Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister and other witnesses, for appearing before the committee today.
I'm going to start with the words of Hayder Kadhim, who was injured during the Dawson shooting. He said that the idea of abandoning a gun registry is senseless. Let me just follow up with a couple of items I want to discuss.
I don't disagree, Minister, that there were problems in the past. I sat on the public accounts committee in the previous Parliament and had the Auditor General before our committee, talking about those past problems. The reality is that the program is working today.
And here are a few other realities. All types of gun deaths, whether homicides, suicides, or accidents, have declined since the registry was brought into force. Death rates involving handguns and long guns are down. The police support the registry. On average, more than 5,000 queries are made daily. Almost 16,000 firearm licences have been refused or revoked since the Firearms Act came into force. More than 5,000 affidavits have been provided by the Canadian firearms registry to support the prosecution of firearms-related crimes in court proceedings across this country.
When we take a look at the cost today, the reality is that the cost of registering weapons is only $15.7 million a year. On the idea that long guns don't play a role, let me just quote the president of the Canadian Professional Police Association, who said on May 16, “Our last six or seven police officers were killed with long guns.”
The reality is that they do represent a risk, so when we have had the success that we have had with this program, I'm trying to understand why the focus would not be on eliminating irritants, on making the program more efficient. Why the interest or why the unceasing push to try to kill this program? Is it ideologically driven? What's the reason why you want to see this program killed when it has been such a success?