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.

Ending the Long-gun Registry Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert for his presentation. I even tweeted it because I had not heard anyone in the House of Commons say “as a libertarian” at the beginning of a statement. I found that to be riveting.

I am baffled in this debate. Whenever a member of the opposition says that the police chiefs of Canada voted unanimously that they find the long gun registry useful, and whenever anyone in the opposition says that the RCMP commissioner, William Elliott, sent a report to the government on August 27, 2010 in which he said that the firearms registry is a critical component of the RCMP's entire firearms program and further, that it was cost effective and efficient, the response from the government tends to be that the opposition made these things up, that they did not happen. These reports stand.

I ask the hon. member to explain how it is that the institution of the RCMP and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have supported the registry, yet the government members say it is not useful for them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to question Chief Blair on this very issue when he appeared before the public safety committee on its examination of Bill C-391, a private member's bill in the last Parliament. I have no doubt Chief Blair supports the long gun registry and has his reasons for doing so, but I would submit to the hon. member that he does not speak for all the chiefs of police across Canada. He does speak for the association because he is the president.

The hon. member will do doubt know, or should know, that quite a number of chiefs broke ranks, although there was considerable political pressure not to break ranks. For example, Chief Rick Hanson from Calgary came to the committee. He did not share Chief Blair's advocacy for the long gun registry. I think if we asked police chiefs generally, in a world of finite resources where they have to choose between more boots on the ground or an ineffective long gun registry, they would answer that they want resources diverted elsewhere. If we asked them straight out about the long gun registry, they would probably give us a positive response, but if we asked them to rank it vis-à-vis other more effective resources, we would get a very different response.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier that I was in the public accounts meeting when the Auditor General talked about the flawed nature of the data. There is a perception that an officer inquires on the long gun registry every time, but it is actually a computer program and there are a number of checks when a CPIC check is done. What data can be relied on? Does the member know about licensing and that data which is available all the time?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised a good point. Yes, the registration information is inherently unreliable. It is searched thousands of times a day simply through a CPIC search when a motor vehicle is pulled over on a routine stop.

The licensing information is much more accurate. Nothing in this bill changes the licensing regime. Individuals who want to purchase firearms or ammunition will still need a licence. That information is much more accurate and much more effective in the hands of law enforcement.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from October 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to speak to the government legislation to end the gun registry.

This could be a serious policy matter for legislators to address were it not for the politics of the Conservative government and the mess made with the registry by the previous Liberal government. We could have a discussion on community safety; we could listen to our police; we could pay attention to the concerns and situations of all Canadians, including our rural communities and aboriginal people, but we have not.

The government is now bent not only on ending the registry but on returning this country to a place worse than when the registry was introduced. The government is bent on the destruction of the data collected for the registry that the police and the provinces want kept. The government that screams about the money wasted on the registry by the previous Liberal government is prepared to spend billions on a bonfire to destroy the records.

This law and order government will not listen to the police. The government that talks about respecting provincial rights and provincial jurisdiction will not listen to the provinces who want to keep the data.

All of this is because of an ideology that has nothing to do with community safety or the rights of our citizens.

Let us be clear about the legislation and all it does beyond ending the gun registry.

The legislation eliminates the requirement to register non-restricted firearms and destroys existing records of the long gun registry.

As a registration certificate will no longer be required to possess a non-restricted firearm, certain offences in the Firearms Act are being amended or repealed. The Criminal Code is also being amended so that the failure to hold a registration certificate for a non-restricted firearm does not give rise to any of the offences relating to unauthorized possession of a firearm and does not allow police to seize firearms.

Previous versions of the government's bill to dismantle the registry had a requirement for people to check that the person to whom they were selling or giving a long gun was a licensed firearm owner. Earlier versions also allowed for businesses to keep records of the sale of long guns as was the practice prior to the registry. The bill contains neither provision.

As New Democrats, we have made it clear that there is a better way to proceed. We can have good gun control laws and also address the problems of the registry.

In 2010 the NDP put forward a number of suggestions to address problems with the registry while maintaining its value as a public safety tool. The proposals included: decriminalizing first time non-registration of long guns, making a one-time offence a non-criminal ticket; enshrine in legislation that gun owners will never be charged for registration; prevent the release of identifying information about gun owners, except to protect public safety by court order or by law; and, create a legal guarantee for aboriginal treaty rights.

For the Conservative Party, which is now the government, the long gun registry has been all about politics and fundraising. For five years as government it never introduced government legislation to do away with the registry it hated. Instead, it used its opposition to the registry to raise funds for the party.

Despite campaigning to abolish the registration of long guns in the 2006 general election, the Conservative government never actually brought a bill before the House of Commons for a vote. Instead, it preferred to simply fan the flames of division between urban and rural Canadians.

As a resident of northern Ontario, I know of the significant criticisms from rural and aboriginal Canadians for the registry. Under the Liberal government's management, the implementation of the long gun registry was marred by long delays, fees for registration and significant cost overruns. It was not properly introduced or managed.

