Debates of May 6th, 2003

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

The member wants to say a billion dollars. I will address that.

The gun control program is an investment in public safety. That is what it is all about. As I said, 74% of Canadians supported the gun control--

[An hon. member]

That was not so.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

The member says that it was not so. Well, it was done by an independent survey. I can even tell the member that on a region by region basis the support for gun control was at 59% in western Canada, where that party is represented, 85% in Quebec, 78% in Ontario and 74% in Atlantic Canada. Those are the facts. Canadians supported gun control.

Members say no and I respect their right to disagree with the facts. I have taken this information from published reports that members have at their disposal.

There was a challenge in the Supreme Court and the court upheld the Firearms Act of 2000. The court concluded that both the licensing and registration are tightly linked to Parliament's goal of enhancing public safety by reducing the misuse of firearms and keeping firearms out of the hands of those who should not have them.

Did any of the members of the Alliance who spoke on this bill mention the number of Canadians that were denied licensing or registration of their firearms because they did not qualify? There were reasons why they should not have guns. If they had put that information on the table though, it would have diluted their argument to absolute nothing.

The fact is the system operates in a way to screen Canadians who wish to license or register their guns. Many thousands of Canadians have been denied registration. It is important for Canadians to know that there are people who should not have firearms because of certain facts in their profile. That is the way the law was set up.

At present 90% of the estimated 2.3 million firearm owners in the country have applied for a firearms licence and three-quarters of the licence owners have registered those firearms. The system is working. The previous speaker said we should scrap it and come up with something else that all the provinces would support and everything would be fine. The question was what? There is no what.

The opposition said to just scrap it because they were opposed to gun control and opposed to registration, and all they had to be was negative. They had to be the opposition. That is the role of the opposition, to be negative and to oppose. They are being opposed and they are opposing the facts regardless of the truth and the merit of those facts.

If they want to say that the sky is not blue, that is fine. I can take that. The facts will speak for themselves and Canadians understand that.

The Canadian firearms program encourages the safe and responsible use, handling and storage of firearms. We must keep remembering that it takes time. Yes, we have had handgun registration since 1934. The previous member tried to give us percentages. The fact remains that at the time when the gun control bill first came up, back in 1994, the number of violent crimes with handguns per capita compared to today has remained relatively flat.

I am pretty sure that members over there know and do not want to tell Canadians, but I will tell Canadians, that at the time when the gun control bill came forward violent crime with long arms had a greater incidence than violent crime with handguns. There were more crimes with long arms than with handguns on a per capita basis.

If we were to look at the facts now, we would find that at the end of 2002, according to published independent information, violent crime with long arms is 50% lower than it was in 1994 on a per capita basis. There was a 50% drop in long arm violent crime in Canada.

This is very significant. It says that Canadians learned through the process, through the debate that we had, through all the media, and through all the advertising, et cetera. This was an important public safety issue. In fact, throughout Canada, long arm firearm owners were not being safe with their firearms. Firearms were accessible to those that would use them to commit crime.

This started a change in the attitude of Canadians toward the use of firearms. It was a positive reaction toward those who use them for hunting, sport shooting, and collecting. There was a confidence being built up for those who had useful and laudable goals. Canada has a great history related to firearms, but Canadians have this confidence level now that firearms are being used safely.

Canadians now know that gun owners who have registered their firearms are those who have properly licensed them, are properly storing them, and will properly transport them, so that all can be safe and everyone can enjoy their sport or activity with firearms.

It is important that Canadians understand that this was a bill that involved all Canadians. It raised that comfort level. It raised the public education and awareness levels. It meant that long arm crime actually went down. The government has not even finished implementing the registration system. It is not all there yet, but the facts speak for themselves.

Much has been said about the Auditor General's report. I think the Auditor General is doing a good job. The Auditor General uses some colourful language or maybe some stimulative language from time to time. She did use the figure of a billion dollars. She said that a billion dollars was the increase in the projected estimates. It was not that we had blown a billion dollars as the members continue to repeat over there. I do not know why they give that misinformation. What is wrong with telling the truth?

