Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-19, a bill that if passed will mean the abolishment of the long gun registry.
As the opposition critic for public safety and as the representative for a community where gang and gun-related violence is a reality, where there have been four murders in the last month alone, I am fiercely opposed to the bill.
Abolishing the long gun registry is a mistake and I fear the impact this mistake will have on public safety.
The most saddening part about the government's motivation to kill the registry is that it is entirely political. It has nothing to do with public safety. Instead, it has to do with a reckless Conservative agenda on crime that will cripple our criminal justice system and cost taxpayers billions of dollars, all just to divide Canadians and score some cheap points along the way. It has nothing to do with the facts, but, sadly, facts are rarely a concern with the government, especially when it comes to public safety.
Last week in the Senate committee hearing on Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, the Minister of Public Safety told senators to ignore the facts when it came to public safety. He said, “I don't know if the statistics demonstrate that crime is down...I'm focused on danger”.
His statement, which seems completely absurd to most Canadians, pretty much summarizes the government's approach on crime. Its plan, as far as I can see, is to scare Canadians and then spend billions of dollars on policies that will not make our communities any safer, all the while convincing us that all of this somehow makes it tough.
My friends do not believe in facts, but I will give some to them anyway. Here are some facts about the long gun registry, which the minister and his colleagues on that side of the House are ignoring.
On average, one in three women killed by their husbands are shot and 88% of those women are killed with legally owned rifles and shotguns. Since the introduction of the gun registry, gun-related spousal homicides are down 50%.
Rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in suicides, particularly those involving youth. These have decreased by 64% in nine years, from 329 in 1995 to 121 in 2005, with no evidence of substitution with other methods.
Long guns have killed 10 out of 13 police officers in the past 10 years. That comes from the 2010 RCMP evaluation of the Canadian firearms program.
The Conservatives are also ignoring the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has told them many times that the registry saves the lives of officers and that cancelling it would hinder their ability to solve crimes.
The Conservatives are ignoring the RCMP that has consistently defended its usefulness as an investigative tool.
The Conservatives are ignoring victims' groups that have spoken out in support of the gun registry. We heard from many victims' groups in committee.
The registry is not perfect. That is why New Democrats have been saying for many years that we need to find a way to address the problems with the gun registry, while strengthening gun controls in our country.
Our position is clear. We want to see the legitimate concerns of rural Canadians and aboriginals addressed, while ensuring that police officers have the tools they need to keep our communities safer. We want to bring Canadians together and find solutions, instead of playing games with wedge politics like the Conservatives are doing.
The NDP put forward a number of suggestions to address problems with the registry, while maintaining its value as a public safety tool, but the Conservatives refused to consider those solutions. Not only are they going to end the gun registry, but just to prove a juvenile point, the government is also going to destroy the existing gun registry data.
The money has already been spent. We have heard about it. It was $2 billion that my friends spent over the years to gather this information. It makes no sense to simply destroy it if there are police officers and provinces that want to use it to enhance public safety. Destroying existing information in the registry will not bring back the money that has already been spent. Why is the government going to effectively burn billions of dollars worth of data that Canadian taxpayers have already paid for when the provinces and the police are telling us that the data has a public safety value?
It does not make sense to me. What makes sense to me is to fix the registry so it works for all Canadians, rural Canadians, aboriginals and urban Canadians. What makes sense to me is to give the police the tools they need. What makes sense to me is to adopt improvements that New Democrats have proposed to strengthen the gun registry. What makes sense to me is to ensure that semi-automatic weapons, like the Ruger Mini-14, used by Anders Breivik in the recent Norway shootings and by Marc Lépine at the Montreal massacre in 1989, cannot be classified the same way as hunting and sporting shooting guns, to close loopholes around firearms importation that have led to guns ending up on the black market. What makes sense to me is to stop gun violence in the country using every possible tool that we have. What makes sense is to save lives.
Like Jack Layton said, “stopping gun violence has been a priority” for rural and urban Canadians. There is no good reason why we should not be able to sit down with goodwill and open minds. There is no good reason why we should not be able to build solutions that bring us together. There is no good reason why we cannot rise above the political games, fix the registry and make Canada a safer place for everyone: my family, the families of the members and families across our country.
I urge my Conservative colleagues to vote against the bill so they can work with the NDP to fix this so we have safer communities.