Larry Miller

[Committees of the House, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

I am very pleased to report that the committee has considered the votes of the main estimates 2012-13 under agriculture and agri-food and reports the same.

[New Democratic Party of Canada, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday it came to light that an NDP backroom operative was accessing the divorce records of the Minister of Public Safety, an operative working on the leadership campaign for the member for Ottawa Centre, no less.

When this came to light, the member for Winnipeg Centre tried to throw us off the scent of this drive-by smear campaign by trying to throw the premier of Manitoba under the bus. This is very typical of the holier-than-thou member for Winnipeg Centre.

Given all of this, it also comes as no surprise that the member for Timmins—James Bay was filibustering the attempts of the ethics committee to study the use of taxpayer resources to engage in a sleazy Internet smear.

We already know that the leader of the Liberal Party has confessed that the Liberals engaged in dirty tricks using taxpayer resources. What are the NDP members hiding? Canadians have the right to know.

[Pink in the Rink, February 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Owen Sound Attack and the Canadian Cancer Society for teaming up and hosting the inaugural and very successful Pink in the Rink event on Saturday night at the Harry Lumley arena in Owen Sound.

The rink was a sea of pink. Fans were decked out in pink T-shirts and waved pink rally towels. The goal of the event was to raise awareness and money for lifesaving breast cancer research, as well as to support local patients who utilize the programs and services offered by the Canadian Cancer Society.

The hockey game featured the OHL champion Owen Sound Attack against the visiting Peterborough Petes. Real men can wear pink and the home team sported new pink jerseys in honour of loved ones who had lost their courageous battle to breast cancer and in celebration of those who are still with us.

To top off the night, a sold-out crowd of fans saw the Owen Sound Attack soundly beat the Peterborough Petes 12:0 in arguably their best game of the season. What an exciting and memorable evening. Job well done.

[Points of Order, February 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that some members in this House and the media misunderstood the point I was making last week during debate when I argued that the confiscation of firearms was often the first thing that authoritarian governments do.

While calls and emails of support from my constituents and from Canadians across the country indicate that they understood the point I was trying to make, and I do stand by my beliefs, but, because of my respect for the House, I want to reiterate my withdrawal and apology for referencing two individuals in the way I did.

[National Sweater Day, February 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, today is National Sweater Day.

This national campaign, promoted by the World Wildlife Fund and Loblaws, encourages people to lower their thermostats and put on a sweater to stay warm while saving energy and helping our environment.

Individuals, organizations, companies, schools and campuses across Canada are turning down their thermostats and people are wearing sweaters of all types, whether it is that hand-knitted sweater made by grandma that is never worn, that store-bought hoodie that is worn all the time, or a favourite hockey jersey that is only worn on game day.

The goal of this initiative is to raise awareness about the importance of valuing energy in Canada and bringing out the best conservation efforts in all of us.

National Sweater Day is just another great example of how small changes in behaviour both at home and at work can have a positive impact on our planet.

I encourage all Canadians to turn down the heat and wear a warm, cozy sweater today.

I thank my hon. colleagues for participating in this year's event.

[Points of Order, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today in this House I was speaking to Bill C-19 and I referred to and used the name Adolf Hitler. While the references to the gun registry and what this evil guy did to perpetrate his crimes are very clear, it was inappropriate to use his name in the House and I apologize to anybody it may have offended.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Burlington does a great job representing his constituents. A number of his constituents come to my beautiful riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound during deer season and duck season to hunt.

On the member's question about the importance of honouring commitments, the government has no credibility without following up on them. Early on in our mandate we said we would do this, although it would have been nice to have done this before Christmas. However, it is after the Christmas break and it is back on the agenda. Come next week, we can finally have three cheers that this thing will be gone.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question from my colleague. As part of my speech, my hon. colleague might remember my saying that the licensing system, if done in the right way, would ensure that people who had committed crimes or the mentally ill, as he referred to, would be unable to get that licence in the first place. That would be dealt with in any licensing system.

I did not hear the testimony saying that licensing did not work. I do not believe licensing does not work. With respect to the mental state of individuals, their status can change. The law has to deal with that. A licence, one way or the other, will not stop that.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, not at one point did I ever say that police chiefs were not saying what they believed.

I did talk, if the member was listening, about policemen and women on the ground, those who are not involved in politics. Quite often the direction that comes out of the police chiefs comes from urban situations. I totally understand that.