The fact is that it was the estimate of the cumulative costs of all of the elements of the gun registry system that would reach a billion dollars by 2005. Why did the estimate get that high? We have to wonder when the government said it was only going to cost $2 million. Well, there is a difference between $2 million and a billion dollars. What is it? In fact, the $2 million, at the time when that question was asked to the then minister of justice, had to do with capital costs. We were talking about capital costs.

In addition to that, we were talking on a net basis and dealing with net revenues. Members have not told Canadians this in debate. I will tell them that the cumulative revenue from registrations has been about $140 million, which is an offset to the expenses incurred.

Here is what the Auditor General had to say in her report of December 2002. On this particular matter, in chapter 10 on page 13, she said:

--about 90% of the licence and registration applications contained errors or omissions, which was higher than the predicted--

Ninety per cent of the applications had errors or omissions. That is so far beyond what would be the normal incidence in completion of government forms, whether they be tax returns or GST rebate forms, or whatever. There is a reason. As a consequence of these errors and omissions being so serious, it was not something that could be fixed by a person simply looking at it and somehow trying to figure out the information; it required contacting the applicant. It required a substantial increase in the human resources required to process those registrations.

I do not have the figures in front of me as I was not sure I was going to speak to this issue today, but having looked at it, I know that until the end of 2002, which the Auditor General was talking about, the cumulative expenditure on the registry program implementation, et cetera, all the costs, was just over $650 million, not billion, $650 million, if we add the projections up to 2005. Of that $650 million, approximately $300 million of that additional expenditure was as a consequence of fixing the problem with 90% of the applications which had errors or omissions.

Then we had all these problems and the reaction. Certainly the Alliance was a big part of this, to make sure that firearms owners who were so inclined would do everything possible to frustrate the system.

It is incumbent on any government to support its programs. Because of the significant work that some had been doing to discredit the system, some $200 million was spent to explain it to Canadians. We are talking about advertising, promotion and public education materials to explain to Canadians how important it was.

These costs would never have been incurred had there not been a planned and deliberate protest against the legislation. I have nothing against protests, I have nothing against delay, but there was a consequence of the activities of those gun owners who did not like the law, who did not want to register and who wanted to try to embarrass the government. It probably cost $500 million to the end of 2002 for all of the problems that were caused. The unplanned human resources costs were at least $300 million.

This is published information. For members who would ask where I got the information, I am looking at the Auditor General's report. I can see the projections. I have the numbers right here. Cumulatively, to the end of 2003, the projection is that the overall cost is going to be $785,710,000. There are also estimated projected revenues which I think get up to something just under $200 million. On a net basis to the end of 2003, we are talking about somewhere around $600 million. It is not $1 billion.

Because 90% of the applications actually were incomplete or incorrect, yes it took a lot of money. Yes, it was very expensive. Yes, there had to be a lot more public education and information out there to counteract all the misinformation that was being given to Canadians by those who disagreed with the law. That is part of the democratic process. Members can say that we blew the money, but governments have to support their programs and they have to inform Canadians about the facts when those who are contrary to any legislation decide that they are going to try to either frustrate it or spread misinformation which would lead to some discomfort among Canadians. Those are the kinds of initiatives Canadians want to see.

With regard to the Auditor General's report, I commend it to members. If they simply want to provide the half story, that is great. However, I will stay in the House and I will point out to Canadians every time one of the members speaks up and does not give all the information because I think Canadians deserve true, full and plain disclosure, even by the Alliance.

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the basic thing in all that drivel the member just went through is he is calling your constituents and my constituents subversive and stupid for not conforming to this idiotic program. I have been in your riding and I have seen your folks, Mr. Speaker. They are not those things. They are good hardworking folks. They are hunters and fishermen. They do not like this program any better than my folks do at home.

He stood there and said it was not this amount of money or that amount of money. He came up with 10,000 lives having been saved. Where did he get a statistic like that? That is so far from accuracy it just boggles my mind.

I was torn between totally ignoring that drivel and walking away or standing up and asking some questions and comments. It was a tough call to make.

