Debates of June 19th, 2007

Criminal Code

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, the basis of my support in three elections was the failure of the previous Liberal government to understand the impact of the gun registry on hunters, trappers, subsistence users of wildlife across the country, whether they be aboriginal or non-aboriginal.

We could say why not just register them. It does not work like that. When people are part of that subsistence economy, they may borrow guns and use guns. It is a tradition and a lifestyle that has been upset and changed without careful attention to what it meant. I think that is the key and that is where the strong reaction comes from.

In the words of Charlie Snowshoe, an elder from Fort MacPherson who has run the game council there for many years, he is totally opposed to this. He said that it has taken the young people out of hunting. It is taking the tradition out of hunting and trapping. It is changing it and turning people away from a pastime which has been so valuable to them.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to elaborate on how northerners feel differently.

I spoke strongly against the registry and explained how passionately many of my constituents feel about it, the northern trappers, hunters, fishermen and outfitters. They feel that it is a way of life. They do not consider a gun a weapon. They consider it a tool in their way of life.

They have learned from childhood that guns are there as part of their life. They use them safely and they see this as an unnecessary imposition and that this money could be spent to save some lives in the cities. From their perspective the money could be invested in health care or some other system that would have more effect on saving lives.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. Everybody wants to stop accidents with guns, the kinds of things that happen without trained people, without safety as a paramount issue in the use of firearms.

I think that fits with the hunting and trapping tradition as well, where individuals go out in the bush by themselves with a gun and they have to survive. If by chance the gun does not work or the people run out of ammunition and they have to borrow some from someone else, that should not be a crime. There is that tradition. Interestingly enough, we have focused on gun control, but we--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order. It is with regret I interrupt the hon. member for Western Arctic. I have been trying to give him signals. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, “first mourn, then work for change”. That was the rallying cry 18 years ago and every year on December 6 tens of thousands of women and men all across this country say, “Yes, we will mourn, but we will work for change”.

In the Montreal massacre 18 years ago, an assault rifle was used. Every year, when we have the candlelight vigil, we make a commitment to ban violence and to reduce the gun culture.

An assault rifle is a long gun. It is a gun that is used to kill animals sometimes in rural Canada, but in a lot of other places, especially urban centres, assault rifles and long guns are used to kill people and a lot of those people are women.

I do not know if some members of Parliament were here 18 years ago, but for every year since, on December 6, we wear white ribbons. The white ribbons are from the families in Montreal who say they want to work for change. It is also a symbol, saying that we want to stop men's violence against women. I hope members of Parliament remember that moment.

We know that 88% of women killed with guns are killed with shotguns or rifles. We know that 50% of family homicides end in the suicide of the murderer, indicating that key to protecting women and children is licensing and screening, including the renewal.

Of the gun deaths in Canada, 80% are suicides, most by using rifles or shotguns that were readily available. Access to guns is the fifth highest risk factor in spousal homicide.

We have heard from different inquests in domestic violence that a lot of the women are killed because of the gun culture and because of passion, but also because of access to guns.

Perhaps, if more women were elected to the House of Commons, this debate would be somewhat different.

The long gun registry has been working. The gun registry is very mismanaged, but it is working. It is being used. Over two million gun owners are licensed and six million guns have been licensed. We now have police using this registration database 1,500 times per day and are reporting successful use of this tool in fighting an illegal gun trade.

It works. Why? We have seen statistics that say there were 525 fewer gun deaths, which include suicides, homicides and accidents in 2002 compared to 1989, the year I was just talking about. It is a 60% reduction. We are talking about 525 lives. We are talking about 40 fewer women per year being shot, compared to 15 years ago. Every year, 40 fewer women being shot. I want people to remember those lives.

There were 100 fewer murders every year with rifles and shotguns. Think of that number as we are debating this bill today. Think about those women. Think about those murders. In Quebec alone, there were 30 fewer gun related suicides each year among young people in 2000-01, a 50% drop from the average of 56 firearm suicides in this group in the nineties. Obviously, the gun registry is working. Yes, it is mismanaged, but does that mean we need to scrap it? No.

