Public Safety Committee on April 22nd, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're withdrawing your concern.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay.

Go ahead, Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would still like to mention that Mr. Holland's proposal also includes witnesses that appear on the Conservative Party list. I could mention a few: Mr. Bernardo from the Canadian Shooting Sports Association and the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action, and Mr. Newman from the Canadian Firearms Institute. There are people from all parties.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I have a point of order.

I need to indicate that I don't know what the procedure is here, sir, when a statement is made that is incorrect and is actually misleading. I'm not sure whose turn it is to correct that, but that name is not on our list.

There is one name on our list and it is Mr. Bernardo. Every single one of the 33 witnesses put forward by Mr. Mark Holland belongs to the opposition. I don't know who is to correct Madame Mourani, but she certainly cannot mislead this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'll let Ms. Mourani finish, and then I'll turn the floor over to you, Ms. Glover.

Ms. Mourani, you may finish.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Chair, I think we should stop this.

Ms. Glover has done nothing but yell at this committee for some time.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I have a point of order, sir. That was in camera.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Earlier, Ms. Glover did not raise a point of order; she was making comments.

Wait your turn; you can make your comments, no problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Go ahead.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

If you don't agree with what I have to say, you can say so later, but calm down.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Mourani, I've given the floor to you.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Chairman, we can express our opinions here without adrenalin levels going through the roof! We are civilized people, after all!

I'm telling you that this was the list I was given. This is the list that Mr. Préfontaine circulated to us. I'm sorry, but that is Ms. Hoeppner's list of witnesses.

Is this your list or not, Mr. Préfontaine? Is this the Conservative Party's list or am I wrong? This is really her list, isn't it?

[The Clerk]

Yes.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you for confirming that.

So, on this list of witnesses supplied by Ms. Hoeppner, it says "Candice Hoeppner's witness list". It's my understanding that she is a member of your party and that this is your list. Mr. Préfontaine has just confirmed that. So that's the list that was circulated to us.

I'm looking at Mark Holland's proposal and I've been trying to compare it for the last little while. I see Mr. Newman, Mr. Bernardo, Ms. Hoeppner. Let's forget about Ms. Hoeppner, because she is allowed to present her bill, that's quite normal. However, Mr. Newman and Mr. Bernardo are among the people whose names appear on the list of witnesses we were given. Honestly, I can say that there are people there from the Conservative Party.

I see the names of witnesses that I had on my list, Mr. Chair: I see Mr. Dupuis here, for example. He's one of my witnesses. I see La Fédération des femmes du Québec for example, which is one of my witnesses. There are also the NDP's witnesses.

I've just set the record straight by saying that everyone was represented in this motion. I urge everyone to vote on this in good faith. Let's do so in a civilized manner, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was trying to raise a point of order, because as Mr. Holland indicated very clearly, things that are done in camera, or the allegations that something is done in camera, are not permitted when a committee is then in public. So you'll have to advise us as to how to deal with that later. I don't know if an apology is expected. Nevertheless, let's move on.

I do want to apologize because I've been corrected. Ms. Hoeppner has indicated that the list that went to the clerk had that extra name on it, but the list we saw didn't have it.

I want to get back to the number of witnesses Mr. Holland has put forward to fill the entire agenda and add an additional day. Thirty-three witnesses were mentioned by Mr. Holland. Of those, two--Mr. Newman and Mr. Bernardo--were on the Conservative list of witnesses. Our list contained 57 people who have information to offer, who have the right to be heard. It is shocking and frankly very disappointing to see Mr. Ignatieff's members once again try to hijack an agenda and try to shut down democracy. Frankly, I'm appalled.

Canadians have asked us to debate this. There are two sides to this issue. It is a divided issue. We have people from the policing world who are divided. We have people from the victims' world who are divided. This requires a wholesome debate, and I believe we owe this to Canadians. I've received thousands of letters on this, as have other members of this committee. They are seized with this issue across our country. They deserve to hear what information is available from both sides.

I would implore the Liberals, please do not do this. Please do not put democracy in this kind of state. Canada is the most wonderful country in this world, and it's because we have a system that works. It's because we allow people to provide insight on issues like this, that Canadians are seized with.

