The words I just heard were that if we're going to go down that road, then we need to talk to lots more folks. I heard Mr. MacKenzie's words as well. I have to subscribe to those, and I agree, but I would urge that upon not you gentlemen but upon the government, which is not sitting here with us today. The government appears to have chosen the course to go down that road without talking to a whole lot of these people. I would think that the burden is really on the government to go through this small process rather than just proceed blindly to fulfill a campaign promise. I'd be delighted to go through the exercise.
I can admit that, quite a few years ago, I was pretty cautious about adopting a long gun registry. I was one of the skeptics on the Liberal side. At great risk to my career, I pushed back for a number of years. What changed the dynamic was the recognition that long guns were a problem. It doesn't take long to pick out examples.
One of the reasons we never did see the examples clearly was that when you look at long guns, for the most part you see them in the hands of legitimate recreational hunters. No big problem; there's a safety issue, perhaps, but not a Criminal Code problem. You have competition shooters; no problem there. You have collectors, historical re-enactments; no big problems there. And you have sustenance hunters, particularly in the far north, where they use the long gun for food.
Those are legitimate things. That's generally how we saw the long guns being used in Canada. It would be impossible to look at that piece and say there's a huge criminal problem, because it's part of the heritage of our country.
There are three things, and I think they've all been mentioned here, that are notable. One of them is that 71% of the firearms assaults against women involve long guns. If you're a male, you're looking at 29%. If you're female, you're looking at 71%. You get a different perspective there. So your average female Canadian citizen is going to say to us in Parliament, “Hello, there's a problem here. We're not sure exactly what it is, but it involves long guns, not handguns.”
The second thing, the big event that crystallized the whole gun control movement, was the Polytechnique killings. It involved the mini Ruger, a long gun. The event that crystallized this whole issue involved a long gun. In the most recent event, as awful and as tragic as it was, four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe were killed with long guns. So we would be putting our heads in the sand if we were to suggest that the long gun was not a problem, given what we know now.
As we believe the government is proceeding on this, there has not been a review of whatever cost savings there might be. It's not like saving money is the only thing we're looking for here, but it would be relevant, what it costs. We'd also want to look at what the benefit has been. There are differing views about what benefits are out there.
Do police officers check the system? Of course they do. Is it 6,500, is it 1,000, is it 3,000 hits a day, a week, or whatever? We know they do check, and various police officers speak to it differently. It's quite possible that they use it differently from town to town, city to city, province to province. They make use of this background information differently when they access CPIC or whatever other access they have to the gun registry.
The data we have in terms of crime...and I'll be the first to admit that what I'm going to say now relates more to the sociology piece, perhaps, than it does to the strict benefits of having a gun control regime in place. Statistically we have seen relatively huge improvements in the safety of Canadians over the last five to ten years, part of which is under the regime of the gun registry. Now, I cannot claim that a single benefit has come from the gun registry, because I can't prove it, but I think we have had benefits.
The homicide rate for women killed by firearms has dropped by almost 67% in the last ten years or so. A 67% drop in the last ten years: I wouldn't mind knowing how that came about. Was it gun control? It could have been. Did we take all the orphan firearms off the wall of the kitchen? Did we remove them from the hands of individuals who really shouldn't have had access? Or was it just fortuitous that the 71% of women who get assaulted with long guns...or is that related to the 67% drop in the killing of women in the last ten years? That's huge. If I were a woman, I would say, “Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.” That's a huge drop.
The homicide rate with rifles and shotguns has also fallen by a similar percentage, 68%, over the same period. Homicides with firearms dropped 37%, which contrasts with the women's piece. The women's piece, I will remind you, was a 67% drop. The general rate was only 37%.
In 2003, compared with 1991, 652 fewer people were killed with firearms. That's 652 less. For one year, 652 souls continued to live because of a drop in the homicide rate with firearms.
So there are some good things happening, partly, I argue, as a result of the firearm registry, but it couldn't possibly be just the firearm registry. There are some good things happening.
In view of the fact that we have this status quo where we do have a firearm registry, and I know the government's considering dispensing with the long gun portion of registration, I think the burden really is on the government, or perhaps on Parliament, to investigate, to check, to clarify the reasons why we would change that status quo. I would be interested in getting into that, but I don't know how long that inquiry would take. We certainly aren't going to do it before we break for the summer.
I think the committee quite appropriately urges caution at this point in time. I would support the motion that the government not proceed, or even not proceed until it's had a chance to check out some of these things.
I'll stop there.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.