In fact, a policeman just said me the other day not to let anybody tell me that the registry helped police officers when they went to a door. He said that it did not matter how many guns the person might have. Even if they checked the registry and it said that there were no guns in that house, they still approached the house as if there were, He said that they did not know whether the person got a gun through the black market or other means.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we now have an ineffective and wasteful registry that has been estimated by the state broadcaster to cost in excess of $2 billion.

Similar to Mr. Rock's comments, another prominent Liberal at the time, Senator Sharon Carstairs, said the following, “The registering of hunting rifles is the first step in the social re-engineering of Canadians”. Can hon. members believe that statement, “the social re-engineering of Canadians?” That is what Adolf Hitler tried to do in the 1930s.

The two statements that I have shared should clearly illustrate why this registry was created. It was not about decreasing gun crime or improving police officer safety. All evidence shows that it has not had any measurable improvement to either issue. When it comes to police officers, those out on the ground, not involved in police politics, many of them in my riding were out putting up signs and that kind of thing in support because they did not support the registry.

The two statements I have shared should clearly illustrate why this registry was created. It was not about decreasing gun crime or improving police officer safety. All evidence shows that it has not achieved any measurable improvements to either issue. The long gun registry is, at its core, solely about an idea that the Liberals of the nineties had that guns were inherently evil and must be taken out of the hands of the general population. Again, who does that sound like?

Our government fundamentally disagrees with this idea. Firearms are tools. The danger is not inherent in the piece of property, but rather the intent in which it is used. This is why we have taken measures to ensure that individuals who are predisposed to committing crimes with firearms do not have access to them in the first place.

This is the most logical route to take. We license individuals such as hunters, farmers and sports shooters, which I am, so they can legally buy firearms. All individuals are screened so that criminals, unqualified individuals and the mentally ill cannot have access to firearms.

However, it is possible for some individuals to fall through the cracks. There are individuals who purchase firearms illegally on the black market for the sole purpose of a committing a crime. For these individuals, there must be a strong deterrent through tough jail sentences, and this is what we are doing. Nowhere in this model is there a logical place for a registry, which essentially amounts to a piece of paper next to a gun.

Let us be clear. Law-abiding hunters, farmers and sports shooters are not the ones out there committing crimes. It is important to focus the very limited resources that exist for crime prevention and public safety on things that actually result in reductions in crime. This is why it is so important to vote in favour of Bill C-19.

The bill would do two key things that would go a long way to both restoring a modicum of sanity to firearms laws in Canada and would also be important steps to focusing our resources where they could be most useful.

First, the bill would eliminate the requirement to register non-restricted and non-prohibited firearms, essentially most rifles and shotguns. This is important because, contrary to the protests of my colleagues across the floor, these firearms are merely tools of the trade for rural folks and people who like to do a bit of hunting on the weekend or during hunting season. They are not the military-calibre weaponry as suggested by the NDP.

I would like to digress for a moment. As I stated earlier, a large reason for the oppositions' steadfast support for the long gun registry stems from the fact that most of the folks across the way have never held a firearm or been around firearms. That is fine, if that is their choice, but they should at least learn the facts.

The member for Papineau posted on Twitter some several weeks back a picture of a firearm he claimed would be non-restricted. It was quite the ominous photo, almost laughable. However, the facts were that the pictured firearm, the Micro Tavor TAR-21, is a restricted firearm.

Not to be outdone, the NDP then purchased billboards and slapped up some scary looking silhouettes of firearms. The only problem was that the pictures of guns it was using were also restricted firearms.

This sort of fearmongering is not helpful. It deliberately distorts the truth and does nothing to improve safety in Canada. The facts are that we are removing the need to register firearms, in large part, used responsibly by responsible people.

We are also providing for the destruction of data contained in the Canadian Firearms Registry pertaining to the registration of long guns. This is important because this information should never have been collected in the first place.

I know there are protests from across the way about destroying the data. The gun registry is the data. We do not get rid of the gun registry, unless the data is destroyed. It has to be done. It is so outdated. We could talk to policemen or women and they will say the same thing.

Let us face the facts. The long gun registry has not been successful. It has been a massive boondoggle. It does not improve the safety of police officers. It has not stopped a single crime or saved a single life. It has cost in excess of $2 billion.

Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Let us stop this and eliminate stupidity from firearms laws in Canada.

Canadians gave this government a strong mandate to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all, and that is exactly what the bill before us today would do. I can hardly wait until next week for the final vote. I and the many people I have heard from in the last couple of days are so looking forward to that.

I call on all members of the House, regardless of their party affiliation, to stand up for law-abiding Canadians and support the bill.