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.