Where does the member come off saying that the Auditor General's numbers are this and that and everything like that? People can downplay it and say anything they want to get themselves or some of their people re-elected or whatever, but it does not make it true. Ten thousand lives saved? It is nowhere near that number. He said that long guns were so terrible in crime and everything. The weapon of choice in crime has always been a handgun and it always will be because a person can conceal it. Long guns never were the problem and never will be. Exemptions have been given to whole groups of people where long guns are a problem and they get an exemption.

How can the member square everything that he has said here? It just does not add up. Canadians are far smarter than he gives them credit for.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in response to drivel, subversive, stupid and all the other language the member used about me or my speech and I said--

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

No, I did not say you.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I am sorry if the member wants to get excited and just throw off a few items, but I stand behind the figures that I read.

The per capita violent crime with long arms was greater than handguns back in 1994-95. The rate per capita of long arm crime actually has decreased by 50% to the end of either 2001 or 2002. It might have been 2001 because of the delay. At the same time, and I am a chartered accountant so I look at numbers a lot, I saw that the violent crime rate per capita with regard to handguns was relatively flat over the same period of time.

My conclusion was that since we have had registration of handguns since 1934 and the incidence of long arm crime per capita was higher than handguns when the first bill on gun control came in, all of the work that has been done by hon. members in this place to educate the public and to require the licensing and registration of long arms in fact has been effective. It is reflected in the reduction of deaths and violent crime by long arms.

The member asked where I got the figure of 10,000 from. I will look for it and I will try to provide him with the information.

One member started talking about absolute numbers. In a growing population, crime by guns will go up simply because there are more people in the country over that period of time. If one continues to show the figures on a per capita basis, and knows the rate per capita at the beginning and knows what the per capita situation is now, one can project what the level of deaths from long arms would have been and it can be compared to what the actual occurrence is.

He asked where I got the figure 10,000 from. My recollection is it was probably closer to 18,000, but I did not have to go that high because even if it was almost 10,000, lives have been saved because of the gun control registry in Canada. It is shown simply by the actual versus the projected per capita crime rate. There it is.

[Bob Mills, Canadian Alliance, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot really believe that the member believes what he is saying. I have heard propaganda before in communist countries, but I really cannot believe that the member believes what he is saying.

I have done a professional poll in my riding. Well over 80% today are still opposed to this. At the time, I received 13,000 letters that were opposed to this and 17 in favour. That is the kind of response there is out there.

Let me ask the member a question. I have one constituent who has registered 23 guns. All 23 registrations say that the make of gun is unknown, the length of barrel is unknown, and the serial number is unknown. That is on his 23 registration certificates. How is that going to help the police or stop crime so they know what kind of weapon is being used?

Also, what makes the member think that criminals are so stupid that they are going to use guns registered in their names? Are we not talking about preventing crime?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am as incredulous as the member is himself. With regard to the question of a criminal when committing a crime not using a gun that has been registered, that presumes the weapon is left at the scene or is recovered. It does not seem quite relevant.

What is important is that we have a system of licensing and registering firearms, both long arms and handguns. It provides a comfort level to Canadians that those who have registered their firearms have gone through all of the necessary steps to ensure the safe use and enjoyment of their firearms.

It is an offence to have in one's possession a firearm which is not registered. It is not those that are registered that are going to turn out to be the problem. For those who have not registered, it is going to identify that their intent is certainly much different.

How much does it cost to register a firearm? We could say $10 covers five or ten guns. We register our dogs. We register our cars. I guess the member is going to stand up and say there is no point in registering a dog because a registered dog would not poop on a lawn. It is as silly an argument as the member's that anybody who registers a gun will not use it in a crime. Let's get off the poop.

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member is an accountant and he already admitted that he knows his numbers. This concept of saving 10,000 lives is patently and absolutely ridiculous. Look at the math.

It is seven years since the gun registry came into force, approximately 2,500 days ago, which would suggest that there were absolutely zero killings today with long guns and there were four each and every day on average before it came into force. That is patently and absolutely untrue, stupid, ridiculous and his math is completely out to lunch.

