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

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just have a small problem with the debate on Bill C-19. I would like the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming to explain what he means by a law-abiding citizen. I thought I was one because, when the bill was passed, I registered all my guns. I keep them under lock and key in my home and I obey the law.

I bought a rifle in December and it is registered. Many people did the same thing. Is the law-abiding citizen the person who, like me, registers his guns, or is it the person who is told to not register his guns because the registry will be abolished and we are going to get rid of this law?

I would like to know who is the law-abiding citizen: the person who obeys the Conservatives or the person who obeys the law?

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, law-abiding citizens are those hunters and enthusiasts who enjoy the sport. Why target these law-abiding citizens? We should be targeting criminals, those who commit crime, not those who follow the law. The $2 billion the registry cost has simply been a waste of money. It has not targeted criminals.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today we heard an astounding speech from the member for Yorkton—Melville, a Saskatchewan riding. He has been working on this issue for years. Before I was elected I phoned him. He was working on the long gun registry at that time because it was costing a lot of money, $5 million and then $300 million and it went into a deep hole.

I started examining it myself. There are many mistakes in the long gun registry. It is not accurate. The registry does not have the number of hits that people say it has. Every time a police officer inquires about a licence plate or an address, those hits are counted.

Could the member expand on the misleading information on the long gun registry that has come forward this afternoon from the members opposite?

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, that is the case. I sit on the committee that has closely scrutinized the legislation for the past number of months. The registry is ineffective. It is inaccurate. That is why we do refer to it as being wasteful and ineffective. Not only that, it has wasted $2 billion of taxpayers' money. Clearly, criminals do not register firearms. In addition, the registry is clearly redundant. We have a licensing process in place which we are going to keep to ensure safety.

As I said in my remarks, the registry really has not saved a single life in all the years it is has been in existence. It has been a total waste of taxpayer money.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to add my voice to this important debate on Bill C-19, the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.

I want to thank my colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming for sharing his time with me today and for the work he has done on the bill at committee.

I would also like to thank my other colleagues who have worked very hard to have this legislation developed and introduced in the House, fulfilling a long-standing promise to Canadians that we would repeal the long gun registry. In particular, I would like to congratulate the member for Portage—Lisgar, who has fought tirelessly to represent the wishes of her constituents and millions of Canadians by making sure this legislation goes forward once and for all.

I would like to thank every Canadian who has taken the time to write to his or her MP, to attend town hall meetings, to organize rallies and just generally to discuss this important matter with fellow Canadians.

As we are all aware, this is not the first time that legislation has been tabled in this House to eliminate the long gun registry. This is not the first time we have discussed and debated the topic of the long gun registry here or in committee or in consultations with Canadians.

Since it came into force in 1995, and particularly since our government first came to power in 2006, the long gun registry has been the focus of much debate. There comes a time, however, when debate must end and action must be taken. That time is now. Our government is firmly committed to passing this legislation. We told Canadians that we would eliminate the long gun registry. That is exactly what Bill C-19 would do.

The legislation is in fact quite simple. First, it ends the requirement for long gun owners to register their firearms. Second, it ensures that we protect the privacy of individual Canadians by destroying the long gun data currently held in the registry. Canadians can rest assured that our government will not share their personal information with other organizations or government bodies.

It is not a complicated piece of legislation, but as I said, it has generated much discussion. Throughout these debates and during our extensive consultations right across the country with Canadians from a wide cross-section of demographics, we have heard opinions on both sides of this issue.

Unfortunately, over the past several years we have heard ongoing fallacies and myths perpetuated about the long gun registry. We have heard it said that the long gun registry reduces gun crime, as we heard again today. On the face of it, that sounds like a great fact, one that has been trotted out by many members opposite and by the media and organizations across Canada in their desperate bid to save the registry. The reality is that there is no evidence that the long gun registry has stopped a single crime or saved a single life.

