Garry Breitkreuz

[Committees of the House, May 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. In accordance with its order of reference of Tuesday, May 5, your committee has considered Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Customs Act, and agreed on Tuesday, May 26 to report it without amendment.

[Firearms Registry, May 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to enthusiastically support private member's Bill C-391 to scrap the useless long gun registry. This bill, which was introduced by the member for Portage—Lisgar on May 15, 2009, is the only bill currently before Parliament that focuses solely on closing down the registry.

The members opposite complained that previous bills, including my own Bill C-301, contain unpalatable legislative details. Hopefully, opposition members will see fit to support this new revised bill.

The registry has not saved even one life during its 10 years of operation. Incredibly, now $2 billion later, the 1995 legislation has run 1,000 times over budget without any tangible result beyond creating a paper-pushing bureaucracy.

The time has come to cast aside politics and deal with reality. The time has come to support Bill C-391 so we can write the long gun registry into Parliament's history books once and for all.

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2009]

Madam Chair, I listened with great interest to the minister as he outlined some of the programs and projects that our government is implementing.

I come from a riding that has a strong agricultural base. It is quite diverse; there is everything from cow-calf operations to canola, wheat, and coarse grain operations. There is a wide variety of different farming endeavours.

I was invited by a number of farmers to a meeting a short time ago. I went there with some concern as to what I might hear. I was pleasantly surprised by their remarks about some of the changes that have been made in the last three years to some of the farm programs. In fact, I will not forget one of the comments that was made, which is that the programs have never been this good since the days of John Diefenbaker. I would like to pass that on to the minister.

There is a question that farmers want me to ask the minister. He touched on it in the last part of his remarks, but I would like him to elaborate on it. They are concerned about the protectionist tendencies in the United States. They really do not want to depend on farm programs, even though they have been improved. They would like to know what other endeavours the minister is engaged in and what these mean to the farmers' bottom line.

My question is really twofold. What is being done to continue to ensure we have access to markets in the United States? What is the minister doing other than that to ensure that our farmers can get more returns from the marketplace?

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government has introduced a bill in the Senate.

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, that is another debate for another day. I would gladly answer those because every one of those accusations is false, sir. Everyone of them is false. Those are the talking points of the Coalition for Gun Control. Its information is totally inaccurate. We will have that debate another day.

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I had 10 minutes just to answer that one question.

The hon. member should do the math. There are seven million guns in the gun registry. There are probably around 20 million guns in this country, so we have about one-third registered for $2 billion. If he takes the seven and divide it into 2,000, he will find out how much per gun it has cost. He should do the math.

In regard to police officers consulting the registry before they go to a home, I have a police officer in my home province who instructs his police officers not to consult the registry. He says he has to re-program every cadet that he trains when it comes to CFR checks and reliability in regard to a police officer. In fact, it does not change their procedures at all. It would be insane for a police officer to rely on the information in the registry before he went to a home to, let us say investigate a domestic dispute. For example, criminals do not register their firearms and even if they did, the police officer does not know if there is one there so it does not change his procedure in any way.

This police officer goes on to say that the gun registry places the lives of police officers at risk. Hon. members should note that statement. The gun registry offers a false sense of security.

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate. I have no doubt, as was just mentioned, that the members of the Bloc care deeply about the safety of Canadians and for that reason I assume that the motion before us was tabled with the best of intentions. It suggests that by doing away with the firearms amnesty and by maintaining the registration of all types of firearms, Canadians would be safer.

I do not believe this is the case. Before I address this question in detail, let me put this into some context. As an aside, I have heard many arguments today that really are not valid at all. Some of the statistics I have heard quoted are totally twisted and are very misleading. I wish I had time to address them all. Unfortunately, at this point I do not, but maybe during questions and comments I will try to deal with some of those.

I want to deal first of all with the larger context here. When the gun registry was first introduced in 1995, the previous government promised it would cost approximately $2 million to taxpayers to implement over five years. In her 2002 audit, however, the Auditor General of Canada reported that the program's costs had skyrocketed to more than $600 million and moreover, due to a lack of solid financial information, that is, the government was hiding costs, she believed this figure did not fairly represent the true costs of the program.

