Evidence of meeting #70 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was firearms.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
You can control the volume of the interpretation where your microphone is.
My thanks to Mr. Atamanenko for his help. That is very kind.
At the last committee meeting, my colleague Mr. Garrison asked a question that I see as very interesting. It dealt with the best practices to instil into our children. You mentioned—
Conservative
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
I will try to be brief.
You mentioned the impact made by the high velocity of the air guns included in these provisions. What would be the best practices to instil into our children? What should we do to help them in this regard? Which best practices should we establish as an alternative to passing this bill?
Canadian Paediatric Society
So, not instead of the bill....
Studies have been done of children's firearms safety education that have shown that no matter how many times you give the child the right lesson, a certain percentage of those children will do the thing they shouldn't do, which is touch the gun and play with it. In fact, a lot of them will. It's very hard for young children to internalize messages 100% of the time. It's incumbent on the adults to create a safe environment for the children. Then, of course, we'll do the firearms safety education and try to teach them. But we must not assume, that just because you have told a seven-year-old boy not to touch that gun.... That seven-year-old boy is highly likely to touch the gun in a situation in which he is not supervised.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Fine. Thank you very much.
Mr. Norlock, you have four minutes, please.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
The following questions are primarily directed towards Dr. Austin.
Dr. Austin, I know there are records kept in hospitals with regard to injuries. Would I be correct to say—you're a pediatrician—that most of those injuries involving young people are fairly serious injuries such as knocking out of teeth, injured eyes, and concussions, which would be the result of games like hockey, baseball, being hit in the head with a bat, and a hockey puck in the mouth? I have a few teeth missing because of playing hockey when I was very young. Also, I wonder if there are statistics with regard to knives. I do know that with my grandchildren and me, one of the first weapons we were given as Boy Scouts and as hunters—we're hunters and fishers—was a knife.
Yet, as a pediatrician, I don't see you advocating for the registration of knives, baseball bats, or even Nerf guns. My grandkids, who are going to be visiting today to see grandpa near the end of his career as a politician, got some Nerf guns. I know for a fact that their mom and dad are explicit that they don't shoot near the eye, because if you use a Nerf gun and it hits the eye, it can cause an eye injury or, for sure, pain.
I wonder whether you would like to comment on that, as opposed to just firearms, because we're singling them out because they look bad: there's that firearm that you said really looks intimidating. I was a police officer for 30 years and there are replicas; there are plastic guns.
We had an incident where an intellectually challenged young man was sitting by the highway with a plastic gun and he didn't realize what was happening. Of course, police were dispatched and a very bad thing could have happened.
Why do we have to make criminals out of parents and young people because they put the BB gun under the bed or in a closet that wasn't locked?
Canadian Paediatric Society
It's a wonderful question and it illustrates a really important point.
Do you remember when I mentioned earlier the study that had been done on enucleation? That looked at every single accident, just as you say, that occurred in the greater Ottawa area over a period of 20 years, that resulted in the loss of an eye. I'd love to have that study right in front of me right now to see if there were any hockey players in it. The leading cause was from air guns and BB guns.
Do you know anyone who had to have their eye taken out because of a hockey injury?
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
No, but my companion here is nodding his head yes.
Canadian Paediatric Society
You can see how it might happen. However, it's much more likely to happen with a firearm in that category.
When we make laws for things, there needs to be an understanding of the relative lethality and the relative ability of something to cause injury and damage. We have a society that has said that firearms have the ability to cause a more serious lethality than other kinds of weapons. The firearms in the category between 246 and 500 are highly capable—
Conservative
Canadian Paediatric Society
At this point in the Canadian criminal law they are considered firearms for the purposes of subsection 86(1), with the storage and the transportation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Your time is up now, Mr. Norlock. Thank you.
Mr. Easter, you have four minutes.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you to both witnesses for their presentations.
Mr. Chair, I think these two presentations make my point that the Department of Public Safety is being negligent in not appearing before this committee and refusing to come, because there are some questions we need ask on velocity, etc.
I have two questions, and either of you can answer. If the threshold not to go above was 246 feet per second, what kind of BB guns, pellet guns, or paintball guns would that cover, if any? Does either of you have any suggestions regarding any way to move forward rather than with a criminal offence under transportation and storage? I think a criminal offence for...and there are people out there who have no idea that there's a criminal offence for transportation and storage of BB guns or pellet guns. Is there any other avenue open to us?
I'll start with you, Dr. Austin.
Canadian Paediatric Society
Thank you very much.
I think that the BB guns and air guns that are in the low-velocity category would not be criminalized, so that kids could still plink away at cans put up on a fence and things of that type and it would not be criminal activity. What we're trying to identify here is that category of very high-velocity air guns and BB guns that have the capability of causing more serious bodily injury.
I'm not a lawyer, so I can't entirely answer your question about other kinds of penalties, but I would say that I think it's totally reasonable to have criminal penalties for some behaviour that is likely to lead to serious bodily injury, which these guns can cause.
As to paintball guns, you can read our Canadian Paediatric Society position paper. Paintballs are capable of crushing the eye, and we recommend that kids only use them in reputable arenas and when they have eye gear and body protection.
Executive Director, Canadian Shooting Sports Association
I'd like to say, sir, that “high-velocity air guns” that are being referred to here are already considered firearms in Canadian law, and they require a licence to purchase.
The committee that was struck to deal with these air gun laws took previous laws in Canada and coordinated them with laws that are currently the standard around the world. The committee included representatives from the RCMP and the Ontario forensic centre. It determined that 495 feet per second was the accepted world standard for what constituted a firearm, that above that was the range of the very high-velocity firearms and below it was not the range in which the very high-velocity firearms fall. This was the result of several months' worth of work by the committee that Minister McClellan had put together specifically to deal with this issue, and it included medical people.
Since that time, the standard seems to be morphing all the time, and of course it always morphs down.
I might add as well that paintballs are fired at velocities below 214 feet per second and that any of the firearms we would consider to be high velocity are already considered to be guns.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much. We are out of time now.
At this point, in that our time is abbreviated this morning, I would like on behalf of the committee to thank you, Dr. Austin and Mr. Bernardo, very kindly for giving us your time and your expertise.
We will now suspend for one minute while we go in camera for committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]