Our party's former leader, Jack Layton, understood the north and those concerns. In August 2010, building consensus across the country in cities in rural Canada, he said:

Stopping gun violence has been a priority for rural and urban Canadians. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to sit down with good will and open minds. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to build solutions that bring us together. But that sense of shared purpose has been the silent victim of the gun registry debate.

[The Prime Minister] has been no help at all. Instead of driving for solutions, he has used this issue to drive wedges between Canadians.... [The Conservatives] are stoking resentments as a fundraising tool to fill their election war chest. [The Prime Minister] is pitting Canadian region against Canadian region with his “all or nothing show-down”. This is un-Canadian.

This kind of divisiveness, pitting one group against another is the poisonous politics of the United States. Not the nation-building politics of Canada.

No matter our views on the registry, the government needs to get its head out of the sand and recognize some facts. We know how many times the registry is used. As of September 30, 2011, the Canadian firearms registry is accessed 17,402 times per day. We know there is value related to this registry that must be retained.

While there are significant cost overruns in the initial phase of registry set-up, as highlighted by the Auditor General's 2006 report which revealed that the cost of the Canadian firearms program had hit $946 million by 2005, by 2010 the cost of the registry was stabilized at about $4 million.

Some provinces want to keep the registry data and some do not. Let us allow each province to decide for itself. If Quebec wants the registry data, it should be Quebec's right to keep it. If Saskatchewan does not, Saskatchewan should be making that decision, not Ottawa. Yet the Conservative government that loves to preach about letting provinces decide now wants Ottawa to dictate that decision. What a strange day for a party that was born of Reform and Canadian Alliance parents who hated Ottawa doing just what the Conservatives are now doing to the provinces and regions.

I have received well over 600 emails over the last couple of days about the gun registry. I will quote from an email that I received from Michael:

[This government] has no right to destroy the Long Gun Registry. This information has been bought and paid for by Canadian Taxpayer[s].

Destroying it would be disrespectful to Canadian the Tax Payer, not that respecting the Canadian Tax Payer matters much to [this] government.

Barbara wrote in an email:

I hope all NDP members fight 2 save Registry Data. Data was collected by provinces and does not belong to the Federal Government. Take it to the Courts if needed; 60% of Canadians stand with you!

I received an email from Richard who wrote:

I agree that the long gun registry needs to be fixed but not abolished. There are people in the community that are informed and like gun laws.

Here is another email, this one from Jacques. He says:

The government has done three things that I am uncomfortable with:

1. Abolishing the gun registry even though police officers are asking that it be maintained. How can they justify allowing the free circulation of firearms?

I will not list the other two points that make this man uncomfortable since they have nothing to do with the gun registry.

As I said earlier, I have received hundreds and hundreds of emails, and I would like the government to reconsider keeping the gun registry data.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member made reference to the costs of implementing the gun registry. I thought maybe he would take some shots at the Liberal Party.

My concern is that many outside professional groups have seen the value of the gun registry. We like to believe that governments make decisions based on information and facts and that it applies some common sense.

I can assure the member that typically this is what we have done as a party. We look to the member to provide some comment as to the direction in which he would be taking us if the NDP were in government. Would the NDP commit to reinstate the gun registry?

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, the fact of the matter is we are not in government; we are in opposition.

What the government is going to do in the short term is get rid of the data that has been collected for the gun registry for the last 15 to 20 years. Some provinces want this data and some provinces do not. The government should allow the provinces to decide for themselves what to do with this data.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know the member opposite is passionate about the issue, but much of his information is very misleading. I cannot see how it is going to cost the federal government $2 billion to destroy the records.

Also, those records actually belong to the federal government and not to the provinces. This was federal government legislation and therefore belongs to the federal government. The Privacy Act says that the federal government cannot pass that information on.

Does the hon. member understand that particular aspect of this matter?

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I never said that destroying this data was going to cost a billion dollars.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Nickel Belt about recent press coverage which suggests that the long gun registry was protecting us from more than the legal long guns used by hunters and by first nations, but also applied to such things as the semi-automatic self-loading Ruger Mini-14 and the Steyr Mannlicher HS50, a .50 calibre sniper rifle that can pierce armour.

These are weapons that have been used in the commission of crimes, such as the Norwegian bloodbath which occurred in the summer. I am wondering if the hon. member can speak to the increased risk to public safety from these weapons becoming delisted.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is a great risk to all Canadians if this gun registry is disbanded.

While I have the time, I want to read from another email that I received. Jason wrote:

I am writing you this letter in regards to vote to continue debate over [the long gun registry]. I am asking that you vote to continue the debate, and give yourself more time to hear the comments from your constituents.

I consulted with my constituents in all parts of my riding. The member for Portage—Lisgar was in my riding, in a hotbed of hunters in Cache Bay for a meeting on the long gun registry. Eighteen people showed up. This is a gun registry hotbed. Seven people were for the gun registry, two were my people, and that leaves 11 people.