This very bill can decide some extremely important issues, and we cannot let partisanship and we cannot let Mr. Ignatieff hijack this and take away the rights of Canadians. Please, I implore them to remove this motion from the table. Please, let's get back to discussing the witnesses fairly, 50-50. Let's hear both sides. There's a pro and a con, so let's hear them both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Holland, please.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

That's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Rathgeber.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Sadly, I am not as confident, or perhaps as naive, as my friend Mrs. Glover, that there might be any goodwill on that side of the table that would possibly remove what could only be viewed by any objective standard as a draconian motion to try to hijack this committee.

Mr. Chair, it's days like this that cause me to ponder why I got into this business. As you probably know, and as I suspect most of the members of this committee know, prior to becoming a member of Parliament, I practised law in Red Deer, Alberta, and Edmonton, Alberta.

In the judicial world we have rules of court, rules of civil procedure. Those who practise in the criminal courts are similarly restricted with respect to the rules of evidence and the rules of criminal procedure. And of course people before the courts also have rights.

I raise that as an opening to my comments to suggest to this committee, and to any members of the public who I hope are listening, that those rules that basically allow for some sense of procedural fairness are completely and entirely abrogated when we go into a setting like this and we're forced to deal with a motion that is so anti-democratic that it ought to be, on the face of it, disallowed. But of course the member for Ajax—Pickering knows that his motion, regardless of how draconian it is--and it is draconian--can't be ruled out of order simply because it violates any sense of fairness.

Fairness is apparently not a relevant topic in this committee. We know what the numbers are. We know that this is a minority Parliament. As a result, there are five government members on this side of the table and one non-voting chair. It doesn't take a PhD in mathematics to count the numbers of people on the other side of the table. Mr. Holland does the math, and he decides that he is going to entirely dictate what this committee is going to do with respect to Bill C-391. He is going to decide who the witnesses are going to be.

Now, apparently there's some dispute as to how many of the witnesses were on the list that was submitted by the government and by the sponsor of the bill. I'm prepared to concede that the number is likely two and not one. Regardless, two out of thirty-three is about 6%, if my math is correct. So 6% of the witnesses who are going to come before this committee over the two days, and one three-hour hearing day, are likely to speak in favour of the bill that is sponsored by the member from Manitoba.

I know there's a lot going on this week in the House of Commons. A former member of this House spoke in this very room yesterday, and there was some media attention brought on that.

Similarly, there is significant media attention with respect to this Bill C-391. In fact we heard this week something that was very, very disturbing. The leader of the Liberal Party announced that he was going to enforce a whipped vote with respect to his members.

Of course, the members, all of whom were present when this bill was voted on in November of last year, will know that eight members of the Liberal caucus voted with the private member, the member from Portage—Lisgar, and in support of Bill C-391. Now those eight members, notwithstanding that this is a private member's bill, have somehow been deemed by their leader to be incapable of deciding for themselves whether or not Bill C-391 is a good bill and worthy of their support. They're apparently going to be told by their whip that they should vote against it.

I know the sponsor of this draconian motion that would allow the Liberal Party to dictate all the witnesses over all four hearing days has been in the meeting elsewhere stating that it's a whipped vote on this side of the House as well. I can tell the members of this committee that is simply not true.

That being said, you'd be hard pressed to find a single member of our caucus who is opposed to Bill C-391 because it is so fundamental as to what we believe in as Conservatives. The long-gun registry is a wasteful, ill-advised attempt at gun control.

I say that for a number of reasons. The last time we were here, when Mr. Sullivan, the outgoing Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, spoke, we talked about two issues. I think they are in fact distinct issues. One is the efficiency of the long-gun registry and the other is the effectiveness of the long-gun registry.

Certainly members on this side of the table would argue, and I think persuasively, that there was very little effectiveness from the long-gun registry. We all know anecdotally and otherwise that criminals simply do not register their guns. That's not to say that long guns are not used in the commission of offences. We know they are, and we know they are used tragically, from time to time, as some recent carnage on Ontario highways has sadly demonstrated.

