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.

[Bruno Marchand, Director General, Association québécoise de prévention du suicide]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In addition to being the Director General of the Association québécoise de prévention du suicide, I am also a member of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

Suicide is a major public-health problem, a significant one that is recognized by everyone, that takes the lives of 10 Canadians daily. Tomorrow there will be another 10 people who will die and again the day after tomorrow. It takes the lives of three Quebeckers every day. Contrary to what was said earlier, in Quebec the suicide rate has not been declining since the 1960s or 1970s. The suicide rate rose until 1999. The decline began that year and continued up to 2008.

We're opposed to C-19 and profoundly worried about its consequences. Suicide is a complex problem, which will not be controlled solely by the control of firearms. Still, it is one of the ways that may have an effect on in the lives of our fellow citizens.

I wish to refer to the World Health Organization, which on its Web site answers the question "How can suicide be prevented?" as follows:

Not all suicides can be prevented, but a majority can. There are a number of measures that can be taken at community and national levels to reduce the risk, including:

reducing access to the means of suicide (e.g. [...] guns [...];

I remind you that this is the first measure mentioned. Why is that? Because, as rational people who enjoy sound mental health, we might think that the means is only a means and that, if a firearm is not available, well there is a rope or drugs. For someone who is vulnerable, someone who enters a process of cognitive constriction and whose condition deteriorates and who doesn't find ways of ending their suffering in their life other than this poor option, the means is not just a means. It's not as though they were choosing a car, a means of transportation to get from one place to another; it's much more than that. If we take away this means from them, there's a good chance of keeping them alive and with us.

By means of a process both rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious, related to their values, culture, themselves, a person chooses a means. If they have chosen firearms and if there is less access to firearms, a definite advantage is created. This is why we're convinced that we've prevented suicides by putting up anti-suicide barriers on the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal. When the means was no longer available, the person who had selected this as their means of committing suicide didn't seek another one, even though there are other bridges around Montreal Island.

The same is true in Toronto regarding the subway and anti-suicide barriers. It was the same in the Northern European countries, when the quantities of acetaminophen and ibuprofen available over the counter were reduced. Yes, someone could go back to the drugstore 50 times. But this had a direct effect on the number of suicides because barriers were put up for the person who was vulnerable and wanted to put a permanent end to some temporary problems.

The firearms registry and all its components have prevented 250 suicides a year. Mr. Blais came to this figure and it's also what we believe since we see that the trend has declined. This cannot be compared with the relative importance of other means used. Obviously, the less firearms are used in suicides, even though the number remains more or less constant, the more the relative importance given to hanging increases as a percentage.

The registry affords more time for a vulnerable person. It means we can intervene. It allows the authorities to take the action required by a situation, and it also enables us to link the firearm to its owner. The registry ensures an accountability and traceability that most certainly allows us to let people who have a weapon and are completely entitled to have one know that they must act appropriately by protecting the people around them.

The registry enables us to take action that would not be possible with other means, for example, taking firearms away from people who are temporarily going through difficult times in their lives and who, if they had a weapon, might commit an irreparable act.

We strongly believe that the registry has had some positive effects. We're convinced of that. I wish to quote a Public Security Canada document from the government of the day in 2006 when it wanted to make some changes to the registry:

The amendments made to the bill tabled today will force current owners to check, by contacting the Chief Firearms Officer, that potential buyers of firearms and any other future owner of a non-restricted firearm have a valid firearms licence. This measure will help to ensure that weapons do not end up in the hands of individuals who should not have access to them, [...]

[Étienne Blais]

Mr. Chair, distinguished members of the committee, good day.

Allow me first to introduce myself. I am Étienne Blais, a criminologist and associate professor in the School of Criminology at the Université de Montréal. I was hired for my expertise in research and crime prevention methods.

Since I was hired, in 2006, I have developed a research program on the prevention of crime and injuries linked to firearms. From the start of my career, I have had the opportunity to publish numerous articles with peer committees and give many lectures on the issue of gun control in Canada.

