Maybe more so, yes.
The police officers in Saskatchewan have demonstrated that they have absolutely no faith in Bill C-68 and its ability to affect crime rates.
As time goes on we will see the police forces in some of the other provinces come forward with the same conclusion.
We have had a handgun registry in this country for about 60 years. It was revamped in 1977 by Bill C-51, which was introduced again by a Liberal government to, as they say-and this is wonderful-enhance public safety. This sort of sounds familiar. We have heard this same phrase from this government and the Minister of Justice himself over the last several weeks. It is to "enhance public safety". Since 1977, studies by Sproule and Kennett, Robert Mundt, and Mauser and Holmes all showed that the changes enacted in 1977 had no effect on firearms homicide rates in Canada.
That is what we call substantive evidence, not the rhetoric and the words that the Liberals use with nothing to back them up-statistics.
It is very clear that while Bill C-68 does contain some measures to deal more harshly with criminals and people who commit firearms offences, which we can support, we would have liked to have seen the government and the minister introduce a whole lot stiffer penalties than what they have done. While it contains some legislation that is good and that we can support, I challenge the part that deals with firearms registration.
I have been on talk show after talk show with anti-gun advocates. When I gave them the specific opportunity to bring forward substantive evidence that gun registration would cut crime, not one single time were they able to give a substantive piece of evidence. The most common answer was: "Well, we register cars; what is wrong with registering guns?" That is the standard answer from these people and this government here.
Let us go with that. Mr. Speaker, you tell me and any member over here whether the registration of automobiles cuts down on stolen cars, on traffic accidents or on the carnage that is on our highway. How does car registration cut down on people who steal cars and commit crimes with cars? Not one single bit.
I ask this government and any member over there to show me clearly, please, how they substantiate their claim that universal registration is going to in fact cut crime. I give that challenge to them and so do millions of firearms owners in this country who can see no justification for universal firearms registration.