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.