Public Safety Committee on June 1st, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That's clarified.

Ms. Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I appreciate that. I think I'm understanding now.

The point I would like to make with regard to this motion is, first and foremost, that the added information Mr. Holland now claims he made, which included the word “expert”, is in contention with what we heard.

First and foremost, the experts who appeared here supported the repeal, clearly supported the repeal, of the long-gun registry. I don't know who Mr. Holland is referring to, but the only experts who are declared experts.... For the purposes of being an expert, there is a lengthy process involved in being declared an expert witness, and there are very few declared expert witnesses in this country. The experts who appeared here, who have legitimately been declared and followed the process, were not in agreement with keeping the long-gun registry.

If you would allow me, sir, please let me refer to the experts who spoke here.

I'll refer to the first expert who spoke here. That expert was Mr. Jack Tinsley. I'll read from the blues of his testimony. He stated: “I have been declared an expert in the area of illegal street drugs and drug trafficking at all levels of Manitoba courts. These experiences and many others in a progression of higher ranks over the span of my career have led me to three conclusions...”. He then goes on. I'm not going to continue to read the whole thing. But Mr. Tinsley, who was a 30-plus year member of the Winnipeg Police Service, has followed the process, is an expert witness, and stated clearly that he does not believe in the long-gun registry, seeks a repeal of the long-gun registry, and completely agrees with our side with regard to that and with the bill put forward by Ms. Candice Hoeppner.

The second witness who is a declared expert is Mr. Grismer. Let me flip my page to Mr. Grismer's testimony, so that I might read into evidence as well the fact that he is an expert witness. Here's what he said in his brief:

The Courts in Saskatchewan have qualified me as an Expert Witness, able to give opinion evidence on firearms. I have provided assistance to both Federal and Provincial prosecutions in the area of firearms related crime. I am Master Instructor for the Canadian Firearms Safety Courses (Non-restricted and Restricted) and an Approved Verifier, certified by the Registrar of the Canadian Firearm Registry since September 2001.

So I would say that this is contrary to what Mr. Holland has led this committee to believe. The experts who are declared experts do not agree with Mr. Holland's statement. Again, Mr. Grismer goes on to side with Ms. Candice Hoeppner's bill in asking to repeal the long-gun registry.

So we now have Mr. Tinsley, who is a retired police officer, and we have Mr. Murray Grismer, who is an active police officer, and both are declared expert witnesses, through a lengthy process that not many officers get in their lifetime career.

Now I'll go to the third expert witness, if I may. We had another fellow who indicated he was--and he used the words--an “expert witness”. That was a Mr. Bernardo. I would cite a letter sent to all committee members and submitted through our clerk, Mr. Roger Préfontaine. In that submission to this committee, Mr. Bernardo indicates:

I am a member of the Public Safety Minister's Firearms Advisory Committee and a previous member of the Justice Minister's Firearms Experts Technical Committee. I have also served as an Expert Witness in court trials regarding firearms and have addressed the United Nations four times on behalf of Canadian firearms owners.

As far as I can recall--and I may be wrong--there may have been other people who are designated expert witnesses, but these are the three that came to my mind immediately. When Mr. Holland used that word to describe, in bulk, that experts side with him, he misled the committee. He completely misled the committee.

I take offence to that. The testimony that was provided by these experts was clear. Mr. Bernardo agrees. He believes there should be a repeal of the long-gun registry. Again, I've only brought up three that came to mind.

Mr. Holland has completely misled this committee, which continues to happen, and it's shameful. It is shameful.

I would submit, Mr. Chair, that the experts agree. They agree with Ms. Hoeppner that the long-gun registry is not doing what it was intended to do.

Unfortunately, the statements made by Mr. Holland were made in an effort, I believe.... Well, it is possible he made a mistake. It is possible. But there have been a number of mistakes, then, and we've got to stop this. We've got to clearly cite the experts. We've got to clearly state what happened in committee, and what happened is that the witnesses who came before us were not unanimously in agreement. Parliamentarians are not unanimously in agreement. So any motion that is put forward that would suggest in any way that there is unanimity I would be completely against. It would not be truthful. It would not in fact be serving Canadians to do something that was dishonest.

I wouldn't suggest that any of us are trying to do that. But making misleading comments like the ones Mr. Holland just made is not fair to Canadians, because they may not have had the benefit of sitting through all the testimony. The experts clearly said they believe we ought to repeal the long-gun registry, and anyone who says different is misleading.