Before presenting my position on Bill C-19, I would like to recall that the issue of those injured by firearms goes far beyond that of criminality, or violence associated with criminal groups. Of the 800 or so annual deaths associated with firearms, 75% are suicides. Furthermore, about 85% of suicides by firearm involve long guns. In many cases, suicides involve people who are suffering from mental disturbances or who find themselves in a momentary crisis.

Suicides are very often committed in the victim's home. Many studies demonstrate that access to a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide in general. This is also so for spousal homicides. The presence of a firearm in the home increases the risk of spousal homicide. In these homicides and suicides, firearms are the perfect facilitator enabling those with suicidal or homicidal thoughts to act on them. Moreover, it is with a view to preventing such suicides and homicides that certain provisions were made in Bill C-68, respecting firearms and certain other weapons, and its regulations, including a provision to advise current spouses or spouses of the past two years of their spouses' or former spouses' intention to purchase a firearm and of the registration of all firearms.

In my research, I have focused on the effect of these laws on homicide and suicide rates. The results of my studies have been published in reviews, with peer committees, or presented at scientific conferences, also with peer committees. In one such study, my colleagues and I evaluated the effect of Bills C-51, C-17 and C-68 on homicide and suicide rates in Canada between 1974 and 2004.

First of all, our results show that the passing of Bill C-68 was associated with a significant decline in homicides committed with a firearm, and more specifically homicides involving long guns. This decline varies between 5% and 10%, depending on the province. This corresponds to the prevention of some 50 homicides a year in Canada.

The preventive effect of the law is all the more probable in that the decline in the number of homicides by long arm is not offset by an increase in homicides committed by other methods. Furthermore, this decline may be observed solely in homicides committed by long arm. Homicides committed with other weapons, such as knives and blunt instruments, have not budged. This means that the decline that may be attributed to Bill C-68 is indeed attributable and that it is not attributable to other factors or prevention measures put in place to prevent homicides.

Second, Bill C-68 was associated with a significant decline in suicides by firearm. Once again, there is no increase or decrease in the number of suicides committed by other methods. This suggests that the decline in suicides by firearm is not offset by a rise in suicides committed by other methods, and the decline is not attributable to other suicide prevention measures. We estimate at about 250 the number of suicides prevented annually in Canada since the introduction of the Firearms Act in 1998.

Recently, we conducted other evaluations, which consolidate our conclusions that Bill C-68 helped to reduce homicides and suicides. These recent results even suggest that Bill C-68 helped to prevent spousal homicides. The effects of Bill C-68 began to appear gradually from 1998, as the provisions of this legislation were implemented.

Many studies have now been conducted on the effect of Canadian legislation pertaining to firearms control. Why look at our results? How are our results more credible than those of other studies?

First, we take into account other factors, such as the proportion of young men, beer consumption, the number of police per inhabitant, incarceration rates and unemployment rates, to name but a few of other concomitant factors.

Second, we employ statistical methods enabling us to obtain valid estimates.

Third, we distinguish homicides according to the weapon used and the relationship between the parties. However, the chief advantage of our studies resides, in my opinion, in the use of the province as an analysis unit, which many studies do not do.

For example, in our latest study, we take account of the various homicide rates in the six Canadian provinces and the Atlantic region for the period from 1974 to 2006. That enables us to have a sample of 231 observations. This is a large enough sample to detect the effects of the laws. A simple sample of 30 or 35 observations would be completely inadequate, for lack of statistical strength.

In addition, this enables us to take into account provincial jurisdiction respecting law enforcement. Laws come into effect at the same time throughout Canada, but it is the provinces that are responsible for enforcing them. So any evaluation of the laws respecting firearms control in Canada must take this into account.

Finally, using the provinces as an analysis unit enables us to take into account crime rate variations among them. Canada in itself is not representative of the problems experienced in the provinces.

In conclusion, the results of our studies demonstrate that Bill C-68 has helped to prevent 300 deaths a year. On the basis of data on the direct and indirect costs of deaths by firearm, we estimate that over $400 million a year is saved in costs from the prevention of those 300 deaths. This amount compares favourably with the $63 million dedicated annually to the operation of the Canadian Firearms Program and the $9.1 million dedicated to registration activities, according to the RCMP report.

