Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

Comité permanent de la justice et des droits de la personne

EVIDENCE number 55,
Témoignages du comité numéro 55

The Chair (Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)): I call to order the 55th meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

This morning, as we had planned, we will be discussing the process of private members' business. We also received notice from Mr. Breitkreuz as to a motion that he would like to put forward, and he's done it according to the rules. I give the floor to Mr. Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will just put my motion forward. I think you all have copies of it. I'll read it and just make a few comments, and then we can discuss it.

I emphasize both parts of that, the cost and the effectiveness of this. I think it's incumbent on this committee to examine the ramifications of the huge non-compliance.

Then I have some statistics from the justice department. This is the government's own estimates. There are almost 300,000 licensed individuals who still haven't applied, they've got the licence but they haven't applied to register their firearms. That's a huge number across the country. There are over 300,000 owners of registered handguns who haven't re-registered their guns as required by the law. There are over 500,000 gun owners who missed the licensing deadline two years ago. They don't have licences and there's no way that they can now comply with the law. It is impossible for them to in any way comply with the law. They cannot come forward at this point to apply for a licence without admitting they're a criminal, neither can they register their firearms. That's another huge concern I think. Even in the province of Quebec there are about one-quarter of the gun owners in Quebec who don't have a firearms licence.

I could give you anecdotal evidence as to why this is a huge problem. There are some numbers that indicate that the costs of this thing--in fact, if one-tenth of the people are charged, the Library of Parliament estimate it will be another billion dollars if just one-tenth of these people are brought before the courts. The thing is that there's no way they can even come forward now. The deadline, as you know, is June 30. We were just told yesterday that a lot of the files were lost.

One of my neighbours came to me on Sunday and he said, “Garry, I did all the paperwork, I've done everything. I have not heard back from the government”.

So here are people who have tried to comply with the law and somewhere along the line all the records have been lost. Things like this have to be dealt with. I bring this before the committee because I don't know where else to go. I think we can open that for discussion. I hope that everybody will support this motion. I've tried to be non-partisan in the way that I've approached this. I don't know if anybody has any questions on this before we vote on it or what, Mr. Chair.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the member for his motion and his comments.

But, Mr. Chair, I would like to suggest to members of this committee that we need to put this motion in perspective. I think after I provide a little bit of clarity to some of the figures that the member of the opposite side, Mr. Breitkreuz, has mentioned, that will put it into proper perspective and will make it clear why I'm asking members of this committee not to support the motion.

First of all, Mr. Breitkreuz has mentioned a whole series of figures. I'd like to provide accurate and current figures and facts, which in my view are clear and compelling, and which indicate the true state of compliance regarding the firearms program.

First of all, more than 80% of firearms owners--that is 1.9 million of them across the country--have valid licences to possess, or to possess and acquire firearms. Moreover, fully 1.5 million licensed firearms owners have at least one registration certificate in the Canadian Firearms Registry system. That is a rate of 80%. It's up from 75%, just three months ago. So registration and compliance is improving, and we on the government side fully expect it to continue to improve.

Secondly, Mr. Chair--and this is quite important, because it wasn't mentioned at all by Mr. Breitkreuz--there have been 72,000 letters of intent which have been sent to the Canadian Firearms Registry centre by firearm owners who have indicated they would be registering their firearms before the June 30 deadline, or extended registration deadline. Those letters have been processed.

It is true the Solicitor General has indicated quite clearly that the registration deadline of June 30 will not be further extended. However, this government wants people to continue to comply and to comply with the legislation, and I'd like it to be known that the Canadian Firearms Centre will continue to accept firearm licence and firearm registration applications after June 30.

We will continue to help people to comply, and that includes, for instance, continuing free Internet registration. Through a recently introduced online service to licence and register applicants, that new online service will allow individuals to confirm their application requirement and to confirm the status of their own applications.

