Since Mr. Holland's motion specifically uses the words that “...the Committee has heard sufficient testimony that the bill will dismantle a tool that promotes the public security and the safety of Canadian police officers”, I thought it would be instructive for this committee, before we vote on this motion, to review some of the evidence we have heard.
The first witness was Candice Hoeppner, MP for Portage—Lisgar, who is of course the sponsor of the bill and is admittedly not unbiased. But her evidence raised a couple of points.
She says that, statistically, individuals who have a licence to use and/or possess a firearm are actually 50% less likely to commit a crime than individuals without a licence. Ms. Hoeppner testified that the long-gun registry is at best “a partial investigative tool” that police officers cannot rely on and that this bill—and this is very, very important—will not end licensing.
Ms. Hoeppner has spoken in the House. She has spoken in the media as to the merits of Bill C-391. She makes a very valid and very compelling point with respect to her bill not affecting licensing in any way, shape, or form.
There was considerable agreement from all of the witnesses that licensing is where the authorities, the state authorities, whether they're the RCMP, which administers the firearms registry, or whether they're the municipal police officers.... It's through the licensing provisions that people who ought not come into possession of firearms are weeded out. One has to submit to a criminal records check. One has to comply with rigorous safety checks. Unless you can pass the safety checks and the criminal records check, you're not getting a licence.
So it's through the licensing provisions that there is valuable gun control, Mr. Chair. It's not through the long-gun registry, which only talks about who owns the weapons, not who's going to come into contact with them. As many of the witnesses testified, it really is only valuable when it comes to counting weapons. It's in the licensing provisions that people who ought not to come into contact with weapons are denied the licence and therefore denied the legal opportunity to come into contact with those weapons.
I think Ms. Hoeppner is quite right on that point--and others--and certainly I commend her and thank her for all the hard work that she has done on this file.
Then we heard from Chief Rick Hanson, the chief of the Calgary Police, who has testified before this committee and the justice committee. I will read a couple of his quotes for the benefit of the members who may have forgotten what Chief Hanson had to say. He said:
It is vitally important to maintain criminal sanctions for the illegal possession of restricted and prohibited weapons, but in my opinion, the registry only marginally addresses the broader issues of gun crime and violence in Canada.
Under questioning from the opposition, Chief Hanson stated that Canada needs “a comprehensive gun strategy”, but that the registry “goes too far”. For criminals, he said, the risks are worthwhile because the consequences are minimal. Most guns used in the commission of crimes are handguns and a large portion are smuggled into Canada. That's certainly with respect to the organized crime that's a problem in his city of Calgary, and certainly in my city of Edmonton, and my friend Ms. Glover's city of Winnipeg.
This is key, Mr. Chair: no direct links have been made between the existing gun registry and the behaviour of criminals. I think that's a very valid point.
Mr. Holland is fond of saying that there are only three rogue police chiefs in all of Canada and that Chief Blair speaks for the other x minus three, whatever that number is. Statistically that might be right, but I think before we decide how we're going to vote on this motion that would recommend to the House that it proceed no further with Bill C-391, we have to do a qualitative analysis of what the respective chiefs said, not just count hands.
I think a quantitative analysis of the police chiefs is insufficient. I think we have to actually look at the quality of their arguments and what they're saying.
Speaking of individuals who had a great deal to say, we had Jack Tinsley, who was with the Winnipeg Police Service for 33 years, 11 years of that on SWAT. He testified that drugs are the underlying cause of most crime.
Criminals do not obtain firearm licences and do not register their guns. The long-gun registry is not a proven deterrent of violent crimes.
He also told this committee that it is not a useful investigative tool, and this is very, very important and the subject of some controversy. Ultimately, I think, this committee, if and when it has time, should look into this issue of officers having been silenced, stopped from speaking out.
I know that this question was put specifically to Chief Blair. He unequivocally denied that he or anybody under his command has silenced or muzzled any officers with respect to their views on Bill C-391.
I take the chief at his word, but we have heard, and not necessarily from Toronto, so I take the chief at his word..... But we have heard anecdotes from coast to coast to coast in this country, anecdotes of police officers, who will not let us use their names, not ironically, Mr. Chair, who want to come out in favour of Bill C-391. They don't believe the long-gun registry is an effective tool of law enforcement.
Neither Chief Blair nor Charles Momy from the Canadian Police Association speaks effectively or accurately for them, but they won't speak out because they're scared that they're not going to be promoted or they're going to spend the rest of their time writing out tickets to senior citizens with fake bus passes. I know that's not a very welcome job to a police officer: to be on parking patrol for the next 20 years of your life.
So we have heard that, and I think it's important that officers have been stopped from speaking out. That's according to Jack Tinsley. He told us about New Zealand, a country that I've never been to but should go to, because New Zealand scrapped the registry after seven years. Australia's program has been a failure. Violent crime actually increased in Australia during the tenure of the long-gun registry.
On the same day that we heard from Mr. Tinsley, May 6, 2010, we heard from Dave Shipman, also from the Winnipeg Police Service, a veteran of 25 years, with 19 years in the homicide and robbery division. He was very candid with his testimony. He was very humble.
He told us, Mr. Chair, that in his experience, domestic homicides were perpetrated by legal gun owners with legal long guns where no previous domestic disturbances had occurred, and that--this is important--the long-gun registry did not stop these from happening.
He was in homicide and robbery. He acknowledges that from time to time, and maybe more often than time to time, long guns are used in domestic disturbances, but the preponderance of those were without any history of problems at that residence, and the long-gun registry didn't stop these from happening. The long-gun registry was useless in stopping that offence or even in solving it.
Mr. Shipman told us that criminals do not register their guns. The majority of guns they use are either stolen or smuggled into Canada and the long-gun registry has not deterred the illegal possession of these guns.
In northern Canada, it is not designed to deter the illegal possession of the guns. Even if the long-gun registry worked to the maximum of the way in which it was designed, it would only be a registry of people who lawfully own and possess those guns. It can't possibly help law enforcement track illegal possession of guns. It's not even designed to do that.
Mr. Shipman confirmed what members on this side of the table have always suspected: that the long-gun registry is about counting guns. Many legally owned guns are outside the registry. I talked about that a few minutes ago. Amnesties are going to cost millions and millions of dollars to get 50% of the firearms that are currently domiciled in Canada registered, if the government decides that this long-gun registry has value. Certainly, with respect to long guns, I don't think so.
Mr. Shipman told us that most police officers don't use the registry. In fact, they don't even know how to use the registry. This was very remarkable and cogent testimony, Mr. Chair. We know from Charles Momy and the Canadian Police Association, from Chief Blair, the head of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and from Marty Cheliak, who is the superintendent at the registry, that police forces are going coast to coast as we speak to.... I know they've been in Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Estevan, and elsewhere; they've been all over the country. In fact, we have a copy of their power-point deck, where they teach front line officers how to use a--