Public Safety Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome. This is meeting number 13 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Tuesday, November 22, 2011. Today we are continuing our study of Bill C-19, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

I will remind our committee that we will try to keep each of the next two hours to 55 minutes each so we can have 10 minutes at the close for committee business to deal with Mr. Chicoine's motion. Hopefully the transition between the two meetings can be very quick so we can give proper attention to Mr. Chicoine's motion.

We will begin by hearing from the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, Ms. Suzanne Legault, Information Commissioner. We welcome you here. It's always good to have you before the committee.

From YWCA Canada we have Ann Decter, director of advocacy and public policy. We also have Lyda Fuller, the executive director of the YWCA Yellowknife.

Appearing as an individual we have Daniel McNeely. From 1998 to 2006 he was involved with Northwest Territories Business Development and Investment Corporation. He has travelled northern Canada extensively.

We have three presenters here this morning. One was unable to make it, so we will stretch it out and give you a little more time. We've been giving about seven minutes to each one. As long as we're done before nine or ten minutes, we should be all right.

Madame Legault, we look forward to your comments.

Thank you.

[Suzanne Legault, Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you and the members of your committee in regard to Bill C-19. My remarks will be brief and will simply provide an overview of my mandate. I will discuss specific provisions of this bill that, in my opinion, would set an unfortunate precedent in the management of government records.

As this is my first time appearing before your Committee, Mr. Chair, I feel it is important to briefly outline the nature of my role at the federal level.

The Information Commissioner is an agent of Parliament appointed under the Access to Information Act. My role is largely to review the complaints of individuals and organizations who believe that federal institutions have not respected their rights under the Act. I am supported in my work by the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada.

In the course of our investigations we use mediation and persuasion to help resolve disputes. We bring cases to the Federal Court when they involve important principles of law or legal interpretation. As an ombudsperson, I also work to promote access to information in Canada and abroad.

We actively promote greater freedom of information in Canada in the name of transparency and accountability through targeted initiatives such as Right to Know Week, and ongoing dialogue with Canadians, Parliament, and federal institutions.

On Bill C-19, which your committee is reviewing, although it has no direct or immediate impact on my day-to-day responsibilities, it does raise major concerns about transparency and accountability in general. As Information Commissioner, I have serious concerns about the impact this bill will have on government information management, and a specific concern about section 29 of the transitional provisions, which dispenses with the archivist's role in the management of the federal records in question and the right of Canadians to access those records.

In a nutshell, this transitional provision allows the Commissioner of Firearms and each chief firearms officer in the provinces and territories to destroy, as soon as feasible, all records related to the registration of firearms.

Further, subclause 29(3) overrides sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act, whereby the archivist's consent is required before destroying government records, as well as subsections 6(1) and 6(3) of the Privacy Act—but I understand in that regard that the Privacy Commissioner will share her concerns with respect to this matter.

Mr. Chair, destroying records on this scale without first obtaining the consent of the archivist, as required by section 12 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act, not only modifies the existing records management system, which seeks to ensure transparency and accountability in the disposal of such records, but in my view also seems contrary to the Federal Court's decision in Bronskill.

In that case, Mr. Chair, Justice Noël stated that the Access to Information Act and the Library of Archives of Canada Act are inextricably linked, such that “Parliament considers access to information in Canada and document retention as essential components of citizens' right to government information.”

I should mention that this decision is currently under appeal before the Federal Court and that I may very well seek leave to intervene in that case.

In light of the quasi-constitutional status given to the system for accessing government records and the key role of the archivist in preserving such records, it therefore follows, in my view, that this bill ignores both the spirit and the purpose of the Access to Information Act and the Library and Archives of Canada Act.

Moreover, I fully agree with the content of the Association of Canadian Archivists' November 8 letter to Minister Toews, posted on the association's website. In it, the association essentially describes the proposed legislation as overriding a records management system that works and ensures that there is adequate transparency when the government seeks to destroy a selection of its records.

As the archivists state in that letter, Mr. Chair, the national archivist is best placed to balance “the competing public policy requirements regarding the use, preservation, and destruction of records”.

In closing, thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the privilege of appearing before your committee. I would be pleased to answer questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Legault.

Now we will move to Ms. Decter.

[Ann Decter, Director, Advocacy and Public Policy, YWCA Canada]

Good morning.