Supporters of the long gun registry have also said that it promotes responsible gun use. This is insulting for two reasons. First, it implies that anyone who is opposed to the registry is somehow, by default, promoting a wild west scenario where guns are everywhere and violence is rampant. Second, it implies that long gun owners are irresponsible by nature and can only be held accountable if they fill out the proper paperwork and register their guns. Both of these claims are patently false.

Supporters also claim that the long gun registry is important because it provides a proper record of where guns are located, the number and type of guns in Canada and who owns them. Again, this is a myth. The architects of the long gun registry set an impossible goal of registering and documenting every single long gun in Canada.

Many front-line police officers told us that the information in the registry was inaccurate and that reliance on it is both dangerous and foolish. One detective from the Saskatoon Police Service testified that:

—it's acknowledged by persons within policing, the firearms centre, and the recreational firearms community that there are, at minimum, in excess of one million firearms in Canada that have not been registered. The registry does not indicate where firearms are stored or who may have control of the firearm, nor does it denote ownership. Tens of thousands of firearms are registered inaccurately using patent numbers and catalogue numbers in place of serial numbers or model numbers. Many firearms in the registry have multiple registrations for the same firearm.

Clearly there are issues with the accuracy of this data.

Some of my colleagues in the NDP like fearmonger and trot out the idea that somehow the abolition of the gun registry will increase gun violence. The reality is that the most effective gun control tool in this country is our current gun licensing system and the bill makes no changes to that system.

Currently, every person must undergo a process of training and background checks before obtaining a licence to possess or to acquire any firearm. They must pass the required course on Canadian firearms safety. They also face a screening process to ensure that they have not committed a serious criminal offence and are not prohibited by a court sanction to own firearms and do not pose a risk to society. Also, under the current system, all restricted and prohibited firearms, including handguns, must be registered.

We have been clear that under Bill C-19 these controls will not change. Individuals will still need to go through the proper checks and training to obtain their non-restricted firearms. They will still be required to renew their licence periodically. They will still have to follow the rigorous rules that control prohibited and restricted firearms. These checks and balances are effective tools and we are not proposing any changes to this current system.

Our government has clearly demonstrated that it is serious about getting tough on crime, especially gun crime. However, we also need to ensure that we have a system of gun control that is effective and efficient. That is why the government has undertaken a number of initiatives to enhance compliance with public safety while easing administrative burdens on lawful firearm owners. Our government believes that gun control should target criminals, not law-abiding citizens. It should promote safety on our streets, not frustrate hunters in the bush.

Since May 2006, the government has put key measures in place to protect owners of non-restricted guns from criminal prosecution and to encourage compliance with laws and regulations. First, we introduced an amnesty period to give owners of non-restricted firearms an opportunity to register those firearms and renew expired licences without fear of prosecution. Second, we waived fees for the gun owners who renewed or modified a firearm licence. Finally, over the last number of years, we took steps to enable eligible holders of expired possession only licences to apply for a new POL to bring themselves back into compliance with firearms legislation.

The reason we have taken these steps is quite simple. The measures we have implemented have helped to protect Canadians by making sure that as many gun owners as possible are properly and lawfully licensed and therefore subject to continuous eligibility screening. These measures have been complemented through enhanced resources to strengthen the screening of first-time firearm licence applicants.

Since 2007, our government has committed $7 million annually for enhanced screening of individual licensees. Ours approach to gun control is based on common sense. It is about an approach that does not penalize law-abiding citizens, particularly those in rural areas. It is about an approach that will truly reduce gun crime and keep Canadians safer.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I am unable to convince my colleagues opposite to change their minds. I would simply like to say to them that there is an emotional side to this law because of the victims. There are too many and they cannot be forgotten.

I would like to know what they are going to say to the families of the École Polytechnique victims. Before killing 14 women, Marc Lépine was an honest and respectable citizen. That is the problem. People are killed and become the victims of people who were totally innocent. Such people are depressed, or have financial or marriage problems, and they decide, at some point, to turn to violence. The police officer who enters that home would like to know if he can remove guns in order to prevent a suicide or a murder.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleague, I too mourn the loss of life in that horrific situation, as does every member of our government.

