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 75,
Témoignages du comité numéro 75

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.)): If I may, I will bring this meeting to order. It is the 75th meeting of the hardest working committee on the Hill, the justice committee. We are meeting this afternoon about the draft firearms regulation. We have from the Canada Firearms Centre, William Baker, Mr. Goodall and Kathleen Roussel, Senior Counsel and Head of Legal Services.

I know all of you are familiar with the process here. I am assuming that you have a presentation that you wish to make. I will leave it to you to order your presentation in whatever fashion you see fit and then after 10 minutes we will go to questions and answers.

I am assuming Mr. Baker that you wish to lead off. Thank you very much and welcome.

Mr. William Baker (Commissioner of Firearms, Canada Firearms Centre): Mr. Chair, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to be here along with my colleagues to speak to this committee with respect to the proposed changes to the Firearms Act regulations as tabled by the Solicitor General on June 13, 2003.

With me today to my left is Mr. Al Goodall. All is the Registrar of Firearms. To my right is Kathleen Roussel who is our senior legal counsel at the Firearms Centre.

As this committee will know the current Firearms Act regulations were reviewed in two parts by this committee prior to their coming into force in December 1998. The first section was tabled in November 1996, the second in October 1997.

These regulations are very important with respect to the administration of the firearms program and the provision of services to our clients across the country. That includes firearms users of all kinds: hunters, target shooters and collectors, as well as firearms related businesses, retailers, wholesalers and hunting outfitters.

Turning to the proposals before the committee today there are 15 proposed regulations; 14 of them represent amendments to existing regulations.

They were developed based on discussions and consultations that took place over several years prior to their tabling. These discussions included firearms users, business representatives and groups with interests in public health and safety.

Chief firearms officers were involved as naturally were other key program partners from within the federal government including the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, the RCMP and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The main purposes of the proposed amendments are to streamline processes and improve administration to support better services to clients and increased efficiency consistent with the gun control action plan announced on February 21, 2003 by the Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General.

The proposals are designed to achieve these improvements while maintaining public safety.

A number of the proposed amendments give effect to the new legislation that was passed in May 2003, Bill C-10A, which is now Chapter 8, Statutes of Canada, 2003.

For example the regulations put new requirements in place for individuals and businesses that are importing firearms into Canada.

In many cases the amendments are technical or corrective in nature. As an example, the reference to certified mail in the current regulations is proposed to be removed because Canada Post no longer offers this service.

The firearms marking regulations are new. These respond to international commitments entered into by Canada in two contexts: first, as part of the Organization of American States, inter-American Convention against the elicit manufacturing of and trafficking and firearms ammunition, explosives and other related materials; and secondly, as part of the protocol against the elicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition which supplements United Nations Convention Against Trans-National Organized Crime.

As part of the action plan announced in February the government committed to see input from parliamentarians, stakeholders and the public on the delivery of the firearms program.

I am pleased to say we are well into the process of consultation to meet that commitment. An Internet consultation process targeted at the general public was announced by the Solicitor General in August and Canadians were invited to provide comments through the CFC website, that is our website, until September 30. We have received numerous responses including suggestions regarding the proposed regulations.

Over the past two months we have also been meeting with groups from across the country that have an interest in the firearms program.

Ceci comprend des groupes et des personnes responsables de la sécurité et la santé publique, notamment des représentants du milieu policier, les gens travaillant dans le domaine de la prévention du suicide et les médecins. Nous avons rencontré des groupes représentant des utilisateurs d'armes à feu et des propriétaires d'armes à feu, des gens s'adonnant au tir à la cible et les associations de chasseurs et de protection de la faune.

Nous avons également rencontré des entreprises liées aux armes à feu. De telles entreprises, notamment des fabricants et des entreprises de voitures blindées sont réunis aujourd'hui à Toronto. Et j'avais l'occasion de rencontrer ce groupe ce matin à Toronto. Je suis heureux de dire que nos discussions sont constructives. Nous avons reçu de nombreuses suggestions concernant le projet de règlement. De manière générale, les changements décrits dans le projet de loi reçoivent un appui considérable.

Ceci comprend des groupes et des personnes responsables de la sécurité et de la santé publique, notamment des représentants du milieu policier, les gens travaillant dans le domaine de la prévention de suicides et les médecins. Nous avons rencontré des groupes représentant des utilisateurs d'armes à feu et des propriétaires d'armes à feu, des gens s'adonnant au tir à la cible et les associations de chasseurs et de protection de la faune. Nous avons également rencontré des entreprises liées aux armes à feu. De telles entreprises, notamment des fabricants, des entreprises de voitures blindées, sont réunies aujourd'hui à Toronto. J'avais l'occasion de rencontrer ce groupe ce matin, à Toronto. Je suis heureux de dire que nos discussions sont constructives. Nous avons reçu de nombreuses suggestions concernant le projet de règlement. De manière générale, les changements décrits dans le projet de loi reçoivent un appui considérable.

We have also had valuable feedback on how we are administering the program quite generally. For instance, this included: comments on the processes that are in place now and where improvements in services might be achieved; how we might work better with community groups to promote awareness and promote safe firearms use; and, how we might communicate the importance of the program to Canadians to help encourage compliance.

I'm also pleased to say that we've had positive feedback and recognition of improvements in service delivery that we've achieved over the past six months or so. With respect to the proposed regulations, I am confident that after receiving and considering the input from consultations with the public, stakeholders and Parliament, I will be in a strong position to present recommendations to the Solicitor General for his consideration.

My colleagues and I would be more than pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

Mr. William Baker: I strongly suspect we're hearing what you've been hearing. Today, in Toronto, was our seventh national consultation meeting. I was in Edmonton and Calgary last week. We were in Moncton on Monday and had a number of sessions in Montreal and Ottawa as well. We are getting a lot of constructive input on the regulations.

It is safe to say, by and large, the regulations, the amendments to these regulations, are being well received because compared to the original regulations they do provide, in many cases, some simplification to the rules and reduce some of the compliance costs to Canadian business in particular, but, indeed, they are raising issues with respect to the regulations, issues in terms of their ability to comply, issues with respect to the cost of compliance fees and so on. We will take all of that input, along with whatever we hear from this committee today and input we've received generally from Canadians through the website and analyze those. That process is starting very quickly because it is quite a body of regulations, to analyze those to present recommendations to the minister.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: These regulations could be implemented as early as Monday. Are you saying then that they will not be implemented, that you will put this all on hold until there has been a thorough examination of all of the issues involved and that they will not be implemented until all of this is sorted out? Is that what I hear you saying?

Mr. William Baker: We will examine each recommendation in its own right to determine, number one, if there are changes that make sense in light of the feedback we've received from Canadians and, second, what a reasonable coming into force date is for that particular recommendation.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: How will we know what those changes are? Will you bring that back to Parliament?

Mr. William Baker: The process would be that recommendations would be presented to the Solicitor General and he would then return that to a special committee of council for finalization.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Would that then come here? Would we have an opportunity, as a committee, to examine this?

Mr. William Baker: It is my understanding, sir, that through this process today is the opportunity to obtain input from the House of Commons. We may be before the Senate committee next week. That is not yet confirmed. Then, of course, whatever the ultimate definition of the regulations is will be printed in the Canada Gazette.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I have some general questions because our time is limited.

There is really an overall concern about all the fees that the Canadian Firearms Centre is being charged. You must be aware of that. There is $74.3 million in fees that have been collected since the start of the program. If, as you claim, the gun registry is a public safety program and improves public safety for all Canadians, why are the fees being charged at all? They're a very small percentage of the total cost. The minister's own user group told him many times that all the fees do is discourage compliance and non-compliance is, of course, a huge problem. This feeds the grey and black markets, so why are these fees being charged?

Mr. William Baker: Those fees are in place now, as you are aware, and through these amendments we are looking to update the fees. In many cases the actual fees that are being proposed come down because we're spreading them over three years in terms of, for instance, business licences and so on, and in many cases the actual annual fee declines. As you're probably aware, fees have generated some revenue to government. I believe less than 20% historically. The policy of charging fees for services to Canadians is well established. The issue is what is the proper share of total program costs that can be reasonably borne by users.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: But you would agree that they do promote and discourage compliance?

Mr. William Baker: We've heard from Canadians, through the consultations, that in some instances the fee can be a deterrent to compliance.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: The second issue I want to raise here in my introductory general questions here is I've heard that the shooting clubs and shooting ranges regulations weren't very controversial, and I want to tell this committee right now that they are extremely controversial. The government really at this point is unable to produce a shred of evidence that shooting clubs and ranges are any danger to the public safety or to members of the clubs or ranges. So why is the government insisting on making regulations when their own statistics show that there isn't any problem here?