As you know, I'm Ann Decter, and I'm the director of advocacy and public policy at YWCA Canada. I'm here today with my colleague, Lyda Fuller, who is the executive director of YWCA Yellowknife, and has obviously travelled a long way to speak with you.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our concerns with Bill C-19, which would end the long-gun registry; erase registration records for over seven million firearms; allow unrestricted firearms to be purchased without licence verification or point of sale registration; and eliminate registry-generated warnings about stockpilings of weapons. These will have very serious consequences for women experiencing violence in this country.

YWCA Canada is the nation's largest single provider of shelter to women and children fleeing violence. Every year, 100,000 women and children leave their homes seeking emergency shelter. Almost 20,000 of them come through the doors of our 31 shelters looking for safety, for a roof over their heads, and for some care and some support.

Our shelters tell us that the long-gun registry is useful and needed. Our rural shelters—and those include Sudbury, Brandon, Prince Albert, Lethbridge, Peterborough, Saskatoon, Banff, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit—tell us that police consult the long-gun registry every time they go to a domestic violence incident, not automatic checks, but deliberate and specific searches for firearms in the home, especially long guns.

There is unanimous support for the registry among service providers working in violence against women. In every province and territory, the shelter and transition house association supports the long-gun registry. Why? Because shotguns and rifles are the guns most commonly used in spousal homicides, and especially when women are the victims—not handguns, but shotguns and rifles.

Ending violence against women, which is a goal of YWCA Canada, will require much more from Canadians than willingness to complete a registration form in order to own a hunting rifle.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who spoke to this committee last week, has described the long-gun registry as providing “a reasonable balance between the exercise of an individual privilege and the broader right of the society to be safe”. What hangs in that balance is the safety of women and children.

Thank you.

Lyda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead, Ms. Fuller.

[Lyda Fuller, Executive Director, YWCA Yellowknife, YWCA Canada]

Good morning.

Women in the Northwest Territories face extremely high rates of violence in comparison with women in the rest of Canada. The rate of reported sexual assault in the Northwest Territories has been documented at six times the national rate, and shelter use is 4.4 times the rate. In 2008-09, NWT family violence shelters admitted 281 women and 226 children, which was a 25% increase from the previous year.

Intimate partner violence is a major barrier to social development in northern communities and to an improved quality of life for women. Women in most NWT communities face formidable barriers to accessing services and supports to escape from violence. They are actively discouraged from speaking with one another about their situations and from seeking the support of outsiders, such as the settlement officer or the nurse. Women live in fear, and they are essentially voiceless. This committee will not hear from them.

Community pressure serves to keep people quiet about these issues, especially in communities in which violence is condoned as an appropriate way to solve problems and in which sanctions against abusers are low. An NWT survey of public attitudes found that 34.8% of respondents in communities outside the four largest centres agreed with the statement, “physical violence between a couple is a private matter”.

The roots of high violence and the high incidence of social suffering in northern communities, including violence against women and other vulnerable populations, lie in the overall impact of colonization and the impact of the resultant collective and individual trauma that flows from cultural disruption. Generations of separation, institutionalization, dependence, dislocation, and residential school experiences have traumatized people and have replaced the traditional culture of respect with a culture of fear and oppression. In this situation, women, children, and elders are powerless.

In small communities, an emergency RCMP response can range from an hour by road to several days if the community is only accessible by air and the weather is bad. The communities are small, often between 150 and 450 people. Our YWCA travels regularly to these small communities to work with women in the 11 smallest NWT communities, which would be those communities without resident RCMP.

After we have built trust through repeated visits and by listening without judgment, they tell us more about their lives. The north is a hunting culture, and long guns are hunting guns, but they are also used by men to intimidate, subdue, and control their partners. We hear this repeatedly from women.

As a provider of shelter services, the primary facilitator of emergency protection orders, and the organizer of capacity enhancements for the five NWT shelters for women experiencing abuse, we have heard from many women who have experienced abuse. We see older women threatened so badly that they run out of the house without boots and a parka in severe weather. We see young women raped by family members.

This legislation to destroy the long-gun registry removes one of the most effective and tangible means of protecting women in rural and remote communities from the pervasive violence they face.

RCMP repeatedly tell us that they access the long-gun registry information. It allows them to confiscate long guns from the homes where abuse is occurring. Without the registry, they have no means of identifying what guns are owned or of knowing themselves what they may be walking into. But this is only part of the debate.

By not helping those with the authority to intervene to remove weapons used to intimidate women, society is making a choice. We are giving women a strong message.

