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.

Motions in Amendment

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

Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member for St. John's East expand on a point? With the passage of this legislation, should it pass, which we expect it will, what will be the situation for Canadians in relation to the protections that existed before this act was brought in?

The member mentioned certain aspects would become moot. Which weapons would no longer be registered?

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

Mr. Speaker, the short answer is many guns. The gun that was used in the polytechnique massacre for example would no longer be required to be registered. The gun used in the Dawson College shooting in Montreal would not be required to be registered. Sniper rifles would not be required to be registered.

There is a whole series of them. Sawed-off shotguns that are manufactured as sawed-off shotguns, in other words not cut off, would not be required to be registered. There is a whole host of problems that are created by this bill, some of which the government knew about and others which it did not.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the important issue of the gun registry. We have been fighting this battle for quite some time and have devoted more effort to it since the arrival of this government in 2006.

In my speech, I will address three fundamental aspects of the motions that we have introduced. The first aspect is that we obviously want to try to prevent this government from abolishing the gun registry. All experts told us that the registry is relevant, including women's groups, the police and victims' groups. Without exception, they told us that the registry is an important public safety tool, a tool that saves lives, that helps police with their investigations, and that helps keep police safe as they go about their daily work. The gun registry costs around $4.1 million per year, which amounts to 12¢ per capita.

We do not understand why the government is saying that it is extremely expensive. I will talk about another paradox. This government is prepared to spend $7.5 million on a queen's jubilee, including $3.7 million on medals. That amount could pay for the gun registry for a year or more. The government prefers to spend money on a queen's jubilee rather than on the public safety of the women and children of Quebec and Canada.

The president of the Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal was very clear about this on May 13, 2010. This shows that this is a long-standing debate. He said:

...rarely has there been such unanimity among Canadian police—namely the Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Association of Police Boards—who concur with women's and suicide prevention groups that the registry must not be touched.

...If Bill C-391 is passed, the Ruger Mini-14—used by the killer at École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989—will no longer have to be registered. That makes no sense.

Many experts agree that abolishing this registry makes no sense, but the government will not listen. Since 2006, these experts, including police officers, as well as women and victims, have told the government time and time again that it is wrong and that its actions will have serious repercussions on public safety.

The Barreau du Québec even said that the Firearms Act must be maintained as it currently exists and that scrapping the firearms registry will put public safety at risk.

This is not a good start for a government that claims to be tough on crime. I think my colleagues would agree that the people who came and gave evidence knew what they were talking about. They were experts. They were people who work in the field in this domain and who told us that this does not make sense.

The question remains: where is the problem? Registering a firearm, even transferring a firearm, is free. Furthermore, it can be done in just a few minutes, either by phone or online.

The firearms registry is an effective crime prevention tool, and I will give some examples. Of course, this government believes that all the statistics we quote are fictitious, but we will quote them nonetheless. In Quebec, the rate of homicides committed with a firearm dropped by 40% between 1995, when the registry first came into effect, and 2006. Of course, this registry has also had an impact on the rate of suicides committed with firearms. Several studies have been done on the matter.

Access to a firearm combined with a temporary or long-term depression can result in a person using a firearm to take their own life.

Both homicides and suicides are prevented thanks to this registry. Prevention occurs thanks to the registry and the numbers are there to prove it.

This registry has also contributed to reducing the theft of hunting rifles from hunters. How so? A registered weapon is undesirable to criminals because it is easier to trace the weapon used in a homicide or any other crime if it is registered. It is therefore beneficial for hunters to register their firearms because it prevents their firearms from being stolen.

This registry also makes police work easier. According to the numbers released by the RCMP in August 2010, the registry is consulted 11,000 times a day across Canada and, of that number, 2,842 consultations are linked to public safety related events. As we can see, the registry is not consulted for nothing.

The very troubling thing about this bill is that it includes no provision to restore the requirement for businesses to keep sales records for firearms. That requirement existed from 1977 until the bill to create the firearms registry was passed in 1995. That requirement was dropped because now we had a registry. Not only does this provision no longer exist, but it is not included as a guideline in the current bill. It is not there. When we look at it, we get the impression we are going back 35 years, but with this government we are starting to get used to living in prehistoric times.

This second aspect is underscored in the motions we have moved: I am talking about verifying the validity of the permit when a firearm is sold. Under this bill, such verification becomes optional, which means that, in the case of a person whose permit has been revoked or who falsifies the documents, the firearms vendor would not verify the validity of the permit. We know that 7,000 long gun registrations were revoked by judges in 2009 for public safety reasons, including mental health and many other reasons. In other words, someone whose permit has been revoked can easily buy a firearm since no one is checking the validity of the permit.