How can he as an accountant stand there without doing the mathematical tests and claim to believe that number of lives have been saved? It is just outrageous.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have the chart with me but we are talking about how many violent crimes and deaths resulted from long arms in 1994. It was 2,000 or something like that. We could look at a period of some six or seven years and even assume by a modest population increase that the number might go up to 2,500 a year. Over six or seven years maybe the average is only about 2,200. One would expect probably about 25,000 or 30,000 deaths over about a seven year period. However, if the per capita rate of long arm deaths in Canada was cut in half, would that not be reasonable?

Let me also say to the member and all Canadians that as of the latest information I have available, 9,000 applications to register firearms have been denied because those people were not of a character or had the background that would allow them to have firearms. Some 9,000 Canadians do not have guns today because of this law. How many lives has that saved?

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed that yarn as much as anybody else in this room today, but I am sure you have listened to enough of this discussion that you would like to hear something maybe a little different. Therefore I will give you a history lesson.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster.

The history of firearms registration is history replete with racism, bigotry and intolerance. Both Liberals and Conservatives should hang their heads in shame for being so intolerant toward so many minority groups in Canada.

As far back as 1837, the governing elites of this country targeted the Irish, and only the Irish, with firearms control legislation. Yes, the ancestors of the Liberals and the Conservatives were as bigoted as any elites anywhere on Earth. They decided, unjustly and unfairly, that Irish-Canadians were threats to peace, order and their corrupt style of governing.

When the rebellion broke out in Upper and Lower Canada, legislation was introduced prohibiting unlawful training of persons in the use of arms, “and it authorized seizure of arms “collected or kept for purposes dangerous to the public peace”.

Forty years later, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald targeted the Irish with that legislation because he feared the Fenians in the United States might invade Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald was a political grandfather to those across the way and that tiny group sitting way off in the left of the corner in this place. John A. Macdonald called himself a liberal Conservative.

We are here today listening to Conservatives call themselves liberal and Liberals describing themselves as conservative. No wonder Canadians cannot tell the difference between those two parties. There never was any difference, going right back to their political birth.

It was not only Sir John A. who believed minorities and the Irish were less than equal. In 1878, after riots in Montreal, the Liberals, under prime minister Alexander Mackenzie, denied an accused person's right to a trial by jury and ordered the licensing of firearms owners in certain districts of Canada. Most of those certain districts were Irish neighbourhoods. The justice minister of the day was eager to embrace legislation based on the statutes in Britain that were aimed solely at repressing and abusing the Irish.

Today things are a little different. Liberals have the right to abuse absolutely anyone who will not vote for them.

Only a few years later, Sir John A. Macdonald and the liberal Conservatives found a new minority group to target and abuse. After the Riel rebellion in 1885, aboriginals, Metis, disloyal white settlers and who knows what other visible minorities in the Northwest Territories were forbidden to possess improved arms. They could carry and use ancient old smoothbores, like muzzle-loading shotguns and rifles, but nothing with an improved or rifled barrel.

We are only up to 1885, and the minorities targeted by the bigots in the Liberal and Conservative parties are aboriginal, the Irish, Metis and the so-called disloyal white settlers.

Let us skip ahead to 1913. This time it was the Conservatives, feverish with anti-immigrant hysteria, deciding to license handguns. Robert Laird Borden, the Conservative prime minister, thought immigrants were dangerous and he wanted to ensure that they did not have access to handguns. By passing legislation forcing the registration of handguns, he could use the RCMP and local police to ensure that immigrants did not have access.

Of course any good citizen of Anglo-Saxon stock could register them, and by now the Irish were no longer despised by the Liberals and the Conservatives. Liberals and Conservatives know a valuable voting block when they see one.

I would guess the Liberals and Conservatives of 1913 said to each other, “Let's pretend we don't despise the Irish and they will vote for us”. They were still bigots and racists but they hid it better than they had previous to 1913.

It must be embarrassing for today's Liberals and Conservatives, having such a foul legacy of bigotry and racism.

In 1919 another invisible enemy was spotted that required more action on the firearms front. According to Allan Smithies and W.T. Stanbury, writing in the Hill Times , the Winnipeg strike of 1919 raised fears of a Bolshevik revolution.

