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.
Conservative
Cst Randall Kuntz
Statistically, six of these suicides occurred prior to the gun registry, nine after. Of the two murders, they were both a friend of the RCMP and a friend of mine and a member of the Edmonton Police Service. The other murder was that of a friend; it was in conjunction with a murder-suicide. I lost two people that day. If you want an age range, the youngest was 12 years old. I believe the oldest was in the early sixties at the time.
When a person goes through something like that. you would think the first thing they would do is say to ban guns, period, because they're evil. I like to think of myself as a little smarter than that, because I know that no matter what the instrument is, people are going to kill other people, and they're going to kill themselves.
People need to intervene with people. No database is going to save somebody's life. You need people--like the good doctor--who will take the time to spend time with people. I've found that's the most successful way. That's where I've had the most success in my police work: in sitting down and talking to someone face to face. That's what works. Relying on a database that has so many errors.... As intelligence analysts, we had a saying: garbage in, garbage out. You had to confirm everything.
Millions of people register their firearms by pieces of paper. I know there are model numbers, because I've spent hours correcting things for older and younger friends of mine who received their registration documents on which the information was not correct. I took it upon myself to help them that way so that they did have the correct information on it, because I am law abiding and I want good information in there. But it's only done because of the risk of prosecution, not because of the value of the system. That was the deterrent. The criminality was the deterrent. Knowing what I know about the registry, in 10 years we will look back at this and you will see no difference.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Kuntz.
We'll now move back to the opposition side.
Madam Boivin.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
Thank you.
My question is for the two Dawson College representatives.
Your school has suffered a terrible tragedy. Watching the events unfold on television was disturbing enough; so we can imagine how hard it must have been to be there in person. Mr. Murphy-Perron talked about the sound of bullets whistling through the air, and so on. If I have understood correctly, your student association has been trying to contact the Prime Minister for the last five years in order to set up a meeting to discuss your point of view, but has never obtained an audience. Is that right?
Executive Director, Dawson Student Union
Some of our colleagues and Anastasia De Sousa's parents did obtain an audience, but the meeting never took place. On September 13, we sent a very official invitation. We expected it to be refused, but not ignored. That's when we felt somewhat insulted.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
I just wanted to be completely sure that I understood correctly. When commenting, we want to be factually correct because we are always being told that we are using inaccurate information here.
Thank you.
Mr. Kuntz, did I hear correctly? You said you don't support any firearm registry. Is that what you said?
NDP
Cst Randall Kuntz
Yes. In my experience, both long guns and handguns have played a part in murders and suicides. That's why I support--
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
So you disagree with Bill C-19, I guess, because you wish it would go on for everything....
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
Oh, it's a start? Okay. At least it's clear.
My next question is for the Coalition for Gun Control.
I understand your passion. I know that this is something you have been working on for years. The government is twisting the coalition's claims a bit. It is trying to make people believe that this matter and the coalition's stance only apply to women, that the objective is purely to criminalize hunting, and so on.
I would like you to remind us again of the issue underlying the firearms registry, especially the long-gun registry. Maybe you could explain things because some people here don't understand that clause 11 may be the most dangerous provision in the whole bill. Why? Because the government is giving the false impression that there is no need to worry because registration will still be required, that licensing is one thing and registration, or the registry, another, and that all of us who want to keep the registry have not understood the scientific side of the matter.
You said that the new provisions would not aim to re-establish companies' obligation to keep a record of firearm sales and that long guns could be transferred without being subject to control.
You can have the rest of my time.
Prof. Wendy Cukier
I apologize. My French is not great and the translation is not working well, but I understood that you want me to comment on some of the provisions in the law that--
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
Yes, on clause 11, maybe, as a start, on the fact that there will be no obligation to really....
I don't want to do the interpreter's job.
Prof. Wendy Cukier
It's the verification on transfer. Under the old firearms acquisition certificate program that was introduced in 1977 and strengthened under the Conservative government in 1991, people had to present their firearms acquisition certificate--theoretically--when they purchased firearms. In stores, a record was kept of the person who had purchased the guns, and the guns they had purchased, and those records were kept for a period of time.