It is also true, as mentioned in the motion by Mr. Breitkreuz, that there are matters respecting the firearm legislation that are before the courts. In my view, it would be inappropriate to comment on those specific court cases, but I would like to remind members of this committee that the Supreme Court, in its decision regarding the reference on the Firearms Act in 2000, ruled that licensing and registration provisions of the act were constitutional and were clearly directed at enhancing public security.

So I would encourage the members not to support this motion, and I would encourage those firearm owners, who have not as yet indicated their intention to register, to do so. I would urge any members who have knowledge of Canadians who are not in compliance with the registration act to encourage them to comply with the registration act. It is clearly Canadian law, and I think it would behoove all members of Parliament not to turn a blind eye when they know they have personal knowledge of someone who is not in compliance, that as members of Parliament it comes upon us to encourage those Canadians who we know who are not in compliance with any Canadian law to comply with that law.

First of all, I don't imagine there's anybody who's been part of this, either on the outside watching or as an MP involved in this whole registry, who doesn't recognize what a bit of a fiasco, to say the least, it has been up to this point.

I want to commend Mr. Breitkreuz for the work he's done. Frankly, on our side a lot of us thought, when is he going to get off this, turn the page and get on to something else? It turned out there was good reason to be dogging this thing.

I don't think you'll find any members on our side who are happy with the enormous cost this registry turned out to have so far. Having said that, I have a problem with his motion as it's worded.

We just had the solicitor general before this committee not long ago. I think that registry is finally in the right place. I think the solicitor general and his officials, hopefully, at least it appears, have this registry as under control as possible at this time.

I guess the key word that concerns me in Mr. Breitkreuz's motion is the verb “may”. That's the right verb, but it's very hypothetical. We almost would have to crystal ball...to take this motion and to deal with it as a committee. I don't know how we can possibly know what the costs could be, given the whole series of things that could maybe happen, if this, if that.

I commend the intent of what you're doing, but it's so hypothetical that I don't know.... We have many lawyers on this committee. They can speak to this, maybe, better than I can. When you start into a court challenge or a legal action, I don't know how you can know what the cost of it, even the simplest one, is going to be, let alone something like this. I just find it well intentioned but highly hypothetical.

I think that finally, after much too much expense, this registry appears to be moving in the right direction. I have a lot of trouble with it.

The last point I'd make, Mr. Chairman, is that in the short time I've been on this committee--and I've been on many committees in the House, chaired some, they're all quite busy--I think this would rank as one of the busier ones right now. There's a long list of topics of great urgency and importance that we are already hoping to get to someday. I'll just put those thoughts forward.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): I think I know why the member wants us to devote time on this. I know he's a concerned member of Parliament to say that we run our programs effectively and efficiently, and in accordance with the law. On that part I have some sympathy.

We have a lot of other fish to fry here. I just want to point out as counterpoints that I am advised there is an approximate two-year delay in processing inland immigration applications. There are a lot of people inconvenienced by that, families, couples, people looking for employment. There is approximately two-and-a-half year family-class application processing times in New Delhi.

On the immigration side, as well, there's a three-month delay in getting front-end family court applications into Ontario courts in the new Unified Family Court. That's a justice issue. We're a little bit short of judges.

Once in a while a computer will crash. Things happen like this in government. I think that's all that's happening in the firearm registry. It's a new system. It's going to have bugs. It's going to take a while to get everybody in.

Some of the things Mr. Breitkreuz is asking us to do here are things that the public officials would do. In other words, check it out, fix it, find out what's going on, project the costs. I don't think we, as a committee, have to do that work.

I think the officials are going to do that work. If there's a question Mr. Breitkreuz wants to ask, he can ask it in the House, he can put in on the order paper. Or we might even want to take a look at it in the fall after some water has flowed under the bridge. I think there are other things that excite me much more than this, things that are much more important than Canadians.

