Mr. Speaker, one of our responsibilities as members is to debate bills whose objectives we either support or oppose. I already spoke to this bill at another stage, at second reading, I believe. I very clearly expressed my support for maintaining the firearms registry.
I will not repeat the reasons I support it. Anyone interested can simply consult Hansard and read my speech, or visit my website, where my speech is posted.
This evening I would like to talk about the cynicism of one political party and one member in particular. I am referring to the member who sponsored the bill, trying to pass the bill off as a private member's bill, although everyone knows that this is a government bill. The government has deployed all its weapons, political as well as financial, to defend this bill. This government is not at all interested in the facts, the science or the empirical data, which all show that the firearms registry saves lives and that the majority of Canadians want the registry to be maintained.
I will list a few organizations that support the firearms registry, starting with our national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. There is also the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Police Association, and the Canadian Association of Police Boards. All of these associations are strongly urging us to keep the registry. The Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has just announced that she has recommended that the government maintain the firearms registry for long guns.
A number of stakeholders have submitted a lot of data on the frequency with which the police query the firearms registry database and it turns out that they do so several thousand times a day.
In April, 28 medical organizations, including nurses, paramedics and suicide prevention agencies, as well as 33 professionals working in those fields sent an open letter to members stressing the importance of the firearms registry in preventing domestic murders, accidents and suicides.
In 2006, 774 Canadians were killed by firearms and 70% of these cases were suicides. And yet, all the data and studies show that the number of suicides using a firearm has dropped substantially since the Firearms Act came into force. We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the majority of wives and women who are murdered are killed by long guns.
Emergency doctors have confirmed that 26% of all murders in 2008 involving a firearm were committed using rifles and shotguns, whereas long guns were used in 72% of domestic murders where a firearm was involved.
I listened to the member for Portage—Lisgar make several observations and assertions, many of which were dubious. I simply want to point out to her that she and her colleagues, and even the Prime Minister, clamour to have members listen to their fellow citizens and to listen to the constituents in their ridings. I would like to ask her why she does not listen to the women who reside in her riding of Portage Lisgar.
When you look at the number of incidents across Canada involving a firearm, most of which involved the use of a long gun, the data are very interesting—and I have not fabricated the data. The statistics are sourced directly from Statistics Canada.
In Toronto, there were 95 incidents involving firearms resulting in deaths, attempted murders and suicides.
In the riding of Portage—Lisgar, there were 115 incidents involving firearms. This riding has the highest rate of incidents that involve firearms, including long guns, and endanger lives. The member for Portage—Lisgar does not seem to be aware of this fact. Why is she not listening to her own voters, the women who live in her riding and whose lives have been threatened by people armed with long guns?
In the past four years, the number of on-line queries of the Canadian firearms registry by police officers from the Portage—Lisgar riding has doubled. These were not automatic queries. The Conservatives keep saying that when a police officer checks a vehicle's licence plate, the query is automatically linked to the firearms registry.
The number of queries by Portage—Lisgar police doubled when deliberate queries of the registry were tallied. However, the member is not listening. She even denies the fact that the police in her riding of Portage—Lisgar is responsible for the majority—two thirds—of all registry queries from Manitoba for the purpose of obtaining court affidavits.
The registry has made it possible, for police working in the Portage—Lisgar riding, to track 70% of the firearms that are confiscated for reasons of public safety.
I am asking the member to stop spouting purely ideological arguments, to look at the statistics for once in her life, and to listen to the women who live in her riding of Portage—Lisgar. From the number of crimes committed with firearms in this riding, it would seem that the women living there are in more danger than women living in Toronto and Montreal.