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.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

You agree with me that their so-called unified position in support of the firearms registry and their opposition to Bill C-391 are not particularly well based in any foundation?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

Very quickly, Deputy Commissioner Sweeney, you indicated that a committee had been formed with chiefs of police concerning policies regarding Bill C-391.

I understand, Superintendent Cheliak, you've been meeting with some of the chiefs of police. I understand you were in Saskatoon last month and are headed to Winnipeg later this week and perhaps to Estevan later on this month.

[Paulette Senior]

I'm here to speak about Bill C-391.

[D/Commr William Sweeney]

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify what I said. I said cabinet committee, but I misspoke; I meant parliamentary committee. I do apologize for that.

We have been working with Chief Bill Blair and others. Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak has been assisting in developing positions with respect to Bill C-391, but I think it's important for committee members to also understand that we're working with the Canadian chiefs of police on a comprehensive strategy, which, as Chief Hanson indicated, is really needed. Actually, Marty Cheliak has been very instrumental with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police in doing that.

[Paulette Senior, Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Canada]

Thank you.

My name is Paulette Senior. I'm the CEO of YWCA Canada, and I'm here today with my colleague, Ann Decter, who is our director of advocacy and public policy.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our concerns today. We've been advised that YWCA Canada is the only national women's organization invited to present at these hearings. If that is true, we are honoured to take on this role, but we're also shocked that only one national voice for women has been invited on an issue that is ever so crucial to women's safety.

Women's safety, or the lack of it, is what brought Canada's gun control laws into being. The future of gun control cannot be debated without reference to violence against women.

We are the nation's oldest and largest women's service organization. Founded in 1870, we are 140 years old this year. The YWCA movement is as old as our country, and for well over a century has provided a strong voice for women, in particular for women in vulnerable circumstances. YWCA Canada is the country's largest provider of shelter to women and children fleeing violence.

We are here today because a tool of public safety is under threat, the non-restricted firearms registry. Each year more than 100,000 women and children in Canada leave their homes for “violence against women” shelters. Many of them come through the doors of the 31 shelters operated by YWCAs across Canada looking for safety, a roof over their heads, and support. Our member associations operate shelters in Canada's large and small centres. We serve rural populations in Sudbury, Brandon, Prince Albert, Lethbridge, Peterborough, Saskatoon, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit--places where shotguns and rifles are part of the culture.

Our member associations are opposed to Bill C-391 because it will put women and children in their communities at greater risk. Lyda Fuller, the executive director of YWCA Yellowknife, says, “I worry about Aboriginal women, who surely must have a right to protection. I’m asking rural and northern MPs to think about the safety of Aboriginal women and about rates of teen suicide.”

YWCA Canada passionately supported the implementation of Canada's gun control laws, including the long-gun registry, because of the dangers and risks firearms pose to women experiencing violence. While there is much to criticize in how the registry was developed, we agree with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police that the registry has made Canada a safer country.

There are experts here today who can give you full details on the registry and how it works, but what we offer is the perspective of service providers working for women's safety, service providers who see the effects of violence on women and children day in and day out.

We see a modern database with real-time access from a patrol car to the location of almost 6.8 million long guns and rifles. Police forces across the country appear to be rapidly increasing their use of this database. Average daily inquiries for 2009 were more than double the usage in 2005. Annual queries increased from 425,000 in 2004 to 3.4 million in 2008, to over 4 million in 2009. It is not useless; it is very well used.

So what are we to think? While Google is busily scanning every book in the world to release online and businesses are ramping up iPhone apps, the Canadian government wants to erase 6.8 million database records locating firearms against the expressed advice of the nation's police forces.

Whose interests are being served here? We can say, without a doubt, not those of women vulnerable to violence. How many lives has the registry saved? No one really knows, but evidence clearly shows a continuing decline in homicides committed with rifles and shotguns coinciding with the increasing use of the long-gun registry by Canadian police forces. At the same time, the use of firearms and violence in general has increased.

Long guns are the most common type of firearm used in spousal homicides. Over the past decade, 71% of firearm spousal homicides involved rifles and shotguns; only 24% involved a hand gun.

While spousal homicides with rifles and shotguns have decreased, homicides by all other means have not. The average number of women killed annually by their spouses without using a rifle or shotgun between 1995 and 1998 was 52; the same figure for 2001 to 2004 was 56.