The third factor mentioned in our motions is, of course, the destruction of data. This government was clear. During the last election and in previous elections, the government has always been clear. We cannot criticize the Conservatives in that regard. They always said that they would abolish the firearms registry. However, they have never been given a mandate to destroy the data. In any case, it was never clearly specified during the last election. As an aside, 80% of the population of Quebec did not vote for this government. We see that this government is completely out of step with Quebec values.

That being said, it is unacceptable for the government to destroy the data because, for one thing, it does not even have the mandate to do so. For another, there are provinces that want the data to create their own registries, perhaps later on, which is only fair. I think these provinces have the right to have their own registries. Quebec made the request and Quebec taxpayers have already paid for this registry. We have already paid. Taxpayers across Canada paid for this registry. Quebeckers paid for it and they have the right to have the data from this registry.

The president of the Fédération des policiers et policières municipaux du Québec, Mr. Côté, said that, next to the physical evidence of the weapon, the starting point for an investigation is often the data, which make it possible to identify important witnesses or even a suspect.

In short, the people who will benefit from this bill are criminal gang members, simply because they will now be able to easily steal firearms that will no longer be registered. They will be able to acquire weapons since, in theory, everyone can now have them and commit crimes.

Now, I am calling upon the Government of Quebec to keep the promise it made to all the victims of the Polytechnique and Dawson College massacres and women's groups by creating a Quebec firearms registry no matter what happens, whether or not the Conservatives transfer the data.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this week, Ms. O'Sullivan, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, stated that, in her professional opinion, Canada is not doing enough for victims.

Does my colleague agree with the federal ombudsman that eliminating the gun registry, which helps protect victims, makes no sense and will exacerbate the problem? The Conservatives are obsessed with harsher penalties and the freedom to bear arms, but they could not care less about victims.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. Unfortunately, he is absolutely right. This is nothing new. They have been singing the same old song since 2006. The government says that it speaks on behalf of victims and protects them. Mr. Sullivan, the former federal ombudsman, also said that this government was not doing anything for victims.

Before the election, the Bloc Québécois introduced a bill in the House to protect victims' families, and it will reintroduce that bill. The NDP and the Liberals all supported the bill, but the Conservative government never supported the bill, which would have helped victims, including men and women who have lost children or whose children have committed suicide.

This government could have done the right thing for victims, but it did not. This government does not protect victims; it just uses the law to get revenge. The problem is that public safety should not be based on vengeance and backward ideology. It should be based on rehabilitation, prevention, an intelligent response to crime and, most importantly, victim support.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is very concerning is that every time the Conservatives come forward with one of these gun bills, they use the bill to try to get through a whole manner of other things. The last bill they had would have allowed gang-bangers in Vancouver to drive around with restricted weapons without being stopped.

Now we see from the change in the licensing requirements that there would be a whole illicit trade in guns, because one would not actually have to verify that someone has a proper licence. If one phones the registry to find out is someone has even done this, it will be clear that even the registry is not allowed to keep a record.

It seems to me what we are seeing is nudge, nudge, wink, wink to the gun lobby that once the law comes into effect, it will be open season and people will be able to trade guns however they want, and no one will have the legal protection to find out.

Why are the Conservatives making it impossible to keep record checks so we could find out whether people should be able to buy these guns?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been watching this government since 2006, particularly concerning this issue. I simply cannot understand its position, because all experts agree on the relevance, value and importance of this registry. Furthermore, one of the experts called upon by this government even wrote a book entitled “How to Manipulate Public Opinion”. This just goes to show the kind of experts the government relies on.

That said, the Conservatives have still not implemented the regulation that would allow imported weapons to be registered and documented. The United States has similar regulations. In the U.S., when a foreign weapon enters the country, they know where it comes from, which company made it, what year it was made and so on. Canada has yet to implement that regulation, although it exists. Yes, this does facilitate weapons trafficking.

This government claims that it wants to fight weapons trafficking and violence in our streets, but at the end of the day, what is it doing? It is allowing weapons to circulate freely. Tomorrow morning, anyone can go and purchase a weapon, without registering it of course. Thus, the authorities will never know this person has a weapon, let alone how many. Imagine that. People can easily import weapons because, in any case, although the regulation on importing weapons exists, it has not been enforced. This government has been influenced by the firearms lobby—

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have amendments before the House today that would delete certain sections of the act, such as the section to eliminate and destroy the registry records at the time the bill passes. Other sections I seek to delete would make it an offence to travel with long guns in a vehicle. I think this would help to create more public safety at the time the bill is going through.

