Public Safety Committee on May 31st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mrs. Fraser, did you not indicate in your previous report of three years ago that almost 90% had some errors? I'm just going by memory now.

[Sheila Fraser]

No, the previous report was simply on the costs of the program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, but I thought you had something in there on.... Anyway, thank you.

We're going to have to go—

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think it's been mentioned briefly before by Ms. Minna. I think it's very important. Obviously in your capacity as chair, I know you're doing a good job, but I don't think it's necessarily well placed, in terms of our time usage and our goals and objectives, for you to intervene to encourage witness information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I shouldn't have let Mr. Chan go four minutes over his five minutes?

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

No, but what I'm saying is that it's the nature of it as well; it's the leading nature of it in one direction or another. It doesn't seem to facilitate the process to our advantage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

To draw out information?

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

I think it's important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Well, I'm trying to draw out information; I did not realize I was trying to direct things here.

Mrs. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The first thing I wanted to ask—it's more of a comment, and maybe somebody can make a comment on it—refers back to something that Mr. Chan just talked about, the 5,000 hits and the police use of this registry. It's my understanding, in talking with some of the police services, that it's what I would call a bogus number, because every time they access the Canadian Police Information Centre, it automatically triggers a hit on the Canada Firearms Centre. Therefore, it may have nothing to do with value coming from the Canada Firearms Centre, but is triggered automatically. Is that correct?

[Peter Kasurak]

I believe it is. Those are gross numbers.

Mr. Baker would be much better positioned than I am to talk about how his own database worked, but I believe that's correct, that there are a certain number of hits that are generated automatically through certain police inquiries.

[William Baker]

I believe that's true for some of the forces. But I should point out—and I've had occasion to speak to a number of police chiefs—that for that to happen, it would be a conscious decision on the part of the police force to bring the information up automatically as part of their standard operating procedure. So it wouldn't happen by itself; they would have to say, from their perspective, this was a useful thing to be presented to the police officer. That's a call they would make.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay. Well, I would just say that it isn't always the case that it's been a hit for specific information, but it's triggered automatically, which I think needs to be taken into account.

One question I have is that I haven't seen consistent reporting on the extent to which firearm owners have complied with the licensing requirements, or why the level of compliance is difficult to estimate. Is there anybody who can provide an indication of the level of compliance of gun owners with this Firearms Act and regulations? Do we have that information?

[William Baker]

Perhaps, Mr. Chair, I could start with that—and I believe the Auditor General may have something to say.

Up until a couple of years ago, we had been reporting the number of licence holders against an estimate undertaken by government, I believe, in 2000 or 2001 that some 2.2 million or 2.3 million Canadians owned firearms. We would indicate the number of people with licences as a percentage of that. We stopped that practice a couple of years ago, a decision I took in the reporting because we did not have the means to confirm the number of people who owned firearms in the country—and I don't think anybody does, frankly. And while the estimate was done using good statistical methods, it was not something that I felt we could rely upon sufficiently in order to report against.

Now, the Auditor General has pointed that out as perhaps a deficiency in the reporting.

[Peter Kasurak]

Mr. Chair, I don't think we pointed it out as a deficiency, but simply or as a matter of fact that it was discontinued. We suggested that the centre might have indicated, when it did so, the reasons for dropping it.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I wanted to refer to paragraphs 4.42 to 4.52, where the report notes a number of problems with performance standards. Can anybody tell me what progress the Canada Firearms Centre has made in setting performance standards, and when can we expect to see improved service standards, particularly with respect to call wait times and processing applications?

[William Baker]

We have had established for some time now a standard process of registration and license application. Those are the two main products delivered by the Canada Firearms Centre. The standard was defined as a properly completed application for either a registration or a license. What we failed to do was make it clear that a properly completed application could arrive, but require, for whatever reason, additional examination by the firearms officer; there could be some information in the application that required some secondary examination, and once a firearms officer had to do that, it would take more time.

In reporting performance against standard, we excluded those. I think the Auditor General's report is correct in pointing out that given the way we articulated the standard, we should have recorded against it as well, but we had taken the standard out of the equation. We acknowledge that, and the centre is working on a finer articulation of the standard against which we can report, so we don't repeat that error.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

And when would we get that?

[William Baker]

I'm no longer the commissioner, so I can't commit. But based on the response of the report, I can say there is an undertaking to refine the standard. I can tell you that when I left, work was under way.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Brown, in his opening remarks, hit upon something when he pointed out that this is the public safety and national security committee, not the public accounts committee. So I'd like to discuss public safety, as it relates to the gun registry. For the purposes of my questions, I'd like to assume that in a perfect world the gun registry would contribute to public safety.

What troubles me about the gun registry is its efficacy. I have three examples: the Auditor General mentioned undeliverable mail ranging from 7% to 23%; the Firearms Center does not know the status of 62% of the firearms for which registration certificates were revoked between July and October of just one year, 2005; and in paragraph 4.58 of the report, the Auditor General points out that the Firearms Act required that the 1.2 million prohibited and restricted weapons in the restricted registration system were supposed to be re-catalogued, if I could put it that way, into the new system by January 1, 2003, but to this very day, half of them haven't been catalogued, if I read the thing correctly. The Auditor General says, of course, the RWRS remains operational, so the information on those firearms is still available. Well, big deal, because under paragraph 4.59 it's admitted that the information is outdated and incorrect.

How can this system then contribute to public safety and national security, given these statistics the Auditor General has found? And why has the centre been unable to comply with the law with respect to RWRS for three years?

Mr. Baker, and then Mr. Sims, perhaps.

[William Baker]

Mr. Chair, with your permission, I've asked my colleague Beverley Holloway, the chief operating officer, if she wouldn't mind responding. She can give a far clearer response than I can, with your permission.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

While Ms. Holloway is coming, Mr. Ganim, you were up at the table previously, and you referred to a two-page memo to file. Could you provide that to the committee, please, by giving it to the clerk of the committee.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Madam, did you get my questions?

[Beverley Holloway, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Directorate, Canada Firearms Centre]

I'll start with the RWRS, if I may, Mr. Chair, and then maybe we could work backwards, because I think that was the main question.

This is the registration system that preceded our current database, and we did have about 1.2 million prohibited and restricted firearms in that database. In 1998 when we went over to the new system, we did write to all of these people; we did try to follow up and tried to get them to register. That's gone on for the last number of years. We've worked with enforcement agencies throughout Canada. As of late in this last year, we've tried with the Surrey detachment in B.C. to go out and find these people. It's an activity that is ongoing. We are trying to find this other half a million people—or the firearms, actually, because there'll be fewer people—to try to correct the situation. It's ongoing, and we have been pursuing it and realize the importance of it.

So the Auditor General reported that the information is available, but it's an interim solution. It's a very difficult activity.