A central argument against the long-gun registry is that operating costs are excessive; money would be better spent elsewhere. This is not supported by current reports. While there is no question that development of the registry included exceptional mismanagement, set-up is complete and the registry exists. Millions of dollars have already been spent and unfortunately cannot be recovered. What can be recovered, with the right steps, is the continuing cost of violence against women, estimated by this government at $4 billion per year.

We would be very pleased to return to the committee at a future date and discuss that public safety issue.

The question facing parliamentarians is not the mismanagement of the registry in the past but the future of a modern database that is constantly consulted by Canadian police forces in the course of their duties. Are we expected to believe that our police services would consult a useless system more than four million times in the year?

YWCA Canada is a national organization with broad reach, and we'd like share some comments from some of our members across the country. Earlier I mentioned Lyda Fuller, who is a director of YWCA Yellowknife, with shelters in Yellowknife and Fort Smith for women and children fleeing violence, groups for children who have witnessed violence, and workshops for teens related to dating violence. This is what Lyda Fuller would like for you to know today:

Women have told us that the guns used here [in the north] predominantly for hunting--long guns--are also used to intimidate, subdue and control them. We hear this over and over again, in small communities without RCMP and in larger communities with RCMP.

Women do not want these guns to be unregistered, but do not feel safe in expressing this opinion other than in whispers to people who may be able to voice these 'unpopular' opinions and who may be heard. Of course men in the communities don't want to register their guns.

When RCMP fly into a community to respond to domestic violence, they need to know where the guns are, and how many a household has. We've already had deaths of Mounties in the north.

Long guns, because of their prevalence here, are also used in suicides, which are epidemic in northern Canada.

I am just stunned that we have both the police chiefs, tasked with public safety, and vulnerable groups asking for protection--both wanting the long gun registry to continue--and that these voices may be ignored.

Please make it clear that it is not city-born, city living folks who are asking for this registry to continue; it is the voices of northern women who fear for their lives and their mental health who are asking for protection. We see women who have experienced years of brutal intimidation. These women cannot safely express their need for protection themselves, and it is up to Canada to understand this and respond in an appropriate way.

That is Lyda Fuller.

We have another message from the north. This one is from Iqaluit in Nunavut, where YWCA Agwik Nunavut is in development and provides shelter for homeless women and for women fleeing violence. It's from Caroline Anawak, the executive director there:

Having lost 3 brother-in-laws, 3 nephews, 2 nieces, two former students, 2 neighbours in Nunavut, I remind the Government of Canada that Nunavut leads all of North America in suicides.

The cost of this tragic loss of life is sorely under-estimated. The painful message it helps to send is a message no mother, no father and no elected representative should ever want to hear.

Do the “right” thing, not the expedient thing. Loss of life must be stopped.

On behalf of our 33 member associations across Canada, the thousands of staff and volunteers who make our work possible, and the tens of thousands of women we serve, we echo Caroline Anawak. Do the right thing. Protect mothers and sisters and daughters. Protect women and girls. Maintain the non-registered firearms registry. There are still lives to be saved.

Thank you.

[Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak, Director General, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

Good day, Mr. Chairman, and to all the committee members.

As a police officer with over 30 years of operational experience, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and to assist with the committee's examination of Bill C-391.

The Canadian Firearms Centre was created in 1995 by the Government of Canada to oversee and administer the Firearms Act. Since its transfer to the RCMP in 2006, the centre has enhanced its efforts on support to domestic police law enforcement agencies and international organizations by providing information and expertise related to firearms, firearms registration, and the licensing of individuals and businesses under the Firearms Act.

In June 2008, the Canada Firearms Centre and the RCMP's firearms support services directorate were brought together to form an integrated organization called the Canadian firearms program. Today, aligned with the Government of Canada and the RCMP's commitment to safe homes and safe communities, the Canadian firearms program's mandate is to enhance public safety by providing law enforcement with vital operational and technical support. The information and expertise provided by the Canadian firearms program is vital to the prevention and investigation of crimes related to firearms. The program also helps to reduce firearms-related death and injury in Canadian communities by enabling and promoting responsible firearms ownership, use, and storage.

The firearms licensing and registration system has now been in place for over 12 years and is meeting the CFP service delivery standards according to the departmental performance report.