From here on out, since I've made these comments publicly, should they dispute that or claim that experts said otherwise, I would suggest it would be an outright lie and a disservice to Canadians. It would be a disservice to every expert who appeared here with their credentials and a disservice to every single one of these witnesses who came here of their own goodwill to do the right thing, to make sure we look at this bill in an effective manner and in a fair manner. I think what's missing sometimes is the fairness in all of this.

I will not vote for this motion because it is not reflective of what happened here. I am going to vote with the experts, and I am going to vote to repeal the long-gun registry.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you, Ms. Glover.

Mr. Rathgeber, please.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Firstly, I must say I'm disappointed with the motion. I came here prepared to debate the merits of Ms. Hoeppner's bill, but the member for Ajax—Pickering is using this motion, as he is fond of doing, to basically sidestep any sort of meaningful or intelligent debate. This motion, as I understand it, if passed, would send the bill back to the House and let the House decide. So I guess he doesn't trust this committee to actually have a thorough and meaningful debate regarding the merits of Bill C-391, the merits of the firearm registry and firearm and gun control generally, and the long-gun registry in particular.

Now, of course we know that his leader is on the media record as stating he's going to whip his members to vote against Bill C-391 if and when—well, not if—this bill returns to the House. We do have to report it back at some point. Of course, Mr. Chair, we know that puts many members of the Liberal caucus in a very precarious position.

In my region of the country, western Canada, Alberta to be specific, of course the long-gun registry is pretty much universally despised. You know that, Mr. Chair. You represent the territory where I was born, actually, Melville, Saskatchewan. Saskatchewanians and Albertans don't differ when it comes to the effectiveness and the efficiency of this type of alleged crime control.

When I look at the motion, it's quite obvious to me that this motion was written before the member for Ajax—Pickering tried to stack the witness list. If he had been successful in stacking the witness list, I think we probably would have heard sufficient testimony that the bill would dismantle a tool that promoted and enhanced public safety and the safety of Canadian police officers. Thankfully, this committee, through its wisdom and through its debate, decided not to let Mr. Holland stack the witness list. As a result, we heard a balanced list of witnesses. We heard good evidence for the bill, and I''ll admit we heard some compelling testimony—not a lot, but some—that Bill C-391 was perhaps not a meritorious piece of proposed legislation.

Under no fair analysis of the evidence that's been put forward or that this committee has heard could one possibly come to the conclusion that the committee has heard sufficient testimony that the bill would dismantle a tool that promotes and enhances the public security and the safety of Canadian police officers. In fact, I would submit to you, Mr. Chair, that it's quite the opposite.

I would consider proposing an amendment to this motion, but of course I don't want to recommend that the House of Commons not proceed further. I think an amendment would actually be in order if we were going to be factually accurate, because I think the committee has heard sufficient testimony that the long-gun registry does nothing to promote and enhance public security, and does nothing or very little to promote the safety of Canadian police officers.

We've heard from many witnesses. We heard from, for example, Chief Rick Hanson of the Calgary Police Service, a very fine officer. I got to know him a little bit. He came to Edmonton in March and appeared before the justice committee when we were doing our organized crime study. He was very thoughtful and methodical in his advice to the justice committee. I thought he was similar when he appeared before this committee. He told us that the long-gun registry is of no benefit to his officers, in one of Canada's largest and sadly, from time to time, most violent cities. His basis for coming to that conclusion was that criminals simply do not register their guns.

Most of the violence.... And there's considerable gang violence in the city of Calgary. It's very unfortunate. I think all metropolitan cities, my city of Edmonton included, are plagued by gang violence from time to time. I would say that the compelling evidence I have heard is unequivocal on this point. Those weapons used in gang-land warfare are not registered; they're smuggled into Canada. We heard this on the justice committee as well when we did our organized crime study.

You have these grow operations in B.C. and Alberta and elsewhere. B.C. bud, as it's locally known, is smuggled into Washington State or Oregon. The payment for the B.C. bud, which I understand is fine-grade marijuana—I wouldn't know anything about those types of things.... But I understand that it's valuable in the black market, and often the payment for those drug shipments is illegal hand-guns and assault rifles, and those come back onto our city streets—Vancouver, Edmonton, and certainly Calgary, as Chief Hanson so eloquently pointed out. And it's those unregistered illegal assault rifles and hand-guns that are used both in the commission of violent offences and to provide insecurity to Canadian police officers.