We need a better and improved system. We need better screening, tightening the screening, getting and requiring the gun clubs to provide information on individuals who are having problems, who may be slightly bordering on very dangerous behaviour. There should be at least two references and spousal notification when a spouse is getting a gun.

We definitely should be banning semi-automatic rifles. Because of the registry some who did not need their long guns gave them up because they had no use for them, which means that we are getting the guns out of places where people do not use them, so that there is less chance of accidents, less chance of guns being stolen.

The gun registry is like building a house. We have a foundation; the walls are in and the roof is in. Yes, there are some problems with it. Maybe it has a lousy coat of paint or ugly drapes, but we do not destroy the entire house. We have already spent a lot of money. For us to scrap it now would mean a gigantic waste of taxpayers' money that was already spent.

Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General, said in 2006 that there were problems in this registry. This bill was tabled on June 19, 2006, but nothing happened for an entire year. Why not talk to Canadians? That did not happen. It did not go to committee. If it is so important, why did it not go to committee? Why was there no debate?

Instead, the Conservative government decided to have an amnesty and said it would not charge any more. Each year that has happened $20 million is not being collected. The total for almost two years now is $40 million.

I heard tonight that perhaps we should take that money and invest it in young people, invest it in anti-crime initiatives. The Conservatives, during the election, said that they would provide $50 million in crime prevention programs. That did not happen, did it?

Even today in the House of Commons during question period we heard only $10 million being announced and we do not even know where we can find this $10 million because if we check the website for the National Crime Prevention Centre there are no clear guidelines. How do communities apply? I do not know.

The old program was mismanaged in terms of the anti-crime prevention programs, but we need to improve on that. Improve the gun registry, strengthen it, and manage it well. What we should not do is scrap it and have this bill passed because it would be very unfortunate. We know what the results would be: homicides, suicides, and accident rates would go up. Lives would be destroyed and most of those lives would belong to women.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what the hon. member had to say. She mentioned that the gun registry was like building a house. I suppose, but that house was about a thousand times over budget. The gun registry that was supposed to cost $2 million cost $2 billion. It is like starting out to build a house for $150,000 and accidentally going over budget and costing $150 million. Now we are thinking it might be a nice house except that it leaks and probably was built on a lousy foundation, so it is probably going to fall down, but let us keep spending money on it anyway because it might be a nice house some day.

That is garbage. The long gun registry does not work. The hon. member mentioned homicides, domestic assaults and so forth would go up. First of all, she cannot present any evidence in that regard. Second and more importantly, homicides happen by various means.

Would she propose that we start a parallel registry where perhaps we could ask chefs to register all their kitchen knives because as we know, stabbings kill people. So if we registered every knife and we knew where every knife was, we could probably put an end to stabbings because it is the same philosophy.

If we register every weapon imaginable, surely nobody could commit a crime. This whole philosophy is so flawed. Would she like to recommend to the House that we start a parallel registry to register kitchen knives?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago I met with a mother whose son was shot and killed, not by a rifle but by a gun. If one were to talk with her about guns, she would say that guns, whether they be long guns or short guns, are bad.

In the old days, maybe in the 1950s, when kids got into fights they may have pulled knives on each other or fought with their hands but not many of them had guns. Today, even though the youth crime rate has gone down, we are seeing that the rate of kids using guns to shoot each other has gone up. We cannot compare knives to guns.

I will go back to the example I was using. If someone were to spend $150 million building a house, I cannot imagine that person would bulldoze it to the ground just because the roof was leaking. The person would spend a bit of money to repair the leaky roof. The member would not get a bulldozer and scrap the entire house. I cannot imagine anyone would do that to a house that is worth a bit of money.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for referencing the massacre that happened 18 years ago in Montreal, a very sad and tragic event. Violence against women is an almost daily event in our country. All of us as parliamentarians should speak up and voice our concerns about these horrendous and terrible crimes that are committed against women every day in our country and throughout the world.

I am obviously very concerned, coming from an urban city like Toronto, as she is, about violence and guns on our streets. I am certainly concerned about the constant use of guns.