On the basis of our results, we think that eliminating the firearms registry may compromise the health and safety of Canadians. The requirements to obtain a firearms licence and to register firearms are two necessary and complementary measures. These measures allow us to link each firearm to its owner...

[Heidi Rathjen, Spokesperson, Students and Graduates of Polytechnique for Gun Control]

Good morning. I will continue in English.

Up until now, the debate surrounding Bill C-19 has mainly focused on the registration of guns. However, the impacts of this legislation reach well beyond the issue of registration.

For example, clause 11 eliminates the requirement to keep any record of the transaction involving long guns. This means that there won't be any more paper or electronic traces indicating that a sale has taken place. There are more than 1.5 million of these private sales in about two years.

The requirement to record sales was introduced in 1977 and, in the absence of a more effective centralized registry, was at least able to serve the public safety by helping police in some criminal investigations. For example, sales records allowed police to identify the perpetrator of the Polytechnique shooting, who was unrecognizable, having shot himself in the face.

So unless a store voluntarily keeps a detailed sales record, there will no longer be any trail linking a seller to a buyer or to a gun that was sold, nor will there be any trace indicating that the sale took place. The sales will be taking place in the dark.

Bill C-19 will also critically weaken a second crucial component of gun control: the controls on ownership or licensing.

When in 2006 the Conservative government tabled Bill C-21, an earlier attempt to abolish the registry, it nevertheless recognized the importance of verifying the validity of a licence to own when selling or transferring a gun--any gun. In the accompanying fact sheet, the Conservatives reassured the public that the proposed amendment would still “require current owners to verify that a potential purchaser or another new owner of their non-restricted firearm has a valid firearms license by contacting the Chief Firearms Officer”. It stated, “This measure will assist in ensuring that guns do not end up in the hands of individuals who shouldn’t have them, such as convicted criminals”.

Yet clause 11 also repeals the obligation for anyone selling or transferring a long gun, whether it is a gun store or a private individual, to verify the validity of the buyer's licence. All they have to do is have “no reason to believe that the transferee is not authorized to acquire and possess that kind of firearm”. Technically, they don't even have to ask to see a licence.

In order to properly understand the implications of this incredible loophole, consider this. Someone about to purchase a long gun can simply hold out something that looks like a licence. It could be a revoked licence, a counterfeit licence, or even a shabby but slightly official-looking plasticized card that could be produced in any copy shop.

With Bill C-19, there would be no obligation for the seller to check the validity of the licence with the Firearms Centre or to record anything about the licence, its number, the rifle being sold, or the person he is selling it to. He just has to believe that the owner is authorized to own a gun. The buyer can convince the seller: “I promise that I have a licence”. Is that enough?

In the event that the rifle is used in a crime, it will be practically impossible to hold accountable the person who sold the gun to an individual without a licence. All the person has to say is: “Yes, I sold a gun to someone. I seem to remember that he or she had a valid licence. At least, I believed he or she did at the time, but I didn't verify its validity or write down the licence number or the buyer's name”. There is no technical violation of the law unless the police can prove that this person didn't believe something.

[Nathalie Provost, Students and Graduates of Polytechnique for Gun Control]

Hello. Thank you to all of you for inviting us to appear before this committee.

My name is Nathalie Provost, I am an engineer, a 1990 graduate of the École Polytechnique, and a mother of four. I represent, with Heidi Rathjen, the Student and Graduate Student Associations of the Polytechnique, the board of the Alumni Association, and many witnesses and survivors of the massacre and their families.

I was injured on December 6, 1989, at the École Polytechnique by a shot with a semi-automatic rifle while other more seriously wounded students died around me. Long guns are dangerous, as I know only too well. The shootings at our school triggered a Canada-wide movement to improve our gun control laws. The massacre highlighted the weaknesses in Canadian legislation.