The issue is emotional but when there is loss of life, particularly from gun crime, this government is standing up for victims. We are eliminating the long gun registry because it is ineffective and inaccurate and does not protect people from gun crime and because, at the end of the day, it is a duplication. As I just said in my speech, all of the licensing required to protect people in this country is in fact already in place and need not be replicated, thereby prolonging the inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

It would appear that some member has a phone ringing in the chamber. I would remind all hon. members that phones should be turned off when they are brought into the Chamber.

Questions and comments.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just have a couple of questions for the member.

He argued so fiercely against the idea of registering guns, I am wondering why the member thinks that the handgun registry is effective while the long gun registry is not, since, as the member has said, criminals do not register their guns and many criminals use handguns. I do not understand the contradiction in the member's argument.

In my speech I read a quote from the RCMP's 2010 firearms report, where it said that the registry was used to apprehend the grandson of a gun owner. The grandson had stolen the gun owner's gun. Through the registry, the RCMP found out that it was indeed the grandson who had the gun and it was able to take the gun away from him.

Is our country not safer because that grandson is without a weapon today as a result of the registry?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his question. I heard his presentation earlier and acknowledge his passion on this issue. Obviously this is an emotional issue.

At the end of the day, we have licensing procedures in place for those who are purchasing guns, whether a long gun or a handgun, in this country. Those procedures will continue to ensure that our Canadian population, our constituents, the people in my riding of Don Valley West and those of my colleague in the riding of Nipissing—Timiskaming are safe and that those who are using the guns properly register them. That is the non-criminal element.

As we heard from the member for Scarborough Southwest, with all of these guns being registered and re-registered, we know that the data are flawed.

At the end of the day, we also know that criminals do not register guns. Many of the guns in my area, in Don Valley West and in Toronto, for those colleagues from the GTA, are stolen weapons. They are not registered weapons. They are a problem. We still have to find a much more secure way of eliminating that threat on our city streets.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this afternoon and speak on behalf of the citizens of my riding of Davenport on this important element of public safety, justice and transparency. We cannot forget that we are also speaking about financial transparency.

I want to bring up one small element of the argument put forward by my hon. colleague from Don Valley West. That is the same member who last week moved a private member's bill in the House that would have criminalized retirees who were volunteers on boards of condos and apartment buildings if they followed the municipal code and told residents that they could not fly the Canadian flag on their balconies.

That member introduced a private member's bill that contained an element that would have necessitated people going to jail for that. Yet today he stood and essentially blew up an important piece of public safety legislation because his party's big bosses put a muzzle on him and on every GTA MP on the government side who voted for the bill. The legislation has absolutely nothing to do with public safety in the GTA. My hon. colleague knows very well that we have a serious issue around gun control in Toronto. To take one brick out of the foundation of gun control in the country weakens the entire framework of gun control.

There is no question that the gun registry had some significant problems. The fact that the Liberals blew $1 billion to set it up defies any kind of logic. It is one reason why they occupy that little corner over there today.

In the tabling of the legislation in the first place, the regions, aboriginal people, our hunters in the north were not properly brought into the process. That is another issue which our friends in that corner did not properly address.

I was swept up in the emotion of the debate, Mr. Speaker, and I forgot to apprise the House that I would be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Alfred-Pellan.

Given what I just said about some of the flaws in how we arrived here, I want to remind the House that it was our late leader Jack Layton who took pains to build bridges in this debate. Anything the government wants to say about our members not following our understanding and beliefs about what is right in gun control legislation amazes me. Our late leader took pains to bring this debate to a sensible, mature place, when we spoke to the issues that were important to rural and urban Canadians, first nations and all those people in rural Canada who used long guns for sport.

We have to sit here day in and day out and listen to the bologna coming from the other side of the House. My hon. colleague from Don Valley West knows better than that. He knows that the preponderance of gun crimes in the city of Toronto are committed with guns that at one point were legal and were registered and yet those members want to blow up the registry. When police officers collect those guns, they will have no way of tracking where they came from.

