Evidence of meeting #12 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was firearm.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Robert Dutil  Minister of Public Security, Government of Quebec
Mario Harel  Vice-President, Chief of Police, Gatineau Police Service, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Matthew Torigian  Chief of Police, Waterloo Regional Police Service, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Hélène Larente  Volunteer, Coordinator, Women's Hunting Program, Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs
Diana Cabrera  Administration Manager, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Tony Bernardo  Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Wendy Cukier  President, Coalition for Gun Control
Barbara Kane  Psychiatrist, Coalition for Gun Control
Audrey Deveault  Chairperson, Dawson Student Union
Mathieu Murphy-Perron  Executive Director, Dawson Student Union
Randall Kuntz  As an Individual
Donald Weltz  As an Individual

11:50 a.m.

Volunteer, Coordinator, Women's Hunting Program, Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs

Hélène Larente

That certainly has a negative effect. The process for gaining the right to hunt—which is now a right—is already very complicated. We must attend courses, have our licence, and so on, to then be required to register a firearm. If we are hunting and have, by some misfortune, forgotten our registration or have not had the time to register our weapon, we are breaking the law. If we are stopped, we are seen as criminals because our gun is registered. We use our gun once, twice or three times a year, unlike a car, which is used daily and requires a registration. We feel that this is a recreational activity. We risk committing an offence if we forget our registration. We feel that we should not need a registration to partake in the recreational activity of our choice.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Garry Breitkreuz Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK

Thank you.

Mr. Bernardo, I was very interested in your statistics, but I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on the fact that this registry was put into the Criminal Code. We often hear the comment that this is absolutely essential for enforcing prohibition orders and that it keeps firearms out of the hands of criminals.

You started mentioning the number of firearms registered. What percentage are registered? Second, maybe you can comment on what it would take to actually put in place an accurate record of where all the firearms are. Is it useful now to determine exactly where the firearms are?

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Go ahead, Mr. Bernardo.

11:50 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association

Tony Bernardo

Yes, realistically, you would have to spend at least the same amount of money, and possibly more. Part of the presentation in terms of the relationship between firearms owners and police was on the whole breakdown of trust between the firearms owners of Canada and officialdom, period.

You have about half the guns in the registry. The other half are out there. Getting the ones that are out there to actually come into the system would be like pulling teeth. People now say that 15 years ago they didn't go into the system, they opted out, and boy are they ever glad they did, they say, “because my buddy had this happen to him, and my buddy's buddy had this happen to him, so boy, I'm glad nobody knows I have them”.

To get those people to come forward now, you would have to go right back to the very basics of the act and change the very premise of the act; the first sentence says that it's a criminal offence to possess a firearm without a licence. As soon as you put the word “criminal” in the first sentence of this, you change the whole demographic.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Garry Breitkreuz Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK

The comment has often be made that we register dogs and we register cars, so why not register firearms? What would be your reaction to that?

11:50 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association

Tony Bernardo

They don't put you in jail for not registering your dog; it's just such a bogus argument. We register cars, okay? What impact has the registration of cars had on impaired driving? Zero. Licensing? Sure. You can take away somebody's licence, but you don't take away their car registration. If somebody's car registration expires, do people come to the house and take the car out of the driveway because its registration has expired? I don't think so. I've never seen anyone who had a driver's licence plate expire and had his car seized because that happened.

November 17th, 2011 / 11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON

Not in Ontario--

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Garry Breitkreuz Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK

We heard the comment today that--

11:55 a.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Please continue, Mr. Breitkreuz. You have 30 seconds.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Garry Breitkreuz Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK

We heard the comment today that this is needed to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. How does it do that?

11:55 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association

Tony Bernardo

That's a good question, because nobody has ever made that case. No one has ever said how you get from point a to point b. The case wasn't made when the bill was introduced and it has never been made, from then until now. Criminals still have firearms. Our police friends see this every day. Criminals still get them, so I guess the registration didn't work. We've had registration of handguns since 1934.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you very much. That's a good place to stop.

We'll now move to the final question of the day.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, you have seven minutes.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome the minister and the other witnesses.

