Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.
I separate this issue into two issues: gun control and firearm registration, the long gun registry.
On gun control I look upon things such as safe storage, youth education, severe penalties for criminal misuse of firearms and control of military automatic weapons in public hands.
On the long gun registry side of the issue I would like to go back to the original debate in the House. At that time I admitted that because I am a hunter, I am too biased to make an unbiased observation in this debate. What I did in my speech, a very significant speech in my early parliamentary career, is I looked at the international experience in those places that had gone down the long gun registry route. It was a fascinating opportunity for me because the minister of justice was in the House at that time. He crossed the floor following my speech and our interchange was fascinating.
Let me tell the Canadian public what I found in the international experience in those countries that went down the long gun registry process and what I predicted.
The first thing I found was that the cost of the firearm registry would be enormous. That was from Australia and New Zealand, the two countries that were similar to Canada that embarked on this process. The second thing I found was that the level of compliance was surprisingly low. In other words, they could not convince 100% of the folks to comply. The third and most disturbing thing I found was that there was no change in criminal misuse of firearms in those jurisdictions.
I predicted in the House, and the record will show this, that the costs in Canada would be much higher than we were being presented with, that the level of compliance would not be as high as we were being told and finally, that there would be no impact on the criminal misuse of shotguns and rifles. Notice I used the phrase shotguns and rifles because they are long guns.
The conversation I had with the justice minister was fascinating. Because it was a private conversation, I can only give certain portions. The justice minister did say that those were good and intellectually sound arguments. He went on to say that he wanted to tell me why my arguments would not hold water. Without betraying a confidence, he said that the new computer systems were going to make it so simple to register, so easy to go through this process that we would not have the problems with cost and we would not have the problems with compliance. Therefore, he said that we would end up with criminal misuse of firearms being lower in this country.
That conversation ended with a challenge from me. I said to the justice minister that I wanted him to remember the conversation because I predicted that his comments would fail.
I do not believe in saying that I told you so and I will not say I told you so, but the predictions made at that time have come true. Sadly, I wish it were not so.
I want to spend a few minutes on the practical aspects of the registry. Remember I said that I am a hunter. I have firearms. I personally went through the registration process. I did that late in December 2002 for symbolic reasons.
I said to my constituents, “I disagree with the registry, I think it will fail and I am going to wait until the end to register”. I did that. On December 14, 2002 I registered all the firearms, the long guns that I owned.
I did that through a possession only certificate. I cannot buy a new firearm in Canada. I chose to register my disturbance with this legislation by getting a possession only certificate. I have that here in front of me. It has my name and a number on it. It has my birth date, identification issues.
On December 14 I registered all the firearms that I own. I did it on the Internet. I actually did it over three days. There were three separate times that I went to the Internet.
It is now late March and I have received two registration certifications but I have more than two firearms. Here is the most disturbing part about this. Nowhere on these registration certificates is the number that identifies me and connects those firearms to me.
I will go through what the registration certificate states. The gun I own is a bolt action Browning rifle. It has a serial number on it that is accurate because I checked it. The certificate stated that the barrel is 470 millimetres or greater, and that is the only identifier. However the certificate has two other numbers on it. It has a registration certificate number and a firearm identification number. My .22 Browning bolt action rifle, which has been registered with this possession only certificate and a specific number, now has three other numbers connected to it.
I took this certificate to one of the police officers in my community. It is all set so that it goes into my wallet as a separate card. I asked him to tell me, if he found this firearm and I had this registration certificate, how he would identify that it belonged to me. He looked at it and said, “Well Doc, I cannot do that”. Nowhere on this certificate does it say my name. Nothing on this certificate connects it to this possession only certificate. He said that he only had one method and that was to go to the CPIC computer and bang out a number, but he was not sure which number to use, the registration certificate number, the firearm identification number or the serial number. He tried the identification number and that was the one that actually did identify me.
The gun registry is not gun control. This is the issue for me that is the most striking. How many criminals will register their firearms before they commit a crime? What bank robber would go on the Internet and type in “This is Joe Bank Robber Charlie and I have a .45 automatic” , give the serial number and then go rob a bank? There will be no change in the criminal misuse of firearms due to the firearms registry.
What is the Alliance calling for with this motion today? We are calling for a cost benefit analysis of the registry. We are asking that if the government thinks this idea of a registry is valid will it do a cost benefit analysis, because scientifically that is the only way we should proceed. I actually asked the justice minister if he would put a sunset clause in place if this thing fails. I think many legislative ventures should have a sunset clause.
We can go down a road with the best of intentions. I believe my Liberal colleagues, on this issue, have the best of intentions. I do not for one second think that they intended to waste a pile of money. I think they really believe that public safety will be served, and I said that to my colleague across the way. He and I disagree on whether the registry will be effective.
Here is the opportunity for members to vote for this motion, and if there is evidence that its cost benefit is on the positive side, I will shut up. I will never talk about the registry again. However as long as there is no evidence of criminal misuse change, as long as there is no evidence that compliance will be sufficient enough, I will talk about this until I cannot breathe.
