Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time this afternoon with the member for Vancouver Kingsway.
I am glad to participate in this Bloc opposition day. I thank my colleagues from Quebec for this motion and this opportunity. It is certainly an important debate for Canadians, one that needs to hear the voices on all sides of the issue. The women of Canada are listening very carefully today. Women and their children are too often among those who suffer from gun violence.
I believe it is essential in any discussion to look at the facts. In this case the facts show that, in regard to the firearms program, the system is working. Claims that the system is without value are simply untrue. The police have said time and time again that the new law and the system provide valuable tools for keeping Canada safe. It is interesting that we hear that mantra over and over again from the government benches about wanting to keep Canadians safe. Here is an opportunity.
In spite of the virulent opposition, over 90% of gun owners have been licensed and 90% of guns have been registered. As of 2008, the system is being used by the police 8,600 times every day and police report many cases where the registry has been used to prevent tragedies or solve crimes. Most gun owners, as I indicated, are indeed licensed and most guns registered.
As of April 2008, 1,871,595 valid firearms licences have been issued, representing 90% of those gun owners. The licensing procedure ensures all firearm users are qualified to possess or acquire a firearm. Gun registration is an important part of making gun owners accountable, helping prevent diversion to the illegal market and assisting police in their investigations.
Some 22,140 firearm licences were refused or revoked by chief firearms officers for public safety reasons between December 1, 1998 and April 2008, 7,490 of those applications were refused and 14,650 firearm licences revoked. The reasons include a number of things such as a history of violence, mental illness, the applicant is a potential risk to himself, herself, or others, unsafe firearm use and storage, drug offences and providing false information. We will never know how many tragedies have been averted, but in those many refusals of a licence we can be assured that there will not be the regret that comes when too late we realize that failing to act, failing to intervene when an individual should never possess a firearm has caused the loss of a precious life or many precious lives.
All illegal guns, interestingly enough, begin as legal guns. Opponents of gun control keep saying “punish the criminals, leave the law-abiding gun owners alone”. These law-abiding owners are among the 90% who are licensed. That raises the question, where do the criminals get their guns? Although half of the handguns recovered in crime are smuggled in from the United States, the other half originate from Canadian gun owners.
The 2005 shooting on Yonge Street of Jane Creba involved a gun club member with a legally registered handgun. We have seen a number of high profile shootings, including that Toronto 2005 Boxing Day shooting, where the guns have been stolen from law-abiding gun owners.
Handguns are not the only threat. Half the police officers killed in recent years have been killed with rifles and shotguns, not handguns.
Another key part of the current gun registry and gun control law is the requirement for the safe storage of guns. The shooter at Dawson College was a legal gun owner and a member of a gun club. Legally owned guns are too often improperly stored and stolen or sold illegally. As I indicated, the gun recovered in the 2005 Boxing Day shooting, which killed 15 year-old Jane Creba, was a stolen gun.
According to the police, about half the guns used in crime in Toronto are guns that at one time were legally owned in Canada, many of them stolen in break-ins.
Between June 20 and August 3, 2005, burglars made off with 84 firearms from Toronto area homes. More than half, including 43 pistols stolen from Cobourg, were handguns. One of these was used in a murder in Toronto in 2006.
In addition, smuggled guns originating from the United States are typically acquired through theft, straw purchases or gun shows. These guns account for as many as 50% of the handguns recovered in crime in Canada.
The gun used to kill Dianna Sandeman in 2006, as she and her boyfriend were leaving an Etobicoke sports bar, was traced to Gainsville, Georgia. The gun used to kill a Windsor police officer in May 2006 was smuggled in from the United States.
Some claim that more guns will make us safer. In fact, where there are more guns, there are more deaths. The terrible irony is that both in Canada and internationally, where there are more guns, there tends to be more opposition to gun control. However, where there are more guns, there are also higher rates of gun death and injury.
Among industrialized countries, where there are higher rates of gun ownership, there are also higher rates of gun deaths. When there are guns in the home, they are more likely to be used in suicides, domestic homicides and accidentally. It is pretty easy in a fit of rage to grab a gun if it is handy and if it is loaded.
In spite of the attention focused on urban crime, there are higher rates of gun death and injury in rural areas. For example, Northeastern Ontario has a gun death rate which is twice the provincial average, driven largely by higher than average suicide rates and also domestic violence with firearms or accidents.
Provinces with high rates of gun ownership, such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, tend to have a higher than average rate of gun death and injury.
In spite of the surge of gang related handgun violence in Toronto, Ontario has one of the lowest rates of gun death and injury in the country.
There has been a lot of misinformation about the firearms program fuelled by its opponents. Close to $1 billion was spent over a 10 year period and most of that money was spent on screening and licensing gun owners, not on registering firearms.
Currently, the cost of the system is apparently about $80 million a year. Ending the gun registry means that all of this money has been spent in vain and all those who have died at the hands of those using guns have died in vain. This would be a mistake.
I would like to conclude with a letter sent to the Prime Minister on March 12, signed by 21 concerned groups representing millions of Canadians. They respectfully ask the government to refuse to dismantle gun control. They go on to say “Our laws have made Canada safer”.
In 1991 more than 1,400 Canadians were killed with guns. Now it is fewer than 800. The 2007 rate of murders with rifles and shotguns has dropped by more than 78% since 1991. The murders of women by those using guns have plummeted from 85 in 1991 to 32 in 2004. Suicide rates, particularly among youth, have also declined.
The numbers are not good enough yet, but if we keep the registry, we could make it even better.
Policing, public health and victims' organizations across Canada, including those from Polytechnique and Dawson College, support sensible gun control.
On behalf of millions of women in Canada, the letter concludes:
Let us be clear: the stakes could not be higher for Canadian women. Ending violence against women requires more than talk. It requires action. We urge you to lead your party to reduce violence and suicide in our families and our communities [by supporting gun control].
The women of this nation are watching intently today. They are listening and hoping that the House will say that their families and their futures are safe, that they need not fear the guns in our communities because they will be controlled and they will be licensed.