Try to obey that law, exactly. It was taken to a lawyer and it took one lawyer more than two hours to try to figure out exactly what that section was trying to say and what it was trying to fix.
Changes to the process, the authority and the documentation of the transfer of firearms between dealers and individuals and between individuals are extremely unclear. Even with these amendments it does not help. If these amendments are passed without change it will result in ever escalating error rates, and I talked about those a little in the gun registry, making it even more useless to the police than it is already.
The amendments in the firearms legislation use the words prescribed and regulation somewhat near 30 times. All these words mean is that the government does not know exactly what the amendments mean or how they are to be enacted or enforced. It will just leave these important questions until later, until it gets outside parliament where we do not have the opportunity to debate them.
It used the same technique 75 times in Bill C-68 and we have seen how good the results were in that bill.
Bill C-15B does other things like transfer the powers to a provincial minister to exempt employees and businesses from applications of the Firearms Act. It gives any designated firearms officer any of the duties and functions of the chief firearms officer. The act gives the CFO a considerable amount of power, even some of the powers of a provincial minister.
The bill amends the definition of a firearm. The government is trying to ensure that millions of air guns and pellet rifles will no longer be considered firearms under this law, which they have been up until now if one can possibly imagine that. Our children are not even allowed to go out and go clinking because their guns are considered to be firearms under the legislation.
This new wording is confusing. The definition has not achieved its objective. In fact some legal interpretations say paint ball markers will now become firearms.
In 1995 the justice minister ignored 250 amendments proposed by our party. The government ignored many of the substantive amendments proposed by the Liberal dominated standing committee at the time. It has taken five years and $600 million for the government to see that it has made mistakes.
We have an admission of how well it has worked with the fact that this legislation has come back to the House this time. The government has had to introduce a 20 page bill and 160 clauses of amendments to try to correct its previous legislation.
Actually it has worked so well that the government had to rebate the fees to register guns. The government has gone out to the provinces and said that it will make that free. It charged people $18, then turned around and said it would make it free. It had to rebate the money to the people at an estimated cost of $25 each. So that was another real money maker for this program. No wonder the bill continues to climb.
Yesterday the parliamentary secretary gave us a warning that we should heed. I would suggest that what he said threatens the freedom of all Canadians. The quote that I think I accurately heard was that the success of Bill C-15B builds on the success of the firearms legislation so far. There are two mistakes there. First, Bill C-68 has been a complete failure. Second, Bill C-15B continues that way of error.
What concerned me more than that was that he then said that this would lead to the next step which was the fulfillment of the United Nations firearm protocol. This protocol calls for the removal of all firearms from all civilians, that means every Canadian except for the police and the military.
Interestingly enough, this has been taken up by at least two cabinet ministers. When Bill C-68 was brought in, the minister of justice apparently said that and this fall one of the other cabinet ministers said that as well. Canadians need to understand that the noose is tightening, not loosening, on their ability to own guns and on their gun ownership. Actually, I would suggest to Canadians that the government is in fact coming to take their guns.
Ironically, one thing the bill does is it encourages people to use guns, at the same time the government is trying to stop that. There is an infamous use it or lose it provision that is built into the bill. The section gives the CFO the authority to refuse or revoke a licence and a registration for restricted firearms if the owner cannot prove the firearm was used for the purpose for which it was originally purchased. If the person originally bought it for target shooting and if it could be proven that it was not used for that but was used fairly regularly, the authority would be able to remove the gun from the owner.
The government has widened that a little so that it only changes to include any purpose at all listed in section 28. People need to be aware that the clause is there.
There are a number of other critical areas that are not addressed in the bill. They include things like the criminalization of paperwork. If paperwork is sent in and there is an honest mistake in it or if the people employed at the firearms centre make a mistake, then it is the individual's fault who submitted the paperwork and the person is seen as a criminal.
Second, it gives extended search and seizure powers to the police. The police basically have unlimited powers to come into a person's place of residence and try to force the person to co-operate with them. I think we would find that this is odious to all citizens.
Third, registration has been a problem. It is interesting that people I have talked to have registered several guns. I know one gentleman who registered five weapons. He got back 10 registration certificates. He had more registration certificates than he had guns. I am not sure what people will do with those certificates.
There has been arbitrary prohibition and confiscation. The bill addresses only part of that. If members look at page 15 of the bill, the customs agents at the border are allowed to confiscate guns as people come across the border. They are not obligated to give the guns back, even if the person just wants to return to the country from where they came.
One of the main problems is massive non-compliance. We see the failure of the system. I mentioned earlier that we have lost 38,000 gun owners. I do not know where they have gone to, but they have moved from their addresses and the government cannot find them.
We have large concerns about privatization. As this is privatized who will be responsible for keeping the important information dealing with this system?
I would like to suggest that the Alliance does have some positive suggestions dealing with the legislation. We presented a large number of good amendments. We would suggest that it keep part XI in the code as it is presently. We would ask the government to resist turning this agenda over to those people who have no connection and little understanding of animal rights. It is interesting that there was no consultation with the producers, farmers and those people who are involved actively with animals.
We would ask that the government leave the definition of animal undefined, that it increase the penalties as in part XI of the code and, uniquely, that it begin to apply and actually enforce the law.
That has been the main problem with the law up to now, the animal rights part of it in particular. They have not applied the penalties that are there and people have turned around and said that the legislation is defective. If they increase the penalties and have the heart to apply those penalties in the animal rights areas, the legislation will work. We look forward to that.
As my colleague from Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca said, it is important that we defeat this bill. We certainly look forward to doing that in the near future.