House of Commons Hansard #75 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was firearms.

Topics

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Bloc

Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I would like to hear what she really thinks of clause 29 of this bill, which, in my opinion, is unacceptable.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Under clause 29, all of the data must be destroyed. Chiefs of police and some provinces, particularly Quebec, have already indicated that they want to preserve the data for public safety. The answer was no; the data could not be transferred to them. Yet we all know how costly it was to create the firearms registry and to gather all that information.

Personally, I think eliminating the firearms registry is unthinkable when we know the repercussions this could have on public safety, specifically in Quebec and throughout Canada.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC

Madam Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my hon. colleague on her wonderful speech, which showed a broad range of understanding, particularly concerning violence against women.

I have a very brief question. What importance does she place on maintaining the registry, specifically concerning its impact on public safety?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2012 / 11:50 a.m.

NDP

Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Madam Speaker, could the hon. member repeat the last part of her question?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC

Madam Speaker, I would like the member to explain how important maintaining the registry is to public safety.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

It is common sense. If we do not have a gun registry, we will not know who owns a gun. If we do not know that, imagine the repercussions for the safety of Quebeckers and Canadians.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased today to rise in the House to speak in favour of Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. However, I would first like to honour my colleagues, the member for Yorkton—Melville and the member for Portage—Lisgar, for their tremendous work on eliminating the long gun registry. We will shortly see the fruits of their labour.

Many of my colleagues on this side of the House have spoken eloquently about how the long gun registry has been wasteful and ineffective. Costs have ballooned to over $2 billion. They have proven that the registry has not stopped a single crime, nor saved a single life. They have told us how front-line police officers, like Murray Grismer and Duane Rutledge, have explained why the registry is useless and actually reduces officers' safety. They have told us how the registry needlessly targets law-abiding hunters, farmers, ranchers and sport shooters. They have told us how it diverts much-needed resources away from crime prevention and law enforcement. My colleagues have been spot-on in their condemnation of the long gun registry.

What I will do is show why, in principle, the registry is wrong and should have never come into existence.

Sir William Blackstone wrote in his seminal text, Commentaries on the Laws of England:

...every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny.

This is an important statement to remember in the context of the long gun registry.

Not long after his first election, Allan Rock, the former Liberal justice minister who oversaw the implementation of the long gun registry, stated that it was his firm belief that, “Only the police and military should have firearms”.

Lloyd Axworthy, the then Liberal foreign affairs minister, during his time also stated that, “disarming the Canadian public is part of the new humanitarian social agenda”.

These egregious attitudes run contrary to section 1 of the Canadian Bill of Rights, where it is clearly laid out in black and white:

It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,

(a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property...;

This is not something that most of my colleagues across the aisle would like to admit is part of the rights of Canadians. Law-abiding individuals should not be compelled by the force of criminal law to register their property.

Let us not mince words. A firearm in the hands of a sound-minded, law-abiding Canadian is no more a threat to the safety of Canadians than any kitchen appliance or garden tool. It is refreshing that our government has finally returned this common sense attitude back to the discussion. Limiting personal freedom for nebulous public safety benefits is not what the Fathers of Confederation envisaged in 1867.

We cannot fundamentally give up liberty in order to maintain a small amount of safety or, in reality, a small amount of perceived safety. This is why I am so very proud to be a Conservative member of Parliament. We are the only party that talks about liberty, freedom and human rights, and we actually mean what we say. Rather than frittering away billions of dollars, this money could have been spent on crime prevention, policing or incarceration, all of which would have, by comparison, reduced crime exponentially.

The regulation of property is a matter for the provinces. It is most certainly not a matter to be dealt with under the Criminal Code, the strongest instrument available to government. We must cease the attitude that says guns are scary, therefore, no one should have them. If we follow that path, this approach would simply never end.

It is a sad truth, but there are individuals who will seek to do harm to others in our society. Studies show this number to be about 7% of the population. Those people will not be bothered by some sort of bureaucratic regulation that mandates them to register their firearms. This attitude needs to be replaced by one of enlightened understanding.

