Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Yorkton—Melville.
I stand today to address the House on the motion brought forward by the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. I am aware that gun crime prevention is an issue of great importance to the hon. member, as it is to all of us in this House. We should never forget that so many tragedies have been a result of gun crimes. We also should never take for granted or take lightly our responsibility to approach this problem with vigour, sophistication and intelligence.
In order to do that, we need to look beyond the tempting initial assumption that all problems can be solved with more of the same: another registry, another bureaucracy, another bundle of red tape. It does not work.
I cannot agree with this motion or support this motion, nor would my constituents. We need laws that attack the problem, not law-abiding citizens. The government has set out a balanced approach to preventing violent crime in Canada and that approach does not include criminalizing or otherwise burdening legitimate gun owners.
Canadians put their trust in this government in large part because of our commitment to get tough on crime and to make our streets and communities safer. The choice now is clear. We can have more concrete action against crime or we can settle for what the hon. member from the opposition wants, which is a false sense of safety that comes from an expensive long gun registry.
Our way is better. We have made significant investments in crime prevention over the past three years and we have put more tools and better tools into the hands of law enforcement officials. We are cracking down on gang and drug crimes and we are changing the way criminals are dealt with in our judicial system.
Tackling the illegal use of firearms is a pillar of our government's public safety agenda. We have introduced longer mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes and tough new rules on bail for serious weapon related crimes. Our government has put more police on the streets to fight gun crime, among other priorities.
We are also investing $7 million annually to strengthen front-end screening of first-time firearm licence applicants with a view to keeping firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them. We recently introduced legislation that would create a new criminal offence to target drive-by and other intentional shootings that involve reckless disregard for the life or safety of others.
In addition to taking these long overdue actions, our government has proposed fundamental changes to gun registration laws in Canada. As hon. members know, it is our intention to eliminate the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry that places an undue burden on farmers and on duck, deer, moose and other legitimate hunters. The long gun registry puts law-abiding Canadians at risk while doing nothing to prevent gun crimes.
These honest Canadians were not part of and never will be part of the violent crime problem in Canada. Our intention is to shift resources from this program to the front lines of policing, border security and the fight against organized crime.
Eliminating the long gun registry is not about less gun crime prevention but about better, more effective gun crime prevention. We believe that firearm legislation should target criminals, not the millions of law-abiding Canadians who use rifles and shotguns to protect their farm livestock, hunt wild game or otherwise earn a living. These citizens should not be presumed irresponsible or dangerous simply because one article of their property happens to be a long gun.
Most gun crimes are not committed with long guns. Criminals do not and never will register their guns. We do a disservice to Canadians to operate on the assumption that these criminals will ever register their guns. Canadians deserve better than that.
Canadians deserve real action. We need mandatory minimum sentences for those who commit violent crimes and we need more police spending more time enforcing the law instead of pushing the paper of previous governments.
Our government has also introduced a number of measures to make it easier for gun owners to comply with the existing legislative requirements, as firearms owners who comply with the firearm program are subject to continuous eligibility screening.
With the motion currently before the House, the hon. member is attempting to eliminate one of these measures, the firearm amnesty. In 2006, the former minister of public safety announced that licence renewal fees would be waived. In other words, individuals would not need to pay a fee or renew or upgrade existing licences to replace expired licences.
Those individuals who had already paid to renew their firearms licence were reimbursed. New licence applicants are still required to pay a licence fee. The objective was to ensure that we had a system that encouraged people to self-identify to ensure the list of licensed, law-abiding firearm owners more truly reflected their numbers in our population. Without this enhanced compliance, the licensing system is meaningless.
In May of last year, the government introduced yet another measure to support compliance through a regulatory amendment that enables individuals with expired possession-only licences to apply for a new licence without taking the Canadian firearm safety course. Most of the affected individuals are over 50 years of age and they often reside in rural or remote areas where access to training is limited. Collectively, these three measures comprise a comprehensive regulatory package intended to increase compliance levels, and they appear to be working. In just three years, from 2006-08, the rate of renewal of possession-only licences increased by 15%.
As I noted at the outset, the government has taken a balanced approach to gun crime prevention. We are absolutely committed to protecting the safety and security of Canadians while ensuring that honest, law-abiding citizens are not subjected to unnecessary registration procedures for legally acquired, non-restricted firearms.
Unfortunately, this motion is neither balanced nor prudent. The measures proposed by the hon. member would unnecessarily criminalize thousands of farmers, hunters, rural residents and other law-abiding citizens who are responsible gun owners. It would continue to drain resources that could be better spent on tackling the real problem: gun crime. This motion is not in the best interest of Canadians. It does not deserve the support of the House.