Thanks, Barb.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents 172,000 workers across the country, including the 238 workers who work in the federal firearms registry in New Brunswick, and we are proud to be members of the Canadian Labour Congress.
Our union supports gun control. Our union also supports a firearms registry, which we believe has proven its importance and its success. Abolishing the long-gun registry serves no useful purpose, and we urge the committee to stand against Bill C-391 and reject its proposed amendments for the following reasons.
We've provided a written brief, so I am just going to address some of our concerns in bullet form.
We believe the long-gun registration is a necessary tool in the fight against violence against women. The long-gun registration helps ensure public health and safety, and gun control helps police do their work.
I'm going to talk briefly about the experience of our members--Public Service Alliance of Canada members--who work in the gun registry. Our members working at the registry provide information on the legislation and facilitate the registration, licensing, and transfer of ownership for gun owners. They answer anywhere between 75 and 120 calls per day working in a call centre environment, and they tell us that the people they interact with in general also support the program. These workers have first-hand experience of the importance of this registry.
As Charline Vautour, who works at the exception handling unit of the program, says,
We see results every day. We know the registry is useful when we see who uses it--in police investigations, when police visit people's homes, in situations of domestic violence, in legal matters. It is also used by health care workers who are first responders who need to know if there are weapons in a house and by fire departments which need to know if there are any explosives in a house. In a house fire, a long gun might just melt, but the ammunition can be very dangerous. Eliminating the registry would be a huge step backwards. All those records would be deleted. The outcome would be negative and it would be dangerous.
We agree that most gun owners have been registered and have registered their firearms. Of course, most Canadians support gun control, with a recent Léger poll indicating that 59% of Canadians consider the gun registry a good investment.
Are you asking me to stop, sir?