Evidence of meeting #16 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was registered.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Why don't you just shut your microphone off and be quiet for a while. Okay?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
You've been doing this meeting after meeting. It's time to let me be fair.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
The rule is fairness: I have been fair all the time, and you can't complain about that.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. If you don't accept my point of order, that's fine. I'm just asking for equity.
4:05 p.m.
As an Individual
I think I just need another 90 seconds.
Others will come here and read off reams of numbers relating to how often the police across the country use the registry effectively. If numbers were always correct and provided a clear picture, the Canada Revenue Agency could fire all its auditors. Numbers can be cooked and slanted to support any claim, and they are then still open to interpretation. It can be said that the police did checks on persons or addresses x times a day, but the grim truth is that the criminals move often, don't register their illegally obtained firearms, and don't tell us. All police officers know that. I believe it would impress me far more—far more—if there could be just one story about how this long-gun registry saved a human life. Just one.
You have heard enough of my police background and police-related opinions about the long-gun registry. I would like to tell you, before closing, that I have also worn and still wear a number of other hats--as a hunter, a shooter, and an outdoorsman of American Indian ancestry, all of which are relevant to a private citizen involved in the many sporting opportunities available across our great country.
To be as brief as I can, I am a current member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, a former member of two Ducks Unlimited committees, an active member of the Whiteshell Trappers Association, a member in good standing of the Manitoba Trappers Association, a lifetime member of the Winnipeg Trap and Skeet Club, a former professional field trial gunner for the English Springer Spaniel Club of Manitoba, a former licensed Manitoba big game guide, and an appointed member of Ashern Manitoba's past shooters hall of fame--
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Maybe you can finish that when there's an opportunity to answer a question.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desnoyers Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.
They said earlier that they would be sharing their time. Are they going to be taking 10 minutes each, for a total of 30 minutes?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Yes, they have 10 minutes.... At the beginning, I said they have “approximately 10 minutes” each.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desnoyers Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
But earlier they said they would be sharing their time. Mr. McCormick said... No?
4:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for providing me this opportunity to speak before you on this important issue.
My name is Dave Shipman. I was born and raised in Winnipeg, and I currently I live in a rural setting just outside the city. I feel qualified to attend at this hearing as a result of my life experience and involvement in law enforcement from the age of 19 to the present.
I spent 25 years with the Winnipeg Police Service and nearly 19 of those years investigating violent crimes in the homicide robbery division. During 16 of those years I was also a member of the special weapons team and a team leader on the entry team.
I retired 10 years ago and immediately took up a position as investigator in charge of the organized crime/gang unit with Manitoba Public Insurance, where I remain so employed.
I've been involved with the criminal intelligence service in Manitoba during these 10 years as well. For those who are not familiar with it, each province has its own criminal intelligence service with the federal governing body, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada.
The CISM includes all law enforcement and investigative bodies in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. The nature of my work, investigating organized crime and gang activity as it relates to organized insurance fraud, and my involvement with CISM, puts me in contact with serving police officers on a continual basis.
My experience in dealing with violent criminals and gang members is probably far more involved than that of the average police officer. Believe me when I tell you that I have put hundreds and hundreds of dangerous violent men in prison over the years, often for unspeakable crimes, including rape, robbery, home invasions, and murder.
It is in the arrest and interviewing of these men and their associates that I've obtained a good working knowledge of their mindset. First and foremost, let me say that a vast majority of violent attacks, attempted homicides, and homicides committed domestically involve weapons other than firearms--knives being the preferred weapon.
Of the few domestic homicides I can recall that involved long guns, committed by either sex on the spouse, they were long guns that were legally owned and there had been no previous encounters with the law. No amount of gun registry would have stopped lives from being taken.
I have watched the long-gun registry with interest, both as a serving police officer and a gun owner/hunter. First, and it has been said time and time again, criminals do not register guns. The guns they seek out and use to commit violent crimes are most profoundly smuggled or stolen handguns and, to a lesser extent, stolen and cut-down shotguns or rifles. Firearms that are capable of firing at an automatic rate are smuggled in from the U.S., and drug dealers and gangs--the two intertwined--are the favourite customers. None of these situations can be corrected by a long-gun registry.
Handguns have always enjoyed a restricted status, and ownership brought significant restrictions as to how and where the firearm could be possessed. Automatic weapons were always illegal to possess, with the exception of law enforcement and legitimate grandfathered collectors. The national gun registry has done nothing to deter illegal possession of these guns.