Speaking more generally to the bill, I remember where the bill came from. We all recall the killings at École Polytechnique and the great demand by Canadians from coast to coast that we act to take greater steps to control the use of weapons in crimes of violence.

One of the witnesses before the committee back in November of last year, Nathalie Provost, was one of those who had been shot at École Polytechnique. I wish to quote from some of her evidence:

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.

If we pass this bill, we will abandon a lot of work done by many Canadians who were friends and families of the victims, but more so, those across the country who recognized the risk and realized we should take action.

That is not to say that the long gun registry has been perfect. It is not to say that it was implemented in ways that made all Canadians confident in the system. I believe there would have been, had there been an occasion for compromise, an opportunity for those who had legitimate concerns to see changes made to this bill.

Here, I recognize that for members of the Conservative party, and for two members of the New Democratic Party who chose as a matter of conscience to vote with the Conservatives on this bill, there are aspects of the way the long gun registry has been created that create concern. For members of the Green Party, I have heard from a lot of people in rural areas who would like to see the legislation changed. However, the circumstances were such that we were forced to be for or against the bill, with no compromise. There was no room for us to see how we could maintain a registry so that we would know where semi-automatic weapons were, and know which guns were used by snipers, and know if they were sawed-off shotguns, so that we would know where these arms were and that if they were legal weapons in Canada that had to be registered, we could maintain that registry.

I am afraid that in the haste to kill the long gun registry, because it has been such a rallying cry for the Conservative party, it has moved too fast. This is not the first time they have done that. It has moved so fast that it has ignored the implications confirmed to us by the RCMP, that in removing the long gun registry we are now moving backwards to a point farther back than where we were before this bill was passed. We are going back more than 30 years and losing the requirement that a person who buys a weapon must ensure at the point of sale that the purchase is registered, so that the police will know that someone has a weapon. We have absolutely wiped out the registration for a whole category of weapons, including the kind of gun that was used at the massacre at École Polytechnique and the kind of weapon that was used at the CEGEP at Macdonald College.

Moving too rapidly like this, and not thinking things through because the goals have become much more geared by spin doctors than by criminal law analysts, is leading to our having bad legislation passed. I think we should now ask at report stage that we rethink this. The opportunity is a brief one: it comes down to 10 amendments put forward by members of the official opposition, the Green party, and the Bloc, as seconded by members of all parties on the opposition benches. They are saying that we should just take this chance to think this through whether we can, by deleting the sections that create unacceptable situations, and provide a way to lessen the negative impact of this legislation.

I wish we could have started this over, bearing in mind the concerns of so many witnesses before the House of Commons committee. I am reminded very much of the importance of the evidence by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. It pointed out very clearly in its evidence that there was a significant preventative and investigational value to law enforcement and the communities it serves in having the long gun registry. It pointed out that, yes, there has been over-spending. We certainly know that much more was invested in setting up the long gun registry than needed to be done. It certainly went over budget, but that money is all sunk costs. The annual functioning of the long gun registry now, as confirmed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation, and confirmed by the Canadian Association of Canadian Chiefs of Police, is cost effective.

We have a registry now that is working and that law enforcement officials have reasons to use. If we look to the most recent report of the RCMP, the 2010 report that came out after the House adjourned for Christmas and the New Year, it again confirms that this registry is being used by law enforcement officials. It is being used more than ever before. It is being found to be cost effective.

If ever there was a time for members of the Conservative Party who are concerned about crime on our streets to pause and consider, this would be it. As my colleague from the Bloc Québécois just pointed out, when the registry is functioning and a long gun has been registered, it reduces the likelihood that someone will steal it. It is traceable and trackable. It actually reduces the risk of crime to legitimate legal gun owners.

We also know it provides police with the tools to avoid a conflict when responding to a domestic violence situation if they know there is a long gun present in the home. Gatineau police chief Mario Harel testified that the current registry is “a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege and the broader right of society to be safe”.

Since the House adjourned at Christmastime, there has been greater and greater evidence that this bill has moved too quickly and we are losing the opportunity to keep Canadians safe. The venerable mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, in mid-December called for a reconsideration of scrapping the long gun registry as it became quite clear that more weapons would not be traceable at all through the failure to recreate the existing registrations that were set aside when the superior registrations under the long gun registry came into effect.

The rush to kill the registry is borne more out of a visceral hatred for the fact it was created at all than for sensible public policy. There is a middle ground. In their speed and ideological vengeance toward the previous Liberal government which brought in the long gun registry, I am afraid my colleagues and friends in the Conservative Party are moving too quickly.