Certainly in my city, the city of Edmonton, Mr. Chairman--and I've always found this fascinating--more people are killed with knives than are killed by either long guns or handguns. In fact, I think 62% of homicides in the city of Edmonton are committed with knives. Of the remainder, when firearms are the weapon of choice, long guns represent only a very small percentage. That's not to say that long guns don't, from time to time, find themselves at crime scenes. They do.

The issue is whether the long-gun registry has been an effective attempt to curb gun violence and whether it is effective in gun control. We certainly believe it isn't.

What I think there is more agreement about is the efficiency of the gun registry. There has been some suggestion, and certainly in the early days of the registry....

I guess I can understand why Mr. Holland and his friends over there in the coalition are so eager to have this bill scrapped. They find the whole thing an embarrassment, in fact, because it was their government that brought in the long-gun registry in 1993. I think Minister McLellan, a former member of Parliament from my city, was the Minister of Justice when the long-gun registry was brought in. So I understand how sensitive they are about this issue.

I know that the member for Etobicoke--Lakeshore was scrummed this week several times and gathered a lot of ink and a lot of airtime. I think he suggested that the long-gun registry could be improved. He thought that perhaps ceasing to make it a criminal offence to not register one's long gun might be a possible solution. Additionally, or alternatively, if there were fewer administrative hassles and less red tape and less paperwork, farmers and hunters might find the long-gun registry less odious than it is in its current form.

I agree, theoretically at least, that it could be made to be more efficient and certainly more cost-effective if in fact it were an effective tool in the fight against crime. But we believe it is not.

That brings me to the motion. There is dispute about whether the long-gun registry is effective. It's a legitimate dispute, and legitimate disputes need to be aired. And they need to be aired in some sort of forum where there is fairness and balance given to both sides of the equation.

When I look at the list of witnesses, I believe that some of them have very cogent opinions and very cogent thoughts to bring to bear on the question of both the effectiveness and the efficiency of the long-gun registry in its current format. I know that Chief Blair, of the Toronto Police Service, who I think is the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, does not support the member from Portage--Lisgar in her efforts. But I would like to hear from him.

I'm shocked and chagrined that members opposite do not want to hear a contrary point of view. We know that the chiefs of police are divided on this issue. Some of them have been public. Some have been much more private regarding their support for the member for Portage--Lisgar.

I think I can refer to her as Ms. Hoeppner in this committee, can I not? We're not in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Of course.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Then it's Ms. Hoeppner's bill.

As I said, some of them have been public and some of them have been private; nonetheless, the chiefs of police and certainly front-line officers are divided on this bill.

I appreciate that both Mr. Holland and Mr. Wrzesnewskyj passed on their recent offers to speak to this motion, and I shouldn't impute any motives as to why they might not be speaking, but at some point I'd like to ask them what they have to fear. What do you have to fear from hearing from a police officer from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, who might be in favour of Bill C-391? What do you have to fear? Why are you scared of his testimony?

I hearken back to my previous life as a civil litigator, wherein the rules of evidence simply would not have allowed this kangaroo gong show, this travesty of justice, that Mr. Holland has proposed to continue. Both sides to a dispute are able to lead evidence, and it's not for one side to decide who the other side's evidence ought to be, which is what has occurred here. Mr. Holland, or whoever created this odious list, has decided that Mr. Newman and Mr. Bernardo are competent and relevant witnesses, but that the rest of the individuals--I think there were 57 names submitted--ought not to be heard.

I'm surprised. I sit on two committees. Mr. Comartin sits on the other committee, as does Mr. Norlock. I think--and Mr. Norlock will certainly agree with me--that the committees operate in entirely different fashions. The committee on justice and human rights has a steering committee that meets periodically, and it irons out all of the issues well in advance of the actual hearing days. As a result, the committee is almost never caught up in the sort of procedural entanglement that we're in today, wherein it's alleged--and I would argue rightly alleged--that one member has hijacked the agenda and is trying to dictate the entire witness list, with the apparent support of the Bloc Québécois and my friend from the NDP, in whom I'm very disappointed and who I never would have imagined would acquiesce to this type of hijacking and this type of procedural nonsense.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

You had an opportunity to speak and you chose not to.