Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Toronto police chief, the member might find it somewhat strange that he can opine on the effectiveness of the registry when it is not even fully implemented. It would probably be premature to make a conclusion on that matter. I do not think that the member should rely on that.
The member said he got his facts right. Well, he did not. If he had only looked at the numbers he would have found that between 1995 and 2001 the per capita incidence of violent crime with handguns was relatively flat over that period. In fact, the new registration which required the registration of long arms saw that long arm violent crime was actually cut in half during the period of development of the gun control legislation and the registry. If the member were to look at the facts, he would see that long arm violent crime in 1994 was greater than handgun crime.
That is not what he presented to the House and that is why I stated that his information was incorrect. Long arm crime was greater than handgun crime when the gun control legislation was first introduced. Now long arm violent crime has been cut in half in the last six years.
I have not done the calculations, but I believe it translates into over 10,000 Canadian lives that have been saved because of the reduction in long arm crime. What are those 10,000 lives worth?