No legislation or regulation will ever prevent all crimes; however, the Canadian firearms program does serve a very real purpose and contributes to police officer safety and the safety of all Canadians. The CFP, as a whole, delivers on numerous public safety fronts that are intended to serve as a basis for risk reduction. For example, the program delivered firearms safety training to about 90,000 Canadians in 2008 alone. The program conducted outreach initiatives and promoted safe storage of firearms, which can help reduce heat-of-the-moment crimes, firearms accidents, particularly involving children, as well as suicide by firearms. The program conducts screening of all new licence applicants. This includes a mandatory 28-day period to ensure individuals applying for a licence do not pose a risk to public safety. In addition, all licence owners are subject to automated continuous eligibility checks.

A “firearms interest to police” report, or FIP, generated anywhere in Canada regarding a licensed individual will automatically be flagged to the chief firearms officer of provincial jurisdiction for appropriate follow-up. This is how the program operates on a national basis to ensure high-risk individuals don't slip through the gaps between provinces. In 2009, approximately 7,000 registration certificates were revoked for public safety concerns.

Registration of firearms allows police to verify numbers and types of firearms subject to seizure. There are common misconceptions that criminals don't register their firearms and that firearms destined for criminal activity would not appear in the registry. In actuality, many firearms recovered by police at crime scenes turn out to be registered and the CFP has assisted in solving a number of crimes by tracing a firearm to a registered owner. In 2009, of the 4,000-plus crime-related firearms traced to an owner by the Canadian firearms program, approximately 1,600 were registered non-restricted firearms, 1,100 were prohibited, and 881 were restricted.

Registration of firearms also provides an accountability mechanism linking responsibility for a firearm to an individual. It encourages owners to safely store firearms, to report lost or stolen firearms, and it discourages illegal sales and transfers of firearms.

Mr. Chairman and committee members, allow me to speak to the value of the CFP to the public and police officer safety and to the prevention of crime.

Without the database of registered long guns, the door may be open to unlimited and unmonitored stockpiling of long guns for individuals and groups. The program continuously monitors firearms registration records for unusual or unexplained accumulations. Pattern recognition software allows for the identification of anomalies or specific situations that should be flagged for chief firearms officers in the provinces and inspected. An example would be if the same individual acquires 10 or more firearms within a 30-day period.

Through the Canadian firearms registry online, CFRO, the Canadian firearms program provides safety information that acts as a tool for risk reduction. This national database is available in real time, assisting investigators in tracing seized and recovered firearms by linking them to registered owners. It is queried, on average, 11,000 times per day by front-line police officers, as an individual tactical decision on their part. An example that clearly illustrates this comes to mind. In one case, family members requested that police remove all of the firearms from their home due to their father's depressed state. A Canadian firearms registry online query by local police indicated that there were 21 additional long guns in the home that the other family members knew nothing about. A warrant was obtained and all firearms were removed by police, preventing a potential firearms tragedy. Without the registry, there would not have been any knowledge of the additional 21 firearms.

The CFRO also enables law enforcement to provide investigational assistance at the municipal, provincial, national, and international levels. In the case of court-ordered prohibition or the execution of search warrants, law enforcement relies on pertinent information provided by the Canadian firearms program to determine what firearms owners have in their possession. Without the database, tracing firearms, both nationally and internationally, would be very difficult and very expensive. Guns connected to criminal activities would be almost untraceable as law enforcement would not have a place to commence an investigation. This current real-time database allows Canadian law enforcement agencies to trace firearms nationally within a matter of minutes. Canada is, at present, able to offer reciprocity in tracing to police partners in the United States of America and other countries as a part of its contribution to global public safety.

In conclusion, the Canadian firearms program, inclusive of the registry, provides useful information to law enforcement agencies, nationally and internationally, making it a global asset in contributing to public and police officer safety.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Deputy Commissioner William Sweeney, Senior Deputy Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to you and to all the members of the committee.

As the senior deputy commissioner representing the commissioner and all of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to assist with the committee's examination of Bill C-391.

With me today I have Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak, the director general of the Canadian firearms program. He has brought along with him some select members of his staff.

During the course of your hearings you will hear from many witnesses who will present their perspectives on Bill C-391. We respect and appreciate the fact that all who appear before you today and in your coming hearings share a genuine and common interest in safe and secure communities, but there will be differences of opinion respecting how we can achieve this end state.

