Evidence of meeting #21 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 firearm.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
The population of Ontario is approximately 12 million.
You are the Attorneys General of the two largest provinces and you have the same views on this issue.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
The two provinces have taken the same position—you want firearms to continue to be registered.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
And when you hear Mr. Cossette and Mr. Pelletier say that this makes no sense, how do you respond?
4:55 p.m.
Minister of Public Safety, Government of Québec
I would say to Mr. Cossette, Mr. Pelletier, Ms. Cabrera and Mr. Bernardo that I am sad to see that they are frustrated, feel aggrieved or have the sense that they are being judged by Canadians simply because they are required to register a firearm. That is not the case.
I understand that it is a nuisance, a bother. That is what they are arguing. It is a nuisance to have to register a firearm. But we would like the process to be as little of a nuisance, as free and as easy as possible, so as not to burden people with red tape.
On the other hand, there is the issue of protecting the public and human life. You heard Dr. Leonard's comments. I was a defence lawyer for 12 years and I worked on cases involving crimes of passion where, unfortunately, in all the cases I argued before the courts, the victims had lost their lives because of injuries caused with long guns. Consequently, if we are comparing public safety to red tape, it is obvious that one clearly outweighs the other—public safety must take precedence.
Having said that, Mr. Comartin, I would just like to add that, with all due respect for hunters, these individuals register their firearms and obtain acquisition licences with the best possible intentions. Unfortunately, however, we do not live in a cold, subjective world. We have human emotions and situations arise where, unfortunately, the line between mental health and mental illness is easily crossed. That is part of life, and it is important to acknowledge that.
However, we have no desire to stigmatize these people; we like them. When they practice their sport, they do so correctly. It is unfortunate that they feel--
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I agree with you.
Dr. Leonard, this is just a quick question. When you hear Mr. Pelletier say that it doesn't make good sense, and the statistics don't show a reduced number of deaths, what do you say to him?
4:55 p.m.
Member, Canadian Paediatric Society
Clearly there has been a reduction in the pediatric age group and in overall firearm deaths. When I first looked at Canadian firearm mortality statistics from 1991, there were 1,400 firearm deaths in Canada. Recently those numbers are down to around 800 firearm deaths.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for coming.
Since Ms. Fraser's on the news every night lately, let's just say that every party here appreciates the work that you and your department do.
Thank you, Minister, for coming from the province of Quebec.
Let me just say to all the witnesses that no matter what side of this issue we are on, we still have the best interests of the health and safety of Canadians...
We can throw statistics back and forth, but since I'm limited by time, I'm just going to ask this of Ms. Cabrera: have you ever had your picture taken with a firearm in your hands and perhaps a smile on your face?
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Do you think a person holding a firearm and pointing it in a direction, with a smile on their face, should be someone who should be looked at as feared, or demeaned, in any way?
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you.
Would I be out of line to suggest to you or to Mr. Bernardo that a great number of firearms owners, because the registry comes under the Criminal Code of Canada, and because there is such a...?
You know, when we're dealing with licences, we're dealing with a department of highways, we're dealing with other things. When you don't register your vehicle and you're stopped by the police, it's a provincial offence and there's a fine attached. But when you don't register your firearm, you are automatically a criminal.
Would I be out of line to suggest that's why the majority of firearms owners feel that they're being criminalized by the very fact that they own a firearm?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Yes, I think that states it pretty well. There is also, of course, the stigmatization that society has now been presenting to firearms owners based upon the unbelievable amounts of media we've been seeing since the Firearms Act came into effect, demonizing them. This is something you don't talk about with your neighbours anymore.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Bernardo, how many members do you have?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
We have 15,000 individual paid members coast to coast, and approximately 100-plus clubs.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Mr. Bernardo, we've been told that the registry helps track stolen guns and forces firearms owners to be more responsible in storing their firearms.
I'd like to imagine that your members are overwhelmingly responsible citizens to begin with.
What do you make of this claim?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Well, we are definitely overwhelmingly responsible citizens. That's how we got firearms licences in the first place; half the people out there who don't have them probably couldn't get them.
However, to say that the registration encourages or forces owners to be more responsible is airy-fairy, wishful thinking. You can't take a piece of paper, put it beside a firearm inside the closed doors of one's own domicile, and expect that to have any kind of an effect.
In terms of tracing lost or stolen firearms, it is a federal offence right now to not report a lost or stolen firearm. You must do that whether the gun is registered or not. Very few of those guns traced actually make it back to their owners in spite of the fact that we've had judges issue court orders repeatedly to police services to return the firearms, and they aren't returned.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Mr. Bernardo, we've also heard conflicting reports that the information on the registry database is secure, and then other witnesses say it's not secure. We've been told it's safe from access by the criminal element.
What do you make of that claim?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Again, wishful thinking. I have a document here in my hand, and it's a portion of an interview done with the webmaster for the Canada Firearms Centre. His name is John Hicks. He says that a 13-year-old with an Internet connection and half an hour can get into the national firearms database; it's that simple.
Now that it's been moved under CPIC, well, that's great, but I also have two RCMP access to information requests showing 306 breaches of CPIC between the years 1995 and 2003. If you can get into CPIC, you can get into the gun registry. That's 306 breaches, according to the RCMP. Secure? No, absolutely not. And worse, the information that you can get out of that computer could get somebody killed. There are people out there, bad people, who will kill you for your guns.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you.
We've been repeatedly told here, and told again today, that the money that's already been spent to set up the registry should be considered, and that it's foolish to dismantle it now.
Can you comment on that?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Half of the guns aren't in the registry; they're only halfway there. The second half will be harder to get than the first half. If you want the second half--and if you're going to make this thing work, I think that has to happen--be prepared to spend more than the $2 billion you spent the first time, because people won't come forward anymore.
In my office we get calls two or three times a week from people: “I was going through Grandad's stuff. I found this old World War I handgun. What do I do with it?” We tell them to take it to the police department. Then when they ask us, “Will they register it?”, and we tell them, no, they'll destroy it, they're not allowed to register it, we'll hear them say, “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
Click.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Following up on that, in your experience, how are firearms owners treated in the courts, or by the courts?
5:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Thank you for asking that question.
A firearms owner is somebody who has never been in trouble with the law before; otherwise they wouldn't have a firearms licence. But when they get into court, they are put through the entire court system like they're John Dillinger. They have a crown attorney pounding on the opposite table, saying, “We want two years of jail time”, or three years, or four years.
This is someone who has never even been in a courtroom before. They are terrified. They spend $8,000 or $9,000 out of their pocket to get acquitted on something like an unsafe storage charge.
They're also given a firearms prohibition immediately. We've even had firearms prohibitions given out to our members for things that were totally unrelated to guns. We had a guy get a dangerous driving conviction and they gave him a firearms prohibition for ten years, which is the equivalent of a lifetime prohibition.
This stuff is happening in courtrooms right throughout Canada. We started out, at the beginning of the Firearms Act, with no such thing in Canada as a firearms lawyer. There are now six of them working full time.