Mr. William Baker: With permission, I'd like to ask my colleague Kathleen Roussel to respond to that.

Ms. Kathleen Roussel (Senior Counsel, Head, Legal Services, Canada Firearms Centre): I' m not sure I can respond to you in this context. You're asking about a regulation that was made in effect some years back. Certainly the amendments that are before this committee and that were tabled are not controversial, because they're simply definition. There is no substantive amendment, if I can put it that way, to the regulation at this point. Whether the regulation as it now exists is controversial. I don't know that I can answer.

M. Yvan Loubier (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot): D'abord pour mettre les choses claires, j'aimerais vous rappeler que mon parti est en accord avec la Loi sur le contrôle des armes à feu. On est d'accord aussi avec l'établissement d'un registre et je pense que mon collègue de Chateauguay l'a dit à maintes reprises, depuis quelques mois.

La seule chose qui me fatigue et qui fatigue les gens de mon parti, c'est qu'on n'a pas encore fait la lumière, tout à fait, sur le gouffre financier qu'a représenté les premiers mois d'application de cette loi. On n'a toujours pas de réponse à l'effet qu'on ait dépassé 500 fois les prévisions de coûts nets pour l'administration de ce programme-là. Alors, j'aimerais vous poser une question. Vous êtes en tournée, à l'heure actuelle, vous l'avez mentionné tout à l'heure, est-ce que le fait d'être face à une situation comme celle-là, c'est-à-dire d'avoir un gouffre financier d'un milliard de dollars alors que initialement l'administration du programme devait coûter 2 millions de dollars, si ce n'est pas ce qui est en train de brimer la crédibilité du contrôle des armes à feu au Canada, je vous dirais que j'ai été neuf ans aux Finances et je n'ai jamais vu une situation semblable. On a déclenché, par le passé, des enquêtes très très méticuleuses pour beaucoup d'abus que celui qui existe dans ce programme-là.

M. William Baker: Il est évident que les coûts intéressent le public. Cette question a souvent été soulevée au cours des consultations publiques.

We've heard at virtually all sessions that we've held with Canadians, be they business or individuals, be they pro-gun control or not pro-gun concern, concern about the costs of the program. As the minister, the Solicitor General mentioned to this committee I believe two weeks ago in the course of reviewing the supplementary estimates for the firearms' centre, we are seized with that. We are taking measures to make sure our costs are under control. We will not be seeking additional money for 2003-2004 for the program, and hopefully putting to an end the historical practise on supplementary estimates, and we have a plan in place to bring the costs of this program under control, and we are taking care of that business quite effectively right now.

M. Yvan Loubier: C'est bien de regretter ce gouffre financier, mais après le regret, il y a l'examen méticuleux des raisons qui ont conduit à ce gouffre financier. On demande, depuis qu'on connaît se dépassement budgétaire cinq cent fois supérieur aux prévisions initiales, une enquête publique indépendante. Est-ce que d'autres personnes que les partis de l'opposition ont demandé aussi une enquête publique indépendante? Il me semble que cela serait le point de départ pour redonner une crédibilité au Programme de contrôle des armes à feu. Je vous le répète, la majorité des gens qu'on représente sont en accord avec le contrôle des armes à feu, mais lorsqu'on voit des situations comme celle-là, et lorsqu'on poursuit avec une modification d'un programme en tentant de rassurer les gens sur la bonne direction que vous avez entreprise, on manque pas mal de crédibilité, si on n'a pas fait la lumière sur le gouffre financier précédent.

Alors, je vous demande, est-ce que vous, monsieur Baker, et vos collègues seriez ouverts à ce qu'on ouvre les livres, qu'il y ait une transparence dans ces livres-là et qu'on examine point par point ce qui a pu contribuer à ce gouffre financier, les auteurs de ce gouffre financier aussi, parce que cela n'a aucun sens? De deux millions de dollars à un milliard de dollars, c'est une aberration incroyable. Est-ce que vous seriez ouvert à une enquête indépendante?

Mr. William Baker: Certainly, any decision with respect to an independent investigation would have to be taken by the Solicitor General.

I should point out that last winter the costs were examined in considerable detail in the course of the review of the public accounts committee following up the tabling of the Auditor General's report. At that time, the justice minister and the deputy minister of justice provided information to the committee to explain why costs had increased so much over the years related to costs associated with constitutional challenges, a large investment that had to be made in communications and outreach to educate Canadians. A number of provinces, as you're aware, opted out of the direct administration of the program, which necessitates federal action and expenditure, so they've explained those costs.

I can tell you, with respect to transparency, in the departmental performance reports, which will be tabled soon in Parliament, the firearms program will continue to be presented in the context of the justice department performance report because that's where it was last year, and it will parliamentarians with considerably more detail on the spending from last year.

Similarly, beginning next fiscal year, the Firearms Centre is a separate departmental entity and, as a result, we will be able to provide direct reporting on the firearms program in and of itself as a separate entity under a separate vote and provide both performance and financial results to Parliament. I believe that will go a long way to address any outstanding concerns and maybe about transparency.

M. Yvan Loubier: Monsieur Baker, vous avez mentionné le rôle des provinces, est-ce que vous êtes en train de nous dire que les provinces ont été pour beaucoup dans ce gouffre financier, que c'est à cause des provinces canadiennes, qui n'ont pas voulu participer à ce contrôle des armes à feu, qu'on est passé de deux millions de dollars prévus, comme administration de programme, à un milliard de dollars? Est-ce que c'est ce que vous être en train de nous dire, parce que vous avez mentionné les provinces comme un des facteurs majeurs, d'après ce que j'ai compris dans votre intervention, de ce gouffre financier. Est-ce que vous seriez prêt à répéter cela devant les représentants des provinces? Lorsque le scandale est sorti, je peux vous assurer que des représentants provinciaux ont dit : « Écoutez, on n'a peut-être une part de responsabilités, mais elle est mineure par rapport au programme, puisque c'est un programme fédéral. »

Mr. William Baker: No, it was just one of many. In particular, it was problematic when a province such as British Columbia was administering and then decided not to administer. What that happens we have to fill the void and there is an overlap for a period of time, which is expensive, and there are always transitional costs in terms of dealing with staff and what have you. It's just one of many factors.

I think the biggest one, which I neglected to mention earlier, is, of course, the costs that have had to be incurred to develop the new computer systems in support of the program. This is a complicated system when you're dealing with two million Canadians and many millions of firearms of countless types. There are lots of transactions taking place between businesses and so on. That was one of the factors as well.

The provinces, for the record, have done an excellent job of administering their responsibilities as chief firearms officers under the act.

Let me also say that, as a Canadian, I believe in gun control. We've always had gun control in this country. Canadians believe in gun control, and we've had various experiments through the course of history. As you may remember, during the second world war we had long gun control and that was chucked out after the war. We've had restricted firearms control since the thirties. In fact, we haven't even really evaluated that program from the thirties. For guns lost through theft, we still don't know where most of these guns end up.

I also should say that I've been shooting all my life as a recreational firearm user, and I can guarantee I'm not a criminal.

The biggest problem with this whole business of long gun registry is that it is an intrusion into the lives of people who use firearms because of necessity—people who live on farms and in cottage areas. That's the biggest negative with the whole program.

It's sort of like a sinking ship. We just keep patching it and trying to keep it afloat, but we know it is going to sink somewhere down the road. After a billion dollars, we're going to continue to keep spending.

The fact of the matter is that the compliance levels are very low. There are a lot of people out there who are criminals, not by intent but by default whether that be they lack a firearms license to register the firearm or a possession statement, one or the other. I get calls all the time. The RCMP is checking cars and picks up people's guns. It take them and then it refers to the provinces. The provinces won't have anything to do with it so it goes back to the RCMP. People get so frustrated. That's not because these people are criminals. They're just ordinary citizens. They have firearms and are going out to shoot some gophers.

One guy said he got a permit to shoot beavers from the rural municipality office and he always did what he did and he had the gun beside him in the vehicle. I told him he shouldn't be doing that. The gun has to be locked up. Canadians don't disagree that firearms should be locked up.

They don't disagree, but the problem is the way this whole thing has gone, right from 1993. The Library of Parliament did a study back then and told the government of the day to wait a few years and let's see Bill C-17 take its course. It had just been passed before the government changed.

In fact, in my own opinion as a restricted firearm user of almost 40 years, the system today is worse than the system used to be. I'll just give one example of transportation alone of restricted firearms. Today you just throw it in the mail and it's gone. In the old days they had to be mailed by registered mail to the RCMP depot before you received a transfer. A simple thing like that was a lot more secure. Today stuff gets lost in the mail.

