if the funds invested in this program had been spent on increased funding for violence prevention initiatives or more enforcement personnel. Yukon's position is that the registry does not deliver positive results at a realistic cost to taxpayers”.

The government could not agree more. We can and should put those resources to better use in funding programs and initiatives that actually have an impact in targeting gun crimes. Our focus should be on getting tough with gangs and crime guns, not on turning goose hunters into criminals.

I must say that I am often saddened and even shocked by what is happening in some of our communities. Blatant acts of violence committed by gun-toting criminals all too often make the headlines. There are many perpetrators and too many victims. We hear of gang members gunning down their rivals on the sidewalks or in parking lots, or even in local parks where children play. Don Morgan, Saskatchewan's justice minister has noted that Saskatchewan is investing in programs to combat gang activities, assist victims of crime, and put more police officers on the street.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening, in larger numbers than we usually have at this time of the evening, to debate this procedural motion, the effect of which, if it passes tomorrow evening, will terminate Bill C-391, which deals with provisions to terminate the long gun registry.

It is quite obvious to most of us now that, in fact, this motion is going to be successful tomorrow. Therefore, this issue with regard to terminating the long gun registry will end tomorrow, at least for this session of Parliament, because it cannot be brought back in this session as a private member's bill.

There is certainly a valid debate, from a democracy standpoint, as to whether we should be dealing with this issue as a procedural motion or whether we should be dealing with the merits of the bill. I have to say that overall, in terms of my love of democracy, I would prefer to be dealing with the merits of the bill and to defeat it on its merits. It does not have many.

The reality is that the government, through a private member, chose to go the private member's bill route. The way to deal with a private member's bill is to, in fact, defeat it tomorrow through this procedural motion.

We had nowhere near enough time to deal with this issue because of the constraints the private member's bill procedure imposed on us. We had eight days of hearings, two hours each time. We had from the opposition parties something like 275 to 300 witnesses, either groups or individuals, who wanted to testify, and we were able to hear about 30 to 35 of them in total. We have not had anywhere near the information or education that would have come out had we had a government bill to deal with fully over a much more extended period of time. Therefore, it is appropriate that this bill be killed tomorrow by way of this procedural motion.

The other reason we are going to see it killed tomorrow is the way the government has conducted itself. For example, it hid until the last minute reports that showed the viability and validity of the long gun registry. There was the dismissal of Chief Superintendent Cheliak, who did a great deal to improve the usefulness of the long gun registry while he was superintendent and was responsible specifically for the administration of the Firearms Act.

We have repeatedly heard attacks on our police chiefs and police forces by members of the Conservative Party. At times they were almost saying that they were liars because they stood up and said that this is a viable investigative tool for them and that they use it. They use it extensively, and they use it to protect their members and communities. Because of that, they have been castigated repeatedly by the Conservatives to, I think, their eternal shame.

An interesting thing did come out of those hearings. We saw it sometimes juxtaposed very clearly. On one occasion, the chief of police from Calgary, one of the few chiefs of police in the country who is opposed to continuing the long gun registry, was confronted by the chief of police and the officer in charge of the firearms division of the Toronto police force. The question was put to him: “You don't have anywhere near the investigative tools used by the Toronto police when you take into account the difference in population between those two cities”. Ultimately, Chief Hanson of Calgary had to admit that they basically were not trying to use it.

This is where I would be critical of the former Liberal government when it instituted this. There were all sorts of problems with the system. What happened, in particular, when the RCMP took it over, but it had started to happen even before that, was that the administration had begun to clean it up.

What happened was that a number of police forces were so jaded about the system, they stopped using it. As we moved into the period from 2005 to 2009 and the system became much more efficient, they did not follow it. One of the shames of losing Superintendent Cheliak was that one of the things he did quite successfully was go across the country to educate individual police forces, one at a time in some cases, about how to use it and how to use it effectively.

After he did that, they responded affirmatively, and the usage of it went up dramatically. The use of it as an investigative tool went up dramatically. It is to the shame of police officers like Chief Hanson that he did not learn that lesson. He was given the opportunity. His force was given the opportunity, and he did not take advantage of it. Yes, there are a lot of “ifs” about the role the police have to play in this, but the reality is that police officers who have used the system and know how to use it know that, in fact, it is a tool they have to have.

The other point I want to make is that tomorrow, when this motion is passed and Bill C-391 is defeated as a result, we cannot let that be the end of it. This government, since it has been in power, has had the opportunity in a number of ways to improve the system. They have had recommendations from officers within the system to improve the system in a number of ways and to get rid of some of the irritants. The most dramatic one is the one we are proposing. The Liberals support us. We propose to decriminalize the first offence in this regard, to take away the stigma that has been attached to honest gun owners, legal gun owners. It would take that away from them.

There are a number of other amendments and changes to the system, both at the regulation level and at the policy level, that would improve our firearms controls in this country. A great deal of the opposition from individual gun owners would be taken away if we proceeded. The government has intentionally avoided doing those things it could do without legislation so that the irritants would remain and it could then continue to try to justify getting rid of the long gun registry.

