Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his questions.
As I indicated in my speech, it is simply not possible for our police to get there on time. If we talk to the policemen one on one they readily admit this.
Statistics clearly indicate, unfortunately, that the vast majority of times when police are responding to a crime, by the time they get there the crime has already taken place. Their job is to try to investigate and hopefully apprehend the criminal. That is the job and the duty of the police in most cases. On rare occasions they can intervene in time to save someone from assault, rape or murder, but it does not happen very often.
In my case, because I live outside of town, I suggest it would probably take in the neighbourhood of half an hour for the police to get there if someone was breaking into my home. We see increasing evidence across the country that citizens are concerned. There is increasing evidence of home invasions, where young hoodlums break into homes, often targeting the elderly. They break into these homes for no apparent reason. Many times the people are at home and they have no means to defend themselves.
I guess the answer to my hon. friend's question is that it would probably take about half an hour before the police could respond to a break-in in my home.
As to how much effort I have made to try to get statistics from the government, I referred in my speech to the fact that last June I asked a question during question period of the minister requesting the statistical evidence to prove how even the existing gun controls under Bill C-17, without registration, were working to prevent crime, to bring down the levels of violent crime and the criminal misuse of firearms. Nothing was forthcoming.
On October 28, 1994 I placed a question on the Order Paper. I could read it but it is quite lengthy. It consists of seven specific questions that ask the government to provide proof to us, and to the Canadian people, how legal firearms pertain to crime in the country.
I will refer to one of the questions, which is part (c) of Question No. 96. In that question I was referring to section 85 of the Criminal Code, which is already in force. The question is as follows: "How many of those charged with this offence were the legally registered owner of the firearm used in the commission or attempted commission of the crime?" It is a very simple, straightforward question asking for statistical evidence.
What was provided after three months, not 45 days, was the following answer:
The Uniform Crime Reporting Survey-
which comes from StatsCan:
-does not collect information which can distinguish the number of criminal offences which have been committed with the use of legal firearms. Prior to 1992 the Homicide Survey collected data on registered and non-registered firearms, but because this information was grossly under-reported (90 per cent unknown) the data are no longer collected.
That is the best the government could provide to me in the way of statistics to show that legally owned firearms have anything to do with curbing crime.