I still question your consultation. It's too easy for government departments to say they consulted. Just ask the aboriginal community about Bill C-7. I used to sit on that committee and, boy, we spent a lot of time talking about consultation. I'd like to see the details of who you consulted and make sure there is balance of one side and the other side. There are always cons and pros, just like the current merger, Mr. Chairman, to ensure that everyone has a voice.

Going back to when Bill C-68 first came into being, the minister had a collection of people around him to consult. The minister never listened to their recommendations.

In terms of clubs and ranges, I used to be the president of a shooting organization and the ordinary, average citizen is so frustrated with the attempt to enforce regulation and when people put their backs up, the authorities says, “Well, it's not really law. It's sort of like recommendations.”

There are so many inconsistencies out there. And besides, these folks who shoot at ranges are not the crooks. They're the tax paying people so you and I can have a job at this place. And the other thing I questioned is the people that do, a lot of them really don't have the background, I hate to say that, and I've spent a lifetime in firearm training as well, firearm use, firearm training, hunter safety, all these things, it's just very frustrating and I think that's what most Canadians experience, who don't have anything to do with firearms, and I understand urban options or perceptions are very different. If I lived in Ottawa for 25 years, I would say the same thing. Who needs a gun living downtown Ottawa, unless I want to practise for the Olympics, so I don't know how we're going to get...and the other big question is really about provincial cooperation. If you can't get provincial cooperation, how are you going to make anything work. It just ain't going to work. That's why I asked you at the last meeting, I have constituents who have been so-called charged by the province. The province won't carry it out They throw it over the federal governments. Now I'm told the federal courts won't lay any charges other than safe storage, even though they don't have a possession certificate or the gun is not registered, so why are we doing all this? For what? To provide the optics to the public that, yes, we're doing all this great stuff to make sure people are safe. Well, people are safe. I hate to disappoint them. People are safe. People do use firearms in a very safe way, the majority of the people. But the crooks are the ones who are going to get hold of guns, they're going to get hold of guns. Yes, I'm frustrated too.

Mr. William Baker: You've raised many things, Mr. Mark, and I'll try to keep my comments very brief.

With respect to the consultations, believe me, we consulted all interested in this regard, and this morning in Toronto these were firearms businesses, we also had some out from an outfitters club. In Moncton, on Sunday night, I met with a group of ten people who were in shooting clubs and ranges and what have you. I was in Calgary meeting with a group, visited ranges. We've been to gun shows and so on. We're hearing from the people who have an interest. These are people who we consider to be the clients, gun owners. They're the people who we are trying to secure compliance from in order to make this work, and in Parliament's wisdom.

I think there's evidence that we mean what we say. We have dramatically improved client service in the last number of months. They are clients because if we can't get their compliance and get it on a voluntary basis, we're never going to make this work and we have to treat them with respect and provide them with proper levels of service. Right now the 1-800 number works extremely well. The Internet works well. We're processing licensing and registration applications within the service standards. That's our starting point, a good level of client service, and the next point is to make sure that the information we're collecting through licensing and registration and the services we provide is delivering value to Canadians, and achieving the benefits envisioned by Parliament.

I should also mention the minister's decision this summer to make it known that Canadians who had not yet obtained a license or registered their firearm could do so at any time without penalty, and I can tell you since June 30 we've received about 250,000 firearms for registration, and we're glad to take them and get them in the system and help people comply with the law, and they feel better for it.

As for the police and the actions taken by provinces, the provinces are doing their duty. Police are exercising their proper discretion when they come across issues. In many cases they simply seize the firearm and ask the person to get the right paperwork, and then they can take possession of the firearm, and they have that discretion under the law to do a number of things that make sense under the circumstances, and I think provincial support and participation is much better than some people have led to believe. We work very closely with all the provinces, and I'm confident that's working well.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Thank you for the presentation.

I want to touch on a point that Mr. Breitkreuz and Mr. Mark have raised, the process of consultation. Who is being consulted? Over what period of time is this consultation taking place? How many individuals and/or representatives of associations or businesses will have been consulted at the end of the period? How much communication or how much comment or reaction have you received from ordinary Canadians, e-mails, telephone calls, facsimiles and letters? If you're not able to tell us that at this time, you can give us just the broad strokes and perhaps at a future date just give us a mini report as to how the consultation is. That is very important. Some of my colleagues are putting into doubt the credibility of the process so I think it is important to be able to get that information out to show who has been consulted and what has been the reaction and how many ordinary people have actually responded to these proposed amendments. That's one point.

Second, what efforts have been made to consult the aboriginal communities? Mr. Mark makes a very strong point about how the needs may be different from those of people living in urban areas, for instance, so in this public consultation have you or do you intend on outreaching to aboriginals to find out what their views are on the amendments?

The other point is you talked about improving client service. Can you give us some actual statistics that say six months ago here's what the delays were and here is what that is today?

The last bit is on this issue of long guns, yes, I'm an urban dweller, but I spent a lot of summers growing up on a farm with my grandmother in rural Manitoba. She used to take us out hunting. It was probably illegal because it was in the summer, but she took us out hunting. She had long guns, so I do understand a little bit about long guns but I'd like to know if you have statistics on how many accidents causing injury or death are committed every year through the use of long guns? We get a lot of information about crime that is committed with revolvers and things like that in urban areas, but what's the state of affairs in those areas where you have long guns that are very prevalent.

Just very quickly on the consultation process, I mentioned that we had seven and we have another one with police representatives here in Ottawa. At each of these sessions—and I have attended every one of those with two or three of my colleagues—we've had, on average, 10 or 12 people attend, which is about the right number for a meaningful session. These are full day sessions. They are structured in a way that I take the first half hour to update everyone on developments. We talk about the regulations that they wish to talk about and then we have a general discussion about the program to determine what other input they may have that could inform us in the future as we refine policy and legislation.

On those numbers, it's not a lot, but the people at the table, for instance, we had one consultation with all of the wildlife association provincial representatives from across the country. We've had all the national firearms associations in the room, business groups, outfitters groups, shooting clubs, so the reach is quite extensive and many of these people brought written submissions to the consultation sessions as well. I am quite confident that process has achieved its objectives.

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: We've received approximately 300 general comments and about 100 that were focused on the regulations themselves.

Mr. William Baker: I think we're achieving what we set out to achieve through the consultation process.

In terms of feedback, what we have told people is naturally there's a course that's followed. There will be analysis and the public will certainly know what the ultimate shape and coming into force date for each regulation will be. We've told everyone who's participated in the consultation sessions that we're prepared to meet with them after that is public to get back to them about anything they raised that we couldn't accomplish and why. Invariably, that is going to happen because in some cases we're hearing comments that work at cross purposes on the same regulation. We're trying to find the right balance.

Also, on some of your questions about the statistics, I don't have the statistics with me. This is just one example. We do know that in the case of domestic disputes, long guns are a bigger problem than hand guns. As you know, these disputes occur in fits of emotional turmoil and so on. The people aren't necessarily criminals at the time or beforehand. They're just people who temporarily—with drastic consequences—lose their composure and awful things can happen.

In terms of long guns in particular, we've had good success. About 6 million of the guns we have registered out of the 6.7 million are long guns. We've have over 1 million long guns registered since January 1, the original deadline, so we're quite pleased with the level of compliance that Canadians are demonstrating and they continue to do that.

On aboriginals, we are in the process of writing aboriginals. There are special regulations that affect aboriginals that are not part of the amendment package, but we have also had meetings with the Assembly of First Nations. We have a number of projects underway with Métis, aboriginal groups and northern groups to look at how we can make this program work in their setting while respecting their legitimate rights.

I just want to make a comment before I go on to my questions. You made the observation that there are more long guns used in domestic disputes, but that doesn't in any way help to prove that registration would in any way affect what happens with those long guns in a domestic dispute. We've had a hand gun registration since 1934, and they have been tightly controlled through that time. It makes no difference in a domestic dispute. That's been our argument all the time. This isn't gun control because it doesn't affect what's happening in most domestic disputes.

I want also to pick up on Mrs. Jennings remarks. You had, previous to the previous advisory group, a group known as the User Group on Firearms to advise the minister. Through access to information I got a report that was submitted to you by Steve Torinoand virtually none of that report is reflected in these regulations, virtually none of it. You are consulting all of these people, but it doesn't make any difference. The regulations are not affected in any way by what people are telling you. How do you respond to the fact that the user group on firearms gave you all these good suggestions and none of them are contained here, and these were the experts?

Mr. William Baker: I've seen that report and actually it wasn't sent to me. It was prior to my arrival. The minister's user group which was in place for many years, as you know, considered and deliberated on a whole host of issues related to firearms control, only some of which are touched on through these regulations or amendments to these regulations. For instance, comments that the Minister's User Group on Firearms has raised with respect to decriminalization or limiting the necessity to register long guns and certain things like that are not within the scope of these amendments. That would require a substantive change to the scheme of the act.

