Thanks so much.
Dr. Kapur is an emergency physician at the Ottawa Hospital. I am a rural family physician in Perth, Ontario, so we bring both ends of the spectrum to this discussion.
We're representing the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, which is the national specialty society of emergency medicine in Canada, representing 2,500 physicians, and looking after 16 million people in Canada on an annual basis.
For us, this whole discussion of firearms is a public health and safety issue. We appreciate that crime is an issue for many of our citizens, but for us, principally this is an issue of preventing suicide, of reducing the lethality of intimate partner violence, and also making sure we can prevent unintentional pediatric injury.
In Canada, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 34, and the lethality of firearms as a suicide method is incontestable. Eighty per cent of all firearm deaths in Canada are related to suicide, and 500 Canadians commit suicide on an annual basis with the use of firearms. Between 2003 and 2012, at least 6,000 Canadians ended their lives with guns. Canada has one of the highest rates of suicide by firearms in the entire developed world.
There is strong scientific evidence that a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide by firearm. More recently, it has been shown that for every 10% decline in gun ownership, firearm suicides drop by 4.2% overall.
Firearms are responsible for somewhere between 21% and 31% of intimate partner homicides, and rifles and shotguns, the common firearms in Canada, are used in 62% of all spousal homicides. Keeping a gun in the home is a risk for spousal homicide.
Again, this is an issue for us, not of access to firearms and whether ownership is the issue, but rather keeping guns out of the hands of individuals who are at risk.
CAEP has previously produced two position papers relating to firearm violence in Canada. This is our third appearance before a committee since 1995 on the same issue, and it remains an issue of major concern for our members.
With respect to the bill that's currently being discussed, our response to the proposed legislation is one of overall general support, while noting that in our view the bill does not go far enough. We agree entirely that there should be an enhanced screening provision, or at least expansion of the timeline for seeking clinical red flags. That resonates with us a great deal.
We agree entirely that there must be rigorous screening and restriction of licensing for those individuals who are deemed at risk. We would suggest that we take that one step further overall, that there be mandatory reporting by physicians of those individuals who own firearms who are deemed to be at risk by virtue of mental illness, psychosis, substance abuse, or previous history of intimate partner violence. This would allow for identification of individuals at risk, and the restriction of their owning firearms, even if it's on a temporary basis during the period of initial treatment.
We would like to see safe storage provisions become more meaningful through assessment and documentation that they actually exist, and perhaps greater emphasis on gun locks. Any prevention attempts should focus on education, on engineering, and enforcement. The idea of safe storage is probably quite key, and making sure that, on the purchase or the collection of a firearm, that the safe storage provisions are actually being used.
We would suggest greater research into firearm-related injury and death so that scientific data, rather than opinion, guide future efforts at making Canadians safer.
Last, we would like to see greater educational efforts for the public and the medical profession on the roles of firearms and their role in completed suicides.
That concludes my presentation. Thank you.