From my perspective, the most damaging outcome of this legislation is the message to northern women. Passage of Bill C-19 says to women who experience abuse by partners who have long guns, “We are not interested in protecting you”, and worse, it says, “We are not interested in assisting the RCMP to protect you either”.

There is no magic number of visits that we can make to NWT communities to encourage women individually or collectively to try to keep themselves safe when the Government of Canada is clearly saying they do not matter.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Fuller.

We'll now move to Mr. McNeely.

Mr. McNeely you have testimony. We look forward to hearing it.

[Daniel McNeely, As an Individual]

Good morning, committee members, panel colleagues, invited guests.

I come from a large geographically remote area of Canada, a small community in particular of about 450 people. Within our land claim area we have five communities consisting of a total population of natives and non-natives in the neighbourhood of 3,500.

History is still being repeated for aboriginal northerners raised in the north when purchasing firearms, and by no means are we stacking beaver pelts to the height of the rifle itself.

I think to amend this piece of legislation, Bill C-19, it should reflect where it's more effective in the various parts of Canada.

In our particular area, as Lyda mentioned, we do depend solely on this piece of equipment to bring livelihood and income to not only our families but to the elders themselves.

Since the registry was incorporated in 1999, it has grown to be a very cumbersome piece of legislation to comply with for all age groups. In our area in particular, and probably in the north for that matter, the average educated person has probably in the neighbourhood of grade 8 to 10...in some cases very minimal. So it's very hard and I would say again cumbersome to comply with, and not only to access your FAC certification or to apply and acquire the needed licences.

Just to give you an example, if you were to go through the course itself to acquire your licence...they ask you how fast a bullet travels from point A to point B. I really don't think anybody in the north, in our area, for example, or even way up in the Beaufort Sea, could answer this. They will probably tell you that if the moose falls down, that's how far it travels. That's the end of the story.

It's very difficult, I would say, in our parts. When you look at amending it to reflect where it's needed more in Canada...I think that's what should be done. It's not as if you're scrapping the whole program.

To look at some of the supporting facilities in the Northwest Territories in particular, there is not a training centre that we can come to, or go to, or travel to, and say, okay, we're here to take a course to acquire the permits to buy ammunition and firearms. Just the cost itself is outstanding, and it's very frustrating when you look at it. There are more prioritized needs for the money spent just to incorporate this program, not to mention the operations or the after care in carrying out and administering this program.

Both Lyda and I have had to travel down here to voice our opinions, considering the fact that our MP has really abstained from this whole position altogether. I don't know where he stands, but at least I'm invited to make a presentation and answer any questions, and I'll be glad to do so.

That's really about all I have to say, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

My thanks to all our guests.

We'll move into the first round of questioning. From the government side we have Ms. Young.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you, and my thanks to our witnesses for travelling great distances to be here today.

I'm going to be very specific and direct with my questions. I hope you don't mind. If you would be concise with your responses, that would be helpful. I'm going to direct the first set of questions to Ms. Decter and Ms. Fuller. First, though, I will give you a bit of a background on why this issue is of particular interest to me. I want to get a sense of where some of your information and data are coming from.

I'm a trained sociologist and I've been working for 25 years in developing social policy and programs across Canada, primarily for the vulnerable and the disadvantaged. I wanted to share that with you. I also worked as a counsellor of native youth and families in the east side of Vancouver. I've also been a community activist in the east side of Vancouver, so I'm quite familiar with some of the issues that you've been talking about. In addition to that, I've sat on the board of the YWCA Vancouver for a time. I hope that gives you a broad sense of where I'm coming from.

We've been hearing expert witnesses for a number of days, and this bill is a transformation of another bill and previous bills over the last several years that have included a number of interesting facts. I want to share these with you. I think we have dissected the differences between gun licensing and gun registry. We know that there are an incredible number of checks and balances in the licensing process, and that they will continue to be in place. What we're talking about abolishing is the long-gun registry, registering the different guns that you own. The licensing process is going to remain.

We've heard about the value of the Canadian licensing system and how strong, vibrant, and critical it is. That is not being touched. We've also heard how ineffective and inaccurate it is. The registry is about 50% inaccurate.

We've heard this from expert testimony by the RCMP, from officers on the street throughout Canada. We've also heard that the gun and shooting deaths have been in decline for over 30 years. The decline of the last 10 years of shooting and gun deaths is not attributable to the registry. It is part of a long-term decline in violence. For over 30 years, it's been in decline, and hopefully that will continue. So this whole sense of attributing the decline of shooting and gun deaths to the registry is inaccurate.

