Evidence of meeting #16 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was registry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Ideally, the status of these 600,000 firearms should be updated.
Mr. Martin, do you have an idea of the number of RCMP officers killed in recent years by long guns?
5:15 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner, National Police Services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
No. We had two this past year, and a number of weapons were used in Mayerthorpe.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
According to my sources, in recent years, 70 per cent of the murders of RCMP officers were committed with long guns.
Does that seem like a realistic number to you?
5:15 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner, National Police Services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I would not dispute that statistic. I'd have to go back and check it.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Perhaps if it's not too lengthy you could have it translated and tabled.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
That's no reason for me not to use information gleaned from internal documents. Mind you, I don't exactly see how this information is relevant.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
If you're referring to your report, I'd still like it to be tabled so I could review it.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Yes, we can give you the address. That's not a problem. You can also arrange to have it translated.
Numerous discussions have also taken place about the number of times police officers have accessed the registry. Our Conservative friends have engaged in a few semantic debates as to whether police officers had accessed the registry, and whether the process was automatic. Regardless, the registry is consulted 6,600 or 6,700 times a day. In other words, it's a useful tool.
Is that a fair statement?
5:20 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner, National Police Services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I would agree with that.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
I'm glad our colleagues from the Conservative Party would like to have more detail about officer deaths from firearms. This table can be provided, but I think just to help illustrate...and this is tragic, but it's very important information in this discussion.
In 2006, Officer Marc Bourdage, unfortunately, was killed by a long gun in Saskatchewan. The same day, Officer Robin Cameron, also from the RCMP, was killed by a long gun in Saskatchewan.
In 2005, Officer Brock Warren Myrol, Officer Anthony Fitzgerald Orion Gordon, Officer Leo Nicholas Johnson, and Officer Peter Christopher Schiemann were all killed by long guns and a combination of guns.
In 2004, tragically, Officer James W. Galloway, from Edmonton, Alberta, died as a result of a long gun.
Unfortunately, the list continues.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Your time is up, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj. We appreciate your information.
Again, members, a lot of this information and the questions really have to do with policy issues. We have a firearms registry, until it's changed by a democratically elected government. Our job here is to look at the functioning of it, the regularity, the propriety, the economy--how it's being managed from a taxpayer's point of view.
Again, I haven't interrupted too many people.
The last intervention is from Mr. Fitzpatrick for five minutes.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
An area that did cause some concern is the problem with revocation in your report. Revocation would imply to me that you're taking away somebody's right to own firearms for some valid reason. The statistics on that are rather alarming.
I assume now that it's been transferred over to the RCMP there will be more effective action taken on following up on revocation orders. Is that a safe assumption, Mr. Martin?
5:20 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner, National Police Services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
We will be dealing with all of the revocation orders. Where it's an RCMP jurisdiction, we will be pursuing that. Where it's in other jurisdictions, we will be referring it to the police force of the jurisdiction.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Right. But I find it appalling that all that was being done was that a letter would be sent to somebody. They may be some of these people who this individual here is referring to, and if no action is taken, I don't know how that would improve public safety.
On compliance, I think I read somewhere that the centre believes that 90% of all long gun owners in the country are registered in the system. Is that correct, or did I miss something here?
5:20 p.m.
Director General, Canada Firearms Centre
We don't have the information to make that type of claim today.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I'm going to make a point here and I'd like to get your comment on it, especially Mr. Martin's, because he's a police officer and I do deal with police officers. If you check this database and the database says, “Mr. Boucher does not have any pump-action shotguns or a revolver”, I would suggest to you, sir, that a police officer would be making a very serious mistake to enter that premised on the belief that this person does not have a firearm.
Where I come from, every second person in rural Canada tells me they have firearms and they are not registered. For the centre to say that 90% of all long gun registrations are in the system, I have real doubts about that, and I'd like to know how the centre or anybody can say that. Unless they went into every home in this country, I don't know how they can say that.
5:25 p.m.
Director General, Canada Firearms Centre
I don't have the statistical information to support that, but having instructed police officers at our academy, I can tell you that as a matter of officer safety, using the risk management model, we always teach them to assume that people may have firearms. So it doesn't lessen the safety issue, because a police officer will be ever so diligent in assuming that this risk could always be there.
