Debates of May 6th, 2003

Parliament of Canada Act

[The Speaker]

Is it agreed to allow the hon. member's name to be recorded with the yeas?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from May 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, be read the third time and passed.

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-9.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe you would find consent in the House that those who voted on the previous motion be recorded as voting on the motion now before the House with the Liberal members voting yes.

[The Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this fashion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Dale Johnston, Canadian Alliance, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian Alliance members will be voting yea on this motion.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, members of the Bloc Quebecois will vote against this motion.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party will vote against this motion.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, members of the Progressive Conservative Party will vote no to this motion.

[Ghislain Lebel, Independent, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will vote against this motion.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, government orders will be extended by another 13 minutes for a total of 43 minutes.

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

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on Bill C-10A. The bill seeks to amend the Firearms Act. Notably, the bill would stagger firearms licence renewals to avoid a surge of applications in five year cycles. It would simplify the requirements for licence renewals and it would create a commissioner to oversee the program.

We, the members of the official opposition, disagree with the passage of the bill.

The member for Yorkton—Melville has worked very hard and for a very long time on this issue. He has done an excellent job of researching the issue, educating Canadians and holding the government accountable.

This bill has been kicking around for over two years. First it was Bill C-15 which, at the insistence of the official opposition, was split into two parts. Bill C-15B included the firearms amendments, along with the amendments to the cruelty to animals section. It was in the Senate when the House prorogued. In this session it was re-numbered as Bill C-10 and sent to the Senate for debate. After six days of debate, in December the Senate decided to split Bill C-10 into two: Bill C-10A, an act to amend the Criminal Code, which includes the firearms section and the Firearms Act, and Bill C-10B, an act to amend the Criminal Code dealing with cruelty to animals.

Despite the fact that the Senate does not have the authority to do so, the Senate split this bill in two. Members of the House of Commons should not be required to waive their rights and privileges in order to allow the Senate to exceed its authority.

Why did the Senate divide Bill C-10? Because it could not comply with the government's demand that it ram through the entire bill before Christmas. But why exactly did the Liberal-dominated Senate take this drastic step? Because the government had an end of year deadline contained in the gun registry section. Failure to pass the gun registry portion of Bill C-10 by December 31 would result in yet higher costs for the registry, perhaps another $4 million a year. We missed the December deadline.

Bill C-10A has been appearing on and disappearing from the legislative agenda for some months now. I can only speculate that the government is leery about placing it before Parliament for debate, perhaps scared over the reception it will receive from the members of the Liberal caucus.

The 22 pages with 63 clauses of firearms amendments in Bill C-10A are a clear admission by the government that Bill C-68 was a failure. The then justice minister told us at a news conference, “The debate is over” on this issue, but if the debate really was over in 1998, why did the minister bring in 22 pages of amendments to the legislation?

After seven years, the waste of a billion dollars and still counting, and massive non-compliance, the government has finally admitted it made a mistake in 1995. There are many more things that need to be fixed in Bill C-68 other than these few tinkering amendments. The insurmountable problems with the gun registry will not be solved by these band-aid amendments.

The only cost effective solution is to scrap the gun registry altogether and replace it with something that will work.

[An hon. member]

With what?

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Let me answer that. This means replacing it with a law that has the full support of all 10 provinces, the 3 territories, the firearms community and the aboriginal community. We must remember that six provinces and two territories proposed Bill C-68 in a constitutional challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The western provinces are even refusing to prosecute firearms act offences. Is that not something? For years judges have complained that the legislation was so poorly drafted, at least major segments of the legislation, that it was unenforceable.

The bill would also amend the definition of a firearm in an attempt to ensure that millions of air guns and pellet rifles will no longer be considered firearms under the law. The wording is confusing and ambiguous, and the new definition may not achieve that objective. The justice minister refused to consider a simple amendment to remove that confusion and ambiguity.

In 1995 the justice minister ignored the 250 amendments proposed by the Reform Party at that time. It has become evident that the gun registry is nothing more than a fiasco; another billion dollar boondoggle.

The Auditor General says that the firearms program is the worst example of government overspending that anyone in her department has ever seen. This is a program that the government claimed was going to break even.

When unveiled in 1995, Canadians and the House were told that the gun registry would cost $119 million to implement, which would be offset by $117 million in fees. The difference between revenue and cost of just $2 million was said to be the cost of the program. That is what Canadians and this Parliament were made to believe.