We've also heard that statistically women are killed, number one, by knives; number two, by beatings; number three, by strangulations; and number four, some 9%, by guns.

I don't want to not acknowledge that people are threatened. Gun crime happens; shootings happen. In Vancouver, we have shootings all the time, even in my own riding.

We've also heard that the purchase of a gun without a licence and the sale of a gun to somebody without a licence are criminal offences. The licensing aspect of purchasing guns is going to remain in Canada.

Given all of this expert witness testimony, I'd like to say that we know the sector you work in, and that I particularly know this sector because I have worked with vulnerable women. I'd like to know whether the YWCA has conducted its own empirical study linking some of these things you've mentioned, because my goal is to keep women safe. I don't want to feel safe, feeling it without having the empirical data to say this is the cause and this is the effect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Fuller or Ms. Decter.

[Ann Decter]

Our data are based on the Government of Canada data. That's what we are speaking to. We don't have the capacity to conduct an empirical study. It's not clear what you're asking for in an empirical study, but we would be more than happy to conduct one if you provide the funding.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Maybe I'll be a bit more clear.

You've made a number of statements in your presentation--as well as Ms. Fuller's presentation--statements that I as a sociologist am querying, because I think you're making some cause and effect statements. We have not heard any empirical data from all of the expert testimony that we've heard to substantiate what you're saying.

Because you're making these kinds of statements today, I'm just wondering whether you know of any studies. Have you done a study of your own, in which case you can say A plus B equals C?

[Ann Decter]

We are not saying A plus B equals C.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

But you are saying that--

[Ann Decter]

We are saying that it is helpful, we are saying that it is consulted, we are saying the RCMP relies on it, and we are talking from our experience.

As I said, we do not have the funding to conduct that kind of empirical study. I think you will find that with any kind of prevention legislation, which is what this is, those are very hard to determine.

When I sat before this committee on May 4, 2010, we heard from Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak, as he then was. He reported one case, which I found particularly chilling, where a family phoned the police because they felt the father was depressed and they were concerned about the guns they had in the house. They told the police about the guns they thought were in the house. The police did a check on the registry and found there were 21 additional guns registered in that house that the rest of the family knew nothing about.

This is the kind of evidence that you can have in terms of prevention. How many lives that saved, I don't know. I would prefer never to read again about a man who got depressed and killed his family and/or killed himself. These are just sad incidents. And I would ask this. What can we weigh in the balance?

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

In the interest of time, may I just say--

[Ann Decter]

How does that weigh in the balance?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Actually, our time is up. That's probably a good spot to leave it.

Now we'll move back to Madam Boivin.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will just conclude on that point.

Do you know of a single instance where someone's death was caused by the Firearms Registry?

[Ann Decter]

No.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you.

Please excuse my being late. A lot of things are going on at the same time on this Hill, particularly with regard to Bills C-10 and C-19.

My questions will focus mainly on one extremely worrisome aspect, which you have spoken about. You are worried about the fact that enforcement of sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act is being overridden. I have read the document you submitted to us, and I'd like it if you could explain to us further.

Do you think that Bill C-19 contradicts section 67 of the Access to Information Act? Under this section, no one can destroy, mutilate or alter a record. Do you also think this is so for sections 12 and 13 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act? I think I know what your answer will be. Do you think there will be grounds for a legal challenge?

[Suzanne Legault]

If I'm not mistaken, there are two parts to your question.

First, the presentation I gave here this morning dealt with our federal public policy system for managing government information. We rely on the national archivist to determine the retention period and schedules for the destruction of government records. To perform this job, he relies on the expertise of all the people involved and on various criteria. In my opinion, in terms of the development of public policies, it would set a bad precedent to remove the archivist's responsibility for managing information under this bill.

Second, I will talk about section 67(1) of the Access to Information Act. As you say, I obviously don't think that this act would be infringed. As a legal expert, you must know that this act cannot be infringed if there is a law providing that such actions are legal. I don't think that section 67(1) would be at issue in these circumstances.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you.

Six provinces, namely British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, have succeeded in managing their own firearms program. In your opinion, how will the provisions aimed at destroying the data in the registry affect these provinces?

[Suzanne Legault]

I can't comment on this subject, Mr. Chair. Once again, it would really be up to the national archivist to study the matter in detail, with all these elements, in order to reach a decision and an appropriate schedule for the destruction of documents in the circumstances.