Mr. Holland's motion specifically mentions the safety of Canadian police officers as one of the reasons why he thinks we should invoke Standing Order 97.1 and recommend to the House that this bill not proceed.

Well, we heard from other police officers besides Chief Hanson, and we heard from the chief in Abbotsford. It's not a big city, but certainly a medium-sized city close to a large metropolitan area, which has been absolutely plagued by horrible gang-land warfare. That's the city of Abbotsford, which as you know, Mr. Chair, is conveniently located in the lower mainland close to the city of Vancouver. And then tucked in there and sort of in between but a little bit north—Mr. Davies can help me with the geography—is the city of Surrey. Surrey also has had significant problems over the past couple of years with respect to gangs.

I remember Chief Rich from the Abbotsford Police Department saying that the gun registry is, and I quote, “horribly inaccurate”. So that caused me to ask some questions, both to.... Well, I don't think I asked any questions of Chief Rich, but I certainly asked some questions of Charles Momy, who is the president of the Canadian Police Association, when they appeared on the same panel. I asked if he truly believed that the gun registry was reliable, and it took a little bit of prodding but I eventually got him to concede that the long-gun registry simply was not reliable, and eventually he did agree with Chief Rich that the gun registry is horribly unreliable.

And then you will recall—not in a question that I asked, but I wish I had asked it, because it was so brilliant; it was asked by Mr. Wrzesnwskyj from the Liberals. Charles Momy could not think of a single life, could not name a single incident where a life was saved by the long-gun registry. And then Mr. Wrzesnwskyj, who is very clever, changed the subject and said he meant to ask more metaphorically whether it saves lives. But the point is and the testimony would reveal that the president of the Canadian Police Association stated categorically that he didn't know of a single incident where the long-gun registry had saved a life.

So with that kind of compelling testimony--and I have more, but I thought I would come back to the motion we're voting on--how could I possibly, Mr. Chair, support a motion that has in it “enhances public security and the safety of Canadian police officers” when in fact it's quite the opposite? We've heard evidence that it does nothing to do any of that.

Now, I thought Mr. Momy was a very interesting witness, because he wasn't called by our side, but I think we probably should have called him, because his evidence was really that helpful to us.

[Candice Heoppner]

We were so limited; that was the problem.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

This is a figure that the proponents of defeating Ms. Heoppner's bill like to flout around, that 92% of front-line officers have access to the registry on a regular basis. But then when I asked him about that, he was very candid with me, and I appreciated that. He has some 41,000 members who belong to the Canadian Police Association. But when they did that survey.... In fact they didn't even do the survey; I understand the RCMP did the survey, but that's really not relevant. When the survey was done, only 408 members of the CPA responded to the question “Do you use the long-gun registry?” Now, that's less than 1%. So of the 408 who actually took the time to respond.... And remember, Mr. Chair, this is not some random survey, with people who are chosen at random and therefore are representative of the larger population. This is a survey that, as I understand, was distributed to every member of law enforcement who is a member of the CPA.

Only 408 bothered to respond to the survey, and of those, 92 said they had access to the long-gun registry. So that's well less than 1%. I can manipulate statistics as well as the opposition, so from that analysis I guess I'm free to conclude that over 99% of front-line police officers don't access the long-gun registry, because there is certainly no evidence in opposition to my supposition.

Mr. Momy was not one of the witnesses Mr. Holland put in his motion that would indicate there was sufficient testimony that the bill will dismantle a tool that promotes and enhances public security and the safety of Canadian police officers--much to the contrary, actually.

You will recall, Mr. Chair, that three weeks ago from this Thursday I gave Mr. Momy a couple of hypothetical situations. We keep hearing that the long-gun registry gets 11,000 hits a day. Again, statistics can be manipulated, and although that's probably true, Mr. Momy did tell me that 45% of those hits were automatically generated through CPIC inquiries.

You can't use that to support anything. That's a simple situation where a car has a burnt-out tail light and the police pull it over. They run the plates through CPIC, and that automatically generates a firearm registry search through CPIC. So it's not a specific case of an officer actually accessing the Canadian firearm registry. It's just an automatic computer-generated search.