Robert Laird Borden was calling himself a unionist prime minister. That means that he had both Liberal and Conservatives behind him. Let me quote from Smithies and Stanbury in the March 10 Hill Times .

The federal government responded to the establishment's fears of a Bolshevik revolution that were erroneously attributed to non-British “alien scum” by prohibiting non-British immigrants from owning firearms and ammunition. The government was convinced that non-British immigrants with their “...bad habits, notions and vicious practices,” were “...thorough-paced Bolsheviks, disciples of the torch and bomb,” who showed “...a greater readiness (to) resort to the use of weapons than do our own people”.

That by the way was taken from a speech by the minister of justice in 1919 and Smithies and Stanbury found it in Hansard . Does it not sound a lot like Liberal justice ministers of today? Their kind of people do not hunt, do not target practice and do not own firearms. If their kind of people do not, then no Canadian should hunt, target practice or own firearms. After all, it is their kind of people who really count in Canada. Those who do not count are those who do not vote Liberal.

In July 1920, old bigoted Bob Borden ordered the licensing of gun owners and the registration of rifles. Some Canadian residents had money and Bobbie Borden needed it. British subjects who owned shotguns were exempt. The Liberals and Conservatives eagerly trotted after bigoted Bob, agreeing that only white people of Anglo-Saxon stock were to be trusted.

What all this means is that Liberals and Conservatives did not like people from the Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Germany, Denmark, China, Japan, India and every other country except Great Britain. They did not like anybody but British subjects and they did not trust anybody but those from Great Britain.

Liberals and Conservatives share a common history of racism, bigotry and intolerance along this line.

Moving along to the Great Depression in 1934, federal legislation was rushed through in 10 days. This was after the Communist, Tim Buck, drew greater crowds than Conservatives and Liberals were able to draw. The legislation to which I refer put the RCMP in charge of handgun registration. Smithies and Stanbury say that it was because the RCMP were the first line of defence against internal disorder. They were the most reliable for breaking strikes, smashing the radical trade unions, controlling the unemployed and hounding political dissenters.

In addition to being anti-immigrant, bigoted and intolerant, the Liberals and Conservatives shared another trait in common, a tendency toward fascism.

Smithies and Stanbury say that confiscation of firearms from non-white or ethnic persons was common, dating back to the first world war. Registered firearms were seized from Japanese Canadians who also saw their homes and possessions seized and handed over to friends of the governing parties.

But there is more.

The Liberals' anti-Quebec tendencies came into play in 1940. Fearing fifth column activity among enemy ethnic communities, the Liberals introduced universal firearms registration in 1940. What they truly feared was insurrection over conscription.

I wonder if the present justice minister is proud that Liberals had so little trust in Quebeckers that they saw fit to have them register all their firearms. The prime minister of that time was Mackenzie King, the man who loved his dog, himself and the Liberal Party. He never forgot them in his prayers.

In the west when the government insisted during World War II that all guns be registered, there was evidence of more bigotry. Those who did as the government asked and brought their rifles and shotguns in to be registered discovered who was a good Canadian and who was not. People with names that were eastern European had their rifles and shotguns seized. People with good respectable Anglo-Saxon names were allowed to register and retain possession.

The reason for my little history lecture today is transparent. If we do not learn from past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat those mistakes. Let us learn from the errors of the past and not go back to labelling our ranchers or duck hunters as disloyal white settlers. They made the country.

These are good people like Paul Reibin from my riding who is a recreational gun owner, Rolf Pfeiffer, a resident of 100 Mile House and hundreds of law-abiding citizens who refuse to accept this infringement on their rights and the government's blatant disregard for private property rights. They stand loud and proud against the gun registry.

The bill fails to take into account lifestyle and private property rights. How can we call ourselves democratic while we endorse legislation that tramples the basic rights of our citizens? What a legacy, what a fraud, what a scandal. Canadians deserve better.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's history lesson on gun control or gun registry in Canada. I found it quite interesting. I found there were also some elements that were quite dismaying. However she mentioned lessons learned. The lessons have been learned.

