Garry Breitkreuz

[Criminal Code, November 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the government has its spin but let us look at the facts. The law has required handguns to be registered since 1934 yet the government has been unable to present a shred of evidence that registration of these firearms has helped prevent or solve one crime.

Last week's Statistics Canada report “Homicides in Canada 2000” shows that the government's 67 year registration of handguns project has been a complete failure. Of the 183 firearm murderers last year, 58% were committed with handguns. Since 1990 the use of handguns and firearms in homicides has doubled from 30% to 60%. Between 1997 and 2000, 69% of the handguns recovered from firearms homicides were not registered.

Let us scrap Bill C-68 and instead enlist the support of the provinces, the territories and responsible firearms owners and draft a workable gun control program. Nearly $700 million has been wasted on Bill C-68.

[Criminal Code, November 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in the House on June 4 the Minister of Justice failed to answer my question about the four amnesties she had declared with respect to the 1995 banning of thousands of short barrelled .25 calibre and .22 calibre handguns, all legally owned and registered, I should remind the House.

A little background information is necessary to understand this issue and that the passing of these amnesties is actually contrary to the government's stated objectives of its firearms program.

On April 12, 1994, the then justice minister was quoted in a number of newspapers across the country. He said:

I came to Ottawa in November of last year with a firm belief that the only people in this country who should have guns are police officers and soldiers--

Six months later, he had changed his public tune but not his personal beliefs. In 1995 he used time allocation to ram his draconian bill through parliament requiring the licensing of all law-abiding firearms owners, the registration of all legally owned guns and the banning of 555,000 legal owned, properly registered handguns. The justice minister offered no statistical evidence to support the ban. In fact the statistical evidence showed that these registered handguns were no threat to public safety while they were in the hands of their registered owners.

To justify his decision to ban and eventually confiscate legally owned private property without any compensation, the justice minister simply declared these registered handguns as scary Saturday night specials.

Rather than rely on any statistical evidence, on February 16, 1995, the justice minister made his emotional argument in this House. Again I will quote:

These handguns are by their design and characteristics suitable for concealment, inexpensive to buy, easy to trade in the underground and not appropriate for target shooting because of their lack of accuracy.

The justice minister's lack of candor was duly noted by tens of thousands of front line police officers and RCMP who were still carrying the four inch barrelled .38 calibre specials that were soon to become prohibited with the passage of Bill C-68. In the legislation the justice minister tried to ban the sale of these registered handguns from the day he introduced the bill on February 14, 1995. He said that anyone buying a short barrelled .25 calibre or .32 calibre handgun after that date would have it seized by the police without compensation.

This move telegraphed the government's true intentions about what registration really means. People should register their guns and some day the government will declare them dangerous and then it will confiscate them without compensation, just like it did with the Saturday night specials people registered. Remember?

Now every responsible firearms owner remember. The justice minister ordered his bureaucrats to set the first deadline for confiscating thousands of legally owned firearms. We must remember that these are properly registered short barrelled handguns from dealers' inventories and from individuals cleared by the police to buy these firearms.

As every deadline approached, the government lost its courage and passed an amnesty. It has had four amnesties to date. With every amnesty passed by the government it is admitting that these so-called Saturday night specials are not dangerous at all when in the hands of a person licensed by the government and approved by the police to own them.

Even the 555,000 legally owned registered handguns banned in 1995 were left in the hands of their law-abiding owners through a grandfathering clause, not to be confiscated until the current owner dies. Grandfathering proved that once again the government did not consider these handguns dangerous at all when safely in the hands of their law-abiding owners.

The hypocrisy of all this is disgusting and that is why I asked the justice minister, instead of proclaiming amnesty after amnesty, why she does not admit that the government was wrong to ban these registered firearms in the first place.

[Gun Control, November 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, every chance the justice minister gets she boasts to parliament about how many Canadians support her government's failed gun registration scheme.

She is loath to tell anyone that the strong support dropped from 75% to 32% when the cost of the firearms registry reached half a billion dollars. Last week the cost topped $685 million and is still climbing.