At the time, it was relatively easy for a 16-year-old to be authorized to acquire an unlimited number of firearms. There were millions of long guns in the country that were invisible to the police. Soon after the murders, students at the École Polytechnique launched a huge petition calling for stricter gun control.

In 22 years, we have been able to contribute to impressive legislative and public progress, particularly with respect to the substantial decline in gun-related death and suicide rates. When Conservative politicians argue that long guns are not a problem because they are not the weapon of choice for criminals, they are ignoring the evidence and basic common sense.

The Supreme Court underscored what is obvious to all but the Conservatives. Guns cannot be divided neatly into two categories -- those that are dangerous and those that are not dangerous. All guns are capable of being used in crime. All guns are capable of killing and maiming. It follows that all guns pose a threat to public safety.

Out of respect for the memory of victims of long guns, including the 14 victims at the École Polytechnique, and out of compassion for all those who, like me, have felt the burn of a gunshot, could you, Conservative Members of Parliament, stop pretending that long guns are not a crime-related problem?

In fact, every year, police revoke the licences of over 2,000 potentially dangerous individuals and confiscate the weapons in their possession. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews recently admitted to the House of Commons that in a little over two years, 4,612 long guns were seized in connection with licences revoked for public safety reasons. In all, 111,000 firearms are currently in police custody, of which 87,000, or close to 80%, are long guns.

These actions, supported by the registry, prevent tragedies and save lives. Which ones exactly? We don't know -- because they haven't taken place. No massacres, no headlines, no list of names of people saved. When prevention measures work, there are no incidents to document. Just don't try and tell us that the registry is not effective.

In 11 days, it will be the 22nd anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre, in which I was injured and escaped death. So it is with a very heavy heart that I am witnessing the legislative process leading to the dismantling of one of the few positive outcomes of this tragedy: the law that helps save hundreds and hundreds of lives.

With Bill C-19, we are allowing the gun lobby to dictate the kind of society we want to live in, a society that is irreversibly going backwards towards easier access to firearms, which will doubtless lead to more lives and families being destroyed with the pull of a trigger.

[Dr. Gary Mauser, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, and fellow panellists. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you.

I am Gary Mauser, professor emeritus, SFU. I am here as an individual criminologist to present facts, not myths. I will use my time to highlight a few issues referred to in the longer written brief that I have provided to the clerk.

For the past 25 years as an academic criminologist, I have focused on evaluating firearms legislation. The government is to be congratulated for proposing that the long-gun registry be eliminated. When a government program has failed to meet its goals, it should be shut down rather than permitted to drain funds for no good reason.

In my brief address, I will hit four points. First, responsible gun owners are less likely to be accused of homicide than other Canadians. Second, the police have not been able to demonstrate the value of the long-gun registry. Third, the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing homicide. Fourth, the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed.

My first point is that law-abiding gun owners are less likely to be accused of homicide than other Canadians. This should not surprise. Firearms owners have been screened for criminal records since 1979, and it has been illegal since 1992 for people with a violent record to own a firearm.

Gun owners may be compared with other Canadians by calculating homicide rates per 100,000 people. Based on a special request from Statistics Canada, I calculated that licensed gun owners had a homicide rate of 0.6 persons per 100,000 licensed gun owners, while over the same time period there was an average national homicide rate of 1.85 per 100,000 people; thus, Canadians who do not have a firearms licence are roughly three times more likely to commit murder than those who do.

Despite these facts, the RCMP budgets more than $20 million annually for the long-gun registry.

The second point is that the police have not been able to demonstrate the value of the long-gun registry. Scrapping the registry could not appreciably compromise law enforcement's ability to trace firearms. Statistics show that the police recover registered long guns in exceptionally few homicides.

During the eight years from 2003 to 2010, there were 4,811 homicides, and 1,485 of those involved firearms. Data provided by Statistics Canada reveal that only 135 of these guns were registered. In just 73 cases, that is, fewer than 5% of all firearm homicides, was the gun registered to the accused, and some of those, of course, may be innocent. Only 45 of these 73 cases involved long guns--fewer than 1% of all homicides. The long-gun registry could not, therefore, significantly compromise law enforcement's ability to trace firearms.