The fact that we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that ensures Canadians will not be singled out and will not be discriminated against on the basis of their ethnic origin, the colour of their skin, their religious beliefs, their race or their gender demonstrates that the Canadian government has, regardless of political stripe, over time learned the lessons. One of the lessons may be the lessons that the hon. member raises about gun registry.

I would like to bring the member however into the present, into 2003, and ask her what is her view on this. On one hand, she says that the overwhelming majority of Canadians do not support gun control. On the other hand, a poll in January 2003 indicated that a majority, 74% of Canadians, supported the program's elements, including licensing and registration. It is an Environics--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The hon. member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys.

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I did not raise that question and I never once said that we were opposed to control in some form. We have had controls since 1940. What we are opposed to is registration. Second, the Charter of Rights mentioned by the member intentionally omitted property rights.

What we are talking about and the lesson I want the member to learn from past mistakes, which I took the time to go through, is that we cannot criminalize innocent people because it fits our agenda.

I went through this and explained all the different categories of people who, over the last century, have been targeted. The target we have today is duck hunters and ranchers. If you do not understand the lifestyle, then you need to learn to understand the lifestyle before you start condemning these people, these honest people who built this country, as criminals because they own firearms.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Please address your comments to the Chair and not directly to any other member.

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Kamloops for her speech. I also appreciate that the member for Mississauga South is here. As well, my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, I believe is her constituency in Montreal, raised a question.

The Liberals say constantly that they are in favour of gun control and that somehow if we are opposed to the registry, we are opposed to gun control. It is not quite that simple. For example, I have a private member's bill before the House because there is something frightful missing in Canada's Criminal Code.

As we know, and I ask my colleague to comment on this, in Canadian law today, if we have been convicted of manslaughter, murder, rape, domestic abuse or committed any dramatic violent crime, we can purchase a gun after five years.

In the Canada that we should be creating, my private member's bill says that if in our lifetime we have ever raped a women, ever beaten our spouse or ever committed a violent crime, we should never get to own a gun. However the Liberals think that it is okay for people to own firearms. If a husband who has beaten the crap out of his wife goes to jail for a couple of years, he is capable under law of buying a firearm after he is released. That should not be allowed In Canada.

Liberals brag about gun control. Meanwhile they are registering guns in a meaningless way rather than passing a meaningful law to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I am not sure if the word crap is parliamentary. Please avoid using it.

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be really careful what I say. I will not repeat what my colleague has just said but I will tell him that this is the first time I have been made aware of his private member's bill and I can hardly wait for it to come to the floor. It is the most common sense I have heard and the freshest breath of air in a long time. I will definitely be supporting it. I would agree that it would be the way we would have to go. One simply should not be able to own a firearm, and if one could actually do that now under the law, after five years, that is a major loophole. That is something that should have been looked at more seriously.

We should maybe start concentrating on what is actually important to Canadians and what keeps them safer, such as, on spending a billion dollars on a wasted gun registry, think of how many RCMP we could have put on the street to actually make people safe.

Business of the House

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and I think that if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That when the House adjourns on Thursday, May 29, 2003 it shall stand adjourned until Monday, June 2, 2003 provided that the report stage of any bill reported from committee on May 29, 2003 may be taken up on or after June 2, 2003 and that any notices of motions may be received by the Clerk no later than 2:00 p.m. on May 30, 2003.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, and of the amendment, and of the amendment to the amendment.

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, again we are having some interesting debate here on the firearms legislation. It just keeps coming back to haunt the government and rightly so, because the government is now saying that Bill C-10 in this form is the panacea. It does not matter how it brings it back in here, either in through the Senate, or through the back door or the front door: the government says this is going to make everything better.

As for the $1 billion the Auditor General found, whether we say it is a full billion or only $680 million, she did not have time to go to the well again and get all the numbers because she had to report to Parliament on a given day. She got up to $680 million and said they knew it would be a lot worse than that, that they knew it would be $1 billion within a year.

