Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members of the committee. I appreciate the privilege of presenting this morning.
My name is John Kortbeek. I'm a recently retired physician. I practised trauma, general surgery and critical care in Calgary for over three decades. I also held a number of leadership positions, including head of trauma services in Calgary. I was chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Calgary and the Calgary zone for 10 years. I served as president of the Trauma Association of Canada and as a governor for the American College of Surgeons. I also recently served as a director for Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns until my retirement.
I had an early introduction to the effectiveness and power of policy and legislation. When I completed my surgery and critical critical training in Canada, I travelled to the southern United States to pursue a trauma fellowship. I resuscitated and operated on six gunshot wounds that first night. That was more than I had seen in my entire residency at that time in Calgary. When I returned to Canada, I was fortunate to bear witness to significant improvements in our trauma systems and trauma care over the subsequent decades.
Today, in Canada, if you arrive at a trauma centre following a gunshot wound, you don't have a head injury and you have a blood pressure, you have a reasonable chance of surviving. That comes at a cost. That cost may be prolonged stays in the intensive care unit on a ventilator; days, weeks or months in hospital; multiple operations by multiple specialists; and prolonged rehab.
After discharge, we follow these patients for weeks, months and, in some cases, years to manage their complications. Often, they need reoperations for correction of their bowel stomas, reoperations for bowel obstructions, debridement of ulcers, referrals to chronic pain specialists, etc. There also exists a significant mental health cost to this. Many of them cannot return to their former work and pursue a living. As you can imagine, it also has a tremendous effect on their families.
My engagement on this issue was precipitated by several things. One was that I was on call in 2011 when the Claresholm massacre occurred. That involved four young college students who were returning from Lethbridge to Calgary. They were pursued by a gunman and shot near Claresholm. Three died at the scene and one presented to our hospital alive. The gunman subsequently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
I have seen a lot in my career, but I find that episode particularly troublesome to this day.
The other event that was occurring was my colleagues in the trauma service and I—and in the ICU—were noticing what we thought was an increase in the number of gunshot wounds we were admitting to our hospital. That was the impetus to do a full literature review, retrieve our trauma registry data and present city-wide critical care rounds at the University of Calgary. Some of that was subsequently reviewed in a podcast on CJS, the Canadian Journal of Surgery's Cold Steel.
During the rounds, we were able to substantiate the significant increase in admissions to our hospitals for gunshot wounds. We pulled Edmonton and Calgary data. It more than doubled in 10 years, despite a 20% increase in the population. Today, gunshot wound admissions are a weekly event in both Edmonton and Calgary, with about 100 a year.
Through the literature review, we were also able to substantiate good evidence in the literature that there is an association between the number of guns in a community or a society—particularly handguns—and endemic gun violence, and an association with the presence and access to semi-automatic weapons with large-capacity magazines and multiple mass shooting events.
On a personal note, I don't own a gun, but I grew up hunting with my father. My family hunts. They own guns. I accompany them on hunts because I like the walk and the venison. I own land in southern Alberta where we allow friends and family to hunt. I've spoken to many of my friends who hunt. None of them own semi-automatic weapons or use them for hunting. None of them have large-capacity magazines. At least for sport and recreation hunting, they're not necessary in the view of my friends, my family and the people who hunt on my land.
In summary, there's clear evidence on the association between access to handguns and endemic gun violence, and access to semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines and multiple mass shooting events. There is good evidence that the restriction of access to these weapons reduces endemic gun violence and reduces the number of victims of multiple mass shooting events.
Ultimately, it's a choice society has to make. What guns are permissible? What should we allow access to? What level of gun violence are we willing to accept in our community?
Thank you.