The police have not been able to show that they have solved a single murder by tracing a firearm using the long-gun registry. Nor has the long-gun registry proved useful in solving police killings. Since 1961, 123 police have been shot and killed. Only one of these murders involved a registered long gun, and it did not belong to the murderer. It is a truism that the most dangerous criminals have not registered their firearms. Unsurprisingly, serving police officers say the registry is not useful to them.

Worse, the long-gun registry has reduced the effectiveness of the police by driving a wedge between them and responsible citizens who own firearms.

My third point is that the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing homicide rates. There is no convincing evidence that the registry has reduced criminal violence. Not a single refereed academic study by criminologists or economists has found a significant benefit from the gun laws.

Two examples illustrate this: the homicide rate fell faster before long guns were required to be registered, and the homicide rate fell faster in the U.S. than in Canada over the same time period of 1991 to 2010. Needless to say, the U.S. did not share Canada's gun laws. Also, the rate of multiple murders has not changed since the long-gun registry began.

The fourth point is that the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed. The many errors and omissions in the long-gun registry vitiate its utility for police and courts. The Auditor General twice found that the RCMP could not rely upon the registry on account of the large number of errors and omissions.

In closing, I wish to thank you for your attention and leave you with a few thoughts.

The long-gun registry is misdirected because it focuses on law-abiding citizens rather than violent criminals. To do their job, police require the support of those they police. Ending the registry will help to heal the rupture between the police and responsible citizens. I urge that BillC-19 become law and the data in the long-gun registry be destroyed.

By the way, there is clearly precedent for destroying such data. During World War II, all guns, including long guns, were registered. After the war, this information was discarded in the trash bin as no longer of value or utility.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Good morning. This is meeting number 14 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Thursday, November 24, 2011, and for our orders of the day, we have Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

We will be hearing witnesses this morning.

I should say just before we begin that we had an agreement among all parties that these sessions would be televised. There was a competition for resources on the Hill this morning. There are only two rooms that can televise at the same time, and the common phrase is that we came third, so this session unfortunately will not be televised.

Yes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Bill C-19.

[Kenneth Epps]

Thank you.

In response to the first question about a potential new system to meet Canada's obligations, clearly something will be needed, if Bill C-19 is passed, for Canada to meet existing obligations, some of which are political rather than legal, and that's a point to be made. But as I pointed out, it will make it difficult for Canada to ratify conventions that are already in existence that have been ratified by other states in the hemisphere and worldwide that are important instruments for dealing with illicit trafficking of firearms. These instruments have been developed by states based on the understanding that to deal with trafficking of firearms one has to have good systems in place for legal firearms. I'm not sure if an entirely new system is going to be needed, but something definitely will be needed to fill those gaps if Canada is to meet its commitments.

With regard to the arms trade treaty, I quite deliberately did not mention it in my remarks because it's yet to be a treaty. It's still in negotiation, so it's unknown what its commitments will be. But certainly the strong treaty that is desired by many states, and certainly by NGOs like Project Ploughshares and many states that suffer from illicit trafficking, will require all firearms to be covered by the treaty. The point to make here is that this is about transfers of firearms from one state to another. It's not about domestic ownership or internal transfers of firearms, but it would require commitments similar to things like CIFTA and other existing instruments. And it would require all firearms to be covered because under international law there are no distinctions.

I hope that answers your question.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to say to Mr. Norlock that I can sympathize. We have been treated as though we were

defenders of child molesters and lobbyists for criminals. So for it to be said or implied that you don't love your community: ouch.

However, the problem in this debate over the firearms registry is that the reality lies somewhere in the middle. No one in this room thinks that the long-gun registry is going to eliminate all conjugal violence or all individual deaths. It remains that it's a tool. Likewise, I have a hard time listening to arguments by people who don't think the registry serves any purpose. The reality lies somewhere in between.

