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.

[Ann Decter, Director, Advocacy and Public Policy, YWCA Canada]

Good morning.

As you know, I'm Ann Decter, and I'm the director of advocacy and public policy at YWCA Canada. I'm here today with my colleague, Lyda Fuller, who is the executive director of YWCA Yellowknife, and has obviously travelled a long way to speak with you.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our concerns with Bill C-19, which would end the long-gun registry; erase registration records for over seven million firearms; allow unrestricted firearms to be purchased without licence verification or point of sale registration; and eliminate registry-generated warnings about stockpilings of weapons. These will have very serious consequences for women experiencing violence in this country.

YWCA Canada is the nation's largest single provider of shelter to women and children fleeing violence. Every year, 100,000 women and children leave their homes seeking emergency shelter. Almost 20,000 of them come through the doors of our 31 shelters looking for safety, for a roof over their heads, and for some care and some support.

Our shelters tell us that the long-gun registry is useful and needed. Our rural shelters—and those include Sudbury, Brandon, Prince Albert, Lethbridge, Peterborough, Saskatoon, Banff, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit—tell us that police consult the long-gun registry every time they go to a domestic violence incident, not automatic checks, but deliberate and specific searches for firearms in the home, especially long guns.

There is unanimous support for the registry among service providers working in violence against women. In every province and territory, the shelter and transition house association supports the long-gun registry. Why? Because shotguns and rifles are the guns most commonly used in spousal homicides, and especially when women are the victims—not handguns, but shotguns and rifles.

Ending violence against women, which is a goal of YWCA Canada, will require much more from Canadians than willingness to complete a registration form in order to own a hunting rifle.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who spoke to this committee last week, has described the long-gun registry as providing “a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege and the broader right of the society to be safe”. What hangs in that balance is the safety of women and children.

Thank you.

Lyda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome. This is meeting number 13 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Tuesday, November 22, 2011. Today we are continuing our study of Bill C-19, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

I will remind our committee that we will try to keep each of the next two hours to 55 minutes each so we can have 10 minutes at the close for committee business to deal with Mr. Chicoine's motion. Hopefully the transition between the two meetings can be very quick so we can give proper attention to Mr. Chicoine's motion.

We will begin by hearing from the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, Ms. Suzanne Legault, Information Commissioner. We welcome you here. It's always good to have you before the committee.

From YWCA Canada we have Ann Decter, director of advocacy and public policy. We also have Lyda Fuller, the executive director of the YWCA Yellowknife.

Appearing as an individual we have Daniel McNeely. From 1998 to 2006 he was involved with Northwest Territories Business Development and Investment Corporation. He has travelled northern Canada extensively.

We have three presenters here this morning. One was unable to make it, so we will stretch it out and give you a little more time. We've been giving about seven minutes to each one. As long as we're done before nine or ten minutes, we should be all right.

Madame Legault, we look forward to your comments.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

We have a budget. You have a copy of the budget. I have to go to the Liaison Committee on Thursday, I think, when they meet next. Have you all had the opportunity to take a very quick look at it? It's standard. The total package is for $69,900 for the study on Bill C-19.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Ms. Cukier, the minister came before the committee. I thought he said that--even with Bill C-19--store owners would still be required to keep records of who they sold guns to. I reread the testimony and he didn't actually say that. He kind of skated around it.

But the point has been made that Bill C-19 will not remove that requirement, so there is some confusion around it. I'd like to get your opinion about that.

[Cst Randall Kuntz]

I agree with Bill C-19. It's a good start.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

So you disagree with Bill C-19, I guess, because you wish it would go on for everything....

[Donald Weltz, As an Individual]

I would like to thank the chair and the members of the committee for allowing me to appear before you today.

My name is Donald Weltz. I come before you in support of Bill C-19, an Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

I will attempt to briefly outline my introduction to firearms and my enforcement background so that you have a more informed understanding of my experience with long guns.

As was stated earlier, I retired in 2007 with 32 years of service as an Ontario conservation officer with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and was named officer of the year in 2007.

I have owned long guns since I was 12 years of age. I was instructed in the safe use and handling of those guns by a police sergeant with the Kitchener Police Department, as it was known then, and by a World War II vet who was a lifelong friend and father figure for me over the past 46 years until his passing in February 2009. I also hunt, although as I get older I find that I spend less time hunting.

