Public Safety Committee on Nov. 24th, 2011

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Mr. Blais, your time has actually expired. Could you conclude in a sentence or two?

[Étienne Blais]

All right.

This acts as an incentive for owners of firearms to comply with the regulations in effect respecting the purchase, storage, sale, loan and gift of a firearm. The registry also provides support for the police in the performance of their duties. Moreover, none of these measures prevents in any way the legitimate use of firearms by their owners.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you, Mr. Blais.

We'll now turn to our first round of questions.

On the government side, I believe we'll start with Mr. Leef.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be sharing my time with Mr. Armstrong today.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for coming today.

This question will be for Mr. Mauser.

We did hear the last testimony here, and I'm just wondering if you'd be able to comment from your perspective as a criminologist, because I definitely heard some differences of opinion there in regard to the drop in homicides by long guns being attributed to Bill C-68.

Can you comment from your findings as to whether we're talking coincidence here or if there's some cause and effect that can be attributed to the registry for the drop in homicides rates by long guns?

[Dr. Gary Mauser]

I would like to point out that I've looked at one of the articles that Professor Blais has published, and I believe it's the one he's using to base his claims on. There were serious methodological errors defining the independent variable, the covariate included, and a lack of trend lines, and this invalidates, I think, his claims.

If you look at the overall homicide rate, you see that it declines, as I pointed out in my testimony. The rate fell rapidly before the introduction of Bill C-68, that is to say, it was put into effect in 1998-2001, and the long-gun registry was completed in 2003. If you use those break points, you can see that the homicide rate fell a lot faster before it was introduced than afterwards. So how it could have increased that when it obviously decreased is not clear at all.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

My next question will be for Mr. Illerbrun.

I have just a quick point. You're representing members of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation. Do you have women who hunt in your organization?

[Greg Illerbrun]

I have my two daughters, as I pointed out in my presentation, but yes, we have more women entering the field all the time now, and in some cases they're better hunters than the men.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Then we could conclude from this that women also own guns...?

[Greg Illerbrun]

Oh yes.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Over the course of the testimony, we've seen a split between trying to create this idea that it's a man against woman issue and a victim versus offender issue. That's not really, in my opinion, capturing who Canadian gun owners are in our country, so thank you for pointing that out.

We did hear some recent testimony from a gentleman from the Northwest Territories who spoke about education and literacy rates of people in the north and the cultural and traditional heritage of hunting, which certainly would apply to rural and even to urban Canadians. We certainly understand some of the difficulties in completing the registration forms.

You've testified that women are gun owners. They're hunters. They're shooters. We've heard from female athletes involved in the sport.

Then we hear how people have actually failed to register their guns. They have made a conscious choice not to register their guns. Where people have made a conscious choice to do that, we have no idea of how many guns are out there in Canada. By deduction, that would include women who are gun owners, who have decided they are not going to subject themselves to this registry, and who have not registered them.

When we consider the education rates, literacy rates, female gun ownership, the need for them in rural and northern areas to provide subsistence for their families, cultural and traditional practices, the fact that some have refused to register their guns, and then the criminal implications of that, would you agree with me, with all of that considered and the difficulties and inaccuracies in this registry, that we run a great risk—and we have for many years—of making criminals of these law-abiding Canadians? That would actually victimize women in rural areas and victimize females who rely on subsistence, who rely on culture and traditional practices, and who absolutely need long guns to maintain a way of life. Some of them are single parents with a family.

Could you comment on that? Would you agree that we don't want to be running a risk of victimizing those women any further?

[Greg Illerbrun]

I don't think we want to run a risk of victimizing any of us. We're all criminals, because the mere possession of a firearm makes you a criminal, so that's what I'd say about that.

We support gun control; we just support gun control that is effective and focuses on the real problem, not the legal and law-abiding owner. That's what we would like to see happen.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Scott? I'm not sure how much time there is.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I know there's probably not much time left, so just really quickly, Professor Mauser, when I listened to both you and Professor Blais, it strikes me that your research specifically was about the long-gun registry itself, whereas the research of Professor Blais surrounded more the entire firearms legislation in place as a total. Could that explain the differences in some of your research, particularly in the area of suicide rates?

[Dr. Gary Mauser]

That's correct. I'm only looking at the long-gun registry.

As you can see in the brief and the presentation, my efforts have been to focus on the statistics about long guns that were held by licensed people and that were registered. For example, only 1% of all homicides involved registered long guns. We are talking microscopic numbers, so I'm looking at the impact of the registration process. Professor Blais is looking at the impact of the entire legislation.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

How much time do I have left?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

You have 30 seconds.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Okay.

Mr. Illerbrun, one of the greatest criticisms of the legislation that has been recently brought in is the fact that they're saying we're destroying the data and we shouldn't destroy the data--we should maintain it.

Is it accepted in your membership, and probably throughout the rural areas of this country, that the only purpose for maintaining this data would be to start up a new registry sometime later on? Whether that is true or not, is that the perception people have in the rural parts of this country?

[Greg Illerbrun]

That's definitely part of it, all right, but the data is the registry--

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Right.

[Greg Illerbrun]

--so if you're destroying the registry, you have to destroy the data or you haven't destroyed the registry.

Do I think they would resurrect it? You're darn right they will.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

so when people voted across the country on May 2 and elected a Conservative majority government and the long-gun registry was a major plank in the campaign--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

On a point of order, Chair, this is a political question here about what people voted for and didn't vote for in the election. This witness can't talk about that.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Unfortunately, that is not a point of order.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I'll continue.

They expected that when the long-gun registry disappeared, the data would as well. That was a firm expectation they had on the day they went to the ballot box. Would that be true?

[Greg Illerbrun]

Exactly: the data is the registry, and the registry is the data.