It is time to do as much as we can at report stage and pass all the amendments. I would plead with Conservative Party members to pass Motions Nos. 1 through 10. This would go a considerable way toward improving this legislation. I beg colleagues on all sides of the House with constituents in rural areas, hunters, farmers and those driven by a concern for the safety of women and knowing that passing this legislation would put women's lives at risk, to take the chance and pass these amendments.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I respect my colleague's opinions on this, but there is so much misinformation and facts that just are not true, that I must ask a question.

The member has been in my riding a number of times. She will know that a number of surveys have been done in my riding over the last seven or eight years, and the lowest number ever was 82% on any poll ever done. That is not my own number. The numbers from the radio stations and newspapers support that. She should know that in rural Canada, especially my riding, the registry is just a plain bad idea.

She talked about more debate on the issue. I have been at this and I know the member for Yorkton—Melville has been at this for 16 years. How much time for debate does she really think we need? Would 17 years do it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I love going to the riding of the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. The fact that his riding had the wisdom to elect the first woman member of Parliament to the House of Commons, Agnes MacPhail, gives us good reason to rethink this legislation in the interests of women's rights across Canada.

I do not doubt for one moment that the majority of constituents opposed it as it was constituted. I hope in my statement I made it clear that I think it needed fixing. It had an unnecessary number of measures that made law-abiding rural residents feel they were becoming criminalized. We could have come to a middle ground where we could all agree to keep the registry and law enforcement tools while removing the elements that unfairly stigmatized law-abiding gun owners.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague on her excellent speech. She spoke about the consequences of abolishing the gun registry, including the theft of legal guns used for hunting. Long before the registry was created, most criminal groups—those who did not have a gun trafficking network but had hand guns—could obtain shotguns simply by stealing them from homes. They would saw off the shotgun to make it even more dangerous than a hand gun and easy to conceal. It is easier to conceal this type of gun.

If we abolish the gun registry, do we not run the risk of an increase in this type of theft and the use of these types of modified guns because they will no longer be registered and therefore will be easy to use?

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. With this bill there is a very real risk that the theft of long guns will increase. These thefts could rise because no law exists requiring the registration of long guns. There is the risk of more, not less, crime. I am absolutely sure that the Conservative members would be unhappy with this outcome, but that is what will happen.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again to Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act.

In my last speech on this bill, I talked about what role long guns play in Canadians' lives in both rural and urban settings, for women and for men. They are tools for hunting, tools for trapping, tools for farming, and tools for athletics. I talked about how they constitute a symbol of our past and indeed remain a necessary tool in present day life for so many Canadians. First nation, aboriginal and all law-abiding gun owners have been stigmatized and subjected to this onerous and misguided legislation for far too long.

Since the second reading of Bill C-19, the opposition has not lacked in emotion but has consistently fallen short on the facts. Here are the facts. The long gun registry does nothing to make Canadians safer. We were told the long gun registry would cost about $2 million, and the cost has ballooned to exceed $2 billion. The long gun registry targets law-abiding citizens because criminals are not registering guns, nor are they using these sorts of guns to commit crimes.

I would like to introduce members to what I call the seven myths of the opposition. If any of my hon. colleagues would like to count along with me, they would be more than welcome to do so.

Myth number one is that the long gun registry will help keep suicide rates down.

During committee, of which I was a member, we heard clear evidence from peer-reviewed studies which concluded that the discontinuation of the registration of non-restricted firearms is not likely to result in an increase in the aggregate suicide rate.

Myth number two is that the long gun registry will keep women safer.

During committee we heard peer-reviewed research which demonstrated that the discontinuation of the registration of non-restricted firearms will not result in an increase in homicide or spousal homicide rates through the utilization of long guns.

This only makes sense because the people registering long guns are not committing these crimes. These are men and women who are impeded by the red tape and the stigma of being long gun owners. They do their civic duty, despite the unnecessary and wasteful burden imposed, and register their firearms because their government tells them it is the law. Meanwhile, criminals do not do any of this and enjoy the freedom to operate outside of the law with all the rights and protections of the law. This does not make sense to people in my riding, and it does not make sense to me.

The opposition attempts to position the debate on long guns as men against women, and offender and victim. At committee we heard directly from women, women who hunt, women who trap, women who have represented our great nation in international shooting competitions. The opposition would like Canadians to believe it is only men who own guns, and this is simply not the case.

Myth number three is that guns will now be as easy to get as checking out a book at a library.

The opposition is ignoring the facts and misleading people who do not own long guns and who are not familiar with the process. I can tell Canadians, as can any long gun owner, that the requirements for licensing are not changing and include a Canadian firearms safety course, and for some, additional hunter safety and ethics development courses, and of course pre-screening security background checks.