My primary duty throughout my 32-year career as an Ontario conservation officer was fish and wildlife law enforcement. I was issued with and I carried a side arm as part of my uniform and was required to qualify yearly in its use. I was trained in the powers of search, seizure, arrest, and the use of force, similar to the Ontario Provincial Police. In 1975 I attended the Ontario Police College in Aylmer, Ontario, for my basic enforcement training.

Throughout my career as a conservation officer I have personally checked thousands of long guns being used by hunters in the field, and I have been required to search under warrant numerous homes and other buildings to secure evidence of crimes. These searches included buildings located in isolated bush areas in remote parts of the province, and dwellings, outbuildings, and commercial buildings in rural and urban areas.

I can tell you that the registration of long guns did not make my job as a conservation officer safer. It doesn’t matter whether as an officer you search one house in your career or 2,000; the legal requirements are the same, and the possibility of violence and resistance from the occupier of the building you are about to search is always present. To go into a search with a semi-complacent attitude, believing that there are no guns present--and thereby being left with a perceived diminished risk to your safety and that of your fellow officers because a check of the firearms database has indicated there are no guns registered to the individual at that location--can be a deadly mistake.

As an officer, I was trained to expect the unexpected. I preferred to enter situations relying on my training, my fellow officers, and my heightened awareness of what might be waiting for me. An officer who enters a building in a search situation and who lets his or her guard down as a result of relying on information relayed to the officer that there are no firearms registered at that location is placing himself or herself and others in a dangerous situation.

Although as a conservation officer I had the ability to run checks through the firearms data centre, I can only remember doing so once or twice, and those were on occasions when I was trying to determine whether the hunter I had stopped for a routine check legally owned a specific firearm in the hunter's possession.

Similarly, the registering of long guns does nothing to increase the safety of the public. The fact that a long gun has been registered does not prohibit that firearm from being used by an individual with criminal intent. It is not the long gun that commits the criminal act, but the individual in control of that long gun who has spontaneously, or through deliberate and premeditated intent, taken it upon himself or herself to carry out a criminal act.

How does the registration of a long gun stop someone in a fit of rage induced by drugs, alcohol, or a nervous breakdown from going to the locked gun cabinet, unlocking it, taking out that registered firearm, removing the trigger lock, loading it, and hunting down and shooting the people he believes are responsible for his problems? The act of registering long guns does not stop this type of situation.

I have heard people ask why individuals would be upset with registering their long guns. We have to register our vehicles, they say, so what's the difference? In looking at that analogy of registering your vehicles, I would ask this question: has the fact of registering our vehicles reduced the number of impaired drivers? In an impaired driving situation, is the vehicle the problem or is it the driver who decided to drive while their ability was impaired with alcohol?

To the best of my knowledge, I do not know of any criminal who has registered their firearm knowing that they intend to use that firearm during the commission of an offence. Long guns, as their name suggests, are just that: long guns. They are not the weapon of choice of criminals because they cannot be concealed easily. Long guns are typically used by hunters, target shooters, and farmers, who generally are regarded as law-abiding citizens.

As for the destruction of firearms records upon removal of the long-gun registry, I am in favour of that data being destroyed, as there will be no legitimate reason to keep it when the long-gun registry is repealed. The police already have driver's licence and vehicle registration information on file for millions of individuals in Canada.

Of all the tragedies that have occurred in Canada involving firearms, did the firearm actually commit the offence, or was it the person in possession of the firearm who caused those devastating events that changed so many lives?

In conclusion, I believe that firearms owners should be licensed and that firearms should be stored safely, which will go a long way towards reducing careless or accidental firearm incidents. I also believe that the registration of long guns in the current registration system is costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year and is doing absolutely nothing to make our police or the public safer. Therefore, I would ask this government to repeal the long-gun registry.

Thank you again for this opportunity.

[Mathieu Murphy-Perron]

When the votes were read, we were deeply saddened to see that the Conservative Party's elected representatives had laughed in the faces of mothers who had lost their children because of gun-related violence.