Another little factor has come to light, too, and perhaps Mr. Speaker will correct me if I am wrong, but the dollars that went to Quebec to implement its own registry are not reported in the same way. Quebec does its own thing in a lot of instances and this is one of them. The cash transfers that are done in the political envelope to that province are not reported in the same way on this bill. The numbers could actually be higher yet. That may bear some looking at.

Bill C-10 is supposed to be the panacea. It is supposed to make everything better. The government claims it will streamline things and pick up on the errors and omissions. The government is saying this will all be cleaned up under this one bill. That is a big job.

We have heard a lot of arguments from Liberals on the other side today trying to justify what has been done, how it has been done, and how they can go home and sell it to their folks. They are claiming that it is all about public safety and then they cancel the training. If this is about public safety, those types of things have to be done.

Canadians are a common sense people. We just do the right things. We do not have to be told again and again. We do not need legislation telling us to store our firearms safely. We do that as a matter of course because it is common sense to handle firearms safely. These guys seem to think they need more rules and regulations.

Here is what amazes me. We have seen what happened with the SARS outbreak in the last little while, but Bill C-68 created this monster today. As a result of the over-production of that bill, the overreaction to a situation that happened in Montreal where they politicized the heck out of it, the government came out with Bill C-68. But then we had a SARS outbreak and the government would not do a thing; it procrastinated to the point where it got totally out of hand. So we have two ends of the spectrum here. The government overreacted with Bill C-68 and under-reacted with the SARS crisis. We have to try to justify one to the other and I do not think the Liberals can do that; they are found lacking at both ends.

The Liberals have talked about streamlining this registry and saving $3 million a month. They say they are going to save that but they still will not tell us what the cost is. They are saving $3 million of what? Is it $100 million a year or $200 million a year? It is going to be a five year cycle now, so for anybody who is in the system, when their five years are up they will not know what it is going to cost them to re-register the guns they have already registered for $10 or whatever today; maybe the fee was waived. They do not know what it is going to cost, so maybe we will start to recoup all of that money, but it will be solely on the backs of firearms owners. Those owners who have more than one firearm could be hit hard. We do not know, but we do not trust these guys.

The member for Mississauga South talked earlier about this huge 90% error and omission rate. He was talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in those errors and omissions. No one from outside the CFC has had a look at the errors and omissions other than those cards, the PALs, the POLs and the little registration cards themselves that my guys are getting back. The errors and omissions I have seen are committed not by the gun owner or the gun but by the CFC.

One fellow I know received 12 cards back because he registered 12 long guns, twenty-twos, shotguns and rifles. Every one of those cards was identical. Every card indicated “unknown” under barrel length. The serial number was unknown. The make of gun was unknown. The action was unknown. He did not send in the card like that. It would not have been entered like that. The officials would have gone back to him right away. I have seen PALs with somebody's picture and somebody else's name on them. Nobody sent them in that way.

So as for the errors and omissions, the member for Mississauga South said it was those terrible gun owners who subverted the government. He said it was a protest. What a load of hogwash. It did not happen that way at all. Yes, there were people who waited until the bitter end. People do that every year with Revenue Canada; I have been one of them. We do not want to send in that money because we do not think we are getting any bang for our buck. The member said these serious errors and omissions are all because of gun owners. That is hogwash. That will not fly at all.

As for the whole idea that this will streamline things and save money, that there will be more done on the Internet, as members well know, the e-mails we all receive and the work that is done on the Internet now is prone to error. People do have to type it in. The best way to say it is garbage in, garbage out. The gun control registry system is still going to be prone and susceptible to errors. It is bound to happen when we are talking about makes of firearms and serial numbers of firearms. A lot of them have no serial number. This has to be entered; the system has to come to grips with this. This is where the problem started and the bill will in no way ease any of those facts or figures. It will continue being a huge, dark money loss.

There is another side of the argument. My colleague from Yorkton—Melville has done a tremendous job on this file. He has been light years ahead of everybody on this one and it turns out that he was right in a lot of his submissions. He also talks about how enforcing the firearms bill could be a huge black hole. Let us look at convictions and tracking people down and so on; it would not be hard to spend another billion dollars enforcing it, simply against people who had no intention of going against the law but who, because of the way this thing is written, implemented and enforced, become criminals.

