Public Safety Committee on Nov. 17th, 2011

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I thank the witnesses for appearing today. I have a couple of questions.

Most of the members of this committee know, of course--but perhaps you don't--that I have over 30 years of experience with the Ontario Provincial Police. Although I'm very reticent to draw family into this, I can say that this issue has brought my emotions and the emotions of many, many folks to the forefront. If I thought that my brothers and sisters in uniform, one of whom is my son, would be imperilled by Bill C-19, I would be sitting as an independent. I don't believe that.

I have spent 10 years as a politician. That's why I left policing: to get involved in the political arena in order to make our country safer for its citizens, which is the primary responsibility of every MP. I don't disparage any member of Parliament for a view opposite to mine. I don't question their motivation or anything else. I just wanted to get to that off the top. I don't question the veracity of any police officer, be they chiefs of police, or constables, or probationary constables, for that matter.

Would you not say that the registry is the data and the data is the registry? So if you're going to do away with the registry, what you're saying is that you're going to do away with the data. Would you agree with me, Mr. Kuntz?

[Cst Randall Kuntz]

Yes, that's exactly what it is.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Weltz, would you agree with me?

[Donald Weltz]

Yes, I would agree with that.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Secondly, to both of you, would you not agree that, to be of assistance to law enforcement officers, having more substantive penalties for serious violent crimes is of greater use than a registry?

[Cst Randall Kuntz]

Absolutely.

[Donald Weltz]

I would maybe even go one step further into putting in minimum penalties.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Would you not agree that more police officers on our streets are of greater use than a registry?

[Donald Weltz]

Yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Would you not agree that giving police more tools—such as more access to information on the Internet vis-à-vis cracking down on child pornography or the extension or improvement of the DNA data bank and other such laws—would be of more use to police than the registry?

[Cst Randall Kuntz]

By far.

[Donald Weltz]

Yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

If a government were to do all the suggested things I mentioned, as this government is--and it's currently, in another committee, going through Bill C-10--such as having more substantive laws and better assistance to the police, would you not agree that's of more use than a registry and makes police and society safer?

[Cst Randall Kuntz]

Yes.

[Donald Weltz]

Yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. You still had seven seconds left--

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

--but we are going to get to Mr. Scarpaleggia.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Okay, finally.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Hopefully in this round he will have his full time.

Go ahead, Mr. Scarpaleggia.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Ms. Cukier, the minister came before the committee. I thought he said that--even with Bill C-19--store owners would still be required to keep records of who they sold guns to. I reread the testimony and he didn't actually say that. He kind of skated around it.

But the point has been made that Bill C-19 will not remove that requirement, so there is some confusion around it. I'd like to get your opinion about that.

[Prof. Wendy Cukier]

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but what I've looked at in terms of the 1977 legislation, the 1995 legislation, and this legislation is that in 1977 there was an explicit requirement. It was done away with in the Firearms Act, because the registration process obviated the need to maintain this document that no longer exists.

As a result, because this bill is silent on the need for store owners and gun sellers to maintain documents such as this—or an electronic database in the current age, which would be the equivalent of this—our conclusion is that in fact Canada will have less information about gun sales than the United States of America does, and that we will no longer meet our international obligations.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

If indeed the store owners would be required to keep this data, essentially all we're doing is decentralizing the gun registry away from the government, which has privacy controls and so on, and into the hands of store owners.

I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Weltz.

For both Mr. Kuntz and Mr. Weltz, I appreciate your first-hand experiences of these issues, and I respect them greatly. But we're in the realm of social science. Mr. Leef said that we can't establish causation 100%, but if we're in the realm of social science, we never will.

You've said that registration has not diminished drunk driving, but we actually don't know, because if people felt they could hit someone while drunk and kill them, and just leave their car in a field somewhere and it would never be traced back to them, who knows what people's attitudes might be?

The other thing you said, which I found a bit contradictory, was that of course you believe in the safe storage of weapons, but then you went on to give a hypothetical example about how if somebody really wants to seek revenge on someone, whether their weapon is stored or not, they're still going to get a hold of it.

There has been data that shows suicide rates have dropped since the gun registry was instituted. Is there any evidence to suggest the registry did not contribute to that?

[Donald Weltz]

I know of none.