Instead, by the end of this year the registry will have cost nearly $1 billion, 500 times more than the originally projected costs. Of course this is not the first time we have learned of Liberal overspending gone wild.

Who can forget the HRDC boondoggle when the government used job creation programs as a means to throw cash around like drunkards? More recently there was the Groupaction affair in which the government gave sponsorship funds to its Liberal friends in the name of national unity. This included $500,000 for non-existent or missing reports.

Since 1993 it has become clear that the Liberal government only admits to wrongdoing when confronted by the media reports or is caught by the Auditor General. However no one on the government side ever takes responsibility for his or her actions.

Where was the former finance minister, who is listening to the debate now, when he spent all those billions of dollars on the gun registry? I will tell everyone where he was. He was writing the cheques. So much for fiscal responsibility. How many other spending fiascos remain hidden?

The firearms registry was introduced with hollow claims that it would help the police do their jobs. Supposedly, it would provide firearms registration information to dispatched patrol officers, allowing them to know before entering a property whether or not the occupant has a firearm and how many guns are in the residence.

The registry was also purported to help curb the illegal gun trade by allowing the police to trace guns to their original owners and enforce the requirement that guns only be sold to licensed individuals. The justice minister gave $380,000 to a coalition of gun control to promote its anti-gun agenda while it cut $65,000 from the firearms safety training program. How can the justice minister justify that?

The police cannot rely on the billion dollar gun registry to do anything the Liberals promised. Police will not know where the guns are because there is no legal requirement for gun owners to store their registered firearms at their home address or tell the government where they are stored.

Police will not know where the guns are because between 500,000 and 1.3 million gun owners failed or refused to obtain a firearms licence and cannot register their guns without one.

Police will not know where the guns are because the government has lost track of at least 300,000 guns in the old handgun registration system.

Police will not know where the guns are because the government still has to register between 3.4 million and 12 million guns before the government imposed registration deadline.

Even if police do find the guns, there are so few identifying characteristics on the registration certificates that it is impossible to verify that it is the firearm registered in the system. For example, 4.5 million registration certificates have been issued without the owner's name. Can anyone imagine that? There are 3.2 million blank and unknown entries on gun registration certificates. Of the 3.2 million certificates that have already been issued, more than three-quarters of a million of them do not have serial numbers. How will the government keep track of those?

The bill would remove all of the RCMP's authority for the firearms registration system which it has been responsible for since 1934. All authority previously granted in law to the RCMP would now be transferred to a new government agency under the control of a new bureaucrat called the Canadian firearms commissioner.

We have one question. Why? If the RCMP bureaucracy cannot make the gun registry work after 59 years of experience, how will the new bureaucracy do any better? It is likely to further erode public and police confidence in the gun registry, a system so riddled with errors that it is of absolutely no value whatsoever to the police in their day to day law enforcement functions.

The bill would give the minister the power to exempt non-residents from the application of the Firearms Act, regulations and 14 sections of the Criminal Code of Canada. It exempts foreigners. Why does the justice minister trust foreigners with firearms more than he does Canadian citizens?

The bill would give any designated firearms officer any of the duties, powers and functions of the chief firearms officer. Do Canadians really want private eyes running around with all the powers of a CFO to investigate and harass law-abiding citizens?

How will we ever know if the private eye is using his powers as a firearms officer to investigate people for his other clients and for his personal gain? Even the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is investigating this issue.

Let us look at some statistics. Statistics Canada recently released homicide statistics for 2001. These numbers provide further evidence of the absolute futility of registering guns as a policy for reducing the number of murders. Of the 554 homicides in Canada in 2001, 31% were stabbed to death, another 31% were shot to death, and 22% were beaten to death.

Of the 171 firearm homicides in 2001, 64% were committed with handguns that the RCMP have been registering for the last 69 years, 6% were committed with firearms that are completely prohibited in Canada, and 27% were committed with a rifle or shotgun.

Since 1991 handgun use in homicides has steadily increased from 49.8% to 64.3% in 2001. Over the same period of time homicides committed with rifles and shotguns have steadily decreased from 38% to 26.9%. Between 1997 and 2001, 74% of handguns recovered from the scenes of 143 homicides were not registered weapons.

Toronto's recent wave of street murders, more than 40 since the beginning of 2001, is further evidence disproving the claim that the Liberal government's gun registry is making Canadians safer from crime. Nearly all of the Toronto murders have been committed with handguns and yet handguns have been the subject of registration in Canada since 1934.