I hope that our presentation will provide you with factual information on the realities of modern policing and how police officers utilize the elements of the Canadian firearms program, including the long-gun registry, as they go about their day-to-day business of serving the Canadian public.

I would like to leave the committee with the following: the RCMP considers that the registration of all firearms enables individual accountability, promotes safety and life-saving measures, and is a proactive investigative tool in assisting law enforcement.

I will now turn this over to Chief Superintendent Cheliak to speak to the program.

[Carol Allison-Burra, Director, Canadian Association of Police Boards]

I am Carol Allison-Burra. I am a director on the board of the Canadian Association of Police Boards as well as chair of the Kingston Police Services Board.

On behalf of the CAPB and our members, I'd like to thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to appear before you on the important issue of Canada's firearms registration system, which Bill C-391 would eliminate for all firearms that are not restricted or prohibited.

We are especially pleased to appear before you at the outset of the committee's hearings, and we have prepared a brief that we hope will be of assistance to you as you proceed in your important work.

The CAPB is the national association for police boards and commissions from across the country. Our members provide governance and oversight of more than 75% of municipal police in Canada. These boards and commissions are made up of ordinary residents as well as elected members of local municipal councils, and often provincial appointees as well. As such, they give voice and respond to the concerns and expectations of their specific communities.

One concern that has been expressed by communities throughout Canada pertains to violent incidents involving firearms. These include both handguns and long guns. Firearms are used in a wide spectrum of violent incidents, such as domestic disputes, bystander shootings, robberies, homicides, as well as drug- and gang-related activities. While different kinds of guns are more or less frequently involved in different kinds of crimes, the communities we represent understand that crimes involving guns of whatever kind or classification are especially serious and require special attention.

I'm sure that committee members know all too well that these kinds of firearms crimes have cost many innocent lives, including those of young people, women, and police officers. It's important to appreciate that not all the perpetrators of these violent criminal acts were people with criminal records or self-professed risks in their community. Many were ordinary people who for any number of reasons committed or were involved in the act of using their firearms illegally. Equally, in many of these instances the firearms that were used were legally owned or had once been legally owned.

By having a national firearms registry that records the existence and identified locations of all firearms, we have created an important preventative and investigative tool, as well as one that enhances police officer and public safety. Our brief to your committee identifies the specific preventative investigative and public safety benefits the registry currently provides. We believe you will receive tangible examples of identified benefits of the current registry from the Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

We urge the committee to explore, in the course of these hearings, whether these benefits are real or illusory. We are confident, frankly, that such an objective analysis will lead you to the same conclusion we have been led to, which is that the current registry performs cost-effectively and provides important public and police officer safety benefits.

Although we can discuss this in greater detail during questioning, let me take a moment to identify what we have determined to be irrefutable preventative officer safety and investigative benefits of the current registration system. I know that the advocates of Bill C-391 dispute many of these suggestions, but I hope that from this day forward the committee will receive accurate information, ask pertinent questions, and discern for themselves fact from fiction.

From our association's perspective, the current system's benefits include: increased officer safety through more detailed awareness of the existence, quantity, and type of firearms at specified locations; preventative awareness of potential access to firearms involving persons with mental health issues; dramatically improved ability to enforce court-ordered prohibitions to firearms possession made through bail, sentencing, firearm prohibitions, licence revocations, or preventative orders. The alternative seems to be to ask the offender or any other intimidated third party what guns they have.

Other benefits include the enhanced ability to detect and return stolen firearms; the enhanced ability to investigate and prosecute crimes involving stolen firearms, which saves resources; the identification of an accumulation of firearms that could potentially harm public safety; the enhanced ability to investigate crimes through links established by the registry; the reduced ability to traffic stolen firearms and reduced illicit export or import of firearms; the reinforcement of the inherent public safety interest; and the responsibility inherent in firearm acquisition and possession.

Let me add that the reported annual cost of the registry today is $4.1 million.

In the weeks ahead, you will be hearing from law enforcement officials directly, and we encourage you to seek specific details.

I hope our submissions before you will assist you in ascertaining from proponents of Bill C-391 the reasons they discount these benefits. I sincerely hope that you have more success than we have had in trying to get a straight answer.