The Conservative government is claiming that it has the mandate to destroy the registry data because it was elected by a majority. However, unless I am mistaken—and I did follow the last election campaign quite closely—their platform made no mention of destroying the registry data. In addition, Ms. Hoeppner's Bill C-391, which was debated in the House not too long before the election was called, did not seek to have the registry database destroyed. I want to add that, in Quebec, Conservatives received no mandate—far from it. They actually lost seats.

Minister, do you feel that the federal Conservative government has the moral right to destroy a collective asset paid for by Quebec's taxpayers?

11:55 a.m.

Minister of Public Security, Government of Quebec

Robert Dutil

Our position on that matter is clear. As I mentioned earlier, we were very surprised that the bill talked about destroying the registry data because it wasn't mentioned during the election campaign.

We thought just the opposite after Mr. Paradis' answer to Mr. Blaney—I quoted it earlier. He said that, if we wanted to set up our own registry, we could, but it would have no criminal bearing because we have no criminal jurisdiction. He said that a registry would be our business and we would have to pay for it. We agreed to that.

However, how can we re-establish a registry if the data is destroyed? How much will we have to pay for a registry we have already paid for? I have to point out that we have already paid for it. Quebeckers also participate in the Canadian federation through their taxes. They have already made their contribution. Why would this data be destroyed? I have not received any answers to that question. We can understand the Conservative Party's position. They made a campaign promise, which they are honouring. That's what an election is about. People make commitments and want to make good on them. We disagree, but we can understand that part of the process. However, we don't understand the second part, the fact that they are trying to stop us from having a registry. It would have no criminal bearing, since we have no such jurisdiction, but at least the data would be available and would enable us to do what we think is important in terms of prevention.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

It was not mentioned during the campaign that the registry would be destroyed. In addition, Ms. Hoeppner's bill was debated a few weeks before the election was called. Also, considering some of the ministers' statements and the fact that the data is now to be destroyed, it seems that we were somewhat misled. I'm not asking you to answer this question. As a minister, you must maintain a certain level of diplomacy.

I have with me a letter dated November 2, written by the Director of the Montreal Police Department. It says the following:

Although the gun control registry is not ideal, its implementation costs were seen as excessive and it cannot guarantee that this type of violence will stop altogether, all police officers consider it to be a fundamental tool for reducing firearm-related risks.

The government and other people who want to do away with the registry claim that Canada's police leaders are out of touch with the police corps, that they do not represent the opinion of police officers in the field. You are at the head of Quebec's public security organization. Do you think that there is a gaping chasm between the police leaders and police officers in the field? If that's the case, I think that the firearms registry is just one of our concerns.

Noon

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you, Mr. Scarpaleggia.

Very quickly, please.

Noon

Minister of Public Security, Government of Quebec

Robert Dutil

Police officers support our initiative. I'm not talking only about police management, but also about union representatives.

Joining us today are Mr. Francoeur and Mr. Côté, who represent unionized police officers. Later on, they will speak at a news conference and will confirm what we said.

We are not getting our information from people who are not familiar with the situation, but from those who deal with crime on a daily basis, those who do the work that must be done and take the necessary measures to reduce crime.

Noon

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you.

Mr. Garrison?

Noon

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

On a point of order, since we started late this morning--

Noon

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

We didn't start late.

Noon

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

--due to things beyond our control--

Noon

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

We didn't start late.

Noon

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

--and we had some problems with the translation, I would ask that the meeting be extended for five minutes, which would give us an opportunity to allow the chiefs of police to respond to the very serious accusations that were made against them in this meeting.

Noon

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Actually, that's not a point of order.

I guess you can make a motion to extend the meeting, but we have other witnesses waiting.

We were in a little bit of a pinch this morning, because we had a committee beforehand, but we still began this meeting right at 11 o'clock even though all your members weren't here--or maybe not all the members were here.

Anyway, we're going to suspend momentarily, allow them to make their exit, and allow the next group, very quickly, to come in, because the next hour of the meeting will be only 55 minutes right now, and the longer we take in the transition, the less time there will be for those witnesses.

We'll suspend for about one minute, if that's possible. Thank you.