Registration has done nothing to stem the use of handguns in murders. In the past 15 years the proportion of all firearm murders committed with handguns has nearly doubled in Canada, from just over one-third to nearly two-thirds.

Pistols are easily concealed, which makes them the weapon of choice for gang members and drug dealers, the two groups responsible for most of the Toronto shootings and even many of the shootings in British Columbia.

Smuggling from the United States is the source of most of the handguns used in Canadian murders, up to 90% according to the Ontario Provincial Police.

In December, when Toronto police chief, Julian Fantino, was asked about the escalation of firearm crimes in his city, he said “a law registering firearms has neither deterred these crimes nor helped us solve any of them”.

Even if a national registry could produce information useful in preventing crimes, or even just solving them, it would be at a loss to produce it on nine out of ten handguns used in Canadian murders since those guns would not have been registered in the first place.

While the licensing process for gun owners was initially turning down more potentially unfit owners than the old firearms acquisition certificate program, the Liberals' haste to boost the number of licensed owners caused them to forgo meaningful background checks on hundreds of thousands of applicants in late 2000 and early 2001. As a result, the rate of refusals for the new licensing scheme is half that of the old system.

How can the new program be making Canada safer if it is turning away only half as many risky owners as the old one? The registry is nothing more than a sinkhole for taxpayer money, to the extent that the gun registry is diverting resources and police officers from real security matters. It is more of a threat to Canadian safety than no registry at all.

It clearly is time for the government to consider shutting down the gun registry and redirecting the money and other resources to real crime-fighting measures.

Depending on who we talk to, there are anywhere from two to seven million firearms owners in the country, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding, tax paying and hardworking people. If a safer Canada is the goal, the solution is not to attack law-abiding Canadians.

We feel there is simply no reason to believe that spending exorbitant money is producing any significant results. The system has no government accountability or transparency. This is just another horrendous example of gross mismanagement and abuse of the government's dictatorial authority.

The regulations are not submitted along with the legislation as I have always said. The government is ruling, not governing, through the back door with regulations. The government failed to submit or table regulations along with the legislation.

For many years, many groups and individuals, including the government, have said they want a safer Canada, but they are not thinking outside the box. They are stuck in a rut and believe that the only way to accomplish this is through the firearms registry.

My Canadian Alliance colleagues and I believe this is the wrong approach. It is not working and it is a waste. We should put more police on the street to go after criminals rather than in offices. This law is simply a waste of money and a betrayal of the trust of Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member who just spoke has taken us down memory lane through a bunch of speeches that have been given since 1994 on the whole issue of gun control and other actions. The member did not help the public understand the facts very well because of the manner in which he presented some of the facts.

The fact is that the Auditor General did not report that the government wasted $1 billion. In fact, the Auditor General reported that the amounts were projected to be $1 billion by the end of 2005.

The member did not say that 90% of the registration applications were incorrect as a form of protest by gun owners to discredit the system. The member did not say that the website registry that Canadians could use was clogged up to inhibit law-abiding citizens from registering on the web. He did not say that 75% of Canadians supported gun control, including the registry. The facts go on and on. The member did not mention that there was some $140 million of revenue at that time to offset the costs.

If the member wants to participate in debate, it is important that the information that he gives be true, full, plain, and correct, so Canadians will better understand the facts. Canadians deserve better from the member on this.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's remarks contain a lot of rhetoric. I have given many facts and the source of the facts.

Would he not agree with the Toronto chief of police? Would he not agree with the Auditor General who said that she has never seen over-spending from $2 million to $1 billion? Is that not a fact?

How can the member deny that the government told this Parliament and Canadians that the whole system of implementing the gun registry would cost $2 million? What is the cost now? It is now 500 times more than the original projection by the government. It is up to $1 billion and still counting. Does the member not agree with those facts?

I gave a huge list of figures during my speech concerning the errors. I will not repeat them because there may be some other questions. The system is full of errors. It does not help police find guns. When police go into someone's residence, the police do not know if there are any guns that residence. The guns may not match the registration certificates. All these things were well articulated in my speech.

Backbench Liberals do not agree with their own government. They know that the government has seriously flawed this legislation. The government failed to accept legitimate amendments. There were 265 amendments to Bill C-68. The government tried to make Canadians believe that it would do it right so it introduced Bill C-15 in the last session. When the House recessed, the bill was in the Senate and was renumbered to Bill C-10. The Liberal dominated Senate split the bill without having the authority to do that.