Regulation must be smart. That is what we have done. We ensure, through rigorous testing, that only those who are responsible and qualified come into possession of firearms. We have ensured that those who insist on breaking the law and harming others will receive serious jail time. These are measures that make sense. These are measures we will continue. These are measures that the opposition, somehow, opposes. I am not sure how it logically squares that circle.

Canadians voted on May 2 from coast to coast to coast for a party that said it would return logic to the firearms laws in this country. Every single person knew that a Conservative government would end the long gun registry. That should be a surprise to no one. A promise made, a promise kept. Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. That is exactly what the bill before us would do.

I would now like to focus on the land, resources, people and culture of my own constituency. My constituents are uniformly outraged by the long gun registry. Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette is a vast and beautiful constituency in western Manitoba. Farmers, ranchers, loggers, hunters, anglers, outfitters and trappers make up the majority of my constituents. It is a beautiful place with abundant wildlife. Many of my constituents are avid hunters, as am I. Hunting is a part of my culture and my way of life, as it is for many of my constituents. Interestingly, almost all of the homes in my constituency have one firearm or more, yet the crime rate is very low. The comment by the member opposite about how women are intimidated by firearms most certainly does not apply to the women in my constituency. Many of them own firearms and hunt.

Why is the crime rate so low in my constituency? It is because where I live there is a culture of respect for each other, the community and the land that sustains us. In fact, I would call my constituency a peaceable kingdom. Members opposite are always throwing around labels like gun lobby in order to demonize people like my constituents. It is as if firearms ownership is a central tenet of my neighbours' existence. To us, firearms are a useful tool and a necessary part of country living. We are not afraid of firearms. Seeing someone walking down the road with a firearm is usually an excuse to stop and ask how the hunting trip was.

The gun lobby is manifested by the many wild game dinners that are hosted right across my constituency. In my constituency there is the Crawford Park Christmas party. People bring food to the event and most of the meals are wild game. There is a Santa Claus and people sing Christmas carols. There are all the traditional things that Canada stands for. Is that the gun lobby in action? It is not. These are good, solid folks who work hard and play by the rules. My constituents are honest country people who work hard and play by the rules. That is why we find the long gun registry so egregious and offensive. When crimes are committed in far-off, big cities, who gets punished? My constituents do.

Parties opposite make a great show of their support for the working people. Yet those parties are working tirelessly to put the communities in my riding out of business. From the long gun registry to the Liberals' failed animal rights legislation, to the NDP attacks on rural resource communities and to the recent musings by the NDP member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl on the end of the seal hunt in his province, a disturbing pattern has emerged, a pattern of relentless attacks on the entire sustainable use community.

The Liberals have always despised rural resource communities like my own, but there was a time when the old NDP actually exhibited some solidarity with people on the land. In fact, out of the nine NDP MPs at the time of the vote on Bill C-68, eight voted against the long gun registry, including the then leader Audrey McLaughlin. Times have certainly changed. Today's NDP has become the party of big government elites and union bosses and has abandoned its roots.

Members on this side of the House will never forget who we are and where we come from. We stand in solidarity with Canada's natural resource communities, with our culture of the responsible and sustainable use of our national resources, and with Canada's law-abiding firearms owners and hunters. I therefore encourage all members to stand with me and support Bill C-19, a bill to end the long gun registry.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

Noon

NDP

Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his remarks.

I understand that the Conservative government opposite wants to dismantle the gun registry. That is very clear, particularly given the time allocation that we have just voted on for the 14th time in the House.

For weeks, Quebec has been asking the government to transfer the data. Why is the government refusing? How can the Conservatives show such a lack of respect for Quebec, which their party recognized as a nation right here in the House?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

Noon

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Mr. Speaker, there is a very simple answer to the hon. member's very simple question. The records are being destroyed and will not be supplied to any jurisdiction because when we committed to eliminating the long gun registry, that was a de facto commitment to eliminate the records. The records are the registry. We simply could not say we were going to eliminate the registry without eliminating the records. That is self-evident.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

Noon

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I wish to address this question through you to my friend, the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette. In this case, I use the term “friend” with great affection. I have known the member for many years from his previous work, before politics, in biology.