What happened after this debate is that my polling numbers went up. The member came back a second time to my riding, to Sudbury, for the same thing. Again, my polling numbers went up. At the end of the day I beat my nearest opponent, the Conservative candidate, by 50%. I am very proud of the fact that I voted to keep the gun registry.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the members for Portage—Lisgar and Yorkton—Melville for their work on this important issue. Their efforts have helped ensure that the government could bring forward Bill C-19 and finally rid Canadians of the failed and ineffective long gun registry.

As a retired member of the RCMP, I would like to relate what I saw as someone who was on the street for 20 years. Before I do that, I would like to speak to the amount of money that has been wasted on this registry and provide a different view on what that money could have been spent on. We know that when the long gun registry was introduced, the previous Liberal government indicated that it would only cost about $2 million. Yet, we hear that number is as high as $2 billion to date. If that money had been invested in crime prevention programs, such as youth or women at risk programs, they would not only have assisted police in their day-to-day investigations but provided opportunities for those in high risk environments.

This is also money that could have been spent on better investigational tools for the RCMP to investigate complex cases. It could have gone toward surveillance equipment, more police vehicles, a number of things to deal with day-to-day operations or more front line police officers. One thing that I have heard from the opposition is that there is not enough money for new police officers on the ground. In fact, the cost for a member in the RCMP is approximately $130,000 a year. That includes wages and equipment.

That would have equated to a total of 1,538 new members on the road since this gun registry was enacted if we base it on $2 billion. That in itself would have benefited all Canadians. Instead, the previous Liberal government persisted in building and maintaining a gun registry which did nothing to prevent crime and was not a viable tool for law enforcement.

I would now like to speak to my experience as a police officer. We have heard a great deal from the opposition about what a useful tool the long gun registry is for law enforcement. My own experiences do not support that. The point I want to emphasize the most is that whenever I investigated murders, domestic disputes, robberies, break and enters or any other crime, I always assumed there was a firearm involved. It is simply better to be safe than sorry. Gun instincts will serve police officers much better than relying on computer entry data. I want to provide a couple of examples of that.

When police officers approach vehicles during routine stops, they will have done the computer checks to determine who the vehicle belongs to, et cetera, but what they do not know is if there are firearms in the vehicles. Therefore, when officers approach vehicles, they will approach close to and behind the driver's side door, making sure the driver of the vehicle has to look back at them. If police officers walk straight to the door, they leave themselves very vulnerable. That is why police officers will always make the driver look back at them.

Another example is when police officers approach residences. They will always stand to the side of the door before knocking. Why? Because if a bullet is coming through the door, it will not hit them. That is just common sense.

Drug investigations are a different breed altogether. Having been involved in drug investigations for three years, more often than not when we found firearms, they were stolen and not registered. For the most part, criminals do not register their guns and I will explain why. It is due to the fact that when and if criminals apply for firearms licences, they are refused. That is because gun owners must undergo a rigorous police background check as part of the licensing system. Criminals work outside the system, just as they work outside the law.

I would also like to talk about a major flaw in the long gun registry that no one talks about. In fact, I have not heard it once in the debate from either side. In my experience, the system itself is completely unorganized.

Say, for example, that someone owns a long gun which is produced without a serial number, such as a Cooey .22 and there are many others. The process would be to register the firearm and then the sticker would be mailed, which would be attached to the long gun as the serial number. Sometimes, the owner would receive two stickers with two different serial numbers. This happens a lot. Members can imagine the confusion that this creates and also the lack of confidence it brings in the efficiency of the long gun registry. That is why, in my experience, it is simply not a viable tool to prevent crime or help law enforcement.

One of the most compelling things that this government is doing to fight crime in this country is the introduction of Bill C-10, safe streets and communities act. That is what I am hearing from police officers in my riding and across the country. The safe streets and communities act would deliver greater accountability for offenders, better justice for victims of terrorism, and would eliminate house arrest for serious crimes. It would eliminate pardons for serious criminals and sex offenders. It would strengthen penalties for drug crimes, especially for those that target kids, and it would produce better protection for children against sexual predators.

This is real tangible action that would give those on the front line the confidence that we as politicians are doing our job. It demonstrates that we as a government are working to give police the tools they need to get their jobs done. That was a commitment we made during the last election and it is a commitment we are delivering on.

Another commitment our government very clearly made was to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. It is something that Canadians across the country have spoken out against. It is something we received a clear mandate to do on May 2 and it is something we fully intend to deliver on.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, New Democrats have been saying for many years that we need to find a way to address the problems with the registry, while further strengthening gun controls. Our position is clear. We want to see the legitimate concerns of rural and aboriginal Canadians addressed, while ensuring that police have the tools they need to keep our streets safe.

I was listening to my colleague and he talked about how much we need more police officers on the street. I should remind him, and he can comment on this, why the Conservative government backtracked on its pledge to add 2,500 police officers on Canadian streets. Here we have a colleague who is saying that we need more police officers on the street but his government does not even believe in doing that. There are police officers across Canada who are saying that the gun registry is the proper tool to enable them to continue doing their job. Maybe he would like to comment on why the government, when it had the funding to do so, backtracked on providing 2,500 police officers. That was the Conservatives' promise.