Thank you very much. On behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, we want to thank you for this opportunity to be here.
As you know from our previous appearances, we represent Canada's national and international unions and provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils. Our members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy in all occupations in all parts of Canada.
The CLC opposes Bill C-19 and urges the standing committee to ensure that the long-gun registry is maintained. We support the long-gun registry as an effective tool for workplace and community safety. Eliminating it will put workers and Canadians at risk. Our brief to you outlines some of the legislative and political context, but in the interests of time, I'm not going to repeat all of that. I think you're certainly aware of some of the background.
As we stated 15 years ago to the parliamentary committee of that day, there are compelling arguments in favour of a gun registry: to ensure safe storage requirements, to ensure that gun owners are held accountable for the guns they purchase, to compel gun owners to report missing or stolen firearms, to reduce the illegal trade in rifles and shotguns, to give the police and first responders modern tools to take preventive action, and to trace stolen guns to their rightful owners.
After a decade of use, we've seen crimes solved and criminal prosecutions because of the registry. For example, two people were convicted as accessories in the 2005 killings of four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, in part because a registered rifle left at the scene was traced back to its owner through the registry. That's a real example of law and order results. That's going after the bad guys.
The CLC has a long history of support for campaigns to end violence against women. Women's equality is a fundamental component of trade union policy in Canada. For more than 20 years, we have joined with women's organizations to commemorate December 6 and to propose actions to reduce violence against women. Our support of the gun registry has always included an understanding of its importance as a tool to help reduce violence against women. It was the massacre of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989, that prompted the creation of a federal gun registry.
Gun violence is one very dangerous component of the issue of violence against women. More women are killed by their intimate partners than by strangers. Sixty-five percent of women are murdered by intimate partners compared to 15% of men. Most are killed in their homes. In 1991, before the first restrictions were introduced, one-third of the women who were murdered were killed with guns, and 88% of the guns used were long guns. A study conducted between 2005 and 2007 of rural domestic violence in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick showed that 66% of the women interviewed felt that having a firearm in their home made them fearful for their safety.
Since the Firearms Act was introduced, the rate of women murdered with firearms by their intimate partner has decreased by 69%. That's not just making women feel safe, it's helping them be safe. There's no question that the gun registry has helped save women's lives. This government has said that one of its priorities is to reduce violence against women, yet this legislation will have the opposite effect by putting women's lives at risk.
Rifles and shotguns are the guns most available in people's homes. They are the guns most often used to kill police officers. Rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in suicides, particularly those involving youth. In communities where there is high gun ownership rates, you see higher youth suicide rates. However, since the gun registry and its related requirements for safe storage of guns were introduced, youth suicide rates by firearms have declined in relation to suicide rates by other means.
Also because rifles and shotguns are the firearms that are most readily available, they also figure prominently in workplace violence involving guns. In 1999, a devastating incident of workplace violence occurred right here in Ottawa at the OC Transpo bus yard on St. Laurent Boulevard. Those murders were committed by a gunman with a high-powered hunting rifle.
Increasingly, as we learn more about the challenges of maintaining healthy and safe workplaces, we are paying more attention to the importance of understanding the risk factors associated with both suicide and interpersonal violence. The risk factors for suicide and violence are closely linked. Access to a firearm coupled with a personal or a job crisis is a lethal combination. We need to promote more awareness of the real risks associated with any firearm in the hands of a depressed or stressed individual. We need to ensure that police, who are the first responders to these situations, know as much about the situation as possible, including what kind of gun is involved.
Everyone on this committee knows how useful the registry is to our nation's police forces and first responders. The registry provides police with vital knowledge of the number of guns and, more importantly, the types of guns owned. That vital knowledge allows them to assess risk to themselves and to others and to remove guns from homes in situations that are a risk to the home and the public. It lets firefighters know when guns and ammunition are likely to be stored on a property, which is a lifesaving piece of information when you're about to enter a burning building.
For law enforcement, firefighters, emergency personnel, and social workers--like I was--information about potential risks is crucial in ensuring their safety on the job. Like any worker, they have a right to a safe workplace. By denying them access to information about the possibility of guns in a home, this legislation puts their safety at risk.
Destroying the data is the real boondoggle. Most of the costs associated with setting up the registry were incurred a long time ago and will never be recovered. The taxpayers of Canada will never get their money back. The annual costs of maintaining the registry today are cost-effective for the job that it does—and the registry is even more efficient now that it no longer receives a revenue stream from licence renewals. Most of the costs of the registry frequently cited by its opponents are in fact costs related to licensing, including background criminal checks of applicants.
Over 7.4 million guns are registered to date, with long gun—