We, as a party, have proposed a number of amendments. Decriminalization I have already mentioned. We have proposed annual audits by the Auditor General to make sure that the cost controls are still in place; ensuring that aboriginal rights are guaranteed, as protected under the charter and the Constitution; protecting the information within the registry from being released at all, ever, where individuals could be identified; toughening up the screening process, and on and on. The bill is going to be fairly lengthy, because there are reforms and fixes that need to be made to the system. We are going to need to continue to do that, and I am asking all parties, including the government side, to support that private member's bill when it comes forward.

I want to make one more point before I conclude. The point I heard from the member for Portage—Lisgar was about how much it costs. Talk about another myth. The vast majority of the costs in the present system for licensing, for registering restricted weapons, including handguns, and for registering in the long gun registry, a significant portion of that budget, of the expenditures every year, are on the licensing side.

When I listen to the member's argument, one of the fears I have is that if the long gun registry goes down, what is going to go down next? Will it be the registration of restricted weapons? Then are we going to move to the U.S. style of minimal licensing? The only way we are going to save any money is to get rid of licensing to any reasonable degree. That is very much the intention of some of the really fanatical gun owners in this country.

We are faced with this decision as parliamentarians. Our responsibility is to protect our citizens, our societies. If we are right, the position of those of us who support the registry is that we are going to save lives and we are going to give our police officers an investigative tool that is useful. If they are right, and those of us who support the registry are wrong, the worst is that we have inconvenienced gun owners, and we have cost Canadians somewhere between 10¢ and 12¢ a day. As parliamentarians, are we prepared to take that risk? I do not think so.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to discuss the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security's motion that recommends not proceeding further with the study of Bill C-391.

I would like to begin by saying that we heard from over 30 witnesses between May 4 and May 27. In a way, all of the angles in this debate have been covered. We heard from victims' groups. We heard from women's groups. We heard from as many supporters of the bill as detractors. We heard from spokespeople, such as chiefs of police. We even heard from the gun lobby. We heard from a lot of people. Of course we also heard from the Fédération des femmes du Québec, Quebec's public safety minister, and many others. More than 30 people came to share their opinions with us.

I will try to share some of the committee's more interesting moments with the House, the moments I found to be most extraordinary. One such moment occurred when the bill sponsor came to testify. In a nutshell, she said that stoves are as dangerous as firearms. Everyone knows that stoves are meant for cooking food and that guns are meant for killing living things during a hunt or under other circumstances that can prove tragic.

So she said that a stove is as dangerous as a gun and gave us some interesting statistics from a report written by a professor who appears to be the Conservatives' expert and that of the member introducing the bill. According to this professor, people who have firearms permits are two times less likely to commit a gun crime than those who do not. I asked her where that statistic came from, and she told me that it came from a report by the great professor, Gary Mauser. This gun-toting gentleman is the Conservatives' expert.

So this gentleman—

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against the motion that is before us today. It is not a complicated motion, but it certainly is a misleading motion. It really runs counter to the testimony that we heard before the Standing Committee on Public Safety with regard to Bill C-391.

There are a number of reasons that I believe this motion needs to be defeated. The primary reason I am going to begin with is the need for my bill and this issue to come before members of Parliament, who represent Canadians.

This is an issue that Canadians have been watching for the last 15 years and we know that even over the last several months and weeks Canadians have been, on both sides of this issue, looking to see what the arguments are for registry and against registry. However, it is time for members of Parliament to stand in their place and to vote either to scrap the long gun registry or to keep it.

What this motion does is actually stop debate on the long gun registry. Therefore, the first reason that the motion needs to be defeated is so that we can proceed with the bill and it can be voted on by all the members of Parliament and they can represent their constituents' wishes.

As I have been travelling around the ridings throughout northwestern Ontario, throughout the Yukon, and throughout Canada, and as I listened to testimony at the standing committee, there are a number of myths that have been perpetuated in regard to the long gun registry. Those myths thankfully are being dispelled and have been dispelled through testimony we heard.

One of the first myths is that police officers check the long gun registry 11,000 times a day. There are the facts, but sometimes the facts do not actually tell the truth of the story. The fact is that the registry, the entire Canadian firearms database, is checked probably between 8,000 and 11,000 times a day, but that does not constitute police officers purposely going in to directly check the long gun registry.

What that means is that police database systems are set up to automatically check the registry any time they even pull someone over to check a licence plate. If someone is speeding, if a tail light is broken, if they have to pull someone over, across this country what happens when they put in the vehicle licence plate is that it automatically hits the firearms registry.

If there is any kind of activity going on, if someone purchases and registers a firearm, if staff go into the registry, it registers a hit.

So the truth is not that police officers are looking at the registry and making tactical decisions based on the information, because it is happening automatically.

