Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Québec for sharing her time with me.
As my colleague so aptly pointed out a little earlier, we willingly accept the registration of our cars, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles for safety reasons. Why should it be different for firearms? The gun control bill was passed in 1995. The Bloc Québécois, having demanded it, therefore voted in favour of it.
To justify their opposition to the firearms registry, the Conservatives prefer to hide behind the crimes that are committed with illegal weapons. The Conservative government maintains that the real criminals will always manage to procure firearms. That may be so, but do we have to make the task easier for them? Abolishing the registry may aggravate the contraband weapons problem, since there will be no more control or monitoring of firearms.
For the third time, nay for the fourth time if we count Bill C-301, the government is attacking the firearms registry. This ideological stubbornness is difficult to follow, since we know that the firearms registry has made it possible to reduce the number of gun-related tragedies.
Since they were elected in 2006, the Conservatives have been constant in their efforts to damage this registry. In June 2006, they set the tone for this issue by tabling the bill for the outright abolition of the registry. Unable to convince the opposition, they took roundabout action by declaring an amnesty. That amnesty had been allowed by the Liberals, but the Conservatives extended it until May 2008, then May 2009. They are attempting to extend it once again for another year.
Furthermore, the firearms marking regulations dating from November 2004, which initially were supposed to come into force in April 2006, were pushed back a first time by the Liberals and a second time by the Conservatives, less than a month before they come into force in December 2009. The amnesty announced in May 2006 had a term of one year. However it was renewed twice, and now the Conservatives are trying to extend it another year. This is unacceptable to the Bloc Québécois. We demand that this program be in place by May 16.
There is a direct connection between the ease with which one can procure a weapon and the homicide rate. Quebec has seen a drop in the homicide rate since 1995, the year the registry began.
The hon. members from the Bloc Québécois are not alone in finding benefits in this registry. The police forces of Quebec and Canada indicate that they consider it a very effective tool. The public health agencies, reporting the situation on the ground, say that the registry is an effective means of achieving a lower homicide and suicide rate. Lastly, that is what the statistics say as well. The number of violent crimes has fallen since the firearms registry came into effect.
This request has also been made by the government of Quebec, which repeated it during its last election campaign, when the Quebec premier wrote to his federal counterpart to ask that the firearms registry be maintained. What is more, the elected officials of Quebec have on two occasions voted unanimously in the National Assembly in favour of maintaining this registry.
This evening, to raise awareness among our fellow members of Parliament, the Bloc Québécois will be screening Polytechnique, which relates the events of the 1989 massacre at the École Polytechnique de Montréal.
To prevent events like the ones that took place at the École Polytechnique de Montréal and Concordia University from happening again, the Government of Quebec is trying to protect the people of Quebec. Recently, it adopted the Anastasia Act, which tightens gun control by regulating firearms possession in some locations and creating a regulatory system for target practice in Quebec.
The Government of Quebec talked about its intent to assume greater responsibility for gun control. We know that criminal law falls under federal jurisdiction. If the Conservatives recognize the Quebec nation, they must recognize our right to have different needs. If they do not want to maintain the gun registry, they should transfer the responsibility to Quebec, and Quebec will look after it.
The best way to pass laws that reflect Quebec's needs is, without doubt, Quebec sovereignty. A sovereign Quebec would have dealt with the gun issue a long time ago.
Until then, the Bloc Québécois is the party that will stand up for the interests of Quebeckers and for motions passed unanimously in the National Assembly, including the one on firearms. The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that taking preventive action and tackling factors that lead to crime are sure ways to prevent human and family tragedies.
I said earlier that we set a record when it comes to the decline in crime and homicide rates in Quebec. We can see that creating the registry has had beneficial effects, unlike what is going on in our neighbour to the south. Ten years ago, they too had a terrible tragedy, the Columbine massacre. They did nothing to tighten access to firearms. The only thing they did to prevent crimes like that was to adopt more enforcement-oriented measures, like what the Conservative government is preparing to put forward. We have seen, however, that there were no significant results from those kinds of measures.
Although media coverage of violent crimes may suggest that they have been on the rise over the years, that does not reflect reality. Since the mid-1990s, crime has been falling in Quebec and Canada. Statistics Canada confirms that the overall crime rate has recently fallen in this country. It was the lowest in 25 years, and in Quebec it was the lowest homicide rate since 1962. That is not an insignificant fact.
We also know that violent crime declined by 22% in Quebec between 1991 and 2004. By way of comparison, the homicide rate in Canada for 2003 was three times lower than in the United States. That is very significant. Instead of modelling our policy on the Americans’, what we have to do is continue to work on prevention, and before long it will be the Americans modelling their policy on ours.
The Conservatives’ obsession with talking about nothing but smuggled guns must not be allowed to conceal the fact that the firearms most commonly used in spousal homicides are legally acquired shotguns and rifles. The statistics show that 85% of homicides are committed with rifles. We know that a large proportion of homicide victims in the case of spousal violence are women. That is not an insignificant fact.
We also know that it is not enough just to register a firearm. In 2003, Montreal police responded to a spousal violence situation. The wife was afraid because her husband, who had been hospitalized, was now coming home, and when the police checked the firearms registry they found that the man owned a real arsenal: 26 handguns, 16 hunting weapons and 45,000 rounds of ammunition. The registry made it possible for the police to prepare themselves before responding.
I will conclude by saying that we register our vehicles and we register our ATVs. Is it not reasonable for us to also register our firearms?