In light of the clear benefits of the firearms registry, it is important to understand the articulated rationale for its elimination as proposed by Bill C-391. In order to do this fairly, the CAPB has reviewed the public statements in Hansard made by the bill's sponsor, which are, to say the least, noteworthy. If the assertions made to justify the bill are unfounded, then clearly the bill itself is unnecessary and ill-advised. This reality was recognized by no less than the bill's sponsor herself, when she noted on September 28, 2009, in the introduction of the bill, “if I believed that the long gun registry would help reduce crime or make our streets even a little bit safer, I would be the first one to stand up and support it.”

Should the committee reach the conclusions noted above, then even the bill's sponsor has indicated that Bill C-391 should not be supported.

We invite the committee to closely examine the objections to the current system put forward. In doing so, it's important to be clear that this necessarily means assessing the value and the cost-effectiveness of the firearms registry as it is today, not as it was previously.

Thanks to the fact-based inquiries of the Auditor General and the informed actions of this government since 2006, the firearms registry is a vastly improved, cost-effective, public safety tool over what it was when it was under the operational control of the Department of Justice. Bill C-391 would, however, eliminate today's firearms registry and not the one that it appears to target.

It is like a vein. The actual benefits of a firearms registry need to be candidly and objectively determined. False expectations of the past do not justify ignoring tangible results today. While asking the wrong question may be a successful political strategy, it is not an advisable basis for informed and effective police policy-making.

Regrettably, due to the issues that predate the current registry, the debate surrounding the firearms registry has become politicized to an extent rarely seen in Canadian public policy development. We have witnessed that already this afternoon. The sponsor of Bill C-391 has made the accusation that groups that support the registry sit “behind a desk trying to score political points or gain favour”. This would be insulting were it not so patently ridiculous. The leadership of the CAPB are representative of the communities we come from and have a statutory responsibility to provide effective and efficient policing. We are accountable for public safety in our communities, and we are concerned for the welfare of our employees, the sworn officers on the street. Therefore, we are concerned about the development of a public policy that would jeopardize safety in our communities and the safety of the officers serving our communities.

We are here to contribute to a factual and respectful debate so that members of Parliament can make an informed decision on an initiative that seeks to significantly change an incredibly important public policy. The consequences of eliminating the registry are enormous. The current registry has value that this bill will eliminate.

No doubt there are improvements that can be made to the registry, and we will be the first to support the government in justifiable, fact-based, positive changes.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I did prepare, as I was requested, a 30-minute presentation. I will do my utmost to shorten it, but I would ask your indulgence. It's very short notice for me to have to shorten this. I will do my very best.

First of all, I want to thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to present my private member's Bill C-391, which would end the requirements for individuals and businesses to register their long guns.

Before I begin, for the record, I would like to indicate my deep disappointment that I was not allotted the same amount of time at this committee that is given to every other member of Parliament who is presenting a private member's bill. It's normal practice for members of Parliament to be given one full hour to present and introduce their private members' bills. In my case, the opposition members of this committee fought hard to win the ability to limit my time. It's highly unusual.

I would suggest that if the tables were turned and a Liberal, Bloc, or NDP woman had introduced a private member's bill that had garnered the attention of the nation, as this one has done, and if she were silenced by Conservatives the way I have been silenced by the opposition, the outcry would be deafening.

In the short time I have, I want to tell you why I introduced this bill, what it does, and why it merits your support.

Mr. Chair, although I am not a gun owner, I grew up in a loving and peaceful home where there were long guns present. I had no reason to fear guns or view them as bad. I respected their potential to cause a dangerous situation, just as I respected and knew that the sharpness of a knife, the heat from an oven, or the speed of a car could cause harm and even death if not respected and treated accordingly. Some in this room may find that hard to believe. Doesn't everyone fear guns? Aren't all guns dangerous and to be feared? I don't believe so, Mr. Chair, and I have no doubt that is because I grew up in rural Canada. In rural Canada we view firearms very, very differently than some would in urban Canada.

I will tell you I am very much afraid of guns if they are in the wrong hands. If I were to walk on to any farmyard in my riding and the farmer walked out of his barn holding a rifle in each hand, I would not be the least bit worried or concerned. However, if I were walking home today to my condo in the city of Ottawa and I saw someone walking around waving a gun, I would be very, very concerned. The difference is who is in possession of the firearm.

