Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support the amendment introduced by my hon. colleague, the member for Yorkton-Melville.
The amendment is to divide Bill C-68 into two parts: the first part dealing with the criminal use of firearms and stricter penalties to punish crime; and the second part to force law-abiding citizens to go through a very complicated, a very structured and a very costly procedure to register all their firearms. This is in addition to handguns, which are already registered and have had to be registered for over 60 years.
We support the division of the bill. Most Canadians want the criminal use of firearms to be dealt with swiftly and energetically. We need to make the criminal use of firearms, the violation of the safety and the rights of law-abiding citizens, a high risk activity. Criminals should think long and hard and should pay a very high price for violating the rights of citizens, for harming them and for interfering with their safety. We all agree on that. We wish the government would get on with it.
What we do not agree with is this time-honoured, political ploy of marrying a very important and very desirable public policy objective with a very problematic, very unpopular and very indefensible objective. That is so often the case in legislation where two different matters are put together in a bill. Legislators are forced to swallow some unpalatable parts of the legislation in order to get the desirable ones.
My colleague has given the House the opportunity to get what we need, which is better law enforcement and better punishment of criminal activity. It would deal in a more rational and sensible way with some of these proposals to get tough with law-abiding citizens and to interfere with their freedoms and their right to live their lives in a peaceful and uninterrupted manner.
The justice minister made some rather interesting claims about the gun control portion of the legislation. I would like to examine those claims. I hope that members opposite will be quiet long enough to listen to what I have to say.
First, the justice minister said that registration will improve safety for police by letting them know who owns firearms. The fact is that fully 96 per cent of guns involved in criminal activity are illegally obtained. Police do not know who owns these firearms because criminals do not register their guns. They are criminals. They are not operating within the law and they are not going to do it just because the justice minister thinks it would be nice if they did.
Second, the justice minister claims that registration will combat smuggling by monitoring the types and quantities of firearms coming into Canada. Perhaps the justice minister, being a very educated man, could look at the dictionary. The dictionary defines smuggling as "unmonitored and secret activity". I fail to see why smugglers will register firearms. Will they say: "We are smuggling these in and we will send you a list of what we are smuggling?" That is a little ridiculous. I am sure that even members across the way can see the logic in that.
Third, the justice minister claims that registration will improve public safety and only penalize criminals and those who fail to accept responsibility for gun ownership. The justice minister has been repeatedly asked but has never produced information to support his claims that registration of firearms will increase public safety and decrease the criminal use of firearms.
If we could be safer with registration, every one of us would wholeheartedly enter into this activity. We have asked for this kind of evidence and we have asked for documentation to support this unfounded allegation made by the justice minister. If he has a shred of evidence, why does he not bring it forward? All he does is say that the association of police chiefs wants this. The association of police chiefs wants capital punishment to be reinstated. Is the justice minister going to accede to that request as well?
This is an important issue and the justice minister should be putting forward the facts on which he is basing these allegations.
The justice minister claims that registration will help police to enforce prohibition orders against individuals prohibited from owning a firearm. My colleagues have cited case after case where crimes have been perpetrated by people who have already been prohibited from owning firearms but are still using them. In fact, in Ottawa a few days ago that very situation took place.
Plain, real life experience shows that the claims of the justice minister simply do not hold up. It is very important that we examine this in a common sense and rational manner. If we are going to make these kinds of claims and promises, they should stand up to real life scrutiny and they do not.
The justice minister also claims that registration will ensure that owners of firearms store them safely and securely beyond the reach of thieves. Any responsible firearms owner has already been doing this for decades.
Registration simply puts unwarranted restrictions and red tape on responsible, law-abiding, freedom loving citizens as a substitute for getting tough with criminals. This is simply unacceptable in our society.
We have literally millions of firearms in our country. Every one of them under this scheme will have to be examined and registered. This will entail an enormous amount of paperwork and administrative time for our already overworked law enforcement agencies.
We want these people out on the street. We want them responding to our calls for help. We want them to be there when we need them, not shuffling paper to make sure that all the hoops are jumped through, all the p s and q s are minded by people who have never committed a crime in their entire lives nor are they likely to.
There is a real commitment in our country to democracy, to freedom, to individual rights. This kind of government intrusion, this kind of restriction on freedom, this type of interference in the way we order our lives, we own our property and manage it, is simply not warranted. It is simply not acceptable.
I urge members of the House to put a stop to this nonsense by supporting the amendment, dealing with what should be dealt with and leaving law-abiding citizens alone.