I should point out that the chair, the person who has always been the chair of the minister's user group, Mr. Steve Torino from Montreal, is a member of our program advisory committee which has replaced the minister's user group and he has also attended three of our national consultation session on this and contributed in that way. He continues to make an excellent contribution. There are two other members of the former user's group who are on the new advisory committee for continuity sake.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: But my point is still valid. Bill C-10A doesn't, in any way, or virtually hardly at all reflect any of the recommendations made. Time is limited. I want to go to what the Auditor General said, and I'd like to quote from chapter 10.68:

Many of theses regulations seem to be drafted by the very people that the Auditor General complained about. Why is that?

Mr. William Baker: I appreciate the source of the report, but I'm not sure who would have stated that.

Mr. William Baker: Sure. Our philosophy in administering the Firearms Act is what was intended to Parliament. People have legitimate uses for firearms in this country. We have a duty to serve those people, to help them comply with the act. I, and none of my colleagues, nor the Solicitor General, have stated anything to suggest that there's any bias toward gun ownership in this country, except where the laws of the land are clear with respect to prohibited hand guns and certain uses of guns, prohibited guns. So I can't speak with authority about the source of that. I can tell you that is certainly not the principle under which we operate today.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I think you would have a hard...can I just respond? I think you'd have a hard time convincing gun owners of that statement.

You indicated compliance as to the problem, there were penalties and sanctions if you didn't comply by a certain date, and now the minister has said if you come forward there will be no sanctions or penalties. As a result of that you have 250,000 new registrations which you attribute to that. I'mm sure you have a figure of how many guns are still out there and not registered. That figure probably differs significantly from Mr. Breitkkreuz's, which are much higher. Have you ever tried to reconcile your figures with Mr. Breitkreuz's? Can you give me a guesstimate, I guess probably that's probably the about best thing you can do. What is the non-compliance rate? How many guns are out there? And, again, how you can you reconcile your position with Mr. Breitkreuz's?

Mr. William Baker: Sure. The only study that the government has quoted in that respect or recently is an analysis that was performed a couple of years ago, a survey by an external firm, and the methodology was reviewed by another firm to ensure it had integrity, that study suggested there were about 7.9 million firearms that Canadians possessed. We have about 6.6 million or 6.7 million in the system. Having said that, I appreciate, as well as anybody there are limitations on any study that tries to determine what is or is not out there, and it gets to the heart of people's behaviour, and how they react to questions like that.

We have not attempted to reconcile the two numbers, which are widely apart, and frankly I don't see a value of spending a dollar trying to determine nationally what the compliance are because it probably would be an unproductive use of money. We do know that there are areas of non-compliance, and our approach to achieving compliance would be to target those areas where we know we have pockets of non-compliance, higher levels of non-compliance, and try to come up with solutions that work. That could be better education, more support, or working with our partner agencies to try to bring people aboard. So I really don't know. I don't think anybody in the country knows exactly how many guns are out there.

We are encouraged, nonetheless, by the responsiveness of the public to the registration requirements lately, and we're pleased with that because the registration system will only be effective, achieve its maximum effectiveness with as many guns as possible in the system.

Mr. John Maloney: I understand that either inadvertently or deliberately a lot of the applications had errors, which I assume the computer kicked out, and had to be processed manually. Do you have a rough idea of how many of these applications were in that situation, and what was your cost having to process them manually?

Mr. William Baker: With your permission, I'd like to ask Al Goodall, who is the registrar who might be able to shed some light on that question.

We're referring here specifically to registration applications or license applications?

Registration. When the program first began in 1988, we were running at about 90% error rate or failure rate, where there were exceptions caused by missing information or incorrect information. Fortunately at that time the inflow of applications was fairly low. We made some substantial modifications to our processing in 2001, which then allowed us to get the necessary information and not clause hold ups for minor issues. Currently we're running at about 10% for the last two years. So it's been about a 10% problem area, where 10% of the applications would require some sort of a follow-up for various reasons.

I'm going to give you another example of how ridiculous this whole thing is and how it impacts even another sector in this country, the military.

I have a son who is an officer in the army. He's a dentist. A few years ago he took his basic training where he learned to use full auto weapons. He did his officer hand gun training. When he got back to base, what did he have to do? He had to take this stupid firearm safety course just like the rest of them on base because even the military can't opt out from taking this civilian safety course. That is just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. That is even the way we treat our police officers. They are trained to use their firearms and yet, once they're off duty, they may have to take the course. I believe they have to take the course. They have to get a transport permit so they can transport the thing from their houses to the office. That is just ridiculous.

I believe we are starting to feel the affects of this whole piece of legislation. Just last week I saw a clip in Manitoba about the lack of hunters going out to hunt for ducks and geese, and ducks and geese were going to become a problem to the environment. In fact, the environmentalists were asking what was wrong with this country that we don't have enough people out there helping to control the great numbers of ducks and geese. We have the same problem with deer hunters. People aren't going. Do you know why? It is because people feel like criminals. Most average gun owners who take their guns out to go hunting, because of the heaviness of the law, just don't feel right. That's what I'm being told.

There's something wrong when the aboriginal community is objecting to this. The Inuit people up north are contesting it in court. The Métis are contesting it in court. We have the aboriginal community saying, “It's your law. Stick it.” In fact, what does it do for them? If they have special rights, that's great. They do have special rights. How does an aboriginal, living on a reserve in Northern Manitoba, register his gun? Does he have to take a firearms safety training course too? He's been using a firearm since he was a little kid to gather food. It is irrational how this whole thing is playing out.

First of all, just to clarify a point in case anyone thought otherwise, certainly, anyone in his or her official duties as a member of the military or police force does not need to comply with requirements of the Firearms Act with respect to licensing or registration for policemen on duty and so on. In their personal lives, yes, they fall under the ambit of the Firearms Act. You should--

Mr. Inky Mark: No, but on the basis of whether they actually had to take the course--

Mr. William Baker: No, for some time now you've had the option of taking the test instead of taking the course. It's called challenging the exam, and I believe about one-third of all licence holders in the country obtain their licences by taking the test without taking the course.

I should tell you that one thing I've heard in spades across the country is very strong public support from all groups on the safety training, which is a very key part of this program.

Mr. William Baker: I've heard people say that even though they thought that they had good knowledge of firearms safety, they found the course useful and continued to learn things. On that point, there is that option not to take the course but to take the exam instead.

On the aboriginal issue, I should point out as well that we recently hired a first nations firearms officer who is working in the west to assist aboriginal communities to comply. Once again, the litigation with aboriginal communities is well established and the courts will do what they have to do in that regard. Aboriginal groups—and I've met with them—have a strong interest in public safety on reserve and in their communities and are interested in finding a way to make this work that satisfies their legitimate interests as well and we're working with them.

Mr. John Maloney: We have the Chief of Police from Canada's largest city saying the firearms program is not working. We have some police associations, especially out west, saying the firearms program is not working. On the other hand, the last information I had was that the police were using the system by up to more than 2,000 heads a week. Again, how do we reconcile those positions with what is in fact happening in actuality?

Mr. William Baker: I had occasion a few weeks ago to meet with Chief Fantino and we talked about this very issue. While I can't account for everything that he may have said or has written on the subject, his point that he made to me was that his concern was that the investment in firearms control hasn't helped him to fight downtown Toronto crime involving hand guns and gangs. That is not to say it is not accomplishing something, but it's not helping him in that particular context because, naturally, some of those hand guns are not going through the regular system. With respect, on the Firearms Act, I think that anybody looking at this with a cool mind would conclude it will never address that kind of issue except to give the police a tool to get people who haven't complied with the law if that's the only thing left in their toolbox to get the bad guys.

It is intended to generally appeal to the broader community on safe storage and use accountability for firearms and provide a tool for police to trace firearms. We do have cases, admittedly we have not good statistics, but we do have cases where information in the registry was very helpful to police forces in being able to defuse a difficult situation and remove firearms from the premises because the registry told them they were firearms that were not visible when they did the initial search. Who knows to what extent that has saved lives or reduced injury? That's the inherent challenge of a preventative program in that regard.

It certainly continues to be a challenge in that regard, but time will tell. The registration system is just coming into its own. We have to get enough guns in the system and get enough good information—and bear in mind the deadline was effectively this summer—to really be able to demonstrate the value that this can provide Canadians.

The police association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, continues to provide support. I make it a matter of course to meet with police chiefs. I met with the chief of police in Calgary last week and the deputy chief in Edmonton. I met with the chief here in Ottawa, and others, to discuss the program, to find out how we can make it work, how we can serve them better and what they can do to make it work, including making sure that their officers have proper training in the use of the firearms registration system. They have the technology support. They are communicating to the public when the firearms system is helpful to them. There is a lot of good work to be done. We still have a way to go in terms of being able to determine and demonstrate to Canadians the value of the registration system in particular.