Again, criminals intent on procuring and possessing these guns are not about to register them. So how does the gun registry assist the police in preventing gun crime? It simply does not, and it offers nothing to protect our citizenry from being victims of gun crime perpetrated by well-armed criminals.
I'm not against licensing of gun owners. The possession and/or acquisition of firearms should be a licensed, controlled process to prevent criminals and otherwise unstable or dangerous individuals from legally obtaining and owning firearms. But the registry is really only about counting guns--guns belonging to people who have chosen to involve themselves in the system.
Civil disobedience to the registry has been rampant, with entire provinces refusing to enforce the failure to register and attorneys general announcing refusal to prosecute. Amnesties that have lasted for years have been put into place. Thousands and thousands of legal guns remain in our country outside of the registry, and many thousands of illegal guns are stolen or smuggled into the hands of criminals whose last worry is the gun registry.
I've heard from proponents of the registry that it assists police officers because they can check with the gun registry to determine if guns are registered to the person they are interested in or the residence or location they are attending. While this check can certainly be done, I've yet to talk to a serving street cop--I'm talking about the average constable attending call after call after call--who has checked the registry, even a single time, or who even knows how to use it. In checking with the supervisor officers of the major crimes unit, the homicide unit, and the organized crime unit, not one can ever recall using the registry before going to make an arrest.
I spoke to the head of the Winnipeg Police Service tactical support team, which is the new term for the old SWAT team that we were on. This is a 24/7 support unit that, from its inception to the level of coverage two years ago, has been involved in several hundred planned operations, mostly high-risk warrant service, drug warrants, Criminal Code firearm search warrants, and the like. He indicated that the gun registry is worthless in preventing gun crime. He did advise that, by protocol, members of his unit confer with the registry when planning tactical operations, but their experience was that the registry has been only sometimes accurate, only sometimes up to date, and largely ineffective—and I quote—“because we all know that criminals don't register their guns”.
By way of history, upon the inception of Bill C-68, the Winnipeg Police Association membership voted by way of referendum that they were strongly opposed to the long-gun registry. Identically, the Manitoba Police Association also opposed the long-barrel registry, after taking the issue to a vote by the membership. And so it went for the police associations in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Then-WPA president, Loren Schinkel, now with Manitoba Justice as coordinator of aboriginal and municipal law enforcement, often referenced Premier Gary Doer's line about the Government of Manitoba not supporting the bill, saying that we need to get tough on gangs and restricted guns, not turn goose hunters into criminals.
If the long-gun registry was going to be such a significant crime-fighting tool, does anybody believe that entire police services would fail to embrace it wholeheartedly? Yes, fragments of police services utilize the registry by way of protocol, but with criminals not registering their stolen or smuggled handguns or cut-down stolen firearms, previously legally registered or not, it is of little use. Because of the hit-and-miss situation of any individual actually registering legal guns, because the registry does not keep up with the movement of individuals from place to place, because criminals do not register, no police officer could ever rely on a check against the registry to determine if a danger did or did not exist. A police officer must be ever vigilant, no matter the circumstance, and the fact that the registry might indicate that an individual or an address does or does not reflect legal gun registration is of little assistance, all things considered. The old possession and acquisition certificate did as much, without the arithmetic of counting guns.
The most alarming area of gun use escalation surrounds the ever-increasing street gang activity tied dramatically to the drug trade. As I deal on a daily basis with gang members in my current occupation and monitor their other criminal activities through my involvement with serving police officers in the criminal intelligence service, I can tell you first hand that gun crime is escalating and that handguns are far and away the weapon of choice of these criminals to enforce their piece of the drug trade pie. Anytime I get a gang member in my office, I turn to the subject of guns somewhere along the way, and it is not unusual for the gang banger to brag, “I've got a nine; I've got a Glock.”
Shots ringing out in certain parts of Winnipeg have become commonplace activity, and drive-by shootings of individuals and residences the same. The registry is not the answer to stopping this.
The long-gun registry was an ill-thought-out piece of legislation in answer to the tragedy at École Polytechnique in 1989. It did not stop another similar tragedy at Dawson College in 2006. It will not stop the next deranged individual from attempting a similar attack in the future.
