Mr. Speaker, the government is firmly opposed to Bill C-278 for a number of reasons. The bill proposes that we repeal the new firearms legislation without giving it any reasonable time to work. The Reform Party would propose sunsetting an act 11 months after it becomes fully effective.
The Department of Justice already has in place a carefully considered plan for evaluating the new law's success and achieving its objectives.
Bill C-278 ignores the accomplishments made in the first few months of the new Firearms Act. Canadians can already see the positive impact of Bill C-68. Canadians continue to strongly support the government's position.
I would like to talk about what the Firearms Act has already done. Members will see that it has already been effective. The government is confident that within a reasonable time after the new firearms law has been fully implemented its effectiveness will be even more demonstrable.
For the first time ever, the new law requires instant background checks before any gun sale can proceed. As of the end of February of this year, more than 4,700 checks have been conducted as part of gun sales or transfers. Of these checks, almost 7% were flagged for investigation. In other words, more than 325 potentially dangerous gun sales were referred for further scrutiny. Examples of these cases include people with past or recent histories of violence, break and enters, theft or drug involvement, or people who were trying to acquire guns that they were not licensed to purchase.
One of the cases caught by the new system was that of an individual from Nelson, British Columbia who tried to purchase several firearms over a two week period. The individual had a firearms licence but the background check showed numerous prior convictions and several recent incidents involving spousal abuse, uttering threats and drug activity. The individual's firearms licence was suspended pending further investigation and the sales were refused. On two subsequent occasions, the individual tried again to purchase firearms. This time his licence was revoked altogether.
This is the kind of situation the new system was designed to control. Everybody in the House should share the goal of keeping firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals. In this early case the system demonstrated its effectiveness every time the individual tried to buy a gun.
More than 85 license applications have been refused for public safety concerns. It is through results like this that the Canadian public knows the new gun control program introduced in Bill C-68 will make the homes in their communities and their communities as a whole much safer.
The choices laid out today are clear. If Bill C-278 were to become law and all Canadian gun laws were sunsetted, Canada would be left with no licensing, no registration, nothing. Why would the Reform Party risk this? Is it because its hidden agenda is to let everyone own powerful guns?
Let us look around at the rest of the world and see that the control of firearms is something the entire world is seeking.
The government, unlike members opposite, is committed to promoting public safety. It is clear that the Firearms Act already has had an impact. The government is confident all assessments will demonstrate that the system enhances public safety once full implementation is completed.
Does the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville really want to allow anyone unrestricted ownership of fully automatic guns? We know that the Reform Party continues to fight firearms control. The National Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association must be proud.
Let us talk about specific parts of the bill. The member opposite would have the auditor general and his office evaluate a major public safety program in just a few months after it came into force. The hon. member for Yorkton—Melville is unrealistic. There is no way that the auditor general and his staff could complete a thorough study in the time set out. It is simply unacceptable.
I do not minimize the need to evaluate laws. We heard months and months of testimony on Bill C-68. We listened to what Canadians told us about gun control. We made sure that the law would be effective. We built in an assessment program. We will make sure that any glitches are ironed out, that any opportunity to make the law even better is exercised.
The fact remains that when any new law comes into force we need to allow a certain amount of time before we can assess its impact and its effectiveness. Individuals need to adjust to new requirements. Law enforcement agencies need to adjust to new responsibilities. The judiciary needs time to consider the law's meaning and intent as cases are presented. It takes time.
The Firearms Act is no different. To assess its effects on public safety, on the incidence of violent crime and on cost effectiveness, we have to allow time for the act to be fully enforced.
The hon. member should be pleased that a full evaluation process with an appropriate timetable is consistent with Treasury Board guidelines and is already in place.
When the former minister of justice appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs during those months and months of testimony, he spoke about the evaluation process. He stated that the Department of Justice would be monitoring experience with registration and licensing to determine what improvements could be made and to make that information available to parliament and to the public.
The evaluation plan calls for assessments of the extent to which the operational elements of the Firearms Act, part 3 of the Criminal Code and their associate programs have been implemented and whether their objectives are being achieved. It also calls for an implementation evaluation. This should begin one year after the program launch and its findings will be submitted one year later. This exercise will be carried out by key federal partners and the results are to be consolidated with overall evaluation of the Canadian firearms program.
Bill C-278 is a simplistic, unrealistic piece of legislation, but I would be remiss if I did not point out one thing. In the member's bill he supports the sentencing guidelines that the government introduced in Bill C-68, so he has found something good to say about our law.