I wish I could interrupt once in a while just to kind of correct the record. For example, on safety training, we've had safety training for decades and that's really not a part of this registration system. Bill C-68 wasn't necessary for that and that has more to do with the licensing than the registration. It is the registration that you will find has spun out of control here. The licensing most people will have no problem with, and the safety training is part of the licensing not the registration. There is always that confusion.

I want to touch on a different area. Mr. Lafrenière has put out a very good paper that was distributed by the Clerk of the Committee to everyone here. In it he has some very good research, but I would like to just zero in on the firearms marking regulations. That's a very controversial area. These regulations, Mr. Lafrenière says, are very controversial and the international agreements are not generally supported by the firearms community and they may also raise concerns regarding the practicality and cost of having firearms marked.

I don't know how you would respond to those general concerns that he has raised. I'd like to start quoting from some of the reports you have received that I have received as well. How would you respond to that?

Mr. William Baker: In our consultations, the marking regulations, which, I should point out, unlike the others are a change to the existing but they're not in force yet. They are controversial. We have received a number of representations, particularly from gun dealers, manufacturers, importers and so on, with respect to the compliance burden that this would impose on them. We duly noted that. There are concerns about the costs of marking the firearm, which would generally involve engraving or stamping, concerns as to what that might do to the integrity of the firearm, its value, its durability and so on. We're taking that on board as we consider the final wording of those regulations and the timing.

Of course, those regulations are there to fulfill Canada's commitments under the two protocols I referred to earlier.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: This is going to increase the cost by probably $100 to $200 per firearm. That's going to drive a lot of it underground into the black market. That's a very prohibitive cost. You cannot mark these firearms with a hammer and punch. You're going to have to go to lasers. That's $100,000 cost in equipment right there, according to Tony Bernardo. I won't have time to read his entire submission, but he says that this is going to drive, and has driven, retailers out of business. There used to be 3,000. There are now 450 and even they are just hanging on by their nails.

This is really something that needs to be drastically scrapped. Do you not agree?

Mr. William Baker: All I can say at this point is we're faced with two realities: protocols that the Government of Canada has signed. On the reaction from some quarters in the industry about the cost and burden of compliance, we are just at the precipice, as we complete this consultative exercise, of working through to see what can be accomplished in light of that.

Mr. John Maloney: Mr. Baker, crime statistics would indicate that use of firearms in crimes are on the decline. Can you, in fact, draw a correlation between that reality and the implementation of the firearms program?

Mr. William Baker: I'd be hesitant to try to do a direct attribution because, like any social phenomenon, there are many reasons why guns are used and are improperly used and that can be driven by a number of criteria. People have attempted to map the misuse of firearms against different stages in the evolution of firearms control in Canada and some have concluded that is certainly evidenced to show that it is having an effect, but I would be very reluctant to try to extract from that to attribute what is directly a result of firearms control versus what might be directly a result of other preventative mechanisms, support to women, for instance, when they're having difficulty at home in their marriages or whatever.

Mr. William Baker: I think it's reasonable to assume that it has had some bearing on the safe use of firearms in the country. Certainly there are people we consulted with who would have a lot more to say in support of that assertion.

Mr. John Maloney: One of our own committee members produced three different licences that were issued to him. He responded that it was issued with an error and he asked that it be corrected. After two tries, it is still not corrected. That's a little embarrassing for the program.

I had a situation where a firearms owner produced to me two licences. I asked him how that happened. He applied for one by e-mail and he applied for one through the mail. I said, “There you are. That's why you have two licences.” Why didn't the computer pick that up and prohibit the issuance of the second license? What are we going to do with my poor colleague across the way where they are multiplying themselves?

Mr. William Baker: Your colleague's issues have been addressed and Mr. Sorenson took possession of his new corrected licence last week in Alberta. We made sure of that.

Mr. William Baker: All I can say is with 6.6 million registrations happening in a short period of time, 2 million licences issues in a relatively short period of time, there is going to be some slippage. Al mentioned a 10% error rate.

We are trying to more finely tune our systems, and one of the more major undertakings in the Firearms Centre, as you're probably aware, is called ASD. It is a new technology solution that will be much more modern, efficient, effective, user friendly and should be able to deliver the kinds of improvements that are needed in that regard.

Mr. John Maloney: Is there a penalty for having more than one license? Is there an onus on a registrant to surrender one of those if inadvertently or whatever he receives two licences or more?

Mr. William Baker: I understand that when we do issue a corrected licence—and I'll ask Al for confirmation of this—we ask the individual to destroy the previous one.

Mr. Al Goodall: Yes. Actually, I think, sir, what you're referring to in the case of the two license, you did mention one was done by paper and one electronically, so I think that would necessarily be a registration certificate. You cannot apply for a license electronically. So, just for that point of clarification.

We do take steps to clear that up, but specifically on your question of whether there is a penalty, in the information when we send the certificate to the individual we ask them, in the event that there are some errors or any problems with it, to contact us. Sir, we wouldn't penalize someone for having that. In fact, there is only one firearm that's registered, albeit they may have two certificates, and in some cases we actually issue a second certificate if there is some correction or additional information is to be included, but we track that through numbering right on the certificate, and this is all verifiable by law enforcement, for example, through the CPIC system. It's successful to them.

Mr. Inky Mark: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this whole thing was to help police officers. You're saying today that we will tolerate a 10% error rate in the system. Is that not kind of contradictory, or do we have a 10% error rate within the new system, the new CFC system?

Mr. William Baker: The error was with respect to the existing system, but that doesn't mean that there's 10% that fall outside. Those were 10% that required correction, and they are being corrected.

Mr. Inky Mark: So do you know what the error rate is in the new system versus the old system?

Mr. William Baker: The new system is not yet implemented, sir. We cannot implement the new system until we have the regulations finalized.

Mr. Inky Mark: I wasn't too thrilled with the old CPIC system either, because as a former mayor, I had the chief of police check my registered firearms on CPIC and I found out that firearms I had owned twenty years previous were still in my name. That didn't make me too happy, because they use a number system, a probability system of one to nine. The fact is if they still don't know where they are, and they think they're in my name, I'm not too happy because I don't have them, but when we're dealing with millions of firearms, and certainly long guns, do you think the system can tolerate any kind of error. If the intent of the system is to help police officers.

Mr. William Baker: The scheme of the registration system is really focused on the individual firearm, so at any point in time where information about that firearm is required and that information is correct, complete to a police or an enforcement agency, mission accomplished. It's able to serve its purpose of assisting with a trace or an investigation or whatever. To the extent that the information is not complete, or inaccurate then it may not be helpful, so I think the system can tolerate a certain degree of slippage, but it's our objective to try to keep that to an absolute minimum so that we can derive full value from the registration system.

Mr. Inky Mark: No, but error can also have an intrusion into the privacy of individuals, the innocence of individuals. That's another concern that has never been raised either in terms of the reaction of the police to people who, by error, are accused of either owning something, one or the other. Remember, we are still need to match registered firearms to registered people, right?

Mr. William Baker: Yes. I think in fairness, the police have acted admirably with respect to the provisions of the Firearms Act and the requirements. They use their discretion and their common sense to make sure that there isn't an outcome that is not fitting, and generally speaking if they come across situations like that, they'll just work with the individual to make sure the paperwork is corrected or that they get their firearm and so on, and in the meantime they may seize the firearms if necessary.

Mr. Inky Mark: No, but how are you going to deal with the people who have either re-registered their registered firearms, which were formally registered, or else not renew their possession certificate. How are you going to rectify it? There is that gap there. That's the reality. There are hundreds of thousands of people in that category. Or is the system going to outright charge them?

Mr. William Baker: There are system checks. You can't register a firearm without a license, to begin with.

M. Christian Jobin (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Lib.): Pour ma part, je crois normal qu'on enregistre une arme à feu. Si dans une société qui se respecte, on enregistre des automobiles, tout véhicule motorisé, des remorques, je pense qu'il est très important qu'on enregistre des armes à feu. Sauf que dans le système qu'on a présentement, j'ai lu dernièrement, je ne sais pas si je me trompe, il y a à peu près 70 p. 100 des armes à feu qui étaient enregistrées.

Pour que le système atteigne l'efficacité, ou l'apogée de son efficacité, il faudrait viser tout près de 100 p. 100. Je voudrais savoir quelles sont les mesures qui sont prises, soit avec les corps de police ou toute autre mesure, pour qu'on puisse atteindre que vraiment 100 p. 100 des armes à feu soient enregistrées au Canada?

