Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate. I must confess that in the last few weeks leading up to Halloween and after, I feel like I have been participating in some kind of revenge of the Reform Party performance. The Wheat Board is gone and the gun registry is about to go. It is a strange form of triumphalism. My friend from Crowfoot is getting his exercise in applauding.
What Canadians are looking for is public policy that is based on evidence, based on the facts, based on a reasonable assessment of risk. They are looking for public policy that is based on the realities of the situation. They are looking for public policy that is based on a consistent sense that we have as a country, that what we can do to reduce violence and reduce the loss of life is worth doing as long as it is not too intrusive, not unreasonable, and is reasonably fair and equitable.
I am not here to defend all of the expenditures in the registry. I think the costs are way less than the numbers that have been thrown around by the government over a 10 year period. No doubt some of that money could have been spent differently and perhaps more wisely, but that really is not the issue. Those are now sunk costs. We are not going to get the money back. No effort by the Reform Party on the other side is going to get it back. All the enthusiasm they have for the rights of gun owners is not going to change the situation.
We register our cars. In many cities we register our bicycles. We register our cats and our dogs. We register a great many things. If the government had its way, we would be registering our canoes, if anyone can believe it. There are lots of things that we register.
Why is the one thing that the Conservatives have now developed this intense ideological objection to is the notion that we would ask people to simply register their guns, when we know that guns, in addition to killing ducks, moose and other animals, also kill people? We also know that long guns, in the case of rural suicides for example, are used in suicide, and long guns are used in cases of domestic violence.
We know that last year when responding to calls involving domestic violence, 7,000 registered certificates were pulled after police officers attended on the scene involving domestic violence. When members opposite say that it has never stopped a crime, never reduced a crime, that it is expensive and ineffective, blah, blah, blah, the mantra the Conservatives use to describe it, the fact is it probably has saved some lives. The evidence would suggest that and certainly the evidence of those who are speaking in favour of it would suggest it as well.
We must consider Canadians' views based on the realities of the situation. Here is what Denis Côté, the president of the Fédération des policiers et policières municipaux du Québec, had to say:
Rifles and shotguns make up a substantial proportion of the guns recovered in crime in this country. They are the guns most often used to kill police officers, in domestic violence situations and in suicides, particularly those involving youths.
Mr. Côté was clear: police officers need this registry.
I am a practical guy, so when I talk to the chief of police in the city of Toronto, Vaughan or Markham, the first questions I always ask are: What about all the fuss on the gun registry? Is it useful? Do they need it? They have said, “Yes, we do. It does not save the world. It will not make all the difference. We cannot rely on it entirely. It is an imperfect vehicle but we need it, we use it and we do not want to lose it”.
When I was premier, there was a terrible murder in Ontario of a young woman. Her mother, Priscilla de Villiers, became very active as an activist dealing with guns. She said:
The costs of maintaining the registry are modest--less than $4 million a year--while the risks of eliminating the registry are enormous.
She asked a painful question, and I think members of the House need to listen to it:
Would a gun registry have saved my daughter or so many countless others across this country? We don't know.
She goes on to say:
No law can prevent all tragedies. But a gun control law which includes registration and is rigorously implemented makes it harder—not easier—for dangerous people to get firearms.
We have the head of the police association in Quebec, the chiefs of police across the country, someone like Priscilla de Villiers and the emergency doctors saying the same thing.
Mr. Drummond, from the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, an assistant coroner in Perth, Ontario, just down the highway, said:
So we will now all be unwilling participants in a social experiment that will undoubtedly place Canadian lives at risk. Our question to our government is that relative to the perceived inconvenience....
And that is really what members on the opposite are talking about. It is inconvenient.
He goes on to say:
...what will be the true cost, in direct human suffering, of their ideologically driven and scientifically bankrupt legislation. Canada's emergency physicians remain steadfastly supportive of the principles of the Firearms Act and the gun registry.
How many times have I heard the Minister of Public Safety say that he is speaking for victims? The ombudsman for victims, Sue O'Sullivan, stated categorically that she was in favour of the registry and thought it would save lives.
Just three weeks ago, we had a very moving debate in this House on suicide. If there is a gun around, registered or not, that gun could be used to take one's life. Kids can get access to it. The thing about the registry is that it is supposed to hold gun owners accountable for the use of the gun. To me, this is not an ideological question. It is a purely factual one. We spent the money and it is $4 million a year.
Are we likely to see some lives lost as a result of greater access to firearms as a result of this repeal? I think anyone looking at it would say probably yes, and that is enough for me.
What really gets me about the government is that it is not enough for it to say that, as a government, it will not use the registry. It is not enough to say that, as a government, it does not think the registry is right. The government not only wants to control its mandate, it wants to control the future. Is will conduct a bonfire so that no one else will ever be able to do such a registry? That is what the minister said, “We want to stop any other government ever”.
Is that based on evidence? What if we find that it is useful? What if we find other means of registering? What if we find less intrusive and less inconvenient ways of registering? Is the government saying that it will be opposed to that and stop that as well?
As my other colleague mentioned, this government is also saying that it will tell the Province of Quebec that it cannot do that either. We know that Quebec's justice minister, Mr. Fournier, clearly said that Quebec wanted to do so and that it wanted the means to do so.
I ask the government opposite to please abandon its ideological ways and stop pretending it can control the world, control all things and control the future. It should show a little humility in this legislation, bring it down to size and at least reflect the fact that most Canadians on this legislation do not actually agree with the government.