Evidence of meeting #33 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was slide.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
We get sixteen.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I'd like to ask you a very important question for the Quebec nation, a question that is far more serious than that asked by my colleague across the way.
On slide no. 11, you quote statistics for 2003-04. Going back in time, would you be able to provide us with statistics for years prior to 2003-04, in other words from 1996 to 2002? Would you be able to give us the same sheet of statistics for each one of those years?
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
Yes, I can produce that. The difficulty is that if I start in 1996, the number for years prior to that would be zero.
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
In each subsequent year, for these forty individuals, I'm going to potentially count them numerous times as I go through that deck, because they show up in different years. It's the difficulty around that. That's why we presented one year, because what it results in is a situation in which we're counting one person multiple times, and we didn't want to inflate any of those statistics in that way.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Mr. Lemay, I know you have another question, but I'd like to give Mr. Lee an opportunity here.
Mr. Lee.
November 22nd, 2006 / 5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I'll keep my question really short. That will help.
The data that you have on slide 8 show that robberies with a firearm continue to decline, but plate 5 shows an increase in the use of handguns...oh, it's just shootings. I guess it's all types of firearms going up. That's a notable item. I'm only talking about the last couple of years, because shootings overall have come down over the trend, as you've already indicated.
Do you have any statistical indicator of why the use of firearms in robberies has gone down consistently and still seems to be going down, but the number of homicides with a handgun has gone up? Is there any statistic—and I'm only talking about the last couple of years—that shows that? Does it have anything to do with gang activity?
Chief, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
The one thing we can point out is that gang homicides--we can't tell you anything more about robbery--do tend to involve a firearm more than do non-gang homicides. There has been an increase in gang homicides over the last few years, if that helps.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
That would partially explain the uptick in that data on firearm shootings. It doesn't relate at all to violent television like The Sopranos or anything like that does it? I'm joking.
He's shaking his head. Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you, Mr. Lee.
I'm just noting that as a result of a previous discussion we had over mandatory minimums, and in my experience as a major crimes investigator, when mandatory minimums existed even back in 1976.... When the code was amended in 1976, offences related to the use of a firearm during the commission of an offence, and that included a series of them, robbery being one, in the case of a first offence, there was a sentence of not less than a year. In the case of a second offence there was a sentence of not less than three years. Those were mandatory minimums that go all the way back into the mid-1970s. Why couldn't that be reflected in a statistical calculation or collection as you have presented here? They were mandatory minimums, and they clearly point to a firearm.
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
For offences going back that far, the data set we have for court data, representing approximately 80% national coverage, goes back to 1994-95.
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
Right, and those are from police-reported statistics, not court data.
Conservative
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
That was for 1994-95.
There are some jurisdictions that have been supplying data since 1991. Quebec has been supplying data since 1991, and P.E.I. and Saskatchewan since 1992, but prior to that it's not possible. The volume of court records makes it very cost-prohibitive to go out and collect manual data on courts. It wasn't until systems were sufficiently evolved that we could build interfaces to collect these large volumes of administrative data, and we started collecting these data.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Ultimately, then, we can't compare offences involving firearms accurately. You may be able to collect data on them from the police, but when you look at the alternative of what happens to them prior to a court decision, we can't accurately balance that information out prior to 1994.
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
That's one of the difficulties with the court data, because it does reflect solely the content of the code. If it's not in the code, there's no way to extract that data from the record. When the code changes, and it appears one year, but it wasn't there prior to that, it's impossible to go back in time to ask what happened in these types of cases, because that information isn't part of the record.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you.
Are the witnesses willing to remain for a few minutes extra until such time as the bells ring?
Mr. Petit.
Conservative