We know that Canadians don't like this type of governance. We hope that this committee will agree to undertake a careful and lengthy study to better analyze the potential consequences of Bill C-19 before referring it for a third and final reading without any amendments.

We thank you for your time and would be more than happy to answer any questions from the committee members.

[Mathieu Murphy-Perron, Executive Director, Dawson Student Union]

Some people may say that the required debate took place, since previous incarnations of the bill have been before Parliament. However, those incarnations did not contain measures that would eliminate the mandatory licence verification for individuals who buy weapons and the mandatory keeping of firearm sales records by vendors. Those two measures date back to 1977.

They are healthy and rational measures. Doing away with them quickly, in the wake of the debate on the long-arm registry, is very worrisome, especially considering the limited debate the government held on this bill.

We at the Dawson Student Union are used to hearing the tired old argument that the registry did not stop the shooting from taking place at our school. We tell cynics that it's precisely because we were victims of violence caused by firearms that we are deeply interested in working with all levels of government on improving the current system and reducing the risk of future shootings.

Consider the following. In the months preceding the shooting at our school, Kimveer Gill tried to join the Canadian Forces. He was rejected because of mental instability. If licence security control had included the information exchanged between our military forces and the registry, Mr. Gill's file would have been flagged and the events of September 13, 2006, might have never happened.

When our laws let us down, we mustn't just shrug and accept defeat. Our collective responsibility is to find the holes in the system and fill them. Students know that. Students also know that it is better to fix and improve than to forget and set aside. Elected representatives should know that as well. They mustn't let themselves be guided by ideology alone. They have a moral responsibility to strengthen the programs society has paid for.

All Canadians have paid for the registry. Quebec has paid for it. Quebec sees the registry as an integral part of its pacifist values. On three occasions, Quebec's National Assembly voted unanimously to keep the registry data in order to facilitate the creation of its own provincial system. Every elected representative of the Quebec nation voted to keep the long-gun registry.

Why does the federal government seem to think that it has the power to refuse a national assembly the information paid for by its constituents?

Even the handful of Quebec's Conservative MPs have at times spoken out in support of Quebec's right to keep the registry. The federal government has no reason to deny Quebec its portion of the data it has paid for. The cost of maintaining the current registry is less than $4 million dollars a year, or 15¢ per Canadian.

At Dawson College, a survey was conducted 18 months after the September 13 shooting. Almost 1,000 individuals took part in that survey. Fifty percent of the respondents said they had heard gunshots, 54% hid during the shooting, 35% witnessed an injury or murder, 13% saw the shooter and, finally, 24 people helped an injured person.

Eighteen per cent of those asked showed signs of developing psychological problems after the shooting. Those problems ranged from post-traumatic stress disorder to social phobia, from alcohol dependence to suicidal tendencies.

A number of participants also said they had attempted suicide in the 18 months following the shooting. Those people are students, professors, administrators, and cafeteria and maintenance staff. They are all real people who were left with very deep, sometimes permanent, scars after the September 13 events.

We are talking about thousands of adolescents who will forever live with the memory of bullets whistling through their school's hallways. We are talking about hundreds of students with the image of the shooter running through their school etched into their memory. We are talking about dozens of people who helped get their blood-covered schoolmates out on the morning of September 13.

The lives that were lost and scarred by that event need not have been in vain. If the registry can help save one more life or help one less person be affected, is it not worth keeping?

With such a low operating cost, why do anything but try to improve the system?

We have had productive discussions with the members of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party. They all have very interesting ideas on how to improve this registry to better serve all Canadians.

We understand that some Canadians have doubts about the program's usefulness. We understand that some of them see registering their firearms as a difficult and complicated task. We extend our hand to you with an open mind, so that we can find common ground.

We were there when the vote was taken to refer Bill C-19 to this committee.

[Audrey Deveault, Chairperson, Dawson Student Union]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Audrey Deveault, and I chair the student union of Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec. The union represents 10,500 students.

As students, we are encouraged to show curiosity, criticism, respect and involvement in terms of the world around us. We are taught that this is the foundation of a functional society.

On September 13, the fifth anniversary of the shooting at our school, we tried to get an audience with the Prime Minister in order to discuss his government's plan regarding the long-gun registry.