Mr. Breitkreuz's other objectives here are probably not my objectives as a government member, but I wish him well in the exercise just as Mr. O'Brien has wished him well.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): Thank you, Chair. I just would like to confirm a couple of comments that have been made today, and that is of course that all of us have been concerned about the way in which the gun registry developed. I think that was clear. Even the Minister of Justice commented to that effect, and when the Auditor General brought down her report, she did make some comments about the way in which it had developed. Although she said it wasn't really all that surprising, that in fact it's not unusual for costs to escalate when you're starting a new program, and in this case, the cost did escalate and we agree with you on that point.

The second point I would like to deal with is looking at your motion in specifics. I think where there is a substantial disagreement with your use of the term massive, you are indicating there is massive non-compliance. The evidence seems to indicate at this point that there is substantial compliance with the firearms registry--

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: Maybe I could say massive compliance. But 80% to me certainly suggests that there is massive compliance. So I would think that it would be difficult for me to accept that as a fact that I could rely upon within the context of this motion.

Going beyond that, when we talk about looking at the effectiveness of this program, this program really only came into full force and effect in January, and technically, with the extension to June 30, it will only be fully effective at that point. And looking at it from the perspective of the Auditor General, she said that she would look at the efficacy of this in a few years. In other words, you have to give some period of time for something of this nature to demonstrate whether or not it can be fully and properly effective over the long-term, and the Auditor General is a person who we rely upon greatly for advice and council, has indicated that she would be looking at that within a few years.

So I think that it would certainly be premature in that respect to look at the effectiveness. And I do agree with the other statements made with respect to cost as suggested here. I think we would certainly be going on a bit of a fishing trip in order to figure out what costs might be applicable to this program at this point.

So bearing all of that in mind, I think that it would be clearly inappropriate for me to support this motion based on the facts that I presented.

I'd like to reiterate some of the points that my colleagues have made. First of all, I'd like to commend Mr. Breitkreuz and all the work that he has done and I believe that we've reached a point of examining the abuse within the registry, and a lot of the credit I believe ought to go to Mr. Breitkreuz and the great work that he has done. If this motion would have been brought forth for this committee nine months ago, I believe Mr. Breitkreuz more than likely would have received support to look at what is going on there, because I don't think at this point there will be much disagreement in that the, not the purpose of the registry but the management of the registry hasn't been what it ought to be. But I believe the government has acted. The Solicitor General has taken the right steps. We've looked a ways to deal with what is a very complicated issue.

I think the last point, this may not be the location to look at a full scale analysis of the implications of non-compliance, the program, court challenges, as has been mentioned earlier on by my colleagues; we have quite a bit on our agenda to deal with. And I don't believe that the motion correctly looks at two points. 1), not the competence but the proper venue of examining the implications; and 2), whether or not it would be effective and efficient for us to look at it given that we have many other issues to deal with.

Having said all of that, Mr. Chair, I'm not prepared to support Mr. Breitkreuz's motion, even though I commend all the work that he's done on this file.

I was really hoping this would be given more serious consideration. Twenty per cent of people not complying with a Criminal Code provision. The Firearms Act is in the Criminal Code. According to Marlene, 20% of people are not complying with it. That's massive. That's huge.

That, to me, is very, very serious so I don't know how we can dismiss this, you know, as something that shouldn't be of major concern.

There was a bit of dispute with the word “may” in there. The cost-effectiveness of the program was supposed to have been done. When you have a major crown project--that's anything that goes over $100 million--the cost-effectiveness of that program is supposed to be done before the program is even put in place. It still hasn't been done and it's not a hypothetical exercise. You can actually study this and try to determine what the costs and the effectiveness of the program will be and recent developments indicate it's not going to be effective at all.

When you have eight provinces and three territories now saying they really don't want to have anything to do with it, that to me is a serious problem that should be thoroughly examined because that indicates to me you've put a law in place that in unenforceable.

Look at what's happened. I suspected back in January there were some huge problems behind the scenes and yesterday, or was it the day before, the Solicitor General confirmed that many records were lost. These people don't know and nobody knows what records were lost. How can you--

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes, he said the computer crashed and the records were lost and they don't know how many.