Unfortunately, we are not dealing with a government that is prepared to listen to reasonable positions. We hear speeches from athletes like you, Ms. Thom, from police like Mr. Gayder and from hunters and, since the debate has been raging, we've known that some very minor amendments might succeed in reconciling all positions. Unfortunately this isn't the path the government has decided to take, and so we're struggling with Bill C-19.

I have a question for Mr. Epps.

I'm curious because sometimes governments create laws like this without having some type of long-term, overall, or further vision. They are so on their little thing that they want to correct and make the hunters and athletes happy that they forget we have some international obligations. Do you believe that Canada will have to introduce a new tracking system for firearms to meet international obligations because of Bill C-19?

Also, am I correct in saying that at the United Nations arms trade treaty preparatory meetings in July, the Government of Canada sought to include in the preamble of the treaty that small arms have certain legitimate civilian uses and to exclude sporting and hunting firearms for recreational use from the scope of the treaty? And would you agree that Canada's position misunderstands the purposes of the treaty and confuses legitimate ownership of legal guns with the arms trade that fuels conflicts around the world?

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd also like to thank our witnesses.

I want to make it known that I don't believe any member of Parliament around this table loves his wife or community, or cares about the people in those communities—whether they be women, children, or the disadvantaged—more than anyone else.

I take great exception when somebody says that someone's stand on a particular issue shows that he or she doesn't care about a certain segment of society. That tends to be the leftist way of arguing, often when their argument begins to lose.

I want it known that I respect everyone around this table. Just because some people don't agree with the stand that I and my party have taken doesn't mean they don't love their community as much as anyone else. So I took exception to Mr. Sandhu's preliminary statement. I hope we can get away from this business of “we care more about people than you do”. We just see things differently.

Ms. Thom, as a woman, wife, and mother, and as a gun expert and someone who knows the benefits and dangers surrounding the ownership of firearms, do you feel that Bill C-19 does away with your feeling of safety and security in your community?

[Constable John Gayder, Constable, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, sir, and thank you also for your very kind introduction earlier. I do need to clarify the fact that I'm here as an individual. I'm not here representing any agency.

I have reviewed the excellent testimony of Mr. Weltz, Mr. Grismer, Mr. Kuntz, Mr. Bernardo, and Mr. Farrant in relation to how expensive and ineffectual the long-gun registry is. I am in complete agreement with them.

The long-gun registry has become the symbolic focal point in the gun control debate. But it is really just one of many elements within the Firearms Act that are odious to law-abiding gun owners and a detriment to law enforcement.

The Firearms Act and its long-gun registry were marketed to law enforcement as a tool to target the criminal misuse of firearms, but only six of its 125 pages deal with increased penalties for criminals. The other 119 pages are aimed squarely at law-abiding Canadians who own or seek to own firearms. It is a political constant that people will only have respect for a legal system when the legal system has respect for them.

Of course, we're talking about the same Canadian citizens who went to war twice in the last century to successfully rescue Europe. It was Canadian farm boys and hunters who especially showed that the firearms skills they had learned at home, at high school gun clubs, and in the woods were useful in defending freedom. In doing so, these citizen soldiers showed the awesome content of our national character. At the time, firearms ownership was a natural and respected element of our national makeup.

Unfortunately, by the 1990s, we were told by the Coalition for Gun Control and other groups that Marc Lépine now defined our national character. Canadian citizens who wanted to possess firearms were to now be treated as potentially ticking time bombs.

How did that happen? How did we as a nation allow our national character to be defined by a single madman?

Canadians are great people. Sure, there are occasional, rare, and bitterly unpleasant problems. But the idea of using these abominations to instruct how we govern our entire good nation is foreign to the historical traditions—being innocent until proven guilty, trusting in our fellow man—that have made our nation great. If the human race were really as homicidally inclined as the Firearms Act treats them, we would have been extinct eons ago.

Peace officers could not do their jobs, nor would they want to, if the vast majority of Canadians were not good people deep down. What would be the point? Disgusting, misogynist kooks like Marc Lépine need to be captured alive and brought before the courts. If that's not possible, it is wrong to honour them by creating expensive and ineffective laws that insult good people. When we think of Marc Lépine, we must not allow ourselves to succumb to dismal prejudices that if not checked would instruct us to treat everyone as a pre-criminal.