We had hoped that, as the Prime Minister, he would show a willingness to meet with us, his electors. Our invitation, phone calls and e-mails were ignored. We were not refused an audience; we were completely ignored. The way the government is rushing the passing of Bill C-19 and all the other bills is very worrisome.

At school, we are taught to be mindful and understanding. Yet, our elected representatives are exhibiting a closed and narrow-minded vision. We feel that society benefits more from a government that consultants individuals and groups.

A country cannot be governed for four years based on the platform of a three-week election campaign. We are worried by our government's refusal to hear from just over 300 groups that have data to share about the effectiveness of the long-gun registry.

We are worried by our government's blatant disregard for reports from doctors, nurses, psychologists and law enforcement officers.

We are worried by the fact that our government prefers to orchestrate a war that sows discord among Canadians, rather than to help us find common ground.

We are worried by the fact that, not only is our government refusing to talk to Canadians, but it is also using procedure to try to silence the opposition parties and its elected colleagues.

In light of the way the government is dealing with bills C-10 and C-19—coupled with the suppression of Statistics Canada and the elimination of the long-form census—we, as students, have a hard time holding back our skepticism when our elected representatives chose to govern blindly.

Statistics, research and science should be the pillars upon which policies are built. Students are urging all elected representatives to distance themselves from political games whose goal is to silence all those who do not agree with the ideologies of a controlling and power-hungry individual.

Do the right thing. Don't agree to pass Bill C-19 quickly so that it becomes law. Give yourselves and your voters the opportunity to thoroughly study Bill C-19 and its repercussions on public health. You were elected to listen, debate and be open to discussion.

Please, keep in mind that the country's students and youth are watching you and looking up to you for guidance on how society should work. Keep that in mind that over the coming days, months and years.

[Professor Wendy Cukier, President, Coalition for Gun Control]

Thanks very much.

I'll try to be brief because I want to save some time for my colleague, Dr. Barbara Kane, to speak.

The Coalition for Gun Control is a non-profit organization. It was founded more than 20 years ago. Its position on firearms regulation has been supported by more than 300 public safety and community organizations across the country. We maintain that Canada's Firearms Act as it is written is an important piece of our national strategy to prevent gun crime and injury and to support law enforcement, and considerable research has shown that effective regulation of firearms is linked to reductions in firearm homicide, suicide, accidents, and crime.

In our opinion, the amendments contained in Bill C-19 will put Canadian lives at risk. Like previous legislation aimed at ending the requirement that individuals register their non-restricted firearms--guns that include the powerful semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14, which was used in the Montreal massacre, as well as sniper rifles, including some .50 calibre variants--this bill will allow a licensed individual to acquire an unlimited number of guns without even checking if their licence is valid, which was an important improvement in the 1995 legislation. There will also be no means of knowing who owns these guns, who sold them, and how many are owned.

There will be no way to trace a gun recovered at the scene of a crime back to its original owner. We are losing not only an important public safety tool, but an important investigative tool.

Briefly, registering all non-restricted firearms to their legal owners is key to the effectiveness of our gun control policy, because these guns are used in homicides, suicides, and unintentional injury. They account for a substantial proportion of firearms recovered in crimes and for the majority of guns used in the murder of women, in suicides, and in the murder of police officers. It isn't just an urban issue, as you will hear from Dr. Kane, and it's important to emphasize that the registration provisions in the legislation reinforce the licensing provisions by reducing the chances that legal gun owners will divert their firearms to unlicensed owners.

The link between the licensing of firearm owners and the registration of firearms was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in its unanimous decision on the Firearms Act in the year 2000. The firearm registry has demonstrably helped remove firearms from dangerous individuals. It was also significant in aiding police investigations, including the prosecution of two men as accessories to the murder of four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alberta.

In Canada, the rates of firearm death and injury have fallen dramatically with successively stronger firearm regulation, and the costs of maintaining the registration of rifles and shotguns are dwarfed by the cost of gun death and injury.

However, Bill C-19 goes far beyond simply repealing elements of Bill C-68, the 1995 legislation. It removes critical measures that have been in place since 1977, including the following measures.