What makes these situations very different—one frightening, the other commonplace—is, as I said, who is in possession. The same can hold true for knives, bats, chains, ropes, and any other object we can name that has a legitimate function but can also serve as a weapon. I believe that firearms hold a legitimate function for millions of Canadians, and in those instances they are not used as weapons to hurt people.

Statistically, individuals who have a licence to use and/or possess a firearm are actually 50% less likely to commit a crime with a gun than individuals without a licence. If we look around this table, and let's say by a show of hands we would indicate who has a licence to own a firearm and who doesn't, those who raise their hand and have a licence are actually 50% less likely to commit a gun crime than those who don't.

The point is that legally licensed long-gun owners in Canada are by and large law-abiding individuals who are not committing crimes.

I introduced this bill because I don't believe firearms are inherently bad. I believe people can be, and in the wrong hands firearms do become weapons. We need to focus on the person, not the firearm. Licensing is the place where real gun control happens. I believe it's vital because it is the only way to help ensure that guns don't get into the wrong hands. That's why my bill does not touch licensing at all.

However, the long-gun registry does not provide any such function. The long-gun registry is not gun control. Clearly the sole result of a long-gun registry has been that it has created an inventory list of long guns in Canada. It only works and it is only complete if all firearms owners comply with it. Of course, we know that hasn't happened, and it never will, because criminals don't register their guns.

Even as a partial inventory list, its only functional purpose has been reduced to being a partial investigative tool. Even as a partial investigative tool, police officers know they cannot rely on the information provided in the long-gun registry portion of the data. Police will all agree, whether they support the long-gun registry or not, that much of the data is inaccurate and out of date. Because of that, and because of their police training, their tactics when approaching a potentially dangerous situation are not dependent on what the long-gun registry may tell them.

The long-gun registry at best is a minimal and unreliable investigative tool for some police, and at worst it's an expensive and faulty system that does absolutely nothing to make sure that guns do not get into the wrong hands. It's also an extra burden on police who have to enforce compliance with it. The long-gun registry focuses on the long gun, rather than the person, and that's why I believe it needs to end.

There's no logical process in the government approving a person to own a long gun by allowing them to have a licence and then forcing them to report to the government each long gun they own. I would understand and accept the argument that maybe we need a database of those who are prohibited from owning a gun; that would make sense to me. Maybe we should be tracking individuals who are dangerous and should never own a firearm. Interestingly enough, we don't do that. Instead, under this current system, we follow, track, and many times even harass Canadian citizens who are not criminals. They don't have a record, they've gone through every police background check, and they are not contributing to gun crime, yet we spend precious police time and resources making sure they have registered each long gun they own.

We've seen recent examples of this in the city of Toronto. The Toronto Police Service spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of police hours poring over lists of those who have a licence to own a firearm, but were past a deadline on the registry, or vice versa. Then more police hours were spent going to each individual's home to tell them that their paperwork was not compliant and that they needed to surrender their firearms. In the end, not one arrest was made, not one gang member was discovered, not one drug dealer was found, and not even an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation was served. After hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of police work, the only people found were law-abiding gun owners who didn't have all of their paperwork in order. None of these people were selling drugs, they weren't involved in gang activities, they were not contributing to gun crime, and yet they were targeted by a massive, labour-intensive police hunt.

I want to say that I believe the Toronto Police Service had the very best intentions in mind when it undertook this investigation. But I think if we look at the larger picture, their time could have been much better spent investigating and tracking down real criminals and real gang activity in the city of Toronto. This illustrates the fatal flaw of the long-gun registry and the primary reason why I believe it needs to end: it forces law enforcement to focus on the wrong people when trying to fight crime.

I know the defenders of the long-gun registry say that police do use the registry when they go on a call. They say the police use it to check to see if there might be a firearm at a location they are at, if they are there for a domestic dispute or another type of call. I want to address this on a couple of levels.

First of all, I'll repeat that my bill would not end licensing; therefore, police will still be able to check and see who may possess a firearm, based on their having a licence. I already know some are saying, yes, but the police won't be able to see exactly how many firearms are at a specific location. I would argue, and have already pointed out, the fact is that the police currently know that the registry, especially regarding gun-specific information, is not reliable. Even defenders of the registry admit it is a mess and needs massive work. But there's another reason that police are, and should be, very cautious when it comes to checking the CFRO, and I'm going to give you one example.