I do not understand why there is this gun loving culture that exists with some members of the government. What is the importance of a gun? A gun cannot be compared to any other weapon. A gun has only one purpose and that is to kill. If the Conservatives can give me another rational reason or purpose for a gun--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I interrupt the hon. member. The hon. member for Trinity—Spadina has 30 seconds to respond.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish that the gun clubs, some of which are for profit, would have detailed screening and that the guns would be stored in the gun clubs rather than allowing people to take their guns home because many guns are stolen from residences, which is most unfortunate because many of the guns being used on the street are in fact stolen.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand this evening and participate in the debate on Bill C-21, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act.

Where I come from, predominantly a rural riding in Alberta, this bill is one of the most important changes that my constituents, over the seven years that I have been a member of Parliament, have asked for. They want to see the gun registry changed and the long gun registry dropped.

This bill is the start of a process that would reverse the burden that has been placed on rural Canadians by Liberal governments for far too long, approximately 10 years. Farmers and ranchers, those of us who live in remote and rural communities, have been taxed and red-taped by the Liberal government's failed gun registry for a decade now and they are saying that enough is enough and that it is time to make changes.

We have lived with this type of registry for a long time but we have lived with firearms, and long guns specifically, for generations in rural Canada. We have lived with them safely as responsible and law-abiding owners and users. However, when urban Canada, and our largest cities in particular, began to suffer from gun violence on an increasing basis, the Chrétien government launched a long gun registry. However, it did not address the problems in these urban centres and caused considerable hardship to rural Canada.

The Conservative Party campaigned on a promise to address what some estimate to be now a $2 billion waste of taxpayer dollars and to remove the yolk that the Liberals placed on rural residents when it comes to firearms ownership.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

Unlike the current Liberal leadership, Canada's new government is committed to effective gun control in tackling the criminal misuse of firearms. We understand that serious gun crime problems are very evident in our urban areas. They continue to rise and this government will do something about it.

The truth is that the vast majority of these firearm homicides are committed with illegal, unregistered firearms. That is why we believe in targeting the criminals themselves, the criminals who use and traffic in illegal firearms, not the duck hunters, not the farmers and not the ranchers who have nothing to do with the criminal element or criminal activity.

The Liberals continuously neglected our licensing system. We allocated $14 million over two years in budget 2007 to improve front end screening of first time firearm licence applicants.

I have listened to people tonight from the other side say that we were getting rid of every type of regulation. That is not right. We want to ensure that those who apply for a firearms licence will be trained and screened so they will be responsible firearm owners. Those are very important measures that will help prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands. It was the aspect of a licensing and screening system that was totally neglected by the previous government.

Instead, over more than a decade the Liberal Party wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a long gun registry that could have been used for fighting crime and the sources of criminal behaviour.

The other failure of the Liberals' long gun registry is well-documented by the Auditor General. Data was too often inaccurate and costs skyrocketed while Parliament was, in my opinion, intentionally misinformed about the progress that was being made.

As a government, I am proud to say that my party has changed the focus from paperwork and charging fees to farmers and duck hunters to focusing on dealing with crime on the front lines.

We have invested $161 million over two years to add 1,000 more RCMP personnel to focus on law enforcement priorities, such as gun smuggling, a very real problem in this country that needs to be addressed.

Since taking office, we have brought forward 11 new legislative proposals that will help crack down on crime, proposals such as restricting conditional sentences such as house arrest for serious crimes, imposing mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes, and keeping in prison the most violent, most dangerous repeat offenders in the country.

Canadians are watching as the opposition parties in this minority Parliament are being soft on crime and blocking our tough on crime bills from moving forward.

Canadians expect action, not further delays, yet that is what the opposition is doing with its majority of votes at the justice committee. They opposition members are slowing down and watering down and doing everything they can to postpone the proposals to strengthen our criminal justice system. Yet again, getting tough on crime was one of our major planks in the previous election and the Canadian electorate supported our proposals.

The Liberals' attempt to count and track every long gun in Canada has been ineffective and costly. It has misdirected police resources from what is most important: going after criminals who use firearms in crime.