Mr. William Baker: We are developing...as we move beyond the initial period of loading up the system with the large volumes of registrations and formerly licences, we're now concentrating more of our effort on what we refer to as a compliance strategy to look at areas where we're not getting the level of participation and developing solutions.

For instance, as part of our consultations there were discussions and suggestions made of how we might tap into, and this would take the provinces agreeing, but for instance there may well be people out there, and I understand there are some people out there, who haven't registered their firearm but they nonetheless hunt regularly, and they do get a hunting license. That's been so established for so many years that they don't push back at that, and how we can work with provinces who issue hunting licences to use their distribution networks to get out information on registration. I'd like to see a day when you can't get a hunting license without a firearms' license, but of course that would take a decision on the part of provinces to do that, but I'm confident that we will get to the point where the program is achieving the kind of performance it should achieve, that provinces would be more inclined to work with us on that front.

M. Christian Jobin: Je voudrais savoir si vous avez la pleine participation des provinces que vous venez de nous dire? Vu que les provinces se sont déresponsabilisées dans le premier chapitre d'enregistrement des armes à feu, est-ce que présentement elles participent avec vous, entre autres lorsqu'elles émettent des permis de chasse? Est-ce que le croisement se fait facilement avec les provinces?

Mr. William Baker: We're already working. We're working with all provinces. As you know, some provinces have opted into the program, and some haven't. The fact is we have five opt-in provinces, representing over 75% of the population in Canada. So we work with them and others. When I was in Alberta last week, we had a meeting with the Alberta Hunting Instructor Education Association, I think it's called AHIEA, which is a non-profit organization set up, or a charitable organization set up and even though Alberta is a jurisdiction that has chosen not to deliver the Chief Firearms' Officer responsibilities in that province, this association is working extremely closely with the federally-appointed chief firearms' officer to look at opportunities. I received wonderful feedback about the support they're getting from our federal chief firearms' officer, and for that matter I've been hearing that across the country. So there are opportunities there, and we're working with people and will continue to do so.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I have to correct one thing that you said, that police will know where the firearms are. Sir, there's no requirement anywhere here that these firearms be stored at a certain address, so how can they know where they are. In fact, I would venture to say that if a person has valuables, and they're required to register them with you, that they would probably not put them where someone who may have access to that information would know where they are. That's a very spurious argument at best, and would you no have to agree. Because there's no requirement to store them at a certain place, how can you be assured they're there?

Mr. William Baker: Thank you for making that correction. It is true that as I understand there's no requirement that they be necessarily for instance in the domestic home or they could be somewhere else, but it is nonetheless a useful tool available, and it has assisted police with their investigative activities and in helping defuse difficult situations.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Does a firearm owner have to carry his firearm registration certificate with him while he's hunting?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: There's no positive requirement either in the act or in the code to carry the license or certificate. There is no offence for not producing one of the documents. The only issue is under section 117.03 of the Criminal Code. A peace officer may ask a person to produce their license or certificate as the case may be. Where the individual is unable to do so, the police have discretion, and it's not an automatic they have to do this, but they can at that point size the firearms and hold them for 14 days to allow the person to produce.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Why don't you answer that question when people ask you. I cannot figure that out.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: But that's not answered by there is nothing in law and nobody knows. Another thing would be is a photocopy of a registration certificate good enough to produce?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: The code says produce the license or certificate, and certainly a copy would not be a license or certificate. Having said that, certainly if someone is uncomfortable for whatever reason carrying the original they could carry a photocopy and I would suspect that in most cases police would be satisfied with that, and would not seize given the obvious proof that they do have the documents.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Can you cut and laminate the certificates, registration certificates?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: You wouldn't cut through the actual certificate, but there are, as you know, four certificates to a page. You can certainly cut them up to have four little pieces, and there is nothing in law that would prevent you from laminating them.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I want to read you something that really relates to our whole discussion here, not necessarily to one particular regulation. This comes from one of the Liberal Senators, Willie Adams. He is reading from a local newspaper. There was an article about many Americans who travel to Nunavut every year to hunt caribou. Under government policy, local guides are not allowed to carry guns.

That's the kind of horrific situation that can happen if guides are not allowed to protect themselves. The regulations that you guys are putting in place—parliamentarians pass laws that make no sense. I would submit that is what's happening here today and people just don't realize how serious this is. You're not listening to what we, who are in touch with ordinary people, are saying about these laws. It's going to have the absolute opposite effect that the politicians in Ottawa are trying to portray, and I can't understand why we're going ahead with this.

Sir, we are listening. The issue is, in the context to the amendments to the regulations, there are certain things that we have an opportunity to address now and there are certain things that we don't have an opportunity to address within the construction of the law, but we are listening and taking note of what are the issues that Canadians are raising so that I can provide the best advice possible to the Solicitor General and the government.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you witnesses.

Today we all reflect on long term issues and we're wondering to some extent. Although we're dealing with regulations today, I'd like to get a few clarifications as to how we are coming with other outstanding concepts and ideas that have been brought in by user groups. How have you developed your relations, particularly Mr. Baker, since you've taken over with respect to gun dealers, who seem to be part of the key in making the whole system work. In other words, they're sort of like the intermediary, so to speak, between the gun manufacturers and the delivery of the guns to the individual users.

Have you taken steps to build a better relationship with them? For example, there was a hotline at one point that was somewhat ineffective. I received a number of complaints from gun dealers in my area that suggested there were problems. Also there were problems with importing parts with respect to guns. For example, if I remember the term right, I think they were referring to the instrument part of the gun and it was being deemed a gun and so forth, at least for registration purposes. They were getting into all sorts of difficulties and finding themselves with massive paperwork, which, obviously if they are going to pass that on to the ultimate consumer, hurts the industry as a whole.

Could you bring us up to date? Where are we in that process of generating better relationships, hopefully, with our dealers? Have we sort of worked out some of this issues? How have we worked those issues out?

Mr. William Baker: I'll make a few comments and perhaps the registrar may have something to add.

First of all, we do interact with dealers regularly. They have been part of our consultative process. Their issues, for instance, about their ability to make sales in real time so that they don't delay their customers, that they get accurate information and feedback, are critical.

We have improved the service we provide to dealers. The big issue for them is transfers. That's the technical term for being able to transfer ownership from the dealer to the purchaser through our Miramichi processing centre site. I have been there and have seen how that works. We also now have provided dealers with the opportunity to do transactions over the Internet, which is a relatively new service. The take-up is limited at this point in time, but, like anything, it will take a while for them to get hold of that. I understand the quality of service is there.

When I was in Alberta I visited a company called the Bud Haynes Auction Premises, which is the largest gun auction house in the country, in Red Deer. I met with Mr. Haynes and his daughter, who runs the business now. They just had an auction of 306 or 307 firearms recently and indicated that for the first time all of their firearms were transferred on time and they were very pleased with the service they got from the centre. Sometimes that has to be referred to the provincial chief firearms officer if there is an irregularity. They were pleased with the turnaround time for fixing those problems. I think we are making some inroads there.

Dealers are critical players in making the system work well, and they also shape public opinion. Gun owners come in to buy ammunition and to get their guns fixed. They talk. They have a shared interest in guns. We can't do everything there, but certainly to the extent we can provide them with a good level of service. Hopefully, that will raise their confidence in the program, which might translate into a better degree of public support from the hunting community and so on.

In very specific terms, at the central processing site in Miramichi we do have a dedicated line for businesses only. If they wish to transfer firearms by phone they can access that. As I said, that is dedicated. Again for businesses, we've had an electronic process in place, if my memory is correct, since about 1999. It's an electronic firearms transferring and registration tool. That's available to high volume businesses only, but, as Commissioner Baker mentioned, we've just recently introduced an Internet service for businesses and the business individual transactions there were receiving very favourable comments.

More recently, we introduced a facility that allows business-to-business transfers. Our first kick at that was not particularly successful. That was in July of this year, but in working with the businesses we heard a lot of feedback and input from them and we've made modifications and relaunched this on October 8. It's very early, however, we appear to be having very good feedback from that.

Since the coming into force of the long gun registry, or even Bill C-68, going back to the new legislation, do you have the data on how much crime has actually taken place through use of a registered firearm or how many people have been killed by registered firearms?

Mr. William Baker: I certainly don't have that with me, and I don't even believe it exists yet because of the time lag, recognizing that a good number of firearms have only been registered within the last year or so. The original deadline was last December. We've had 1 million plus since then, so the registration scheme is still too immature to generate the kind of results you'd be looking for. Usually, on the statistics I've seen on firearms related crimes, the facts are a couple of years old before they're published. It will take a couple of more years.

Mr. Inky Mark: Do you have data on the same topic, say the previous ten years in terms of the status of the firearm used in the commission of crime? Were they stolen, were they registered, did they belong to the owner? Do you have that kind of data?