Did you know that people who are licensed to own a firearm can lend their firearms to other individuals who have a licence to own a firearm? That means that if I am licensed to own a firearm and the chair is licensed to own firearms, but he actually has three registered firearms, he can legally lend those firearms to me. So the police would pull up my name up in the registry and it would tell them that I was in possession of zero firearms, whereas in fact I was legally in possession of three. That's all completely legal, according to the system as it is set up now. That's one reason the licensing portion is so important and why police, I believe, should be—and I believe they are—looking at who has the potential to own or be in possession of a firearm.

I also want to bring up another point. There's also the argument that police are checking the long-gun registry 10,000 times a day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'd like to bring this meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, meeting number 15. We are today focusing on Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry).

Our first witness is the mover of Bill C-391, Ms. Candice Hoeppner, the MP for Portage—Lisgar.

We agreed on April 28—I'll read from the motion of Mr. Holland. He makes the comments, “...just so it's clear that she's getting special consideration...”--referring to Ms. Hoeppner--“that the mover of the bill, Mrs. Hoeppner, be granted 30 minutes at the beginning to present her private member's bill, and that she be included in the list of 15 witnesses afforded to the Conservative Party.”

That's taking away one witness from the Conservative Party and giving Ms. Hoeppner 30 minutes.That's the motion. We had a recorded vote on that. It was in public.

Do you have a point of order?

Firearms Registry

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader continues to show Canadians that he is only in it for himself by politicizing everything he touches, including the long gun registry.

The Liberal leader is whipping his members to ignore their constituents and support the wasteful long gun registry. I hope that those Liberals who voted for Bill C-391 will not deceive their constituents and change their votes.

Could the Minister of Public Safety update this House on this important issue?

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member for Nipissing—Timiskaming has a big decision to make when it comes to the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. He was once clear with his constituents when he called the long gun registry “disgusting”. At the second reading vote on Bill C-391, he declared, “I decided quite a while ago that I was going to support this bill”. Now he is being forced by the Liberal leader to vote for the long gun registry.

The member for Nipissing—Timiskaming says that he wants more changes to his own party's position. He has only two choices: he can vote to keep the long gun registry or he can do the right thing and scrap it. It is that simple.

The North Bay Nugget said in an editorial last week that “huge numbers of folk regard the registry as a multi-million dollar boondoggle”.

The member for Nipissing—Timiskaming should do the right thing and actually listen to his constituents and vote to scrap the Liberal long gun registry.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader has whipped his members into supporting the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. We hope that those Liberals who voted for Bill C-391 will not deceive their constituents by changing their vote just to satisfy the Liberal leader. The choice is clear for all MPs, especially those who voted for the bill at second reading. We either vote to scrap or keep the long gun registry.

Could the Minister of Public Safety update the House on this important issue?

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca has now made it clear that he will ignore his constituents. He is going to allow his vote to be dictated to him by the Liberal leader, and he will be forced to support the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

What is even more confusing is that the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca said on Friday that witnesses had already appeared on the long gun registry bill. This is strange, because the public safety committee has yet to hear witnesses on Bill C-391.

If the member really wants to talk to police about the long gun registry, he should talk to Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson or Evan Bray from the Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers or even the four Conservative members of Parliament who served their country as police officers themselves.

The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca has a choice. He can vote to keep the ineffective Liberal long gun registry or he can vote to scrap it. We know his constituents want him to scrap it.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, because of the support of 8 Liberal and 12 NDP members, the Conservative Bill C-391, which provides for the dismantling of the firearms registry, has not yet been defeated. Quebec Liberals are now trying to save face by attacking the Bloc Québécois, whose membership voted in favour of keeping the registry intact.

Rather than falling prey to partisanship, if they wished to act responsibly, the Quebec Liberal members should attempt to convince the dissenting Liberal members so that these eight members will support maintaining the gun registry at the next vote.

Until then, the different points of view should be heard in committee. When it comes time to vote, we shall see who the true supporters of the registry are. We hope that all Liberal and NDP members will join the Bloc Québécois in defeating the Conservative Bill C-391.