It eliminates the requirement that businesses keep a record of sales. In 1977, the government introduced the requirement that all gun transactions be recorded in firearm business records. Your legislation makes no requirement to reinstitute this.

It also eliminates the requirement that a firearms licence be verified when guns are purchased, increasing the chances that someone who is prohibited from owning firearms and represents a risk to public safety will be able to access guns.

Of particular concern is the fact that this legislation requires the erasing of the data on 7.1 million rifles and shotguns currently registered, in spite of the fact that the data is essential as an investigative tool for police officers. Several international treaties require that countries maintain these records.

We may not be able to prove exactly how many lives the registry has saved. We know for certain, however, that the firearms registry never killed anyone, and this legislation may in fact put Canadian lives at risk.

I would like to give my remaining time to Dr. Kane.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you very much.

Yes, I've followed this for quite some time, and I just want to comment on the previous exchange before I pose my question.

The many people who are watching this debate may find it confusing, because I think it has intentionally been made confusing by the people opposing Bill C-19. They confuse licensing and registration. Many of the benefits they attribute to the registry are actually from licensing, such as making sure that certain people who may have psychological problems don't have firearms. That's the result of the licensing system. I just want to clarify that, because many people watching this may not understand that.

I want to pose my questions to Ms. Larente and Ms. Cabrera.

Could you elaborate on your comments that this is a women's issue? The argument has often been made that this legislation, the registry, is needed to protect women. I hear that all the time. Could you please, maybe just briefly, comment on that?

[Robert Dutil, Minister of Public Security, Government of Quebec]

Thank you, sir.

I am very pleased to be here today for this presentation. Good morning to all the committee members.

I am going to go over the various positions on the firearms registry. We know that, since 2006, the Conservative government's position on the firearms registry has been very clear. It has presented several bills to abolish the non-restricted firearms registry many times. But it is important to understand that in Quebec, our position is also clear. We believe in a universal firearms registration system, which is very useful for crime prevention and police work. This position is also unanimously shared by all parliamentarians from Quebec, Quebec police organizations, organizations that work in public safety and security and the families of victims of tragedies in Quebec.

In addition to the Conservative government's firm position on abolishing the registry, the federal government has had an amnesty on the registry of long guns, which has been renewed every year since 2006 and has contributed to weakening the application of the Firearms Act.

Bill C-19, as presented and studied, is aimed not only at abolishing the firearm registry, but also at destroying all the data related to the registration of non-restricted firearms entered in the registry since it was created, something we deplore.

Bill C-19 is even a step back in terms of the rules that existed before the Firearms Act came into effect in 1998. Actually, before that time, there was an obligation for the merchant to keep a registry of their firearm inventory and information about the firearm sales transactions, including information on the purchaser. Bill C-19 does not provide for keeping this obligation in place. According to Bill C-19, when someone who wants to purchase a weapon enters the merchant's store, the merchant will no longer have to verify whether the purchaser has a firearm possession and acquisition licence, which we think is a major step backwards.

If I may, I would like to give you some historical background on the events. Since 1984, several Quebec families have experienced tragedies involving firearms. There was the attack in the National Assembly on May 8, 1984; the killing at the École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989; the shooting at Concordia University on August 24, 1992; and the tragedy at Dawson College on September 13, 2006.

Since these tragedies, we have strengthened our measures to exercise better control over firearms in Quebec and participated actively in drafting the Firearms Act, which came into effect on December 1, 1998, as you know. After the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec also adopted the Act to protect persons with regard to activities involving firearms and modifying the Act respecting safety in sports, an act that was called “Anastasia's Law”, in memory of Anastasia De Sousa, a student who died during that incident.

Quebec has also put in place operational measures, which has included strengthening the Sûreté du Québec's cybersurveillance and monitoring unit. It implemented a joint unit against firearms smuggling. But it wasn't enough. The firearm registry is an essential tool for police investigations and interventions. According to the latest statistics from 2011, the registry is queried over 700 times a day by police officers in Quebec, not just automatically—I'd like to clarify—but through a voluntary query by police officers who need this tool.

Consulting the registry helps the police make informed decisions during their operations, particularly by making it possible for police to establish the number and type of weapons that the targets of interventions have, and to subsequently intervene.