Mr. Inky Mark: The reason I'm asking the question is again I'm still asking the question on intent and purpose of this whole exercise. We don't know what the intent purpose is, and we can't collect data that prove it one way or another, why are we spending $1 billion?

Mr. William Baker: Can I share with you what the Firearms' Act is seeking to accomplish through the registration component, and I would just make a few comments on that. Certainly registering the firearm to an owner encourages safe storage and handling by holding firearms'owners more accountable. Most firearms owners are extremely accountable for their firearms. They want to protect their families and so on, but certainly by connecting the firearm to the owner you complete the loop. It does help police solve crimes and we do have incidents of this by being able to trace the origin of the firearm recovered from a crime scene, and we've shared a few of those examples with parliamentarians last winter when we put on a couple of demonstrations here on Parliament Hill. It can help in the recovery of lost or stolen firearms, not many, but there are thousands of firearms that the police have been able to trace and the police have been able to bring to their rightful owner that were lost or stolen, using the registry system, just a small percentage, I might add, of the total number, but again because the registration system is still in its infancy, it's difficult to judge its effectiveness.

The information can help police respond to events. The comment was made earlier about police access. Actually we're looking at about 1,500 accesses through the system a day, not a week, so it's very healthy in terms of them using that information to help them, but it can help enforce a court order. If the court decides that someone should be prohibited from owning firearms, registry information can help the police identify which firearms should be removed from the owner, and now again there is no guarantees that there may be other firearms that aren't registered, but it can be a useful tool.

And finally we know that 700 affidavits in courts in Canada have used firearms registration information to assist them in their proceedings.

Now this is just an indication of what we're hoping to accomplishthrough the registration program.

Again, other things that have come to my attention and I previously referred to instrument. I guess I meant receiver, as a part of a gun that is actually I guess in theory deemed to be a gun for all intents and purposes. When you're marking these firearms, because I know some people were concerned about the effect on the value of a gun, especially if you're marking it after, in other words no visible markings on the gun. Is it appropriate and possible under the regulations as proposed or as enforced that in fact you can do so in a way that, for example, if I'm marking the barrel of the gun, I could hide it within the actual stock of the gun. In other words, I'd have to disassembly to demonstrate the actual number, but in fact it would be in a better sense retain the value of the gun because it wouldn't be visible without that amount of dissembling?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: In the draft regulation there actually are some exceptions to how a firearm would be marked or more particularly where it would be marked. In cases where the registrar is a person who has to, a person being either a business or an individual, who has to mark a firearm can approach the registrar to get a determination that the firearm is rare or of an extremely high value, and in those cases they would be able to get an exemption from marking on the receiver, and they could mark in a place that's non-visible on the firearm.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: But it would only apply in those specific instances. Otherwise, it has to be visible. If I just had a gun without a registration that was visible, an old gun but wasn't necessarily of that antiquity, then I would have to do where it would be visible.

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: Presuming the firearm weren't either rare or of an unusually high value it would have to be visible. That's how it's been drafted.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: On a different issue, where members of gun clubs are transporting their guns from their homes to a club, to a registered gun club, do they still under the process have to get a transportation certificate in order to move their gun from their home to that particular gun club, or has that been dealt with in any way that would make it more appropriate for a member to transfer his gun?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: They still would need an authorization to transport, but there are provisions in the Firearms Act to allow the authorization to be issued as a condition of the licence. I can tell you that provision hasn't been used to date, but my understanding is that the new system will accommodate it, so I would suspect that within a year or so we will start seeing authorizations issued as a condition of a licence. It won't in fact be a separate piece of paper that they have to

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: They would apply, presumably, at the same time as they would apply for their licence and the authorization would be a condition of the licence itself, which is renewable every five years.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: Would they have to identify the gun club, or would it be just to any registered that they could transport.

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: They have to identify where they are going. Some chief firearms officers will give larger parameters in the sense of any gun club in your province. Essentially, it has to be an identifiable location but because gun clubs are approved, it could be issued as any gun club in a particular geographical area.

Mr. William Baker: May I just add a clarification? Of course, those authorizations to transport are only applicable to restricted firearms such as hand guns and prohibited weapons, not everyday rifles.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Chair, I have to come back on a couple of points that you've just made. You said that registration will improve accountability. It doesn't improve accountability beyond what licensing does, not in a material way.

The second thing is that it will somehow help the police to enforce court orders. There are 131,000 people right now who are prohibited from owning firearms or possessing firearms in Canada and we don't have the police resources to enforce that. Registration doesn't, in any way, help the police in that respect. We're spending $1 billion on this and, in effect, we don't have the police resources to enforce the laws we already have in place. There's nothing to say they'd have an unregistered firearm anyway.

I want to come back to what Mr. Macklin was talking about on the export and import regulations. Our researcher from the Library of Parliament, Mr. Lafrenière, has drawn this conclusion: the new provisions dealing with the importation of firearms parts are sure to be controversial and would involve both the requirement to obtain an authorization and fees involved. That's about $20, I believe. The fee is capped—the first 250 authorizations, which is 5,000 annually, which is really not much of a help.

I come back to the point I made that this actually has the opposite effect of improving public safety. These regulations, registration and so on in Bill C-68, have driven repair shops out of business. The availability of keeping guns in good repair—and that's a safety measure—has now diminished in Canada and because of this regulation, we're going to have even more of that problem. It's going to be compounded because people will think twice about having to send it to the States. We're promoting a lot of business in the States. I realize that, but that safety measure that we should be concerned about is now diminished by this.

Enough is enough, he says. How do you respond to somebody like this and what I've just raised?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: This is extremely serious. We can laugh and joke about this but this reality, folks.

Mr. William Baker: I would just add that I've heard those concerns as well, in particular with the fee associated with having parts brought into the country and situations have been explained to me where the part itself may not be worth more than the fee. Your point is taken. I think we're coming at this from exactly the same direction. We're trying to look at making sure that any change contributes to the ultimate objective of achieving the benefits as set out in the act, and if it doesn't, then we have to have a hard look at that to determine what can be done to address that.

That concern has been raised. It is certainly one of the items that we'll be examining with respect to review of the regulations.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I appreciate that. I come back to the point I made right at the beginning. There shouldn't be fees for any of these things. If it's a public safety measure, it should be borne by everybody.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: I just am reminded when Mr. Breitkruz says there shouldn't be fees for anything. Like it or not there is a policy now and in fact it may even be through regulation here at the federal level, but there is cost recovery, etc. So I think that's a whole other debate that cannot be limited, in my view, just to the firearms regulations, but I do want to come back to a point that doesn't touch directly on firearm regulations, but rather to the entire program.

As you are very well aware there was a great deal of debate and possible, in my view, misinformation regarding supplementary estimate vote on $10 million, and I saw reporting in the paper and comments made by colleagues in the House of Commons in the Hansard where it appeared to be that it was new money, it was a new appropriation, and those colleagues seemed to be very much up in arms, and I'd like to know if there is some way that you can clarify exactly what was that $10 million. That's my first question.

Mr. William Baker: I'll try to provide further clarification, building on comments that the Solicitor General made during the review of this committee of the supplementary estimates, but the supplementary estimates accomplish two things for the firearms program. It's the mechanism by which we take the budget out of justice department and move it into the firearms program, and that's a wash. It's out of one area; it's into another. The $10 million was money that was budgeted last year for the new technology solution, and primarily because of the time it has taken to get Bill C=10A approved, and these regulations, it keeps pushing that system implementation into subsequent fiscal years, so we've simply taken the money from last year, it was for that purpose, and had it carried forward to this year. So it does not represent any new money being invested in the program year over year.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: And as you explained it's for the implementation of this new system, and because the legislative requirements that would allow you to implement haven't as yet come into force, you haven't been able to use that money and you can't use it for anything else.

Mr. William Baker: That's right, and that would be disrespectful, and also the way the contract is constructed payment is on delivery of the system, so even though a considerable investment has been made in developing it, the nature of the contract requires activation before we can make the bulk of our payment.

Mr. Inky Mark: The word receipt actually triggered a problem that is communicated to me quite often, which is when an officer stops an individual with a firearm and the officer apprehends or takes the firearm, very seldom is a receipt given. Is it possible to put in regulations upon the surrender of a firearm that a receipt must be given to the owner of that firearm?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: Without amending the act there would be no authority to do that. However, when the reporting requirements of the public agents firearms regulations, when those reporting requirements come in one of the things that police are asked when they report firearms, including those they seize from the public, is where the firearms came from, were they surrendered, seized, found, etc. So although we don't have authority to ask them to give the public a receipt, we at least on the back end of the transaction, if I can put it that way, we'll sort of have some idea of where the firearm came from. So if there was ever a question about the firearm, certainly the registrar would be a position to say police force X got it from this person, with the serial number. They could query it that way.