The Chair: We'll do this in order. If anybody wants to respond, but I'm going to give him the last word on this.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Well, the records were lost and I know of people who are waiting six months and phone the department and there's nothing there, so the records are lost. I don't know how you can say the records are not lost.

But how can the courts enforce a law where the people who have tried seriously to comply with the law, and yet the records have been lost and there are computer screw-ups and all this, the courts are going to laugh that right out of the thing. That's all part of the examination of the effectiveness of the program.

The provinces choosing not to enforce it is something, also, I think we have to consider because where will this now go. I don't think there's another Criminal Code provision that has this kind of problem associated with it and it's incumbent on us, as a committee, to deal with this because you're going to have in the area of half-a-million Canadians affected by this. That's a large number. To say we have other fish to fry, I think that's a pretty big fish. I was hoping this would be given a lot more serious consideration.

I have to close with this comment. When you talk about the fact that people will still come forward, we're still working on this, that we'll still issue the licences and the registration certificates, it is impossible. It is impossible for these people to come forward. They cannot comply with the law. The way it is structured and the fact there has been no amnesty put in place, they can't comply. It is impossible for them. If you don't have a licence, you cannot register a firearm. As of June 30, you cannot put a firearm into the system that is not there. It is an impossibility. I don't know if you don't understand this, but it is an impossibility to comply with the law at that point and that, to me, is a huge problem this committee should somehow wrestle with and that's not happening.

Mr. Derek Lee: In terms of fish to fry, Mr. Breitkreuz had not yet reached the point in his argument where he referred to the apparent refusal of some of the provinces to enforce the provisions of the Firearms' Act and I expected that as an issue. That is an issue.

It's wasn't in your written motion and it was not earlier referred to, so I don't for a moment think that is a minor insignificant issue. It's something we may want to look at.

In fact, after June 30 we may want to look at the state of affairs, but I'm rather inclined to give the public officials an opportunity to make the system work. Fix the things that are broken and I'd be concerned if somebody who had tried to comply with the law was charged, let alone convicted.

We won't get a picture of this until we've allowed some time to run. If the member raised this in the fall and had some tangible hard cases in front of us, I'd be prepared to look at it then, but not today.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: I add my voice once again to those of my colleagues who commend Mr. Breitkreuz for the work that he's done on the firearms' registry.

I do want to say on the issue of compliance, the Canadian Centre for Firearms will continue to accept firearms' license and firearms' registration applications after June 30. So an individual who has not as yet registered his or her intention to register for a license and register to have their firearm registration application, who do so now or who do so after June 30, the firearms centre will continue to accept those applications.

So I would urge all Canadians who have not yet made that first positive action to register with the firearms centre their intention for their license and to apply for their registration applications, to do so.

In terms of the part of the motion that talks about dealing with the consequences that the court challenges could have on the cost and efficacy of the program, I can only, once again, add my voice to those of my colleagues. There is no way, even if this committee wanted to look at that, that we could possibly look at that. We have no idea what the decisions of the courts will be with regards to those challenges. Therefore, we have no idea what implications that could mean to the legislation and to the application of the legislation.

I think, as I said, I encourage my members not to support this motion, notwithstanding that we do commend you on the work that you have done on this issue.

Mr. Joe Peschisolido: Mr. Chair, Mr. Breitkreuz is accurate in that is has been extremely frustrating and difficult to get many individuals who want to register to register in the system. My office, myself, as I'm sure many other MPs on this committee have intervened personally and have gone through frustrating, difficult weeks on end with messages and phone calls bouncing back and forth and all the administrative difficulties that that has involved. Yet, we got it done.

It took time. It took energy. It took a lot of energy but we got it done. My office has received hundreds of requests and I'm sure it has happened all across the country.