I am going to quote the chief of the Ottawa Police Service, Vern White. He said about the automatic checks:

To me, that's not an actual check of the system.

I think it is important that police realize that. Why do we not actually speak truthfully about what police are doing and if they are using the registry?

One of the reasons they told us that they do not use it is because they actually cannot depend on the information in the registry. According to the RCMP evaluation that has been quoted and discussed, of all the firearms that are acquired and confiscated in the commission of a crime, only 46% of those long guns are actually registered.

We know there are about 6.5 million long guns registered right now in the database. There are probably twice that amount of long guns in Canada. Therefore, we know and police officers have told us that when they go on a call they do not believe the information in the registry.

They believe the information in the licensing part of the database. If they see that someone has a possession and acquisition licence, or a possession-only licence, it gives them an indication if there possibly could be firearms.

One of the important things to note is that if a person has a licence to possess a firearm and they have registered long guns, they do not have to store them at their house. They can legally store them somewhere else.

Police know that. Perhaps some members of Parliament do not know that, but police know that. Therefore, when they go on a call, they are not looking at the registry and believing that if the registry says there are two firearms, then there are two firearms and if they find those two, they are safe. Absolutely not.

I will quote Chief Constable Bob Rich, of the Abbotsford Police Department:

[I]t's my firm belief that the registry is horrifically inaccurate. I talk to my investigators and I talk to my gun expert, and in story after story, whenever they've tried to use it, the information in it is wrong. [...] So I find my investigators actually don't rely on the registry. [...] I think a flawed system is worse than any system.

Sergeant Duane Rutledge who is head of emergency response in Nova Scotia said:

It's an unreliable system....In other words, I have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion, the long-gun registry does not help police stop violence or make these communities safer from violence. And there's no evidence that it has ever saved a single life on its own merits.

We heard from the chief of police in the Calgary Police Department. Calgary is one of the major cities in Canada. It has a lot of challenges in the things its deals with in gun crime. The chief of the Calgary Police Department, Rick Hanson, said unequivocally that he did not support the long-gun registry.

Again, police officers cannot count on the information. It is a partial database and it is an unreliable one. What they are looking at is the licensing information. Does somebody have the potential to own a firearm?

That myth has been dispelled. We know front line officers do not use the registry. They have overwhelmingly flooded all of us with emails and phone calls. Some of the strongest supporters of my bill, I am proud to say, are front line police officers.

Another myth is the cost of the long gun registry. We know the Auditor General told us that it cost almost $1 billion to set up. Some of the estimates are upwards of $2 billion. Let us just look at the current costs.

We know that right now the cost to implement the registry is about $68 million and that only takes into account the federal portion of the costs. One of the things nobody talks about is the cost to provincial and municipal governments. Now provinces are the ones left administering police services, unless it is the RCMP.

Police officers in provinces and municipalities are the ones who have to go out and ensure that the registry is actually complied with. They are the ones who are using their resources to compile the information such as who has a licence, who has a registration, cross-reference, did someone miss filling out a paper somewhere. Then they have to go, knock on people's doors and tell them that they have broken a paper law.

What they are not finding are drug dealers, gangsters or people who are committing crimes with firearms. They are spending their precious time and resources tracking down people who are using their firearms for legitimate purposes.

What is the cost to those police officers, municipalities and provinces? The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says that just to maintain the registry is approximately $106 million.

If we look at what it would cost to register the 7 million-plus long guns that are still out there, I am worried that if it cost $2 billion to register 6.5 million long guns, what is it going to cost to register another 7 million long guns?

Back 15 years ago we heard that the long gun registry would only cost $2 million, and it cost $2 billion. Now we are hearing only $4 million. Does that mean it might cost $4 billion to actually carry it out and make it accurate? I think Canadians overwhelmingly want to see the money go towards fighting crime, criminal activity and putting criminals in jail.

The other myth is that the long gun registry protects women and it stops domestic violence and suicide. That is one of the most misleading and inaccurate statements that has been used in this argument. Emergency doctors are dealing with suicide and they are dealing with people who are coming to the hospitals wounded, sometimes by accident. Police officers are dealing with issues of domestic violence.

Where we can actually have an impact to ensure that people who should not have guns do not get guns is in the licensing process. That is where they are screened and are stopped from getting a gun. They go through a background check.

This is an important process and we need to ensure it is strong, but once people have a gun, spending between $106 million and $2 billion to count their guns does nothing to stop violence. We need programs in place to help families. We need programs in place to help men and women who are dealing with depression, with family crisis, with young people who are at risk for drug and gang activity.

I ask all members of the House to vote against this motion. I ask members from the NDP to stand on principle, to stand on what they have said to their constituents time after time again. I ask that the member for Yukon stand up for his constituency.

I ask members to vote against this motion and let Bill C-391 go through. Let us kill this long gun registry.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to Standing Order 97.1(2) the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (recommendation not to proceed further with Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry) presented on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 is deemed to be proposed.