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.