So I'm sympathetic to that point, however, and this is important, however, this isn't June 30 yet. Also we don't know what's going to occur after June 30. We don't know what the final number is going to be. We don't know how this program is going to pan out.

It seems as if this motion is going on the assumptions that were in place six months ago, a year ago, and doesn't take into account the new approach that the government is taking.

For that reason, Mr. Chair, even though I'm very sympathetic to the points that Mr. Breitkreuz is making and the intent of the motion, I'm not prepared to support the motion.

The Chair: The final word will then go to Mr. Sorenson, if that's okay, Mr. Breitkreuz. You can both go.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance): Just again to congratulate Mr. Breitkreuz for his on-going dedication to this issue I guess. This is an issue that is unquestionably the number one issue in my riding, in my province. Mr. Peschisolido who has an urban riding talks about the hundreds of calls, hundreds of files and times that he's helped people through. Well if you take a rural riding, I can guarantee you that the number of an inner-urban riding can be multiplied many times and that's what I'm dealing with on a day-to-day basis. So if you've had hundreds, you can appreciate what we have had.

Our responsibility as parliamentarians is to do a number of things. To build law, to assess law, to see how effective the law that we've built has been. We have had eight, nine years of this gun registry law where it has been a fiasco and went from one blunder to another blunder. The administration of the firearms registry under the Minister of Justice has failed, under those bureaucrats it has been a nightmare and it continues to be a nightmare. I am not satisfied when I hear members sit in a committee and say, well it's not as bad as it used to be, we're working toward it, it's getting better. We have a registry in criminal law that has cost close to $1 billion and after eight, nine years we hear that it's getting better.

This motion simply calls for this committee to examine the effectiveness of the law that we've put in place. To examine the impact that it's going to have on those individuals who have not complied with the law, some who refused to comply with the law, some who have tried to comply with the law, some who have been frustrated with the law, some who have to go and take a firearms course—

Mr. Kevin Sorenson: —exactly, shame, shame— who have had to sit down and go and pay hundreds of dollars to have a course in safety in order to be able to purchase a firearm. They've had firearms for 20, 30, 40 years, now in order to purchase a firearm, they've had to spend hundreds of dollars. They've used a firearm regularly and now they're paying. So here we have enshrined in criminal law a complete burden to a lot of the gun owners.

Mr. Lee says, well you know the provincial non-compliance, the provincial governments that are stepping forward they are saying they aren't going to enforce this. We may want to look at this after June 30. This is a problem. Well yes, yes it is, a major problem. A major problem that provinces are laughing at a law, at a registry that they say can't work and they will not spend money to enforce it. Major problem.

Mr. Peschisolido says we don't know the numbers. We don't know how it's going to pan out. There's just too many things we don't know about this firearms registry, but there are a lot of things we do know. We do know that it needs to be examined. We do know that we need to look at the options. We do know that if we're going to be accountable in the position we are here that we need to at least say, listen, it's not just a registry that we're going to be pushing away because it's not working out, we're going to be examining it so we know what the effects on those law-abiding citizens, that for one reason or another aren't on this registry right now. We don't know. Law that we don't know.

So I would say it's very disappointing to hear the government speak like this and no, no, maybe we'll look at it next fall, maybe we'll do this, maybe we'll do that, but in the meantime just leave it alone.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Just briefly, I don't think we realize the seriousness of this issue. I'm listening to the comments and I don't think this committee seems to be grasping the nature of the problem here.

I'll conclude here with this one comment. As I'm listening to all this I think that it's precisely because we did't deal with the problems that should have been anticipated long ago. We didn't deal with the problems then that we ended up with the fiasco we have. It's precisely because we're not going to deal with the problems today that we can foresee coming in the next few weeks that we're going to encounter an even bigger fiasco. I mean this is going to be a huge problem and I think we're buying our heads in the sand if we don't acknowledge that.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I'm going to call the question. Do we need to read the motion? I think we all know what it is.We'll get a recorded vote.