Nonetheless, according to Charles Momy, the president of the Canadian Police Association, 55% of those 11,000 hits per day--or a big chunk of them--are as a result of police responding to domestic situations. I gave him a couple of hypotheticals. The cops show up at a house and do a search of the owner or a search or the address. If it comes up negative, that there are no registered weapons, do the police officers rely on that search? Do they go in unarmed, walking in backwards? Of course not. Police need to be vigilant. So any time you have a search that shows there are no registered weapons at that residence, you automatically assume it to be wrong. He told me that. You go in there expecting the worse. You go in there expecting that the occupants are going to be armed. You're prepared and ready for that. So a negative search is not reliable, don't rely on it.

Then I posed a second hypothetical to Mr. Momy. What if the registry search shows there is one registered weapon at the residence? Would you rely on it then? Then I carried my hypothetical to the next level. What if you go in, there's a domestic dispute, and the assailant--not to be sexist, but it's typically a man, at least statistically--had a firearm? So you neutralize that firearm and take it out of play. At that point, do you assume that you have a safe crime scene and there are no more registered weapons at that residence? Mr. Momy's response was, “Of course not. We expect there to be more.”

As many of the witnesses said--and I think Ms. Glover acknowledged that some of these witnesses have been declared experts in criminal trials--all the registry really does is count weapons. But I digress.

So the search shows that there is one firearm. They neutralize it. Do they stop? Do they think they have a safe crime scene? Of course not. They continue to be vigilant. They continue to stand on guard for thee. They continue to operate as if they have more weapons until the scene is neutralized, based on some other action than their reliance on a unreliable long-gun registry.

So we have two situations. One is positive and one is negative. They don't rely on either one of them. So it's not reliable. They don't rely on it and they can't rely on it.

It really bothers me when proponents of gutting or killing Bill C-391 say that somehow the long-gun registry promotes the safety of Canadian police officers, because it just ain't so, folks. It's quite the opposite, as my hypothecal situation has just outlined. You cannot rely on that registry.

When Bill Blair was here last week, I asked him about Mayerthorpe. As all the members of this committee will know, I live in Edmonton, Alberta, and Mayerthorpe is a city about two and a half hours northwest of my city. It was a tragic day in March 2005 when four of Canada's finest Mounties were gunned down by a man, Mr. Roszko, who had absolutely no respect for law, no respect for order, no respect for the police, and no respect for public safety.

But Mayerthorpe cannot in any way, shape, or form be used to support the proposition that the long-gun registry enhances the safety of front-line police officers. Quite the opposite. And let me tell you why, Mr. Chair. And this is all on the public record; I'm not making this stuff up. Roszko did not register his firearms. He had two weapons that he used when he was holed up in that Quonset hut on that March morning. One was a nine-millimetre Beretta, not registered; the other one was a Heckler & Koch assault rifle. It is a semi-automatic, so it's a restricted weapon. It also was not registered. And this is what Mr. Blair talked about.

He's really stretching it when he says the gun registry somehow helped in that investigation. It is true that there was a third weapon that wasn't fired that day in Mayerthorpe, and that was a shotgun registered to Shawn Hennessey's grandfather. Roszko pulled the nine-millimetre Beretta on Shawn Hennessey, and as a result, Hennessey lent him his grandfather's registered shotgun. And it is quite true that the gun, which was not fired, was recovered at the crime scene, and therefore led to this elaborate and expensive “Mr. Big” sting operation where Hennessey and his brother-in-law Dennis Cheeseman were ultimately convicted of being accessories to Roszko. And they are spending some pretty considerable periods of time in federal institutions as a result of their involvement in the Mayerthorpe massacre. They did nothing to enhance the public safety of the very brave police officers who were gunned down by a man who did not register his assault rifle and who did not register his nine-millimetre Beretta.

Some of the facts about Mayerthorpe are still in dispute, but locals will tell you that one of the four officers who went into that Quonset that morning was not armed. And none of them had flak jackets; none of them had protective equipment. It is sad, but the reality is that the four RCMP officers were lightly armoured--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I heard a point of order. Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Yes, I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Normally and typically what would happen is that if there's been notice of a motion two days in advance of a meeting, we would reserve the last 15 minutes of a committee meeting to deal with that particular motion. And then if the particular matter at hand was not dealt with sufficiently within the timeframe of the meeting, we'd return to that particular issue, but we would allow for that motion to be discussed. So I was hoping we could deal with the motion that I had submitted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

It's too late to do that today. Maybe that would be an option for Thursday. Let me look into that. We can't do that today.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Because...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Because the meeting is going to be adjourned here in about ten seconds.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'm sorry, Mr. Rathgeber, you'll have to continue on Thursday.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

This meeting stands adjourned.