Bill C-21 will take the focus back to where it should be. It will refocus our gun control efforts on what works in combating the criminal use of firearms by repealing the requirement to register non-restricted long guns and requiring firearm retailers to record all sales transactions of non-restricted firearms.

Under our Bill C-21, in order for a Canadian to purchase or possess a firearm and to purchase ammunition, a person will still be required to have a valid firearms licence. In fact, when a person purchases a non-restricted firearm, the validity of his or her licence will have to be verified. This can be done relatively simply and not at a huge cost, but we want to make certain that the right and responsible type of firearm owners are the ones doing the purchasing.

Applicants will continue to go through police background checks and safety training. Canadians also will continue to be required to register prohibited and restricted firearms, such as handguns, as has been the case since 1934.

Our intention is not to change the handgun registry. It is not to take that away. We recognize that it is the gun of choice for the criminal element. It is not our intention to touch that.

Again, we are talking about the long gun registry. Through a quick background check, our police officers will be able to determine who is in legal possession of firearms and who is not.

In 1995, the Liberal government told Parliament that the long gun registry would involve a net cost of just $2 million. That is a fact. Anyone can check. That is what was in the Auditor General's report in 2002 in chapter 10.

In May 2000, the Liberals admitted that the cost had actually ballooned to at least $327 million. Again, that is a fact. Members can check the Auditor General's report of 2002 in chapter 10.

By March 2005, the net cost of the firearms program was over $946 million. Today those costs exceed well over $1 billion, according to the Auditor General's report of 2006 in chapter 4.

This $1 billion figure does not even include the costs incurred by law enforcement agencies in enforcing the legislation or the compliance costs for law-abiding firearms owners and businesses, which are astronomical and likely run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What is worst of all is that by 2006 the Auditor General said that the Liberals had misinformed Parliament about the many costs of their failed long gun registry.

In the many towns and villages in my riding, the waste of these taxpayer dollars by the Liberals in a phony attempt to fight gun violence is overshadowed only by the tremendous and terrible burden placed on rural Canadians and, I dare say, also on western Canadians. The Liberal gun registry targeted every rural Canadian and certainly out west it would seem to me that we felt it the most.

The Liberals deny and then after electoral defeat they wonder why they are having problems in western Canada. Their long gun registry is a prime example.

I will not mention the fact that the Liberals ignored and dragged their feet on the agriculture file, that they denied rural Canada a real and useful child care policy, that they refused to appoint our elected senators, that they racked up surpluses while forecasting deficits, and many other things.

Bill C-21 would put an end to the waste of taxpayer dollars being spent on a failed Liberal long gun registry. That is why I am proud to stand in this place and support Bill C-21 and say goodbye to the long gun registry.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard both sides of the issue this evening. I know the hon. member has certainly brought forward his own point of view and the point of view of his government. However, we know guns are not only associated with criminal activity causing deaths. We also have suicides and accidents.

Could the hon. member give us some statistics on the last 15 years of the changes, in terms of the number of deaths from firearms, from those three causes? Has there been a major reduction or not? Could he confirm that to the House?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion I do not believe the registry has in one way helped solve crime. I do not think it has lowered the suicide rate. I think those who have chosen to end their lives will find a method to do it.

We have a long gun registry that costs $2 billion. I heard Liberals tonight say that if it only saves one life, that if it only saves a couple of lives. If we could take the billions of dollars for a failed gun registry and put it into places where we could see front line officers out on the street, if we could take that billions of dollars and make certain that there is more effective education to help fight crime, I think we would see crime lowered even more.

However, to take this idea that property of an individual is wrong, and not the person behind that property, the Liberals are going down the wrong road. They have already argued and talked about different violent, terrible events that have happened.

All I can say is we have had the long gun registry in place and it has not solved those crimes.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard a lot of the comments from my hon. colleagues tonight. I listened to my colleague for Trinity—Spadina talk about December 6 and how we got into this gun registry program in the first place. Every year on December 6, I too go out and honour the women who were murdered at École Polytechnique, and I remember them.