The facts given during my speech were supported with sources. I am sure members of the House trust the police chiefs, the Auditor General and the research done by the hon. member for Yorkton--Melville who has spoken many times in the House on this issue.

I think I made a good case. I have given the facts to Canadians and I supported my facts with sources. Let anyone challenge those facts and then we will see.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

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?

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing that the hon. member will not trust or have faith in the Toronto police chief's statement. Julian Fantino said that the gun registry is not working. I am sorry to hear that the member would discredit that statement as well as those given by the Auditor General.

According to Statistics Canada's 2001 figures there were 171 firearm homicides in 2001; 64% were committed with handguns; 6% were committed with firearms that were completely prohibited; and 27% were committed with a rifle or shotgun. Will the member not believe Statistics Canada's figures?

Since 1991, handguns used in homicides steadily increased from 49% to 64%. That is the figure given by Statistics Canada, not by me. Unlike the member I do not cook the figures.

Between 1997 and 2000, 74% of the handguns recovered from the scenes of 143 homicides were not registered. All these figures come from Statistics Canada and I am sure the member will look into them. He can then read them, calculate them, and then argue in the House.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the war museum in Nanaimo has been collecting military pattern weapons. It has at least three firearms inspectors who are licensed there. It is collecting military pattern weapons from Canada's history: the Boer War, World War I and World War II. However, now, it is not allowed to receive weapons from the public because it cannot transfer weapons that are not registered.

We have been trying to get this sorted out and I wonder if the member might have heard about such problems developing. We even hear that gun safety courses are being harassed and stopped by the government. What is the government's agenda?

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is correct. The government has given $380,000 to a lobby group which puts out anti-gun propaganda and those kinds of things, but it has cut $65,000 from the firearms safety training program.

How can the government justify cutting the money from the safety program? And that $65,000 was for only one province, Saskatchewan. We can explore and see how much money it has cut from other provinces. That does not make sense at all. The government is running amok. It does not have any clear idea of what it is doing.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-10A. It has brought back all of the arguments and all of the discussions with regard to the gun control debates, but the fact remains that 74% of Canadians supported the gun control legislation including the registry when it was passed.

Let us look at the facts. I know that Alliance members are not happy with those numbers and I understand their position, but we can agree to disagree.

This past April the Canadian firearms program was transferred from the Department of Justice to the Solicitor General of Canada. Changes in the law represented by Bill C-10A would pave the way to putting this program in a position where we would provide better services and reduce costs for Canadians.

However, it does cost money and I must admit that I am fascinated by the discussion that somehow the government threw away a billion dollars when it estimated that it was only going to cost $2 million. This is so bizarre that we must ask the question and try to explain why. I will try to identify some of the ways in which people can use numbers or use assumptions to make a case.

The whole aspect of Bill C-10A is to improve the services to firearm owners. It would establish a five year cycle of firearms licence renewals which would be staggered so that it would ease the spiking of renewals. I think members would agree that is a good thing to do.

Completed registration applications would be processed within 30 days of receipt. Gun owners who want to register their firearms should be able to register those within a reasonable period. That has not been the case, but there is a reason and I will address that a little later in my speech.

The Internet and other automated channels would be increasingly used for applications and the issuance of documents. That has not been readily available to those who want to register their firearms. There is a reason for that and I will also address that.

The firearms transfer process would be streamlined and members have raised this issue. The last questioner spoke about transferring firearms from an owner to a collector's museum or something like that. Those things would be established.

What we established during the debates on gun control registry and gun control provisions was that after all is said and done hunters would continue to be able to hunt. Collectors would continue to be able to collect and sports shooters would be able to continue their hobby. Nothing has changed that.

Canadians know that as a consequence of the gun control legislation and the registry that more and more Canadians are informed of how to safely own, store and transport a firearm. Canadians feel it is important to have rules in place. Canadians take a great deal of comfort from the fact that there are rules and that the government has taken reasonable steps to inform Canadians about all of those provisions so that non-gun owners would also understand that for those who have properly licensed and registered their firearms there should be no concern because they have gone through all of the steps necessary to ensure the safe use and ownership of firearms. That is the objective and I think all members would agree.

Bill C-10A would provide improvements for businesses. It would extend the terms of the firearms business licences and clarify the licensing requirements for employees of these businesses. Members would agree that is an important aspect within the bill.

I could talk more about some of the provisions of the bill, but members are familiar with them. Members actually prefer to talk about who said what and how much it would cost, et cetera.

[An hon. member]

A billion dollars.