Mr. Speaker, I would like to split my time with my colleague from Tobique—Mactaquac.
I would like to come at this with perhaps a different perspective. I heard the fearmongering from the hon. member on the Liberal side just recently with respect to all these terrible antics of other organizations that are now going to throw the government out. There is going to be insurrection. That is not what I want to do, come to fearmongering. What I would like to do is give detail of some of the truisms that are out there in our society today.
Number one, I am not a member of the National Rifle Association. Number two, I do not belong to the National Firearms Association was mentioned by the hon. member. I do not even own a firearm but I do represent an area of this country where firearms and long rifles and shotguns are a part of daily living. It is a rural area. It is a rural economy and in a lot of circumstances firearms are still very necessary in order to deal with predators on agricultural land as well other requirements, one of which is of a recreational nature, duck, goose and dear hunting.
I do not do any of those activities either but I know of people who do and they enjoy them. We are Canadians and we do have rights and we do have freedoms and for those people who wish to do so I see nothing wrong with honest, law abiding citizens of this country having the opportunity to go out and take part in a pastime which they enjoy.
As part of that pastime they require a firearm. Firearms are not difficult to control in our society today. We in the Progressive Conservative Party, and I would suggest members from the official opposition, do not have any difficulty with control of firearms, with safe storage of firearms so that they are not going to go off accidentally, that they will be looked after carefully.
What we do have is some difficulty with the registration component to firearms. I learned from a long time in this business of politics that it is good to pass good laws. Good laws are laws that can be enforced and maintained. Bad laws are laws that cannot be enforced and maintained.
Let us touch on that for a moment. The registration component of Bill C-68 is what we are opposed to and have always been opposed to because it is bad legislation. It is not enforceable. It never will be and never can be.
There are people who own firearms in their homes who do not and who have not used those firearms for years, in some cases for decades. These people are law abiding citizens. They will not in most circumstances register that firearm.
Therefore at the date they have to register, if they have not they are criminals. That in itself is criminal and it is unenforceable unless the police departments are going to go into people's homes to look for a firearm that may well be there that is not registered. That is very dangerous.
In another venue in another government, we passed laws and we listened to the people. People said to give the rationalization for the law, tell them why we put it into place and is it working.
We went to some of the laws that we refer to as bylaws and we looked at them. They were not working. There were certain licensing procedures that we put into place in the municipality that were not working and we went back legitimately and said if it is not enforceable and if it is not working, then don't have the law.
We struck those laws from the book. What we are asking this government to do right now is to simply take a step backwards, look at the viability and the enforceability of this component of registration with Bill C-68 and say it will not work, it will not serve the purpose that it thought it was going to serve when it put this legislation into place. Take the step backwards and do the right thing for Canadian society. Do not take the police officers off my street to enforce a law that is unenforceable because I would prefer to have those police officers doing the job they are supposed to do.
I am not going to chastise the government for spending $135 million to this day and not in fact registering one firearm. I will not chastise its members because I think they thought they were doing the right thing.
Those members should take what they hear now from the opposition benches. They should take what they hear from the 20,000 people who were outside this House today who were like us, law abiding Canadian citizens who simply want to speak their mind and tell the government that the law it has enacted is a stupid law. Take out the registration component and everybody will be better for it.
I heard the fearmongering. I heard that we will overthrow governments. I heard that we have militia groups behind us. I am a Canadian. I do not own a gun. I do not belong to the militia. I do not belong to firearm associations and I believe it is a stupid law. There are thousands and thousands like me out there who believe the same thing.
I appreciate the regionality in this country. I appreciate the diversity of this country and I ask nothing more of the government than to appreciate the same diversity when I and my colleagues from this side of the House say there are serious flaws in the registration component of Bill C-68. Remember what I said. Nobody here is opposed to the safe control and operation of guns.
The previous speaker said it would diminish homicides if we have gun registration. We can use that argument and I can give a rebuttal on that as well but I am not prepared to do so right now.
Simply, listen to the people who are out there telling this government what they would like to see in legislation.