I would like to ask him and other members of the Conservative Party not to assume that members on this side of the House do not have friends and relatives who are hunters, who use guns, who respect gun owners and who understand that gun owners in this country are responsible and stalwart members of our communities. I ask my friend to please recognize that some of us have actually spoken to police chiefs and RCMP officers who have asked us to help them keep this tool. I would have much preferred that at this point in the discussion we were finding solutions that work for everyone rather than finding ways to further divide us.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of the metaphor, if it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, it must be a duck.

All the pious words in favour of the hunting community notwithstanding, the actions of all the members opposite certainly belie that. Over and over again, they seek to restrict and reduce the ability of people who live in my constituency to live their lives how they want to. I will gladly concede the point to my hon. friend when she provides unequivocal support for a way of life that has sustained this country for generations.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB

Mr. Speaker, my riding is very expansive. There are rural and urban communities. I have talked to front-line police officers and to constituents right across my riding. Whether rural or urban citizens, there might be the odd one I have talked to who has wanted to keep it, but the vast majority, I would say 99% of them, would like to get rid of the long gun registry. We know this has been a very expensive piece of legislation.

My hon. colleague supports the elimination of the long gun registry. Would he tell us how much it has actually cost Canadian taxpayers? Could those dollars have been of better use for the citizens of Canada?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Mr. Speaker, we know that it has cost at least $2 billion overall. I know members opposite dismiss the $5 million a year as if it were peanuts. Obviously, that money could have been better spent on policing and law enforcement activities. However, I would like to throw another idea into this. I am a biologist and avid conservationist. Most of the hunting community participates in conservation activities. When I think of the conservation programming that could have been funded with that money, I literally weep. The good we could do for our land, biodiversity and wildlife with that money would simply be incalculable.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is with great humility and emotion that I rise to speak to Bill C-19. This is a complex and difficult bill for Canadians, a bill that should raise public awareness about a problem.

I will not be speaking for myself alone; I will be speaking primarily on behalf of the victims of crimes committed with firearms, the families whose lives have been affected forever, who continue to be victims and will remain victims.

In today's society, these debates are widely reported. The media love these issues. This means that we should be able to debate them in the House at length, especially when the issue is complex and affects many people. For that reason, I am speaking with a great deal of humility because just like a number of my colleagues and even the members opposite, I probably have much to learn about this issue and about the experiences of the victims of these crimes. We must take this into consideration.

Let me begin by explaining what the registry is. The Canadian firearms registry is part of the Canadian firearms information system available to Canadian police forces through an online system called the Canadian Police Information Centre. CPIC, as it is called, is a search program the police can use to look up the name, address and firearm permit number of an individual or even information about firearms such as the serial number or the firearm registration certificate. It is a way of determining whether the certificate has expired or is still current. That in itself sounds the alarm for some people in the police force.

The system also provides police officers with real-time access to the information, and it is updated regularly when a public danger has been identified. The system is used when police officers respond to a call and might be used in the course of their duties and investigations. Police officers have to respond to all sorts of calls. Speaking of police officers, in 2011, they used the registry almost 15,000 times a day. The registry was useful. There is no doubt it was useful. We have to keep that in mind.

What is the difference between a permit and registration? Under the Firearms Act, having a permit and registering a gun is comparable to having a driver's licence and registering a vehicle. A firearms permit shows that the permit holder took training, satisfied certain public safety criteria, including a background check, and is authorized to own and use firearms. The purpose of registering a firearm is to identify a firearm and tie it to its owner, in order to keep track of guns.

What we want here is control. We want to protect the public from actions or misdeeds. It is better to have some control than none at all. For some time now, the government has not wanted control or debate. It has been letting everything slide. Freedom is great, but at what cost?