In World War II, Canada registered and confiscated firearms belonging to Canadians of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry. We subjected their homes to warrantless searches, just like those found in the Firearms Act. Recently we have been very careful to prevent committing similar injustices in the war on terror. Yet we have submitted Canadian firearms owners to the same type of treatment. In fact, today, convicted pedophiles and bank robbers are not even subject to the kinds of intrusions visited upon gun owners by the Firearms Act.

Some of the groups subjected to the wartime registrations and confiscations based on hysteria have received official government apologies. I'll submit to you that a case can be made that Canadian firearms owners are also owed an apology for being the victims of unwarranted suspicion. Bill C-19 is a good start down that road.

With regard to the long-gun registry being useful for enforcing prohibitions or for removing weapons from the home of a dangerous spouse, the registry should never be trusted as an accurate inventory or checklist. A home in which the threat of violence is real still needs to be checked for weapons as if the registry never existed, because real or potential weapons beyond what are contained in the registry could exist in that home.

You'll remember that we've heard a lot about the errors and omissions in the registry. It's the information not in the registry that is the most dangerous. Gang members and other sociopaths don't register their guns, so the registry is useless when visiting their homes or stopping their cars.

Supporters of the registry claim it is a useful tool for alerting officers to the presence of a firearm in a home, but what are the responding officers to do with that information? Even the smallest-calibre firearm represents a potentially large danger area. When responding to a call, it's still going to require a patrol officer to go up the front steps to find out what is going on in that home, either through conversation with the participants or through direct observation. At that distance, those conversational distances, they could be stabbed or clubbed in an ambush almost as easily as they could be shot. This is the same way officers have been doing business since before the registry. The registry changes nothing.

I'll close by stating that front-line officers, the ones who are at the interface where the laws created by Parliament get applied to the public, want Parliament's attention. They want funding to go toward things that have been proven to assist in the detection and apprehension of real criminals. They don't want money wasted on dreamy, ivory tower ideas like the long-gun registry, which are costly, ineffective, and drive a corrosive wedge between them and the public they are sworn to protect.

Thank you.

[Kenneth Epps, Senior Program Officer, Project Ploughshares]

Thank you.

Thank you for the invitation to address the standing committee on Bill C-19. As you heard, my name is Ken Epps and I am the senior program officer at Project Ploughshares, which is a project of the Canadian Council of Churches on peace building and disarmament issues and is based in Waterloo, Ontario.

My statement today will focus on the international dimensions of Bill C-19, in particular on the implications of the act for Canada’s international commitments related to reducing and eliminating firearms trafficking and on Canada’s controls for the export of firearms to other states.

Every UN member state recognizes that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons is a widespread and persistent problem. This is because international arms trafficking coincides with and supports other illegal activities, such as drug and human trafficking, and it feeds lethal violence worldwide. In spite of a general global decline in the number and lethality of armed conflicts, the devastation from criminal, urban, domestic, and other forms of violence persists and is even growing in many states. The authoritative 2011 publication, Global Burden of Armed Violence, estimates that more than half a million people die each year as a result of violence.

In the past decade and a half, Canada has actively supported the development of several regional and global agreements designed to establish international laws and norms to reign in the illicit trade in small arms. I would like to briefly mention four of the most important of these agreements for which Canada will not be able to meet core commitments as a result of Bill C-19.

Canada signed the CIFTA firearms convention of the Organization of American States in 1997. CIFTA is a hemispheric, legally binding agreement to tackle illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms and related materials. Canada has yet to ratify the treaty, largely because it cannot meet CIFTA requirements for marking of firearms imports. The elimination of registration of non-restricted weapons under Bill C-19 will mean that Canada also cannot meet record-keeping and exchange of information requirements of CIFTA, especially those related to international tracing requests. This means that Canada will not soon become party to the most important anti-firearms trafficking agreement of the Americas. Only three other OAS states have failed to ratify CIFTA, including the U.S., where President Obama has called on the U.S. Congress to pass the treaty into law.