The most recent Environics poll the minister refers to contains some important facts she conveniently fails to report to her colleagues. When more than 2,000 respondents were asked what specific type of crime troubled them the most, they listed 23 different types of crime, but guns were never mentioned once.

When respondents were asked which of the 12 criminal justice priorities they would like to see government spending directed to, gun control measures were at the very bottom of the list. Programs for young people, cracking down on organized crime and more police on the street were numbers one, two and three.

[Firearms Registry, November 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on top of the colossal waste of more than half a billion dollars, now we have more evidence of bungling by bureaucrats in the problem plagued gun registry.

The privacy commissioner is investigating a number of firearms licences that were issued with the wrong photos. Now we have a documented case of a firearm being registered to the wrong person. The unhappy recipient complains “I do not want to be responsible for a firearm that I do not possess”.

Could the solicitor general please explain how the registry of firearms made such a potentially catastrophic mistake?

[Petitions, October 31st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I have the pleasure of presenting comes from my own constituency. It is a result of the great tragedy that has befallen our world with the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City and the destruction of a portion of the Pentagon.

They say Canadians are peace loving people. There is a considerable preamble which I do not have time to read. However the petitioners encourage parliament to reject senseless acts of retaliation as they would not repair the damage or bring back those who are lost. Massive retaliation would only perpetuate a violent barbaric cycle fuelled by hatred and ignorance.

The petitioners encourage us to explore peaceful means of assisting the United States and to explore ways we can prevent the harbouring of terrorists in our great country.

[Petitions, October 31st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions I would like to present at this time. The first comes from many people throughout the province of Ontario who appeal to the House of Commons with respect to the human rights violations taking place in China.

The petitioners urge us to take immediate action to urge China to free Canadian Shenli Lin and all Falun Gong practitioners, and to stop the persecution and mass killing of Falun Gong practitioners.

[Privilege, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have to add another piece of information to this in relation to what my colleague across the way just said. There is a huge time difference.

The regulation I was referring to, and the urgent need that the minister made, was taking place on September 11. I raised that issue several weeks later. The time differential there was very different from what my colleague is now raising.

This is a question of privilege because the minister has ignored this for a very long period of time. She has completely disregarded it.

These are two separate issues completely.

I did not raise it as a question of privilege. I wanted the minister to reply. She did not give an adequate answer, Mr. Speaker, but that is really not what concerns you in this case.

In this case we have, I believe, a prima facie case before the House on privilege, and because of the time differential these two are not comparable.

[Privilege, October 25th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I have examined the minister's statement and I really see no compelling reason given by the minister for the urgent changes that she made two hours after the terrorists hit the World Trade Center. This appears to have been a political priority, not a public safety priority.

[Agriculture, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of agriculture gives the impression to many Canadians that he is dealing responsibly with the farm crisis and the drought experienced this summer.

Nothing could be further from the truth. He has stood in the House and told farmers that there are programs available to them, but he neglects to mention that they do not work and are not properly funded.

For example, the minister says that crop insurance should soften the effects of the drought, but the province of Saskatchewan has requested $200 million to cover the shortfall for this year. The minister responds to these desperate needs saying that he is waiting to see how the programs work.

Farmers cannot wait. There should be the biggest payout in years, yet these programs are not even covering their input costs. CFIP and AIDA do not help those farmers who need them most.

The minister talks about his programs but it is all hot air. They do not work and are not properly funded. We have already had enough hot air on the prairies with the drought this summer. We need some action now.

[Committees of the House, October 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 35(2). The official opposition has submitted a dissenting report and I would like to briefly explain what that contains.

We believe that all private members' business should be votable. The House gave its unanimous consent on June 12, 2001, to a motion from the Alliance calling on a workable proposal allowing for all items to be votable.

Notwithstanding Standing Order 92(1) the subcommittee on private members' business refused to deem all items votable, and we disagree with that. We would like to see all items votable. We feel this is a key reform that needs to take place in the House to improve democracy and give all private members an opportunity to bring forward items that could be debated and decided on in the House.