The challenges were.... If you go back to the testimony of law enforcement officers at that point in time, the problem was that often the FACs had been issued five years previously and people who had undertaken criminal acts in the interim still had an FAC in hand.
Another problem with that process was it was very difficult. For example, I know that in northern Ontario there were cases of people routinely selling firearms at garage sales. Theoretically, the seller should check to ensure that someone had a valid FAC, but as no record was actually kept of the firearm being transferred, there was no way to really hold the original owner responsible for that weapon, that firearm. In the United States, straw purchases and the diversion of legal guns to illegal sources are an ongoing problem. The same situation existed in Canada. Law enforcement also talked about the problems around guns being stolen and not being reported stolen.
One of the real challenges in this legislation is not just the elimination of the registration and the accountability measures, which police have said repeatedly, with few exceptions, are essential to doing their job and to public safety, but also the elimination of the requirement that a licence be verified when a gun is purchased. I could have a licence that I got in 1999 and I could be purchasing a gun a few years later. When I present my licence, there's an automatic check made to ensure that the licence is valid, that there are no prohibition orders against me, and that there are no outstanding concerns. With the new system, that will no longer be the case.
We know, from the testimony of people working in the firearms centre, that there have been a number of cases where the process of verification when firearms were sold actually has resulted in criminal charges being laid. For example, a very large smuggling operation out of Toronto was stopped because, during the course of processing the transaction, the licence was checked and red flags came up. It was stopped.
With this law, those provisions are going to be absent. People have said they support licensing. If you support licensing, this law undermines licensing in a very serious way.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much.
We'll move back to Mr. Leef, please, for about six or seven minutes, and then we'll go to Mr. Scarpaleggia.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I'll just note off the top that I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Norlock.
First, just to clear the record, I don't think 2,631 respondents voting to scrap the registry would be characterized as “with very few exceptions”, especially considering our testimony earlier in the week in which we heard that 98% of those polled in the Saskatchewan police officers' association responded in the exact same manner. Also, of all the front-line police officer constituents that I have in the Yukon Territory, I could say that the vast, vast majority of them are speaking in the exact same manner as Mr. Kuntz and as Mr. Weltz.
The one thing I'll make a comment on, rather than ask a question, is that we're hearing tremendous confusion being put forward by the opposition around the differences in the registry, the Firearms Act, and licensing. There are still very solid and sound provisions within the Firearms Act that make it a serious offence to violate it.
We're talking about smuggling, criminal organizations, and criminal operations; we're talking about the organizations and the people not registering their guns. It is misleading to Canadians and irresponsible to suggest that the registry and licensing or the registry and the Firearms Act have anything to do with one another. Those provisions still stand and they will still continue to protect Canadians.
What we're also missing--and I find it very disturbing--is the connection. We're adults here and we know there is a big difference between coincidence and cause and effect in a scientific test. We haven't heard any empirical evidence whatsoever that can show us, yet we hear these broadband statements that say 650 suicides were prevented. I have yet to see any empirical evidence before this committee to show us that this coincidence is actual cause and effect.
Then we move that into the broad picture of crime prevention, but we have no empirical evidence from a scientific standpoint to show us that the declining murder rate in this country, which started well before the long-gun registry, actually is more than a coincidence and is cause and effect. We're not seeing that, and we haven't seen that, before this committee.
I'm just wondering if Mr. Kuntz, from his personal experience in studying suicides, could say whether he knows of any study in this country of suicide where firearms weren't the weapon of choice, yet firearms were present. Is that kind of study being undertaken? I can tell you now that in January of this year a close personal friend committed suicide by a means other than a firearm, but a firearm was present in that home. The guns were registered, but suicide by firearm wasn't the method at that time.
How can we say that a registry has prevented 650 suicides in this country? Do you know of any empirical evidence to clearly demonstrate that for the committee?
Conservative
Cst Randall Kuntz
I understood that if I'd looked into any surveys or any statistics in regard to suicides.... To be totally honest, I haven't, because suicides have taken enough time out of my life, and I just did not ever make a study of it. I guess my life experience would be my study.