Holding the long-gun registry out as a protector of women is simply not valid. It is a lie. We must do better to protect women and the citizenry of our country by putting meaningful consequences in place for criminal offences and concentrate on stopping the flow of illegal gun traffic over our border into the hands of criminals.
A minimum sentence for gun crimes with minimum time served would serve as a far better solution than the long-gun registry. It is said that the abolishment of the two-for-one sentencing issue will increase incarceration and associated costs an additional $2 billion, roughly what we've spent on the registry already. Having only registered six million to seven million, with an estimated 17 million total guns in Canada, if that is correct, I wonder how much more money that would cost us. I would rather put the $2 billion towards keeping those criminals in jail and making sure they could not hurt anybody else.
Thank you for offering me this time to speak to you. I sincerely hope that what I've said will assist you in making an informed decision.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen.
As you know, my name is Mitchell McCormick. I'd like to thank you for providing me with this opportunity to speak before you today on this very important issue.
I would like to take a moment to provide you with a brief background about myself so that you might understand why I support Bill C-391 and the repeal of the long-gun registry.
I, too, was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and I still live there with my wife and two daughters. I was a police officer with the Winnipeg Police Service for twenty-seven and a half years. During that time I worked in uniform, but the majority of my career was in specialty units as a detective. As a detective, I worked in the vice division, the break-and-enter squad, and the major crimes unit.
In addition to these duties, I was also a member, for 15 years, with the Winnipeg Police Service emergency response unit, the SWAT team, as Mr. Shipman and Mr. Tinsley have indicated. At the time I was a member, it was a part-time team that was called on to attend armed and barricaded incidents as well as to execute high-risk warrants where weapons, and in particular firearms, were suspected of being involved. Before I stepped down from the unit, I was a team leader in charge of the assault team. One of my responsibilities was to develop the entry plan into whatever place or location we were attending to.
Prior to retiring, I was a supervisor in the major crimes unit. The major crimes unit is responsible for investigations such as commercial robberies, serious assaults, attempted murders, kidnappings, and, on occasion, homicides. It also can be assigned to high-profile or sensitive investigations, as deemed by the chief or the executive.
In 2005, while I was in the major crimes unit, I was assigned to such a file as one of the supervisors. It was a half a million dollar break-in at one of the banks in our city, and the suspect had been identified by the original investigators as being a male by the name of Gerald Blanchard. Much has been written about this individual. There have been numerous articles in magazines. CBC's fifth estate did a documentary about our investigation. He was successfully prosecuted and convicted for participating in a criminal organization and break-ins to banks in Ontario, Winnipeg, Alberta, and British Columbia.
I mention this individual because early on in our investigation we learned that in 1995 he had been arrested in the United States for stealing a police officer's handgun and a police car. He was subsequently convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon, theft, and escaped custody. He received five years in a Nebraska prison. Upon his release, he was deported back to Canada, as he was a Canadian citizen. Subsequently, in 2003 he applied for and received a firearms licence. In 2004 he was able to register three semi-automatic rifles and two shotguns.
In 2007, at the completion of our investigation and our wiretap, we arrested Mr. Blanchard and a number of his associates. We also executed warrants in British Columbia, where he had five residences and one storage locker. He had storage lockers in both Alberta and Ontario, which he had rented under one of his more than 32 aliases. In one of the residences and in each of the storage lockers we found firearms and ammunition that he had not registered.
Mr. Blanchard had been provided a firearms licence and was allowed to register firearms. None of the firearms we seized, to my knowledge, were the ones he had registered. His record in the U.S. did not appear to have been discovered. Although he had a minor record for property-related offences here in Canada, he was allowed to register firearms, as I mentioned before.
I would agree if anyone was to say that Mr. Blanchard was not your typical criminal. In particular, he differs from most criminals because he is the rare exception who actually registered a gun. Most criminals never register guns.
This investigation and the details I've told you about are just some of the reasons that some, maybe not all, police officers do not and cannot rely on the registry. The fact that he may have firearms is certainly beneficial when trying to determine the individual you are against, but this information was available prior to the long-gun registry coming into effect. I would dare say that Mr. Blanchard, had he applied for a firearms acquisition certificate through the old system, would have never been allowed to in fact obtain a licence. He would have had to deal with a police officer who would have done a more in-depth background check, and that does not appear to have been done in this case.
