Madam Speaker, we do not understand. It truly is difficult to understand.
We are hearing arguments like the ones just made to us: the hon. member has talked to police officers who do not believe it is used very much. But we have the figures: 92% of police officers use the firearms registry. Those are figures, those are facts. But obviously, we are used to this: reliable, objective data are of less interest to the people on the other side of the House than what they hear in their own immediate circles.
This registry is useful. As I said, 92% of police officers use it. Since it was established, spousal homicides have declined by 50%. We know that women are the ones who are too often the first victims of spousal homicides, and so we can see very clearly why the Fédération des femmes du Québec called for the registry to be preserved. We have talked about suicide recently. We have spoken in the House in support of suicide prevention. Over the last nine years, firearms suicides, which too often affect our young people, have declined by 64%. For that reason alone, the registry is absolutely essential and useful. And in spite of what they say about it, it is not very expensive. It cost a lot at the beginning, but now the costs associated with the registry represent only about 5% of the Canadian firearms program.
We are also presented with another argument: it sometimes presents problems for hunters, aboriginal people and others. The NDP has proposed solutions to that: decriminalize the first offence, make sure that long gun owners do not have to absorb the costs, protect information about owners, and provide legal guarantees to protect the rights of aboriginal people. This is an extremely useful registry that saves lives, and we can mitigate some of the problems. Why not? Is it because, as my hon. colleague said, it threatens our civil rights? Is implementing a firearms registry equivalent to invoking the War Measures Act? If I register my car or my dog, is it because I am subject to war measures? That is truly inflammatory language that is completely unrealistic and makes no sense.
When we are reduced to arguments like that, it means we do not have much left. So it is easier for us to understand why this government refuses to debate, why it has again imposed a closure motion on us, a gag, why it does not want parliamentarians to discuss the issue at any greater length, and why it does not want parliamentarians to be able to address their fellow Canadians to explain the issues to them. This government no longer has any logical, valid argument to support its bill.
It is not only parliamentarians that this government refuses to listen to. It refuses to listen to the provinces that, like Quebec, have fought at every level, calling for the firearms registry to be kept, or at the very least—if the government is silly enough to abolish it—for the data to be kept. Nor does the government listen to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has called for the same thing. Nor does it listen to numerous experts, including those in the health care field. Nor does it listen to victims' groups, because the majority of victims' groups are completely in favour of the firearms registry and have called for it to be kept.
There is always a double standard. The government meets with a victims group that says more prisons are needed, and so the government decides to go headlong into that, build prisons and invest billions of dollars to put more people in prison, all the while totally disregarding the opinion of experts, once again. And then there are meetings with victims' groups and victims' families who, sometimes through tears, plead to keep the registry. I saw the mother of one of the young women killed at École Polytechnique de Montréal, and she was crying and pleading for the firearms registry to be kept. Then, quite suddenly, the government members block their ears, do not hear anything else and disregard whatever else is being said.
Victims do not count in this government's eyes, unless they are repeating what the government wants to hear. I do not call that listening. This government’s modus operandi is to be completely closed off to the opinion of others. I call that “my way or the highway” I call that contempt for any opinion not shared by the government.
But contempt cannot last forever. People will continue to speak out and voice their opinions. The people will take back the government, which imagines that since 40% of Canadian voters voted for it, it is entitled to do what it wants and can ride roughshod over any and all opinions that it does not share.
As I was saying, there is always a double standard. Let us take another example. The gun registry helps keep our communities safe and, as I said at the beginning, helps save lives. Today, the Minister of Public Safety implied that the use of information obtained by torture would be permitted in order to save lives. That encourages torture. If the government is prepared to consider information obtained by torture in order to save a life, then it is encouraging torture. However, registering a firearm in the gun registry to save lives suddenly is not acceptable.
In August 2010, Jack Layton said:
Stopping gun violence has been a priority for rural and urban Canadians. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to sit down with good will and open minds. There’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to build solutions that bring us together. But that sense of shared purpose has been the silent victim of the gun registry debate.
Mr. Harper has been no help at all. Instead of driving for solutions, he has used this issue to drive wedges between Canadians.... [The Conservatives] are stoking resentments as a fundraising tool to fill their election war chest.
Mr. Harper is pitting Canadian region against Canadian region with his—