Myth number four is that police support the registry and the elimination of the registry will put police in danger.

Here is what we heard from law enforcement officers:

I can tell you that the registration of long guns did not make my job as a conservation officer safer.

That was said by Donald Weltz at committee.

We also heard in committee that a survey conducted in April 2011 of 2,631 Edmonton city police concluded that 81% supported scrapping the long gun registry. We heard that the Auditor General found that the RCMP could not rely on the registry on account of the large number of errors and omissions. We heard numerous times that the police state they do not trust the information contained in the registry and they would not rely on that information to ensure their safety.

Myth number five is that the data should be saved and turned over to the provinces that wish to create their own registry.

The registry is the data. Our commitment to the Canadian people was clear that anything less would be disingenuous. The data was collected under federal law for a federal purpose and it will not be turned over to another jurisdiction.

The committee heard evidence that the RCMP had reported error rates between 43% and 90% in firearms applications and registry information. We also heard that a manual search conducted discovered that 4,438 stolen firearms had been successfully re-registered. With these errors, it would be irresponsible to the extreme to allow this unreliable, ineffective and grossly expensive system to be handed over to anyone.

Myth No. 6: Registering a long gun is no different from registering a car. What did we hear in committee on this assumption? Solomon Friedman accurately stated that unlike registering our car, failure to comply or errors in the application have criminal implications. People do not go to jail or receive a criminal record if they do not register their car.

Myth No. 7: Registering a firearm is simple, so what is the harm? Again, the harm is that any mistake has criminal implications, and the mistakes in the registry are staggering.

Furthermore, consider more testimony from Mr. Friedman:

I have two law degrees. I clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada, and I practise criminal law for a living. Even I at times find the provisions of the Firearms Act and the gun control portions of the Criminal Code convoluted, complex, and confusing.

If that is the case, how can we expect average Canadians to navigate this quagmire without error and how can we have criminal consequences as a result? How can we expect our law enforcement officers to interpret and apply complex and convoluted legislation with discretion and consistency if a criminal lawyer well-versed and studied on the subject matter finds it difficult at times?

I will highlight the conclusions of Gary Mauser, PhD, Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Simon Fraser University, when he accurately pointed out that “responsible gun owners are less likely to” commit murder “than other Canadians”. He went on to say that the long gun had not demonstrated its value to the police and that “the data in the long-gun registry are of such poor quality that they should be destroyed”.

That is exactly what would happen.

Our government has made a clear commitment. Promise made, promise kept. We know we are on the right track. How do we know this? Two years ago, my hon. colleague, the member for Portage—Lisgar, introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-391. If that bill had passed, it would have ended the long gun registry but it was defeated in this House by a mere two votes. However, those were not free votes. Members turned their backs on their constituents for fear of reprisal from their party. Some stated publicly that they were in favour of scrapping the registry but were not willing to leave their party over it or be removed from it. The only reason the long gun registry has survived this long is that members picked their parties over their constituents. Canadians remembered that last May.

How else do we know we are on the course? Evidence in the committee, as I have already mentioned, was overwhelmingly in favour of getting rid of the long gun registry, and that was empirical evidence, not opinion evidence. Members from the opposition, the members for Thunder Bay—Rainy River and Thunder Bay—Superior North, voted in favour of Bill C-19 but were punished for it. They were punished for doing what their constituents wanted. I congratulate them for that decision. The member for Western Arctic abstained from the second reading vote. One can only hope that the member will remember his commitments to the great people of the Northwest Territories and that he chooses them and choose facts over the hysteria and hyperbole running rampant through the opposition benches.

Regardless, I can tell the citizens of Yukon, NWT and Nunavut that this member and the hon. member for Nunavut will be standing up for their rights and their use of long guns as daily tools to practise traditional, cultural and present day necessities of life by standing up and voting to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this issue is certainly important to the constituents of my riding of Scarborough Southwest, an urban Toronto riding. I know that getting rid of the data in the gun registry will not make Canadians safer.

I listened to the member's impassioned speech. Certainly, open and free debate is what we need in this country on these issues. The member raised some serious issues. If we were to take at face value that there are a large number of errors in the registry, as well as an alarming rate of stolen fire arms re-registered, that begs the question of how and why did that happened. Who was responsible for the gun registry? Yes, it was introduced by another government but, since 2006, the current government has been in power. What has it done to keep the data up to date? What has it done to prevent criminals from re-registering stolen firearms? Absolutely nothing. The Conservatives love to uphold laws except for the ones with which they disagree. Why did the government not do anything to fix the problems?