Public Safety Committee on May 26th, 2010

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

I would not agree that they're elected democratically, because the average front-line police officer has no input whatsoever into who is the president or who is on the board of directors of the Canadian Police Association.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

But there is an election and an electoral process in selecting the representatives?

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

There's an electoral process in--

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

There is. Perhaps you can check what that process is.

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

I'm quite familiar with that process.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

But it doesn't matter, because you've decided that ipso facto you represent thousands of officers. Sir, you were quoted in an American NRA infomercial stating, “Once the populace doesn't have the ability to defend itself, it's no longer a governed nation. It's a ruled nation.” Do you stand by that statement?

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

I do.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Did you receive any form of compensation from the NRA?

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

I received none whatsoever.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

But they're using you as a spokesperson. So in fact you're a spokesperson for the NRA in their infomercials, although you represented yourself here as, ipso facto, representing thousands of officers across the country as part of this conspiracy theory.

Do you believe that Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be amended to add the right to bear arms, based on your quotation here?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

You have 30 seconds.

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

No.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

We'll move over to the government side.

Mr. Norlock for five minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today.

I'd like to ask Mr. Farrant of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters a question. In his submission Mr. Farrant didn't have enough time to talk about some of the long-gun registry myths and some of the polling that has been done with regard to that.

I wonder, Mr. Farrant, if you could go to your section near the end where you talk about the myth that the majority of Canadians support the federal long-gun registry and believe it should be maintained. Would you reference just the first four or five?

[Greg Farrant]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

Recently we had--if you're talking about the polls themselves. Is that what you're asking me to reference?

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Yes, just the results.

[Greg Farrant]

Sure. In the CTV poll of Thursday, April 29, 2010--so roughly a month ago--CTV News asked a very simple question: do you support the long-gun registry? Five percent, or 1,413 people, said yes they do. Ninety-five percent, 26,172 people, said no they do not.

Previous to that, on November 12, 2009, in Kamloops, British Columbia, the question was, do you agree with ending mandatory registration of rifles and shotguns? Eighty-eight percent said yes; 12 percent said no.

The Toronto Sun, just the week before that, asked if the federal government should scrap the national registry for rifles and shotguns. Eighty-one percent said yes; nineteen percent said no. And on and on we go.

Over the last four years, 16 polls have conclusively demonstrated that Canadians are fed up with this registry and want to see it gone.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

When you say you represent 100,000 Ontarians, usually anglers, and hunters.... In some of your publications that I've been able to read, you talk about the safe use of firearms and the safe handling of firearms and the responsibility that firearms owners have.

Could you tell me, with regard to your publication, how often in that publication you would repeat those issues about firearms safety?

[Greg Farrant]

Mr. Norlock, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters is also the publisher of Ontario Out of Doors magazine as well as Angler & Hunter Television, and I think it's safe to say, and fair to say, that we repeat that mantra at every opportunity.

Last year we produced over 100,000 pamphlets on responsible hunting, and in there we talked about safe storage, safe transportation, safe use, licensing of firearms, etc. Copies of that went to every municipality in the province of Ontario.

I appear annually in 50 to 100 municipalities talking about discharge of firearms bylaws, both in my capacity as a member of the federation and their representative, but also because I'm a vice-chair of a police services board. So I talk to OPP officers about this all the time and take their recommendations about what to send to our members in terms of safe use of firearms.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Sergeant Grismer, if I were to tell you that in 1998 the percentage of homicides that involved firearms was 27%, and it stayed roughly within 2% or 3% of that number.... In 2001, of course, the long-gun registry started and the percentage of homicides involving firearms was 31%. Then if I were to tell you that in 2003--long guns then required to be registered--homicides with firearms were 29% and that has remained steady, what would you logically conclude from that?

[Det Sgt Murray Grismer]

Well, figures on firearms used in crime fluctuate across this nation. If you track them over the years, they've fluctuated up...we've been higher, we've been lower, and now they seem to be reaching a stabilized point. When we look at firearms crime in other nations, we see that there has been a downturn in violent crime within the U.S. So I guess the answer is it shows that at the number it's at, it's staying relatively at a plateau.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Having--

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Twenty seconds, Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

That's it? Thank you.