The cost is often unnecessary deaths, shootings and tragic events that could have been prevented if we had at least had some control and if we had been able to broaden the scope of a certain law. Hunters and fishers were never the target of the gun registry. The target is a population at risk. Some will say that, as long as they are at risk, they can do what they want and that they would never take the time to register or what have you, but that is not true. It is not true. We never know who we are dealing with.

The legal registration of a firearm was a way to save lives and I am certain that it still is—we are only at the report stage.

Parliament passed the Firearms Act in 1995 and implemented most of its provisions in 1998 with the specific goal to protect people from crime. As I said, this law does not target hunters. The purpose of this legislation was to protect the population in terms of possession, transportation, maintenance and storage of firearms.

If a civilization, a modern society like Canada wants to protect its people and implement a registry such as this one, why not? It must do so. It must ensure that people are not living in fear and worry. We must protect the people of Canada from east to west, from one end of the country to the other.

The 2000 reference regarding the Firearms Act stated unequivocally that the primary goal of this act is public safety. Is the act achieving its primary goal now? That is hard to say. The answer involves complex analysis. That is why we have to debate it. For the nth time, the government is limiting the debate by moving a time allocation motion. Many of us know a thing or two about this. We can do the research and ask our constituents what they want. But do we have time to do that? Never. Regardless of the issue at hand, we never have time for that. Everything is so rushed. That is not how a democratic Parliament should work.

That is why it is important to gauge the impact of changing these provisions and to hold an informed and civilized debate on the issues involved. We live in a changing world where truth can be stranger than fiction. One of my colleagues opposite talked about that. Scenes of violence are commonplace on television and in video games. It is absolutely everywhere, and nobody is talking about it. Some people are more easily influenced than others. That element of Bill C-19 has not even been touched upon.

That makes no sense, considering how freely available scenes of gun violence are to people seeking that kind of thrill. It is in video games. Gratuitous violence is present in all kinds of social media. People can go online and buy guns so powerful that they might as well be nuclear weapons. They can buy a bazooka online and have UPS or even Canada Post deliver it. What kind of world, what kind of society do we live in? Is this the Planet of the Conservatives, a society where fear trumps peace and harmony? I do not know what to say, but do I even have the authority to speak? As a representative of the people, can I make decisions on their behalf? I would like to have a chance to talk to them and hear what they think.

I humbly conclude my remarks, and I hope that the Conservative government will hear our grievances.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Conservative

Pierre Lemieux ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture

Mr. Speaker, I have two comments. The first comment is in regard to time allocation. There comes a moment in time when it is time to actually implement a bill and we have reached that point. Parliamentary procedure being what it is, time allocation is needed at different steps in the process.

The long gun registry has been debated over the years and I think positions are well-known. Canadians are expecting us to implement this bill, which is why we have time allocation.

I have a question for my colleague. If the gun registry is so effective, I will mention two cases and see if he can comment on them. The first case is when a crime is committed with a long gun that was on the long gun registry, it is obvious to me that the long gun registry did not prevent that crime.

Case two is if a crime is committed with a long gun that is not on the long gun registry, it is quite obvious to me that the long gun registry did nothing to prevent that crime.

I am wondering if my colleague could comment on the fact that he long gun registry does not prevent crime. I have given two examples of where a gun is on the long gun registry and where it is not. Could the member comment on this and try to make sense of it?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for the questions. I sincerely believe that the registry is useful. How many times has it been used and has it prevented tragedies? Probably hundreds of thousands of times. We have no statistics on that. All we hear from the media is that someone was shot, there was a shooting or something, and that it was done with a registered or unregistered weapon.

Better to be protected than not. Better to prevent than not prevent.

This is what our debate should focus on. The registry is definitely useful, because police forces use it. I think it is much better to prevent crime and not frighten Canadians.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, I feel just as passionate about this issue as my colleague. I think we are having a spurious debate here. It has been proven repeatedly that the registry saves lives.