I also live in a rural riding. In my riding of Vancouver Island North, there are a lot of small communities and hunting, fishing and farming is a way of life. I come from a family where we had guns in our house. I have hunted myself. I have owned a gun, but not any more. I absolutely understand the changes in the bill and I will vote for them.

The hunters and people in my riding are concerned about the over expenditures in the gun registry over the many years, the millions of dollars that were wasted. They have asked me why the government has taken so long to bring it about. Why has it taken a year and a half to bring this out on the eve of the end of this session?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the NDP for her support on Bill C-21., and we appreciate that.

She made reference to the tragedy of December 6, and we all recognize that as a tragedy. There is nothing we can say here tonight that would in any way bring out the degree of sympathy we feel, and that we feel all the time, when such tragedies take place.

However, I will mention this. Retired Montreal detective sergeant Roger Granger was there. He was one of the individuals who investigated the Lepine shooting in 1989. He was a police officer. I have never met the individual, but I am certain he has probably been to many tragedies and seen many things. One thing he said in regard to that was that federal gun registry created by the Liberals under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was totally ineffective.

When I go around my constituency and when I stop in and speak to the detachments, to the RCMP and municipal police, they make it very clear that they do not support the gun registry.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House and speak to something that I and a large majority of my constituents are very passionate about, and that is Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, also known as the long gun registry.

It has been well stated tonight that the country has had the toughest handgun laws in the world since the 1930s, yet that has not prevented gun crime from happening. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact.

In 1989 we had the troubling and tragic Montreal massacre at École Polytechnique Institute. This is remembered to this day. In 1995, as a result of that terrible incident, the Liberal government of the day, with a knee-jerk reaction and without thinking, introduced Bill C-68. It was a Firearms Act that was called the strictest gun control legislation in the world.

When it was first established, the Department of Justice estimated the cost of the Canadian firearms program, also the gun registry, to be $2 million. In the end, the Auditor General reported the cost as way over a billion dollars and approaching $2 billion and still climbing. It has turned out to be the biggest single deception of the Canadian people ever, another Liberal boondoggle, nothing more than a black hole for taxpayer dollars. Their money went nowhere and was used to accomplish nothing, our money.

The goal of the bill was to license all firearms, including shotguns and rifles. Furthermore, it was supported by the anti-gun, anti-hunting crowd that put their support behind it, knowing full well that it would do nothing to reduce crime, but would move them one step closer to their ultimate goal and their naive dream of the total ban of guns from the average citizen. This would suit the criminal element in society just fine.

We all know that we cannot eliminate guns totally and that the criminals will always have their way. A good example was during the temperance movement years ago. Liquor was still smuggled in. The criminal element will always find a way.

Do we throw up our hands and penalize the rest of society instead of targeting the real problem? No. That is the Liberal way. They did it. It was “let us go after the farmer, the duck hunter, the target shooter”.

Bill C-68 will not and has not prevented gun crime from taking place. Now, unfortunately, last fall there was another tragic example of that in our country. The shooting at Dawson College was carried out by a man using a registered gun. This registry was supposed to stop this kind of thing, but the reality again was it did not.

These events, in addition to the numerous shootings that have taken place in other Canadian cities, have all occurred with that legislation in place. The gun registry has not saved any lives. Many speakers, including the hon. member beside me, have spoken to that point. Any member in the House or any police officer would support that kind of an objective, but unfortunately Bill C-68 did not do this.

History speaks for itself. If we continue along this same path, the future will repeat itself. We need to make changes, and Bill C-21 is about that.

Something that needs to be pointed out is the lack of on the ground police support for the gun registry. While some police leaders have supported it, it is very hard to find an actual police officer out there on the ground who will say the registry is needed. That is a fact.

The opposition and the anti-gun, anti-hunting lobby continually mislead the public and the media by telling them the police use the registry 5,000 times a day to check out criminals. This is a total misrepresentation.

