At least they should show courtesy. If they do not agree, they should show courtesy. We listen to them. We do not agree with them, but we listen.
At the last biennial convention of the Liberal Party in May 1994 the women's commission of the Liberal Party presented a resolution asking for tighter gun control laws in Canada. I felt very privileged to be asked to second that motion which was adopted by unanimous vote of our party then. That same day the
Prime Minister in his address at the end of the convention made a very strong commitment to gun control legislation.
I would like to quote his words: "I would like to thank the women's commission in particular for having tabled an excellent resolution and strengthening firearms legislation. I believe that there is no place for firearms on our streets or playgrounds and I believe that the time has come to put even stricter measures in place to achieve this goal. I will be asking my Minister of Justice to examine your resolution very closely and to draft tough gun control legislation. I hope we have the support of all parties for this tough gun control. I know the Bloc Quebecois supports gun control and Preston Manning and the Reform Party are certainly talking a lot about crimes. I hope they will support these restrictions because tough talk is easy. What Canadians want and what we must provide is tough action".
At this point I would like to pay special tribute to the Minister of Justice. He has been patient in an exemplary fashion. He has heard. He has listened. He has crossed Canada to hear groups that were for gun control legislation and those violently opposed to gun control legislation.
He has heard not only from police chiefs but from community groups, from sports and gun clubs and any number of citizens of Canada who felt one way or another about this legislation. Eventually the time comes when decisions have to be made.
I thank him for his courage, his tenacity, his perseverance in bringing forward Bill C-68. What is more important is that he has told us time and time again that this is only part of a much broader picture, that crime prevention is not ensured by gun control legislation alone, that several measures must be taken together so that there is a reversal of attitudes in our society so that crime does not continue to be the menace it is today in our streets, in our villages and in our towns.
The whole crime prevention package is far broader than gun control legislation. It includes sentencing reform. It includes corrections and parole reform. It includes, as we have done, amendments to the Young Offenders Act. It included a Canadian crime prevention council which was launched last year.
More important, it includes broad social reform. In our red book we have tried to portray a holistic approach to society, to social reform, because unless we prevent the social causes that are the very root of crime in our society we will never eradicate crime no matter what legislation we put forward, no matter how tough the legislation, no matter how tough the jail sentences.
We have to reverse attitudes, create a new type of society in which we eradicate the root causes of crime: poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity. This is what we are doing to approach social questions in a holistic fashion so that there is not only the tough legislation on gun control and crime but also the addressing of the root causes that lead to crime.
The intention of Bill C-68 is not to penalize or hinder legitimate gun owners. Not at all. In fact it recognizes the legitimate right of gun owners to use them for sport or for their livelihood. It recognizes the treaty rights for aboriginal people in Canada. At the same time it does recognize a profound reality. That reality is very simple. Guns are lethal weapons and they kill.
In fact, some of the opponents of gun control have tried to portray this as an urban versus rural debate. I suggest it is not. In fact, statistics accumulated for the period between 1980 and 1989 showed that in those 10 years there were 63 per cent more deaths by guns in towns with a population of under 5,000 than in towns with a population of over 500,000. Therefore it is not a big city versus small city problem. It is a problem of the safe handling of guns.
Guns impact especially on the lives of women. In the case of violence against women 42 per cent of all acts of murder committed on women have been done with guns. Of those guns 80 per cent of them are rifles used by their owners to batter and murder their wives.
We have to do something about this. We have to attack the problem, certainly the long term problem, by looking at the root causes of the social evils of society. At the same time we have to take short term measures to ensure that crime does not pay and that guns will not kill.
I would like now to pay a special tribute to two young women I know well-especially one of them-, Heidi Rathjen and Wendy Cukier, two young women who quit lucrative jobs. Heidi Rathjen is an engineer. She is now working almost on a volunteer basis to achieve stronger legislation on gun control. Heidi Rathjen said recently in an interview: Had we had stricter legislation, Marc Lépine and Valery Fabrikant might not have been able to do what they did. Were there even a slight chance that stronger legislation would have prevented Marc Lépine and Valery Fabrikant and all the others who committed senseless, horrible crimes from doing so, then that legislation would have been worthwhile, a thousand, a hundred thousand times over.
Michael Hogben was one of the four individuals killed by Valery Fabrikant. Michael was one of my friends. I worked very closely with him at Concordia University. We worked together on the Esther Goldenberg lectures, and it was on the eve of these lectures, which Michael was to organize, as he always had in the past, that he was killed. I remember being at the Hogben apartment with Esther Goldenberg after his funeral. I remember seeing Mrs. Hobgen there, whom I had not met before, and the two young Hobgen girls, and thinking that a scholarly person, a person with so much to give to society, not only erudite but a person of character, exceptionally high-minded, well-liked by everyone, his students and colleagues, was killed in the prime of
his life, senselessly, by someone who had managed, under existing legislation, to obtain not one but two firearms.
We must recognize that the legitimate use of firearms is acceptable, but when used maliciously, firearms can cause irreparable, irreversible damage.
How can one measure the damage of a ruined life, the nightmare experienced by the surviving family, who relive the event every day and every night, because they can never forget? This is not death due to illness, it is violent death brought about by the use of a firearm. And that is a price no society can afford.
I know the debate on firearms is heated. I know the whole question of registration is especially controversial.
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Yesterday in question period and again today our friends from Reform were questioning the cost of $85 million. They saw that as being too much. One Reform member said yesterday that we should send that money to cancer research or not spend it.
I wonder if the Reform members have calculated the cost to society of a simple trial, of putting people in jail, of police control for people who have used guns. The cost is far greater not only in terms of money, but certainly in terms of life lost.
What is the value of a life? Is it $1 million, $2 million, $80 million, $85 million? I wonder how much the lives of the 14 young women killed at the polytechnique were worth. I wonder how much Michael Hogben's life was worth. They are not statistics. We do not measure their lives, their souls, their beings in monetary terms.
It seems to me that society has not only the right but a duty to make sure we take every possible step we can as legislators to try to eradicate the ills caused by guns. If registration helps, even if it is not watertight, even if there are loopholes and even if we cannot prove statistically that it will work 100 per cent of the time, if it makes committing crime more difficult, then it would be worth it and would be money spent well.
Registration will certainly improve the control of the flow of firearms across borders. It will help the police trace firearms used in crime. Moreover, it will place the responsibility on the individual himself or herself. When someone has to go through a registration process, be it for a car, a boat, or any possession, it ties a special responsibility to that person to care for that possession.
Registration will be an immense deterrent. In fact, it is no accident that a great number of community organizations, police organizations and all anti-crime community organizations and institutions are heavily in favour of registration. That includes the great majority of people in the province of Alberta where most Reform members are from. British Columbians should be proud because it is the case in B.C. as well.
If registration and gun control legislation were only to save one life, I suggest it is worth it. I know the Bloc members share our view on this and I thank them for it. On this side we hope, and are convinced, that if it saves many lives, then Bill C-68 will be a major piece of legislation. Not only will it be because it is Liberal legislation, the work of this government and this Minister of Justice, but because it is a piece of legislation that society at large needs and wants.
Today we are in the process of getting it. Once again, I pay tribute to, thank and am very grateful to the Minister of Justice for having brought this bill forward.
I hope the great majority of us here will reflect the majority view of Canadians at large, and 95 per cent of those in Quebec, who believe that gun control legislation is not only needed but it was needed yesterday. It is a great piece of legislation. It is a forward piece of legislation and I will support it with great conviction.