Actually, I have a lot of issues.
Mr. Kania, I don't know where to begin with your whole list there. You made some statements that I don't think are borne out by the facts. You made unequivocal comments about long guns. I don't think you know how many of those long guns that you talked about were registered. I don't know where you come from with that whole issue about unrestricted long guns. The issue in Canada, including from your leader.... Your leader has been quoted as saying that our problem is not long guns; it's handguns that are brought into this country.
What you've just said is beyond belief, and certainly Canadians will have the opportunity to look at what you said.
I'd like to go back to when you initially started. You said something about a reasonable perspective, and then you got off into some area about whether Ms. Hoeppner's bill...that we somehow are responsible for the timeframe.
Well, I know Mr. Kania is an honest man, and I know he has a good memory, and I know he will recall that when the agenda was set for this session there were all kinds of dates. The decision was made that there would be three days towards the end of the session.
It's pretty hard to blame the system for the fact that the 60-day notice is there for private members' business. It is there, and one of the reasons it's there is so it gets heard in a proper time. This proper time was not there because the committee filled the agenda so that this item was towards the end instead of at the beginning. We could have put in anything.
I think when you talk about open minds, Mr. Kania, we all would agree with that. I don't think there's a parliamentarian who would want to believe that others don't have open minds. But it begs the question that if members on the other side have open minds, why did they come here this afternoon prepared to shut down discussion about where we might go with witnesses?
Mr. Comartin, you'll probably be pleased to hear that I spoke with a young police officer from the city of Windsor last night who thought you were a pretty good guy. He thought you were a fair man. I don't think that if he saw what happened here today he would say that's the Joe Comartin he knows from Windsor.
Mr. Comartin probably won't understand this, but I did agree that he is a good, honest, fair-minded individual. Today's comments would be less than that. I think Mr. Comartin has indicated it's only his opinion of polls that really matters. Your one-third, two-thirds is how you justify this kind of a schedule. I don't think Ms. Hoeppner would agree that one-third of those witnesses would be the witnesses she would ask. I think your number was somewhat different from her belief.
We would have asked Rick Hanson, the chief of police in Calgary; Delaney Chisholm, the chief of police in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia; Sergeant Duane Rutledge, an active police officer; and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I'm sure you have all heard from them, because we have. They seemed to have in their correspondence that they were sending it to all of the committee members.
We would have liked you to consider Bob Head, the retired assistant commissioner from the RCMP; some former SWAT police officers: Dave Shipman, Mitch McCormick, Jack Tinsley, Gary Mauser, Steve Torino. Diana Cabrera is an Olympian sports shooter, and I can't believe this committee would not want to hear from her.
There is a member from Yukon: an aboriginal MLA, John Edzerza. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu has represented victims, and my colleagues from the Bloc know full well who he is. He has been a victims' advocate, and we're going to hear from victims. Riccardo Di Done is another victims' rights individual.
Alison Redford, the Alberta Attorney General--you don't want to hear from an attorney general from another province. Conservation officers Don Weltz and Quinton Isley--talk about a closed mind.
We didn't ask for a lot of people. We wouldn't have asked for a lot of people. Ms. Hoeppner already made it clear that she had a list of about 57 or 58. If the doors opened up, she would have said bring them all. But she knew coming into this meeting that we needed to spend some time paring down all of our witnesses.
Somehow, to get here with no discussion and a motion already in hand that would totally fill not only the two days or three days that were scheduled, but another day, a fourth day.... I don't believe Canadians thought they were going to elect a group of parliamentarians who wouldn't come in here with some idea about some sense of democracy.
I can't believe they wouldn't want to hear from Rick Hanson, the chief of police in Calgary. I know Bill Blair, and I respect his opinion, but surely Canadians would expect to hear if there were other chiefs of police.
I don't think I can go out and say everybody in this country likes the gun registry, because I know they don't. I wouldn't for a minute want people to believe I think there aren't people who legitimately believe in the gun registry. But to not get the opportunity to hear from these police officers who have an opposing view of the current president of the chiefs' association....
I didn't even talk in here about Chief Blair's predecessor. His predecessor was a believer in the gun registry, but then he realized that the gun registry didn't do what other people were saying. He's now the head of the largest police force in Ontario. I didn't mention him. We didn't ask him to be here. We thought there was a good balance from across the country.
We have all kinds of police officers. Last night we met with a number of them. One young man in particular came over and spoke to me. He said, “Long guns are not a problem, Chief. Our problem is handguns, and every gang-banger we get has a handgun in his pocket. That's our problem.”
I don't know why you want to shut people out. Talk about a closed mind. My friend says we have closed minds. Give us the opportunity to bring some of these people forward. Maybe we can look at some of these things.
When he talks about what the Liberals are suggesting--Mr. Comartin certainly knows, and I'm sure Mr. Kania knows--if it's a Criminal Code offence, it's a criminal conviction. We need to look at how we think we can make this move from a Criminal Code offence to a non-criminal offence. Maybe there's some way in what he's talking about, but it doesn't work. If it's a Criminal Code offence, it's a Criminal Code offence. That's the end of the story. You can do whatever you want. If we have whatever regime he's talking about--a ticketed situation--and there's no record and no criminal offence, we won't know when the first offence happened or the tenth offence.
If you believe in what the situation is, what does a ticketable offence mean? It doesn't mean anything. It's something a political leader was talking to a group about to convince them he was doing something. At the end of the day, surely my good friends who understand criminal law know that if it's a Criminal Code offence in the Criminal Code, it stays as a criminal offence. It doesn't just change because we wish it would change and make it into some sort of ticketable Highway Traffic Act offence or provincial offence; it stays as a criminal offence. So don't try to fool Canadians and talk about something or do something that is just not doable. As I said, my good friends the lawyers on the other side certainly know that. It's not in the Criminal Code.