Canada also has signed, but not ratified, the firearms protocol of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which entered into force in 2005. The protocol contains provisions similar to CIFTA, and for the same reasons, Bill C-19 will likely condemn Canada to not be party to the protocol for some time. This is despite the fact that at the recent Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Australia, Prime Minister Harper agreed to the outcome document that called on all Commonwealth states to ratify and implement all the protocols of the UN crime convention.

The third agreement, the 2001 UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons, is arguably the pre-eminent global agreement on small arms and light weapons. It was agreed upon by consensus at the United Nations and calls on all states to prevent, combat, and eradicate small arms trafficking by strengthening national, regional, and global legal systems. Canada, like all other UN member states, is politically bound to implement its provisions. At the national level, the Programme of Action calls on each state to implement provisions related to improving national standards and in particular “to ensure that comprehensive and accurate records are kept for as long as possible on the manufacture, holding and transfer of small arms and light weapons under their jurisdiction.” The elimination of registration requirements for non-restricted firearms by Bill C-19 will mean that Canada cannot meet this commitment and others in the Programme of Action.

Finally, as an additional product of the Programme of Action process, the UN international tracing instrument was agreed to by the UN General Assembly in 2005.

ITI provisions also include commitments to keep accurate and comprehensive records for all small arms and light weapons in their jurisdiction. Bill C-19 will create a significant hole in Canada's firearms record keeping that will reduce Canada's ability to participate in international cooperation on firearms tracing.

Bill C-19 will have an impact on the Canadian implementation of each of these four international instruments. At a time when the emerging international norms on firearms trafficking require more cooperation among states, based on greater firearms accountability by states, Bill C-19 will open significant gaps in Canadian commitments.

State partners will conclude that Canada has withdrawn support for strong regional and global action on firearms trafficking and on the proliferation and misuse of small arms. Canada's influence in multilateral small arms forums will be weakened accordingly.

I would like to conclude my remarks with a few words and a question about Bill C-19 and Canada's export controls. Canada's control of military exports governed by the Export and Import Permits Act is important to the practice of foreign policy and international security. Canadian export control guidelines call for the close control of military exports to states that are strategically or legally problematic for Canada. Bill C-19 does not refer to the Export and Import Permits Act, and consequently, in principle, regulations and procedures for Canadian firearms exports should be unaltered. Firearms, including non-restricted firearms, are included in items 2-1 and 2-2 of the group 2 military goods within the export control list.

[Daniel McNeely]

Yes. I was going to add to that, Mr. Leef. I also understand where my northern colleagues are coming from. But by the same token, we shouldn't mix with the amendment process, or the direction to amend domestic violence, in saying that this is the way it is. Maybe there's a reason for the registry being accessed or used in the Northwest Territories. Let's take one out of ten. I would probably say nine times out of ten the registry is being used for domestic violence, as you were saying. In our part of the world I think it's more an education than opening the issue of amending Bill C-19.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

You're the Information Commissioner. We know about the Federal Court decision in the Bronskill case. I thought we were heading towards more open government when it came to information. Information should be public and retained. There's a lot of talk about transparency.

Doesn't it worry you, as the Information Commissioner, that a bill like C-19 should be passed and that all the rules of access to information should be changed? It's one way of looking at it. It seems somewhat inconsistent with what we're always trying to do, namely to be as transparent as possible. We're destroying instead of retaining. Doesn't that worry you a little, in terms of your role as Information Commissioner?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you.

Please excuse my being late. A lot of things are going on at the same time on this Hill, particularly with regard to Bills C-10 and C-19.

My questions will focus mainly on one extremely worrisome aspect, which you have spoken about. You are worried about the fact that enforcement of sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act is being overridden. I have read the document you submitted to us, and I'd like it if you could explain to us further.

Do you think that Bill C-19 contradicts section 67 of the Access to Information Act? Under this section, no one can destroy, mutilate or alter a record. Do you also think this is so for sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act? I think I know what your answer will be. Do you think there will be grounds for a legal challenge?