Then, in a follow-up audit in 2006, the Auditor General reported the cost of the new information system for the registry had nearly tripled from the initial estimate. What is more, the cost of the entire firearms program had mushroomed to nearly $1 billion. Reflect on that: $2 million, $1 billion. That is 500 times over budget. I do not think there has been a government program in history that has gone 500 times over budget. It is unbelievable. I have talked to previous Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs who are upset with what happened and if they had known, would not have originally supported this. Yet, we are here today trying to defend something that is indefensible.

Small wonder that many Canadians are calling the gun registry a boondoggle, a terrible waste of government resources. But apart from the cost to taxpayers and the financial burden on law-abiding citizens, there is also no evidence that the gun registry has kept Canadians safe. I have heard the arguments that it is no different than registering a cat. We do not spend $300 registering a cat and many times more than that and neither is it a criminal offence if we do not register that cat.

This is not only my personal belief. This is not only the belief of a vast number of my constituents in Yorkton—Melville, it is also the belief of the Auditor General of Canada who in her 2006 audit stated that, “The Centre does not show how these activities help minimize risks to public safety with evidence-based outcomes such as reduced deaths, injuries, and threats from firearms”.

This is a statement by probably the most credible person in Canada. She has studied this issue in more depth than anyone sitting here, probably anyone else in Canada. She has access to all the information behind the scenes. We had better listen to what she has to say. She tells us the gun registry shows no benefit to Canadians. Let this Parliament wake up to somebody that we can trust when they are speaking.

It is also the belief of veteran police officers such as Julian Fantino, Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, who has said in the past, “The firearms registry is long on philosophy and short on practical results considering the money could be more effectively used for security against terrorism as well as a host of other public safety initiatives”. He has summed up the essence of what we should be talking about. Is it cost effective? He, of course, clearly indicates it is not.

When this government came to office, we pledged that our approach to crime would generate the kind of practical results demanded by our law enforcement community rather than wasting taxpayer dollars on initiatives such as the long gun registry which does nothing to reduce gun crime.

This morning I chaired the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The committee is doing a review of the national sex offender registry. I find that study very interesting and I wish all Canadians could have been in on what we were hearing this morning. Officials before the committee told us that the RCMP spends less than a million dollars per year running its sex offender registry.

Why have we spent $2 billion and counting tracking law-abiding citizens? Why do we not focus our sights on the criminal element and start focusing on their crimes? That should be what we are interested in: child molesters, drug dealers, organized crime.

We as Conservatives promised to make our streets safer by tackling the deadly combination of youth, gangs and guns. We proposed tougher sentences for violent and repeat offenders, especially those involved in weapons related crime. We promised to work with the provinces and territories to fight the root causes of crime through community-based prevention.

We made these promises and we kept them. Over the last three years the Government of Canada has passed legislation to tackle violent crime. We introduced mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes, as well as reverse onus bail provisions for serious offences, a lot of changes that have been long overdue.

I am citing these things for those watching to show that we have balance in our approach to fighting crime. We have provided more money to the provinces and territories so that they can hire additional police officers. The government has also committed to helping the RCMP recruit and train more personnel.

More recently, the government introduced legislation that among other things will create a new broad-based offence to target drive-by and other intentional shootings that involve the reckless disregard for the life or safety of others. Those convicted of such acts would be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison with a maximum period of imprisonment of fourteen years.

That is what we should be doing. We should be going after the criminals, not hoops, hurdles and all kinds of paperwork for law-abiding citizens because laying a piece of paper beside that gun does not affect one whit what happens with that firearm.

If these acts are committed by or for a criminal organization or with a restricted or prohibited firearm such as a handgun or automatic weapon, the minimum sentence would increase to five years. That makes sense. Punish the criminal.

The government has shown that through these measures it is serious about getting tough on gun crime. We also need to ensure that we have a system of gun control that is effective and efficient.

I support a licensing system. Keeping firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them makes sense. The gun registry does not do that. The bottom line is it does not do that.

We need to be combatting the criminal use of firearms and getting tough with crime. We also believe that gun control should target criminals, not law-abiding citizens. I have said that many times. It should save lives, not waste money. It should be cost effective. It should promote safety on our streets, not frustrate duck hunters and farmers. That is why the extension of the current compliance measures beyond May 16 of this year is so important.