There are a lot of us who find ourselves in that situation. There were things we thought we had registered, but now it turns out the government has lost them. So now we are criminals and we have to try to fight our way out of that bureaucratic malaise there.

I have had some discussions with some CFC officials on one piece that I own. When I explained everything that was wrong with the way the registration did not carry through, the guy said I had two choices. He said I could weld it shut and keep it or I could turn it in. Those were my two choices.

I said that neither one of them was acceptable to me. I talked to the RCMP. The officer said they could not even take it in because it is considered prohibited at this point. He said, “Sir, maybe the best thing I could do is say that we never had these discussions”. He was ready to sweep it under the rug. That is public safety: just ignore it and it will go away.

The bill started out as a combination of a cruelty to animals bill and some changes to the Firearms Act and what it came back as is cruelty to firearms owners. That is really where we are at this point.

Mr. Speaker, in your riding you know there are hunters up there. I have been through your riding and it is a beautiful piece of Canada, beautiful country, and there are a lot of hunters and fishermen and so on. You probably enjoy that yourself, Mr. Speaker, so I know you are going to have some problems with this in trying to justify where this has gone.

If the government were really and truly concerned about public safety and felt that this was the right way to go, why have we had six amnesty periods since 1998? Why is it taking that long to implement the bill? We have seen bills come to the House and slam-bam they are gone.

The majority government brings in a bill that it wants. It has what is called a majority. It has control of the schedule and the planning. It decides what is up on a given day and how long it will stay up. It can push through the bill, but with this we have seen them test the waters and pull back, test the waters and pull back, which has a lot more to do with backbench solidarity over there. We have seen some comments from a lot of these folks over there who say, “Oh, this is terrible. We should not vote in the $59 million that they wanted at the end of the year. We should not”. But they all stood up today and invoked closure. A Liberal is a Liberal. They just cannot help themselves. They have to be there when their government comes knocking and calling.

There is another huge thing. The government talks about streamlining and being more cost effective, yet the Liberals are adding millions more people and firearms to this list with Bill C-10, such as all the pellet guns and anything with certain muzzle velocities and so on. A lot of them have never been tested for a decision on what they are; a lot of them have been modified and so on.

We have a lot of kids who are 8, 10 or 12 years old, especially out west, who use pellet guns to control varmints around the farmyard. These kids are not criminals. They cannot vote. They are not old enough to vote out this piece of junk, but they are criminals because their pellet guns are over the muzzle velocity that some Liberal member decided on. How ridiculous. There are millions of kids out there with pellet guns. They are not hurting anyone. They are plinking sparrows and crows and so on. For all we know, maybe they are helping us control the West Nile virus every time they shoot a crow.

There is also another big problem. Some of the members on the other side have said that public support is at 74%, that the public just loves the bill, but that is until people find out what it costs. If those polls are really accurate, can anyone explain to me and the people of my riding why eight provinces and three territories are dead set against this? Five provinces and three territories will not administer it. They will take no part in it. If the polling numbers are accurate, why are the provinces not on side? They are the same people, the same constituents. It does not make any sense to me at all.

Then there are the police chiefs. Some of them have been politicized. We have certainly seen that in the way they handle it, but a lot of them are now saying to their police forces, “Please do not arrest the guy because we are not going to do the paperwork. We cannot make it stick. We have an unenforceable law. Even though the Supreme Court loved it, we cannot implement this on the ground”.

Whether we streamline this through Bill C-10 or ignore it for another five years and try to bring it back, nothing will change here until we change the government on the other side.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of my hon. colleague. He mentioned polls. I think numerous polls have shown that the Canadian public support the gun registry.

If his party says that it supports gun control but not the registry, how does he square that with the fact that his party has always talked about following the popular will of the public, doing what their constituents say and following their wishes, when they know that poll after poll says the same thing, and that as recently as January of this year an Environics poll said that the majority of Canadians, 74%, support the program and its elements, including licensing and registration? How does he square that circle?