The gun registry is automatically linked so when an officer investigates someone on a regular traffic infraction, he or she is also checking that person out on the gun registry. However, the officer does not even know that he or she is running that person's name in the gun registry. The officer does not see any information from it and does not keep or use that information. Total blarney, a whitewash, just another “fiberal” scam.

Unlike the previous government, the Conservative government is not interested in licensing guns. It is committed to licensing people. People with long guns do not rob Mac's Milk stores. People with long guns do not hold up gas stations. People do not use legal long guns in drive-by shootings.

We believe in targeting criminals, not duck hunters and farmers. That is why in budget 2007 we allocated $14 million over two years to improve front end screening of first time firearms licence applicants. This will help prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands.

Individuals will still be required to have a valid firearms licence. We are not opposed to that. They will still go through a police background check. For 25 years I went through a police check to purchase a gun. I do not have a problem with that and neither does the long gun owning crowd.

Safety training is still going to be part of it. We have no problem with that. In order to purchase or possess firearms and ammunition, individuals will still also continue to be required to register prohibited and restricted firearms such as handguns.

Through a quick background check, our police officers will be able to determine who is in legal possession of firearms and who is not. The government invested $161 million over two years to add 1,000 more RCMP personnel to focus on law enforcement priorities, such as gun smuggling, restricting conditional sentences such as house arrest for serious crimes, especially gun crimes, imposing mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes and keeping the most violent and dangerous repeat offenders in the country in prison.

I have to point out that the opposition party across the way and many other members in the House en masse voted against our tough on crime bills. It is unbelievable. Yet they still stand and say that they want to get tough on crime.

Bill C-21 will refocus our gun control efforts on what works in combatting the criminal use of firearms by repealing the requirement to register non-restricted long guns and requiring firearms retailers to record all sales transactions of non-restricted firearms.

At the outset, I said this was a passionate issue for my constituents. In my last householder I conducted a survey in my riding just to be sure the mood had not changed. On the topic of the gun registry, more than 95% said yes to scrapping or revamping the long gun registry.

The government has introduced an amendment to the Firearms Act that will eliminate the expensive and ineffective long gun registry. It has not saved lives. It has cost us billions and is still climbing. The bleeding must stop.

It is fair to say that all in the House truly want to reduce gun crimes, but I implore everyone on all sides of this issue to think with their heads. Let us tackle gun smugglers, gangs and all criminals and give our police officers and border guards the tools and support they need, and we will make headway.

In that battle, unfortunately, we will never eliminate all the Marc Lepines of the world or get them off the street before it is too late. Unfortunate as it is, it is simply a reality.

I urge everyone here to support Bill C-21.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound talk about a number of issues in this bill.

First, what is somewhat of a surprise is the Conservatives cannot see that their image of being tough on crime in this bill will be very soft on crime. Second, maybe the member can respond to this. If he removes the m's for millions and the b's for billions, would he still have the registry or not?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, only the hon. member across the way and the rest of his crowd, cronies, as somebody said, who supported this gun law can answer the question about the billions. They should be ashamed of that. They deceived the Canadian public by saying it would cost $2 million, which was underestimated by $998 million and climbing. It blows me away that members can stand in the House—

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Code blue.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Could we have a little order, Mr. Speaker?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

It is with pleasure that I ask all members to be attentive to the wisdom of their colleagues.

Just to let members know, I will, as best as I can, allow everyone who wants to speak a chance to ask a question, but we have to compress it.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

It blows me away, Mr. Speaker, how some members can stand in their place and pretend, as they have, that they are tough on crime. Not very long ago they all stood over there and voted against some tough on crime issues. Yet they stand there and pretend. It would almost be laughable, if it were not such a serious issue.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to speak this late in the evening on this very important and critical issue.

Many times I get concerned by the rhetoric, especially on the slogans that are used: tough on crime; soft on crime. They are just slogans and add nothing to the real debate on crime and how to best manage this issue in our society.

Statistics show that tough gun laws and registration do in fact deal with reducing crime—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Earlier, when I had recognized the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, I asked the other members to be attentive. It seems that members on my right approved of this admonition. It is also good now that I recognize the hon. member for Davenport.