Good morning. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has stated its support for the long-gun registry from the beginning. Let me briefly reiterate our reasons why.
First, we view this as a public safety issue based on our ongoing responsibility to ensure the safety of our communities, our officers and the most vulnerable among us.
Second, it provides preventative and investigational value to law enforcement and the communities we serve.
Third, notwithstanding the initial set-up costs, today, it operates in a very cost-effective and efficient manner as detailed in an internal audit of the RCMP.
Fourth, we believe it promotes further responsibility and accountability by firearm owners.
Finally, it provides a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege and the broader right of society to be safe.
Only a year ago, the RCMP's Canadian Firearms Program reported that law enforcement officials make 11,000 queries per day into the registry. Today, this number has climbed to 17,000. There is truth to the fact that a number of these are what has been referred to as “auto-queries”. However these cases are rare, which we believe is an endorsement of the fact that law enforcement views this information as a valuable tool, a bit of information that, when combined with other information, assists in assessing a situation an officer may face.
We are concerned that with the dismantling of the long gun registry, we can ask ourselves what controls there are to prevent individuals from stockpiling firearms or access by criminal organizations when we don't have the information.
We are concerned that there will be no record-keeping during transfers of long guns. And we note that between 2006 and 2009, 1.85 million long guns changed hands.
We are concerned that it inhibits our ability to enforce prohibition orders. It will add significant costs to our investigations, costs which will be downloaded to police services and lead to crucial delays in gaining investigative information.
And those are just some of our concerns. There will no longer be a required record to indicate what firearms were sold to whom or how many. Many ask the question, has the long-gun registry saved lives? Like our drunk driving laws or even our Criminal Code, the impacts will never be known with qualified numbers, but we know that the registry saves lives.
The fact is that homicide rates by long guns have come down significantly. Statistics Canada confirms firearm suicides have dropped 48% since the act became law in 1995. We can only hope that this continues. Prior to the implementation of the long-gun registry, there was a formal requirement for firearms vendors to record sales. Now, they will not even have to register their sales. Imagine the extraordinary and costly efforts which will be required to trace a firearm for investigative purposes. Our passion on this issue runs deep.