Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak on the bill presented by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley. I hope all members of the House recognize the merits of the bill and support it.
As Reformers we believe public safety is the number one priority. Our goal is to prevent violent crime while not unduly restricting the activities of legitimate firearm owners. I firmly believe the existing controls on law-abiding, responsible firearm owners are more than enough and no further controls are necessary to ensure public safety. I reiterate that I do not think further controls are necessary for law-abiding gun owners.
The bill focuses on the criminals who use guns and replicas of guns during the commission of crimes, not on law-abiding gun owners. The hon. member is to be commended for presenting such a common sense bill which focuses on the root cause of crime, criminals. The justice minister should take note.
The bill, if passed, will send a clear message to criminals that the use of guns in the commission of crimes will not be tolerated. It increases the minimum penalty for a first offence from one to fourteen years, as it is now, to five to fourteen years and the sentence is to be served consecutive to the sentence for committing the crime. On the second offence the penalty increases from three to fourteen years to ten years to life.
It sets out a new offence for the theft of a firearm punishable by a penalty of three to fourteen years. It states that subsequent sentences are to be served consecutively. That is a key difference between this bill and Bill C-68 where there is no consecutive sentencing but rather concurrent sentencing. For that reason those sentences are not really what is indicated.
As well the bill provides for a new offence for unlawful importation of firearms for the purpose of selling or using them in the commission of an offence. The penalty is three to fourteen years. This common sense bill will help to prevent and deter crime.
Why am I so sure of what the bill will accomplish? As I said earlier, it focuses on the root cause of crime. How many times have we heard the Liberals talk about focusing on the root cause of crime? Usually the root cause of crime according to the Liberals is a whole series of things having to do with the background of the criminal. However the root cause of crime is one thing, the criminal, and the bill focuses on the criminal.
Once again I am reminded of Ted Byfield's editorial in the September 11 issue of the Alberta Report . In the editorial he refutes the notion that criminals are not responsible for their actions and that society is to blame. He cites the example of New York City and the dramatic decrease in crime experienced as a result of a police crackdown on petty crimes.
The police took the advice of two criminologists-it is very unusual to group criminologists together-who believed that cracking down on so-called petty crime would send a message on what behaviour would or would not be tolerated. The new chief of police in New York City focused on the root cause of crime, the criminal.
When the experiment worked-it worked extremely well-the old school criminologists were less than pleased because it meant that crime is somehow a voluntary action and therefore the criminal can control what he or she does, contrary to what the Liberals have been saying for some time in the House over the past 30 years. This completely blew their theory that a criminal is not responsible for their actions right out of the water.
I want to relate this bill back to Bill C-260. This bill focuses on what I also believe is the root cause of crime, criminals. This bill sends a clear message to criminals that the use of guns in the commission of a crime will not be tolerated.
Thinking about this common sense bill I am reminded of the other gun legislation debated in the House quite a lot over the past year. That legislation, Bill C-68, focused on guns and law-abiding citizens who use and own guns. The cornerstone of this legislation, the national gun registry, will not affect criminals.
I know of very few criminals who will register their guns. Instead of dealing directly with criminals, the justice minister's legislation ignores the criminals completely and concentrates on the law-abiding citizens.
Should not the purpose of legislation be to deter and prevent crime? If this is the case it will come as no surprise the Liberal gun control bill will not help to reduce or deter crime. The justice minister on several occasions has been asked to demonstrate to the House that the gun registry would actually reduce crime.
Despite repeated requests in the House during debate, during question period and by letters from groups in my constituency and in other constituencies across the country the response from the justice minister has been that the answer should be sufficiently obvious. This is his favourite phrase. It should be sufficiently obvious that a gun registry will help to reduce crime.
I wonder who it is sufficiently obvious to. Certainly not to the people who talk to me in my constituency and right across the country, most recently in Prince Edward Island. The people of
Prince Edward Island made it abundantly clear to me last weekend they do not see the connection between a gun registry and preventing crime as being sufficiently obvious.
I have an article from the Globe and Mail dated September 20 entitled ``Gun registration won't stem crime'':
A federal council on crime and safety supports universal gun registration but doubts it would do much to stamp out criminal activity. The national crime prevention council said that it backs the federal gun bill, including the plans to register all owners and their firearms.
The crime prevention council is a group of Liberal appointees. This is a quote from the submission from this Liberal group: "The system is, however, a costly and complicated proposal which may have a relatively limited impact on the prevention of criminal activity or victimization". This is from a submission by this Liberal commission-Liberal thinking at its best. I have heard an awful lot of that over the past few months in the House.
This clearly sums up the difference between the Reform Party and the Liberal Party and their special interest groups. Reform targets criminals who use guns; the Liberals make criminals out of law-abiding citizens. On the one hand the government has presented us with a bill that wants law-abiding gun owners to register their guns. These same law-abiding gun owners will face punishment if they do not register their guns, and many of them will not register their guns. No government can force people to obey a law they never wanted. Who asked for this law?
Bill C-260 is a common sense bill which focuses on criminals who use a gun in the commission of a crime. It sets out harsh penalties for the offences and thus sends the message that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated.
I am proud to support the bill, presented by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley. I thank her on behalf of Canadians across for the effort. I look forward to support from all parties.