Thank you, Mr. Leef.
As I noted during my remarks, I think it's disrespectful when those types of terms are applied to legal, law-abiding firearms owners.
My organization has a large youth component. It has a lot of women members. It has a lot of family members. At least 22,000 of our members are classified as family members, where all members of the family are OFAH members. We are first and foremost a conservation organization, but we represent hunters, anglers, and recreational sport shooters. Of our 725 clubs, 52 clubs have shooting ranges and therefore they participate in recreational shooting.
The OFAH also conducts, on behalf of the Province of Ontario, all the hunter safety courses in Ontario. We put roughly 25,000 people a year through hunter safety courses, and the growing number of those are young people and women. Women make up the largest component of those who are taking their hunter safety course to hunt in Ontario.
As for comments about gun lobbies, just because we're all firearms owners does not make us a gun lobby. You're quite right, it's always said in the pejorative sense. These people are engaging in heritage activities. This country was founded on hunting, fishing, and trapping, to a large extent. Those particular segments contribute $15.2 billion to the annual national economy. They're huge economic drivers. They involve millions of Canadians. In fact, one in five Canadians either hunts, fishes, or traps.
To put it in that context, it's very pejorative to a large segment of the population.