I deplore the fact that my colleagues across the floor are playing around with assumptions about registered and unregistered weapons and the cost of maintaining the firearms registry, when we know that millions of dollars have been spent on keeping it up to date. I do not understand why they want to throw away the millions of dollars invested in the registry.

I also do not understand the comparison and degree of comparison between an edged weapon and a firearm. I do not understand the Conservative members' logic. This is about people's lives; it is not about money. It is not about the registry. It is not about—

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

Order. I have to interrupt the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert.

We have enough time for an answer. The hon. member for Compton—Stanstead.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her comments. I think there is no price on saving a life. There is absolutely no price on that.

It currently costs a few million dollars to maintain this registry. It is truly useful and costs practically nothing compared to other useless expenses we could name here for which the government is responsible. I think there is no price on saving a life.

It is a statement that has to stand. There is no price on saving a life.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-19, the ending the long gun registry act. The bill is a clear and straightforward piece of legislation which would bring an end to the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Our government has been very clear with Canadians that we have long opposed the long gun registry. We said we were going to scrap it. We promised during the last election that if elected we would get rid of it once and for all. On May 2 Canadians elected a Conservative government and gave us a strong mandate to continue to carry out the priorities they asked for, including finally doing away with the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

I am proud to say that we are delivering on our promise to law-abiding hunters, farmers, sports shooters and taxpaying Canadians. They will no longer be burdened with this costly, wasteful and ineffective registry. This bill would bring an end to the era of targeting these law-abiding citizens who legally own firearms in Canada. I believe it would help us refocus much needed resources, energy and effort on tackling crime in Canada.

Gun crime prevention is an important issue to me, as well as all members in the House and all Canadians. We should never forget the tragedies that have resulted from the commission of gun crimes in Canada.

However, the long gun registry does absolutely nothing to stop crime. If a deranged person is intent on inflicting harm, a piece of paper will not stop him or her from doing so. Frankly, it is doing nothing to protect our communities. Criminals do not register their firearms. We see the proof of this day after day. We see front-line police officers fighting gun crime on the streets. The criminals they are up against are using handguns, not registered long guns. In some jurisdictions handguns are used in 97% of the crimes and the majority of those, some 93%, are smuggled across the border into Canada illegally. That is a staggering statistic, one which flies in the face of any argument supporting the long gun registry.

The state broadcaster, CBC, has estimated that since it was foisted upon Canadians, the long gun registry has cost in excess of $2 billion. Taxpayers continue to throw money into a registry that is wasteful, ineffective, and most importantly, inaccurate. We heard testimony at committee from front-line police officers that confirmed what we already knew. They said anyone who would bet their life on data contained in any database, let alone one as inaccurate as the long gun registry, is not someone they would want to be partners with. Police officers would rather see time, money and resources go toward apprehending criminals who smuggle handguns and the individuals who use them for committing crimes as opposed to law-abiding citizens who simply like to do a bit of hunting on the weekend.

There are numerous reasons why the long gun registry needs to end and why members on both sides of the House need to represent their constituents' wishes and stand with us to end the long gun registry once and for all.

Officers are on the street dealing with dangerous criminals every hour of the day. We need to listen to what they are saying about tackling crime in Canada and give them useful tools, not ones that put their lives on the line.

I encourage all members across the floor to follow the example of their colleagues from Thunder Bay—Rainy River and Thunder Bay—Superior North and stand up and vote the will of the men and women who elected them. In my riding of Sault Ste. Marie, I represented the will of my constituents, which is in part why I am standing here today as opposed to a member of the opposition who was previously in this position.

When the long gun registry was introduced 16 years ago by the Liberals, Canadians were told that the cost would be in the range of $1 million. What we know now is that the cost has ballooned to over $2 billion and continues to grow. As the former auditor general, Sheila Fraser, said in 2006, it is impossible to tell where the ceiling of these costs will be because so many of them are hidden.

