Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 26th, 2006

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

All right.

And you know what? Thanks a lot for coming back and being prepared to carry the can for the time you were there. You didn't have to, and it's appreciated and respected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Baker.

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Ms. Ratansi, you'll have eight minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here.

I have a few questions, and I'll be very short in my questions.

My first question is, what does transferring the Canada Firearms Centre to the RCMP mean?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

First off, it allows us to integrate with the infrastructure inside the RCMP. We are able to benefit from the fact that the RCMP already has a human resource component and a financial administration group, so the duplication on the administrative side is eliminated right away. Because the Commissioner of the RCMP is at the deputy minister level, we don't need to replace Commissioner Baker, so there are some inherent savings on the management team.

Another huge benefit, I believe, is the fact that we have a mature technology service inside the RCMP. It has been in place since the 1960s, and through the chief information officer we are able to provide some of the technical advice and technical work that was not available to the previous administration for the centre.

The other thing we are able to do is—

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

For example? Do you have an example of technical work?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

Programmers.... One of the things we are engaging in is a knowledge transfer from consultants over to employees of the government. As we complete that knowledge transfer, we are terminating the consultants, and it will eventually result in the termination of the contract with one of the vendors, EDS.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

And number two, therefore, is that you will register guns and license guns?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

We will license individuals—that process involves security checking, education—and we will register firearms as well.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. Then my next question is this. The Auditor General said—this is paragraph 4.40—“While the Centre may not be able to show direct evidence of how its activities contribute to its public safety goals, it could improve its performance reporting....” And my colleague from the Bloc asked, how do you value a qualitative life; how do you value the results of this?

So what sorts of measures, from your technical experience, what sort of useful indicators do you think you will put in to ensure that the firearms registry is useful, that it does save lives?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

I think some of the information is already there, and a lot of good work has already been done. The introduction of new analytical tools that allow us to analyze will help in that regard.

But just to give a couple of statistics, right now there have been 17,861 firearms licences revoked. One of the things that happens within the centre is that the database goes back through the Canadian police information system and checks to make sure that any licensed individual hasn't taken part in an activity that would prohibit the person from having a licence. In those cases, we go back through the system; that's just one of the examples of how a licence would be revoked.

I think it's a matter of reporting some of those things.

The other link that I believe was missing is some of the reporting on how it actually benefits operational cases. Again, linking the centre with police operations facilitates that kind of reporting.

I can give you an example of an actual case out west where an individual was apprehended in the commission of a crime. He had a weapon in his possession that was not used in the actual crime. We checked the registered owner through the centre. It was not this individual; it was somebody else. We checked into the background of that registered owner. That individual had a number of weapons in his possession—an unusual number—so in partnership with the centre we acquired a warrant and went into his premises. No weapons were there. He was actually a gunrunner. We were able to bring that case to a successful conclusion based on the information we got from the centre.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

So you are comfortable that licensing, which is like a screening, a test, is very important as part of the ongoing giving of a licence to a person who wants to own a gun. For example, as I can see it here, the firearms officer can refuse a licence if for any reason it is not in the interest of the safety of the applicant or any person. And they use a broad basis for refusal based on criminal record, spousal notification, mental health, etc.

Are those criteria still in place? Are they working? Do you have a problem with them?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

They are in the criteria, there are other criteria that are used, and I think it is beneficial; however, no system is perfect, and we're constantly monitoring for improvements.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Then my last question is this. A non-partisan coalition of 300 organizations, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Professional Police Association, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, the Jewish women's international organization, victims' organizations, etc., have prepared a paper, and they claim that from 1995, when the gun registry was introduced, to 2004, per annum, 300 deaths have been saved, that the homicide of women with firearms has gone down by 62%, and that robberies with firearms have reduced by 57%.

I am quite interested in knowing how they are able to extricate the data regarding this information and are able to compile it when we were just told that the data that is being used is not accurate and doesn't address a lot of things. There's a disconnect, and I want to know how to correct that misperception in my head.

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

First off, I'd like to thank you for making the linkage the Auditor General was looking for.

I don't know. I would have to assume they've gone to Statistics Canada. If I heard the Auditor General right, she didn't say the data wasn't there; she said the linkages weren't being made. As I just pointed out, there is some very valuable data in the database on the revoking of licences. I think part of the challenge is that we have to get out there and pull all this together and report it.

I agree that some of the data has to be cleaned up, but some of it is very good and very valid.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We're running out of time, Ms. Ratansi, and I believe the auditor has a point.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Sure.

[Sheila Fraser]

Can I just make one comment?

There is always a question and I think a difficulty in attribution of results. It's to show how registering a gun results in fewer deaths. There are probably many factors that do that. I don't know the study you're referring to, but I would be curious to see whether they actually can make that link between a gun registry and a reduction in deaths. It would seem to me that attribution is probably not as direct as some people might want.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Can I just speak here? This was a PhD who was doing the studies, and I was quite curious as to where they were able to get that connectivity with a system that has some flaws in its database. I'll give it to you later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We're going to move on to Mr. Poilievre.

I want to thank you, Ms. Ratansi. Thank you, Madam Auditor. Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I would encourage Ms. Ratansi to table that paper. I'd be very interested in reading it. I share the questions about the ability of any group to show attribution between a registry and lives saved, considering that the firearms office has not been able to make that attribution itself.

I'd like to discuss this continual statistic you've referred to that officers access the registry 5,000 times a day. Supporters of the registry have consistently used this statistic, and I believe it to be very misleading.

I've spoken to numerous officers—some are very close friends of mine—and have asked them about it. I have not been able to find a single officer who has ever accessed the gun registry, nor have I been able to find a single officer who knows anyone who ever has accessed the registry. In fact, I had one officer, who's very competent serving in the community, who told me he wouldn't even know how to access the registry, and he's very well trained and highly respected in the community. This is someone for whom I have a lot of respect.

So I did a little bit of research. What I found is that this statistic, 5,000 times a day, is not the number of times a day an officer actually goes into the system and says, “H'mm. I'd like to investigate whether so-and-so possesses a firearm.” It includes all of the incidental occasions when someone's name in the registry is brought up for a different reason. For example, if someone is brought over to the side of the road for cross-walking and their record is brought up and they happen to own a firearm, that is counted in this 5,000 number.

I would like to know how the 5,000 number has any pertinence whatsoever to the discussion on the registry when it includes all of these incidental occasions that records are brought up.

I have had this confirmed by officials in the department, and I would be very encouraged to hear your response to it, because if it's not the case, then there is a disconnect in the information we're being given.

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

Thank you very much for that question.

As a matter of fact, this one came up when I accompanied Minister Day at a meeting of the Treasury Board. The thing about information in the police environment.... What we're trying to do is be as efficient as possible with information and avoid duplication. People do not get checked in the registry for jaywalking; however, in certain areas of the country—Toronto, the Lower Mainland of British Columbia—for certain types of offences there is an automatic checking through CPIC into the registry. If I've been involved in certain types of activities and somebody queries me in either Toronto or in British Columbia, the CPIC check will automatically generate a check into the firearms registry.

The operational procedures—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Will that appear on their screen immediately?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

Yes.

In the operational procedures in those places where there's not an automatic feed into the registry in a com centre, if a com centre operator receives a call for a check on a person for certain reasons, when they launch that query, they will go into the registry as well.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Which queries bring it up?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

I don't follow.