Bill C-19 (Historical)

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to remove the requirement to register firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted. It also provides for the destruction of existing records, held in the Canadian Firearms Registry and under the control of chief firearms officers, that relate to the registration of such firearms.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

There are 10 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-19. Motions Nos. 1 to 10 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now propose Motions Nos. 1 to 10 to the House.

Motions in Amendment

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 1

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 2.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 11.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 19.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 23.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

moved:

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 24.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 28.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-19 be amended by deleting Clause 29.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the report stage of the bill. The first amendment standing in my name would delete clause 1. One might wonder why I would want to delete clause 1 of a particular bill because it is the short title. We had a debate about this at committee stage. Clause 1 of the bill states, “This Act may be cited as the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act”. The intent of the government seems to be that it wants to end the long gun registry. Instead, it has proposed a bill that would do a heck of a lot more than end the long gun registry.

First, there is no such thing as a long gun registry. We have a registry of guns, which consists of various types of guns and rifles. There are prohibited weapons, restricted weapons and then there is everything else. Included in the everything else category are the ones that the Conservatives have been talking about for years and have done nothing to fix the problems and anomalies that occurred as a result of the failed implementation by the Liberal Party when it was in power. They just talked about the long gun registry as if it were a separate registry that was designed to make criminals out of law-abiding hunters and farmers, which seems to be the common phrase. That seemed to be the mantra. However, what we have is legislation that is reckless in its design.

I moved an amendment, which I could not move here because it was already moved in committee, to rename the bill the “risking public safety act”. That is what Bill C-19 would do. It would risk public safety by treating all non-registered, non-restricted and non-prohibited weapons the same. In that category is included semi-automatic rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, a whole variety of guns that are in very dangerous to public safety. Therefore, they would not be controlled at all.

Second, the bill would prohibit a recording of transfers in certain instances. If I have a shotgun and I sell it, the current legislation requires me to contact the registry to find out if the buyer has a licence that is valid. If the buyer shows me a licence, that would not be good enough. I would have to call and ask whether the buyer's licence is a valid and existing licence. In the interim, from when the licence was issued, the buyer may have been subject to a firearms prohibition for any number of reasons unknown to me, even if I am related to the buyer. The buyer could be my brother-in-law or my first cousin, but I may not know that he or she has a firearms prohibition for any number of reasons, whether it be trouble with the law because of having committed an offence or exhibiting signs of mental instability that I have been unable to detect because I know the buyer so well and he or she seems normal enough to me. Nevertheless, the buyer could be prohibited from having firearms and that licence might not be valid. The registry would inform me of that and I would not sell my rifle to that person.

The provision says that if I am going to sell my rifle, I may call the registry. However, and this is important, the legislation says that nobody at the other end is allowed to record that call, that the registry is not allowed to keep a record of me checking that out.

What is the purpose of that? It serves no purpose whatsoever. In fact, it makes the other provisions requiring an action by the a seller to check a licence unenforceable. That is what the Mounties say about it. The RCMP, which run the registry and which the government does not listen to in this regard, has said that this is tantamount to making the rules unenforceable. One of the consequences of that is it will lead to an underground market in rifles and shotguns and other non-restricted weapons.

By doing this, the government will be removing any requirement for gun shops, sporting goods stores, Canadian Tire stores, to keep a record of to whom they have sold rifles, shotguns or even ammunition. They used to have to do that. That provision lapsed when the gun registry was brought in because it was unnecessary because all guns had to be registered, so that was okay.

By removing the requirement for all non-restricted or non-prohibited guns to be registered, there will be no record. The government has not reinstituted the requirement for gun shops, sporting goods stores, Canadian Tire stores, which are entitled to sell guns in Canada, to do that anymore. We basically have a loosey-goosey system for the registration of guns or police knowledge of guns.

When we wonder why Canadian police chiefs are opposed to these changes, we just have to look at the comments they have made. They talk about the registry being an important investigative tool, that it helps them investigate crimes, that it helps them find the source of guns and trace guns. We have an international obligation to do that.

Something that has been misconstrued by government members and witnesses at committee and members throughout the House is the fact that 14,000 times a day the registry is consulted by police forces and individual public enforcement agencies across the country. If we put all these things together, we understand how important the gun registry is to police services.

A lot of talk was had both in committee and in the House, suggesting that this was really only incidental, that law enforcement was not consulting the registry, but rather consulting CPIC, which has registry information on it. That was the spin given on this. Any time a police officer checked a licence, automatically this picked over a check on the registry and that was part of the use of the registry. It turns out that is not true.

I have a copy of the last RCMP report dated November 2011, signed by previous RCMP commissioner, William Elliott. The report was not released until January. It was not made available to our committee and the House did not ask for it, but it was made available to the Minister of Public Safety. It was one of the last acts of William Elliott as commissioner of firearms. The report said that the 14,000 inquires in 2010 were made to the firearms registry, looking for information on firearms or on individuals.

That shows two things. First, it shows how useful this instrument is for police forces across the country. Second, it shows a bit of a pattern of a lack of full disclosure by the government and government members on this issue. The Conservatives do not want people to know the facts because they do not want the facts to get in the way of the argument that they have made time and time again.

This is of importance to a lot of Canadians, on both sides of the issue. In the government's zeal to kill the registry, it has done unintended things. There is the law of unintended consequences. Many of the unintended consequences have to do with the fact that the Conservatives are risking public safety by making things worse than they were before the registry came into effect. That is wrong. To call it the ending of the long gun registry act is inaccurate and inadequate. We think that should be deleted.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, can my colleague explain and comment on the remarks made by the so-called Minister of Public Safety, who refuses to listen to the Province of Quebec and who has responded once again with a flat “no” to the request to transfer rather than destroy the registry data?

What can he say about this?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, another important aspect of this is the risking of public safety. By going further and failing to allow other governments to make use of information, which was collected at public expense, in the interest of public safety, the government is clearly risking public safety, in this case of Quebeckers, and we think that is wrong.

The government has not listened to anybody on this issue. It is making a big to-do about listening to victims and that it is the only government that has ever listened to victims. We had the victims of the polytechnique massacre before our committee and they were not listened to. We had victims of domestic violence and they were not listened to. We have had spokespersons on behalf of victims whose family members were murdered and they were not listened to. The Government of Quebec was not listened to.

There is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy going on here. I hope Canadians take note of that and are aware that this hullabaloo about listening to victims only happens when it suits the government to use it for its own purpose.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague could address this question. He continues to generate this question about the automated queries that are conducted by police across this country.

We heard clear testimony at committee that the vast majority of those queries were automated. It is misleading to suggest to Canadians that the checks directly to the firearms registry are checks done by direct front-line police officers. He is not telling Canadians that that is, by and large, done by an automated system or by telecom operators who work in a back room somewhere. They are not being conducted by front-line police on the streets when they are going out in response to calls. The member is continuing to perpetuate that.

With a 43% to 90% error rate in that information, can my colleague honestly say that is the kind of information we want to hand over to the Province of Quebec or have our law enforcement officers rely on for their own safety?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question because it is one that has been used by the government side.

The report of the Commissioner of Firearms dated November clarifies that point and indicates that the queries may be both automated and manual but that these are queries to the firearms registry itself and not just checking on a licence.

There may well be certain errors in any database but work has been done on that, too. The error rate is very small as it stands right now. In handing that over to someone to build a database from, obviously eliminating the errors, would be part of the building of that database.

I do not think it is irresponsible at all. In fact, I think it is reckless and irresponsible to destroy that information when we have a government that wants to make use of it to protect its citizens and to uphold its citizens' desire to have a comprehensive gun control program in its province.