There is another cost borne by law-abiding citizens in this country, not only in dollars and cents, but farmers, hunters, sports shooters and other firearms owners are made to bear the high cost of the challenge to their integrity in being called criminals if they do not comply with the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Many opponents of the long gun registry have expressed deep concern over the years about their private information getting into the wrong hands and the registry becoming a shopping list for thieves and gangsters instead of a tool to protect Canadians. An access to information request to the RCMP showed that the registry had been breached over 300 times, and this was back in 2003. I can only imagine how many more times this has happened since then.

Canadians put their trust in this government on May 2 in large part because of our commitment to get tough on crime and to make our streets and communities safer. Our government believes that the right gun control laws do save lives. Bill C-19 would continue the strict system of controlling restricted and prohibited firearms. As well, a requirement for a valid firearms licence would remain in place.

We will continue to provide legislation that gives police real tools to apprehend criminals and keep them off the street, such as the safe streets and communities act, which was shamefully opposed by the NDP. Unlike the opposition, we do not support punishing law-abiding Canadians and rewarding criminals.

Instead of defending the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, the opposition needs to stop stalling and hindering these important pieces of legislation our government has introduced so that we can pass them, see them become law and ensure that criminals are where they belong: behind bars and not on our streets.

I am asking for the support of all members of Parliament, no matter their political stripe, to pass Bill C-19 and to work together to eliminate the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. Let us take this opportunity to refocus on tackling real crime in Canada.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the hon. member that with the last incarnation of the bill, I took the time to sit down with the chief of police of my city and the head of the gun registry, both of whom are fully supportive of retaining the gun registry, which includes keeping long guns on the gun registry. There is, of course, no such instrument as the long gun registry.

I was informed by the chief of police that the key reason officers were able to arrest and eventually convict two of the perpetrators in the killings of four RCMP officers at Mayerthorpe was the gun registry. That was how they were able to track down the gun.

There have been countless examples given by police officers across the country of how many times they use this mechanism and they have stated that it is useful to them. The Canadian Association of Police Boards, Canadian Professional Police Association, Canadian Emergency Physicians and medical officers of health have found it to be useful.

Would the member prefer that this useful instrument not be available to identify weapons which could maim, kill or cause suicide?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will mention some things that police officers are really saying about the gun registry.

A.B.J. “Ben” Beatty, a 23-year veteran of the Ontario Provincial Police stated:

I must point out, Sir, that the firearms registry did not assist in solving one, nor obviously in deterring one [single crime]. The reasons that the firearms registry is so highly ineffectual are, I believe obvious, but basically it affects the wrong people, law abiding citizens and not criminals.

Retired RCMP staff sergeant Len Grinnell said:

As a retired member of the RCMP, who supervised police officers in Canada's largest Detachments, I have grave concerns about the reliance on the registry for data which could result in the death or injury of a police officer.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Mr. Speaker, I think someone in the Prime Minister's office has been very busy writing speeches, because all the speeches I hear from government members are starting to sound the same.

The hon. member cited some statistics to show that almost 100% of gun crimes committed with handguns were committed with illegal handguns. If he believes as he and others have been saying that criminals do not register their guns, why is the government sticking with the handgun registry? Would it not be useless in the member's eyes as well?

Police chiefs from all over the country have told us that the registry is valuable. Is there a schism between the leadership of the police and officers on the street? Is the government saying that it does not have faith in police leadership in this country?

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that even though the speeches might sound the same, I believe every word that I am saying.

I represent the constituents of the riding of Sault Ste. Marie. My constituents elected me in large part based on our government's position on the long gun registry. An NDP member was defeated for that same reason. I stand by our government's position and I stand by the constituents of my riding of Sault Ste. Marie.

Report StageEnding the Long-gun Registry ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member's question was not answered so I want to echo what my Liberal colleague asked.

Conservatives will have us believe that police officers do not want this registry. However, the chiefs of police, the people who have gone through the ranks, have lots of experience dealing with many issues relating to policing.

Could the member tell me whether there is a divide between the police officers and the chiefs of police?