Querying the registry may also be the starting point for an investigation, when a firearm has been found at the crime scene, and helps to establish the chain of possession. So far, 1,560,359 non-restricted firearms have been registered by individuals in Quebec, or 91.2% of all firearms. Abolishing the registry means that we would lose track of these weapons.

Spousal abuse is a phenomenon in our society, and the registry also contributes to preventing tragedies and crimes against the person. In Quebec, between 2006 and 2010, we counted 264 incidents of spousal abuse involving rifles or shotguns. The statistics show that hunting weapons are used more often than handguns when it comes to spousal abuse. When the police enter these types of situation, consulting the registry lets them know quickly whether a violent spouse is in possession of any firearms.

As a result, the police can tailor their interventions or even remove them for preventive purposes.

As for suicides, statistics from the Institut national de santé publique du Québec show that, of the 650 suicides committed using a firearm reported in Quebec over a four-year period, 565 of them involved a non-restricted firearm, so close to 9 out of 10 suicides.

So the firearm registry is a very important tool for suicide prevention. Registering non-restricted firearms makes them less accessible to people who are likely to misuse them, individuals suffering from depression, for example.

It also contributes to protecting individuals with mental health problems and their loved ones. Universal registration enables the chief firearms officer of Quebec to determine whether the weapons are in the possession of people under an application for an order to confine them to an institution, or calling for a psychiatric assessment.

Under Anastasia's Law, the chief firearms officer is systematically informed of these applications. Between January 1, 2008 and November 1, 2011, 18,661 applications for orders were reported to him, and consultation of the registry made it possible to conduct more than 1,000 interventions to ensure the safety of persons. I am convinced that many lives were saved because of this. Abolishing the registry will limit the application of Anastasia's Law.

For all these reasons and many others that I do not have time to list, I would like to repeat that the government is against the abolition of the firearm registry.

We are in no way questioning the legitimacy of activities such as hunting or target shooting, when practised in compliance with the law. Rather, we aim to raise citizen awareness of the need and importance of registering their firearms, as they agree to register their other personal belongings.

I would also like to mention that, in most cases, it takes only three minutes to complete the registration.

To conclude, the Canadian firearm registry is of considerable importance for Quebec. All Canadians, including Quebeckers, have participated financially in the program.

For all the reasons mentioned, I am reiterating the Government of Quebec's position and am requesting that the firearms registry be maintained in its entirety and that failure to register non-restricted firearms be decriminalized.

Failing that, I ask that you amend Bill C-19 by removing the provisions relating to the destruction of information and begin discussions as soon as possible to transfer the information to Quebec, information that the citizens of Quebec have paid for.

If the registration of non-restricted firearms were to save just one life, from a moral standpoint, we would be justified in continuing our efforts to keep it. But we already know that the firearms registry has saved more than one life. It has saved many.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome.

I'm encouraged to see the amount of interest there is in our meeting here today, as is evident by the good attendance and also by the cameras and the media.

This is meeting number 12 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Thursday, November 17, 2011. Today we are continuing our study of the consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

In our first panel today, we will hear from Robert Dutil, Minister of Public Security, from the Government of Quebec.

Welcome to Ottawa and to our committee.

Also, from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we have Mario Harel, vice-president and chief of police, Gatineau Police Service; and Matthew Torigian, chief of police, Waterloo Regional Police Service. From the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, we have Tony Bernardo, executive director, and Diana Cabrera, administration manager. Also, from the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs, we have Hélène Laurente, volunteer coordinator of the women's hunting program.

Our committee wants to thank all of you for appearing before us today. I understand that each one of the groups or organizations you represent will have a member who will make the presentation to our committee, so we thank you for that. We're going to try to keep these to about seven or eight minutes. I'll let you know when we're at about that seven-and-a-half-minute mark so that we can get as many questions in as possible.

I would like to begin with the Minister of Public Security from the Government of Quebec.

Monsieur Dutil, please.

Firearms Registry

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated at committee earlier this morning, the analysis presented by this official is misleading. It is flawed. Contrary to the suggestion made in the analysis, neither Bill C-19 nor the prior bill removed any controls on the import of firearms.

The member is deliberately trying to paint a different picture than is actually true.