The hon. member across the way knows that, as do all members from the GTA. They know that a large percentage of illegal activity with the use of guns involves guns that were stolen from legal gun owners. We have a huge problem with stolen guns, stolen guns that were, at one point, legal and were registered. This is a way in which police officers are able to track down criminals.

Canadians hear the government day in and day out talk about how tough it is on criminals and how great it is with victims. However, when we get right down to it, the government is allowing organized crime in big cities like Toronto to essentially carry on their activities with less oversight, with less concern that they will ever be caught. That is part of what is going on with the ending of the registry.

On our side, we tried to address some of the most egregious elements of the registry to satisfy those who had problems with it. That is why many of our members were able to work with their constituents around this issue.

However, from me perspective, representing the people of Davenport, I have two things to say about this.

We recognize that there are people in Canada who, due to their lifestyle, use long guns. They use long guns for sport. They use long guns to protect their property from bears and from other animals that may create some danger. They do some hunting and trapping. I think there are many of goodwill and understanding in urban Canada who accept that rural culture also includes the ownership and, at times, the use of guns.

What troubles me about the debate, and certainly listening to it today, is I am waiting to hear a sensible voice from somebody on the other side who recognizes that we have a problem with this in urban Canada. I would like to hear that. I was waiting for my hon. colleague from Don Valley West to actually speak to the fact that in urban Canada we are very concerned about gun control. Any party in the House that aspires to true national leadership is going to build bridges between those cultures instead of what we hear today, which is pitting one region against the other, sowing seeds of doubt and disunity in our country. That is not leadership. That is certainly not the kind of leadership that Canadians need and it certainly not the kind of leadership we are getting from the government.

The last element I want to address is this. On the one hand, we have the government talking about protecting the privacy of Canadians and therefore it is going to do a billion dollar burning of records. On the other hand, it is going to collect the personal digital identifiers of anyone on the Internet. I am talking about lawful access. In other words, we are collecting all this data on the one hand and we are burning it on the other. The government is utterly confused about where it is on privacy issues and on civil liberty issues.

I look forward to my hon. colleague from Alfred-Pellan to carry on this conversation and I look forward to questions.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to get up today and ask a question of my hon. colleague. I think he is very thoughtful about what he is putting forward. He is a new member and I congratulate him for getting up and speaking about the issue.

He mentioned that the government was in fact pitting urban Canadians against rural Canadians. I come from a very rural riding. I have a lot of hunters, farmers and sport shooters in my riding. They saw this as an attack on rural Canada brought in by the Liberal government of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien back in the 1990s. They have been fighting to get rid of this gun registry since that time. They want to see it gone. They are very happy that we are now approaching the final vote on this.

However, my question for the hon. member is this. Does he not see the original introduction of the long gun registry as an attack on rural Canada, pitting rural Canadians against urban Canadians?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question for a Liberal member of the House. I am not going to pretend to imagine what was going on in the minds of the brain trust over there, but our party, and certainly under the leadership of Jack Layton, accepted the fact that rural Canadians had an issue with the gun registry. That is very clear.

I would like you to attempt to understand that when you weaken the framework of gun control in our country, it is seen as an attack on urban Canada. We need to work together to strengthen gun control and not have a $1 billion bonfire.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I would remind hon. members to direct their comments and questions through the Chair.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of wanting to continue the dialogue on this issue, I think the Progressive Conservative Party had a different twist on gun registry years back. In fact, to go back to December 5, 1991, people might be surprised, but it was actually the Conservative Party that first came up with the idea of having a gun registry. Bill C-17 passed the Senate. Legal and constitutional affairs, chaired by Senator Nathan Nurgitz, wrote to the minister, at the time Kim Campbell, advising her to look carefully at the regulations and registration of all firearms.

Does the member believe there might still be some Progressive Conservatives out there who would still support it? We know the Conservatives do not support it, but what about progressive-minded Conservatives?