Evidence of meeting #116 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was firearm.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:15 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, As an Individual
It is a very respected article. It was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller decision.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Well, it's not a peer-reviewed journal. That's important, because, as you know—and we both taught in a university setting—peer review is important as far as research goes because peer review passes a very rigorous process, much more rigorous than simple submissions. Would you agree?
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I'm asking, would you agree? I'm not sure about what the Supreme Court—
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Okay. Would you agree that peer review is important and the findings that are cited in a peer-reviewed journal are much more credible and reliable than articles that are submitted—
1:15 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, As an Individual
Peer review is very important, but it depends on your peers. Many of the medical journals have peers who are ignorant of statistics and ignorant of criminology. They are peers, and they review, so it depends completely on your peers. Law students, particularly at Harvard, are somewhat qualified in the law.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
It's interesting to know that.
Are you prepared to identify the person who you were quoting, just for the purposes of the record?
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I can submit that after the fact. Yes, I am prepared to. It's from a public article.
1:15 p.m.
A voice
Can we all get that information?
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Yes. If you read one of these papers in eastern Ontario—I forget which one it is— it's all in there.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
I have Mr. Motz, but also Mr. Miller wants some time, so how you split five minutes is between you two.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We only have five minutes left, and then we have one more.
I guess, Mr. Spengemann will finish it up.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Dr. Drummond, thank you for being here. My first question is for you.
Throughout my career I have had the misfortune, if you will, of attending far too many suicides, many of which I cannot erase from my memory.
A study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy found that while there is an obvious connection between firearm ownership rates and firearm suicide rates, there is no direct connection between firearm ownership rates and overall suicide rates. While it is logical to assume that the presence of a firearm can lead an individual who was contemplating suicide in the first place to act in a quicker fashion, so to speak, it seems that the facts don't always bear that out.
Would you not agree there are many more complex issues—the societal factors, sir, more than just the presence of a firearm—that have an influence on the suicide rate?
1:15 p.m.
Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
I would say that, certainly, there is clear and firm scientific evidence, and not from journals reviewed by law students but from real peer-reviewed journals which suggest that the presence of a gun in a home is associated with an increased risk of both suicide and intimate partner violence.
I, too, have attended far more than my share of deaths by firearm-related suicide. They're not pretty, and it would be sometimes nice, I think, to show pictures of these scenes so that.... This kind of legalese that we get into really doesn't portray the actual picture. There is no doubt there are multiple methods of potential suicide uses that could be tried, but there is equally no doubt that if you put a gun to your head and pull the trigger, you're not surviving.
The purpose of our being here today is to say suicide is a substantial risk in Canada. It's a substantial public health problem, and guns certainly increase the lethality of that suicide attempt. Some would argue, falsely, that if you aren't successful with one method, then you might go to another. That really hasn't been borne out in the literature. Suicide is, by its very definition, an impulsive act, often decided within minutes of actually pulling the trigger. We're not talking about restricting firearms in the home. Let's not get this confused. What we are talking about is that if somebody is identified as being potentially at risk for suicide then that gun, temporarily, at least, is removed from the home.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Dr. Drummond. I will make a statement that we support the idea that the whole idea of firearms safety is about ensuring that public safety is the driving force behind that. Having the ability to ensure that those who should not have firearms do not acquire firearms is certainly part of that process.
Mr. Mauser, I will finish my questions with you.
According to your research, firearms licence holders are approximately one-third less likely to commit a firearms crime than a member of the general public. Having said that, I have two questions. In your opinion, do you see anything in Bill C-71, which is before us, that really addresses gun crime? Do you think that the combination of approaches we are seeing proposed in Bill C-75, reducing the sentencing for gang membership, is appropriate given what we're trying to accomplish in Bill C-71?
1:20 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
No, I do not see anything in Bill C-71 that will reduce or work to reduce gun crime by violent people who are either suicidally inclined or criminally inclined. This bill merely multiplies the hurdles that already law-abiding, already vetted people must endure to transfer, to buy, and to own firearms.
Bill C-75 deals with punishment, the incarceration of people who have committed crimes. Most criminologists would argue that we need to keep focused on the violent criminals, not the good people.
Thank you.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Motz.
Mr. Spengemann has the final five minutes, and I see Mr. Fragiskatos is quite antsy.
1:20 p.m.
A voice
It's just a brief, 30-second or 15-second—
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
I'm actually going to share part of my time with Ms. Damoff, but I have a brief final question for Monsieur Harel, s'il vous plaît.
When you were elected as president of the CACP, you identified the inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls as one of your focal points. I'm wondering if you could tell the committee very briefly, given that this group of Canadians is at elevated risk of violence and homicide, what this bill, in your mind, would do to help reduce that risk.
1:20 p.m.
President, Director, Gatineau Police Service, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Quite frankly, in the first nations community, we want the government to address the social issues, the social root causes of the problem.
So it is important to ensure the health and safety of those individuals. With the help of the physicians here today, I think we can implement mechanisms to identify situations in which those individuals are at risk, and to intervene proactively and save lives. I think that is the gist of my message.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Presumably also the mental health component is part of that.