Whether Gerald Blanchard had a firearms licence or had weapons registered to him would not have changed the way in which we went about arresting him or executing the numerous search warrants around the country, as the background that we did on him showed he had the potential to have firearms.
It is the background on the individual, not the number of reports or how many guns a person has, that determines how we do our job. It has been said so many times—and Mr. Tinsley has indicated it—that guns don't kill people; people kill people.
As a constable, detective sergeant, the sergeant of detectives, and a team leader of an emergency response unit, I can tell you that I never once used the long-gun registry, nor do I know anyone who worked with me or for me who has.
In order to do our job effectively and safely, we do not take anything for granted. Every person I arrested and every building I entered, I suspected there was a person inside who might be armed with a firearm or a weapon that could harm me. The background on the person was the information I relied on the most. I would never rely on any type of registry to confirm or deny there was a weapon, or numerous weapons, inside. Just knowing a person has a firearm is indication enough for me. Knowing about the person more than knowing how many guns may or may not be at the address, as I said, was what I relied on to formulate my plan.
I do this because I don't take anything for granted. I think this is a result of almost being killed myself. As I mentioned, one of the units I worked in was the vice unit. In the summer of 1986, while working undercover, I was assigned, along with my partner, to assist in a stakedown. We had information that the building was going to be broken into. While sitting in our cruiser car waiting for the suspects to show up, I observed two unrelated individuals, one of whom was assaulting the other with a long, heavy bar. I surely thought he would kill him, so I alighted from my vehicle to intervene while my partner radioed for backup. Upon approaching the male with the bar, I drew my firearm. I identified myself and told him to drop the bar. He turned and ran away, dropping the bar as he went, and I chased after this male, thinking that I wished I had never taken out my firearm, because now I had no way of getting it back in my undercover holster, because it was a piece of leather in the back of my belt and the individual I was now chasing was unarmed.
I chased the male halfway down the block before he turned, and as I was about to catch him, he lunged at me with what I first thought was a punch, which I blocked with my leg. I immediately felt a burning pain in my leg from what I would later find was the result of a six-inch-long Rambo-type knife with a serrated edge being plunged into my upper left leg, right up to the handle. I will never forget the motion of his arm going back and forth as he tried to remove the knife that was stuck in my leg. Once he removed the knife, I fell to the ground. This individual then came at me again. I managed to fire two rounds over his head before he fled.
I nearly lost my life that day. I am positive that had I not been able to block that initial attack with my leg, the results would have been different. My wife was eight months pregnant with our first child. The thought of me never knowing her...or my second child, still bothers me today.
The truth of the matter is--and I believe this--that far more people are killed by knives than by long guns. Just as registering every knife would do nothing to stop violent assaults or murders, neither would registering long guns stop people from committing violent acts.
I'm sure this committee has heard before, and I must say it again: guns don't kill people; people kill people. The long-gun registry, although enacted with good intentions, will not stop gun-related violence.
The Canadian firearms program does have some good educational points, like enabling and promoting responsible firearms use and storage. However, by and large, the registry is ineffective, inaccurate, and could be dangerous if a false sense of security occurs.
My daughters are now 24 and 20 years of age. My youngest attends the University of Winnipeg, in the heart of our city, just blocks from where I almost lost my life.
I do not believe registering the knife that almost killed me would have stopped my situation from happening, and I do not believe registering guns will prevent gun crime. Target the person, not the weapon. Do a proper background on people before they get access to guns. We can save lives proactively with police resources effectively targeting criminals.
Thank you very much.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you.
The usual practice at this committee, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is to begin with the Liberal Party and then go to the Bloc, the NDP, and over to the government for seven-minute rounds of questions and comments. The seven minutes includes the question and the answer.
Go ahead, Mr. Holland.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to all the witnesses.
If I could start with the three officers who have come today from Winnipeg, first of all, we may disagree on this issue, but thank you very much for your service. I know that as retired officers you've dedicated a good part of your life to keeping our communities safe, and I'm...[Technical difficulty--Editor]
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
I would like to thank you for your years of service. I know that being a police officer and serving one's community is not easy.
There is a difference of opinion here, and I respect that you have a different opinion. I'm wondering if we could start with police associations. Currently across this country there are 156 police associations, or thereabouts--and appreciate that I have a very limited amount of time and I have other questions, and I have a follow-up one to this.
Are any of you aware of how many of those 156 have taken formal positions against the registry?