I urge all hon. members to vote against the current motion which seeks to refuse the extension of the amnesty after May 16.

I have 33 pages of quotations from police officers on my website. I would like to refer people to them. I will give a quick one here. It states:

Your statement that it is used 5,000 times a day by police is misleading. A check of the registry is done automatically every time an officer is dispatched to an address, wanted or not. From its inception, I was advised not to depend on it to make decisions. It is outdated, inaccurate and completely unreliable. To make a decision at a call based on registry information would be foolish at best and deadly at worst.

There are thousands of police officers across this country who will tell members exactly the same thing. I ask members to consult them. They do not find this registry helpful at all.

[Parliamentary Outdoors Caucus, February 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary outdoors caucus represents the Canadian heritage activities of hunting, fishing, sport shooting and trapping. As the largest federal all-party caucus during the last Parliament, its goal is to preserve and promote these activities, protect them by law and encourage the public to accept them as traditional and environmentally responsible pillars in Canadian culture.

Rural and urban Canadians of all political affiliations, backgrounds, ages and abilities contribute over $10 billion annually to the national economy through these outdoor activities.

I cordially invite all MPs and senators to join us tomorrow, February 24, in the parliamentary restaurant at 7:30 a.m. for our annual breakfast meeting. MPs and senators are sure to enjoy our keynote speaker, Shane Mahoney of Newfoundland, a treasured environmentalist and conservationist.

We are indebted to Phil Morlock, chair of the government affairs committee at the Canadian Sportfishing Industry Association, for his advice and hard work in bringing the outdoors community indoors to Parliament Hill. Of course, Mr. Speaker, you are invited too.

[Criminal Code, February 9th, 2009]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-301, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (registration of firearms).

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a pleasure to table my private member's bill today entitled, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (registration of firearms).

I would like to thank the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for seconding my bill and the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke for co-seconding it, as well as the many other MPs who will likely be seconding it as well.

The bill proposes to discontinue the wasteful long gun registry that has not saved the life of a single Canadian. The registry has been a boondoggle since its inception. I believe members of Parliament from all political parties will see ample cause to shut it down.

I doubt there has ever been another government program that has gone 500 times over budget and been such a miserable failure. I hope everyone here will agree that our tax dollars should be invested in practical public safety measures that really do save lives.

We have been punishing law-abiding Canadian hunters, farmers and sport shooters for a decade, and it is time to focus on criminals and gangs who use firearms for all the wrong reasons.

The bill also invites the Auditor General to bring evidence and clarity to this issue so parliamentarians can make informed policy decisions on firearms law in the future.

I would also like to thank the people in Parliament and right across Canada who have supported me faithfully for 14 years in my quest to put an end to the long gun registry.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 4th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the decent question. It brings the debate to a much higher level than when being asked about some extraneous issue that Canadians do not really care about.

I would gladly work with the member opposite in strengthening the employment insurance program. I was the critic when I first came to Parliament in 1993 and it is vitally important that we have a strong employment insurance plan. That would be something that would come down in the budget, so please allow us to present a budget and have input into that.

As far as the member's comments on social programs, I agree that we need strong social programs and we have done much to strengthen them. One of the best things we can do to strengthen social programs is to have a strong economy so we can fund them. If we do not have a strong economy to fund social programs, they will be ineffective. In fact, we will have more poverty and more problems if we do not have a strong economy.

The stimulus package that is being proposed by the coalition opposite has a lot of top notch economists in the country concerned. Don Drummond of the Toronto Dominion Bank said, “That would be a disaster that would launch into a structural deficit. Canada's economy is one of the few in the world in which the domestic side of the economy is still growing. No one can point to Canada and say 'you are the cause of this international problem'. I've seen a lot more failures of short-term stimulus than successes. A lot of them just don't work”.

Also, the Scotiabank chief economist, Warren Jestin, stated:

...the Canadian economy already has stimulus built into the books.

He admits that we already have a stimulus built in the books. He goes on to state:

The GST cut and reductions to corporate and business taxes taken last fall...will...have a greater effect on the economy than a short-term stimulus.

Unlike the U.S., which has tried ad hoc measures such as giving people cheques ... we were following a much more rigorous process.