Mr. Inky Mark: I think there are two advantages to doing that for both the police side as well as for the owner of the firearm because we don't want to accuse our police of taking in firearms--

Mr. Inky Mark: You hear all kinds of things in the public. At the same time, the owner of the firearm should have a receipt for a product that he or she has just lost and may never get back.

The other point I want to make is Canadians need to understand that Bill C-17, the pre-runner of Bill C-68, did a lot of good things. In fact, most of the things that we're talking about today came about probably because of Bill C-17: safe storage, screening of applicants before they can purchase firearms. The only sad thing I find is why we had to move on to this next step before even giving Bill C-17 a chance to work its way through the system to get some data on it so we can at least support and argue for its existence. That, I'm sure, would have been positive.

My question is: Under the current circumstances, would you welcome it if the Auditor General did an assessment on the effectiveness of the long gun registry? Somebody has to do something. If the system won't allow a public enquiry to take place, somebody has to evaluate, assess the expenditure of our tax dollars. That's what people want in this country—not because of the gun thing but because of the money thing.

One is that it is certainly one of our objectives, as part of our reporting to Parliament obligations, to provide better and more fulsome information not only on what the program is spending but what it is delivering to Canadians. That's number one.

Second, certainly it is at the discretion of the Auditor General to decide when to come in and do what is called a value for money audit on the program. That would be totally the call of the Auditor General in terms of timing. My sense is that it too would be interested in seeing the system sufficiently mature in order to allow it to conduct its audit in a meaningful way.

M. Christian Jobin: J'essaie de comparer ce qui se passe aux États-Unis par rapport à ce qui se passe au Canada. Très régulièrement on voit des scènes d'horreur, un jeune qui s'approprie l'arme d'un parent ou d'un grand-parent. Il commet des erreurs dans une école ou un centre commercial. Et on trouve pratiquement le parent ou le grand-parent à l'excuser parce qu'il a été élevé toute sa vie avec une arme à feu tout près de lui. Je pense que ce sont des scènes d'horreur qui ne sont pas très loin de chez nous, c'est aux États-Unis. Au Canada, on est en train d'implanter un système de registre d'armes à feu. Je pense qu'il devrait aider à contrer le crime.

Mais ma question va à l'inverse de M. Mark. Lorsqu'il voulait savoir combien de crimes ont été commis avec des armes enregistrées, ma question irait plutôt à l'inverte: comment ce registre va-t-il permettre la diminution du crime au Canada? Est-ce que cela va aller dans le bon sens? Je crois que oui mais je vous pose la question. Est-ce que vous pourriez faire... ?

Mr. William Baker: My first comment would be that I'm not aware of any way that you can actually measure prevented crimes. Almost by definition, the crime didn't occur and therefore it isn't tracked as an event.

Certainly, one of the things we have been discussing with police agencies in the country is how we might get a better handle on how the information—the licensing and the registration and the public safety education—is helping them to accomplish their job and we still have a way to go.

On your specific question on criminality associated with registered guns, again, because the registration system is so new, we don't have enough experience with it, nor do the police forces, to be able to have a good indicator of that direct result. That will probably be a couple of years.

M. Christian Jobin: Et vous, d'après votre expérience personnelle, pensez-vous qu'on est dans la bonne direction avec un registre semblable?

M. William Baker: Je pense que oui. Si on fait le travail d'une façon raisonnable et si l'information est correcte, si les agents de police ont un bon accès à cette information, cela apporter des bénéfices importants au Canada. C'est quelque chose à suivre pour être capable de faire une analyse complète.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Chair, I'd just want to make a comment with regard to the last thing because it strikes at the very heart of the whole discussion here.

If you took the money that was spent on this whole thing and instead targeted the root causes of violence in our society, what could be accomplished. That should be it. I know there was a cost benefit analysis that has been done and has been hidden from me and has probably been hidden from you, but that's what the debate boils down to. What are we getting for this money? If we were to really start targeting the root causes of violence, it would be amazing what we could do. That's the heart of this whole discussion.

I want to come now to the regulations amending the gun shows. Again, Mr. Lafrenière from the Library of Parliament makes this statement:

The current gun show regulations are not in force. Even though these amendments would streamline some of the requirements in the original regulations, these regulations are sure to be controversial and the concern would be the gun shows to which the regulations apply. The requirement to obtain authorization for every gun show, what constitutes a sale, etc., are concerns.

I'd like to read a quotation from Larry Whitmore of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, and I'm just going to ask you to respond to what he has to say. You probably know him.

In other words, if one gun is sold at the Toronto Sportsman's Show, even though there may be only one or two dealers with firearms, then the whole show, the entire show will come under the gun show regulations. The reason given was that the CFO must be aware of all gun shows. Our response was that the CFO will be already aware that the dealers are at the show as they must apply for a special business licence in order to attend.

The question was asked: What constitutes a sale? If the dealer displays firearms and takes an order and a deposit, does that constitute a sale under the Firearms Act? They would not answer that question. I hope you can. The gun show licence is only valid for one show. It was pointed out to them that a group or individual may host a multitude of shows over the course of the year and an application for each is a waste of money. We suggested they change the licence to be valid for more than one show, i.e., maybe a year. how do you respond to those concerns?

Ms. Kathleen Roussel: I should say I was at the consultation where Mr. Whitmore was and we had some very good discussions on the gun show regulations. I indicated at that time that, simply from a drafting standpoint, we would have to look at that particular section of the section that deals with applicability. I was asked the question about sales at the time and I didn't answer it. I didn't answer it because there were other discussions going on and it wasn't the most appropriate forum.

Without giving a dissertation on the law of contract—I'm going to try very hard not to—certainly, the situation you described would, in my view, be a sale in that there is a contract formed. Going by those rules, then certainly the regulations would apply. We certainly agree, and having heard numerous comments on regulations, that we have to look at that particular section and have the minister be apprised of the discussions we've had and a decision will have to be made on what shows we are trying to regulate and make sure that section conforms to the policy and intent. We're looking at it. We left there with a very open mind. I certainly told Mr. Whitmore and his colleagues I would be happy to report that.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I hope you do because I've looked at these regulations that govern a lot of these things and they really are absurd. I hope you do have an open mind.

Mr. John McKay: Those of us who have gone to law school can only exquisitely remember those afternoons of boredom.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: I didn't find the courses all that boring, and I didn't find the tax law courses all that boring either. I got my best marks in those classes even though I never intended on doing fiscal law as practice, or corporate law.

You mentioned earlier, and it was actually the second question I had wanted to ask in my last round, that notwithstanding what we're hearing in the newspapers and in the media about the provinces balking at any cooperation with the gun registry program and the firearms program that in fact there's a great deal of cooperation that's actually going on, that the registrar is actually getting a lot of cooperation and you said something to the effect that five opt-in provinces representing over 70% of the Canadian population. Could you tell us which provinces those are?

Mr. William Baker: From east to west, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario are all provinces that continue to deliver directly the chief arms officer function.

In the other parts of the country, either they didn't get in initially or they got out later and we have put in place federal employees to perform that function.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Tomlinson, of the National Firearms Association writes,

I also became aware of the fact that some of the new regulations require these little stickies to be put in certain places, so people are going to have to move them. If that's in fact true, that just shows the absurdity of this. Also, when people are oiling their guns, those stickies are gone.

The people who have designed these regulations are really out of touch. I wonder if you can address some of the technological concerns that people have.

Mr. William Baker: Well I can say that I've learned more about firearms stamping and engraving than I ever thought I would ever have to in my life in the last few weeks in talking to businesses. It is an issue. It raised a number of legitimate concerns with respect to the capacity of the firearm to be stamped or engraved.

We talked earlier about the cost, how it might impact the value and functioning of the firearm. All I can say at this point we're taking all of those on board and as I said earlier, we will be seeing what we can come up with to recommend to the minister while respecting Canada being a signatory to the protocols that are driving those regulations.

I don't know why they took the information on calibre and gauge off of the firearm certificates. What was the reason for that?

Mr. Al Goodall: As I mentioned earlier there were some modifications made to assist in processing of applications in order to streamline the process and get things done more quickly. We do record this information where it's available but it does not appear on the certificate.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: But your new regulations--and this shows how absurd are the people who drafted them--the new regulations say that the firearm is to be identified by referring to its make, class, type, action, calibre or gauge and in fact you don't even have a box for that last thing in there. Who draws these things up? Why was this not picked up?

I don't live and breathe all this stuff but here you have something that seems absolutely absurd.

You're suppose to make all these changes and in fact they're not even on the registrations

Mr. William Baker: As I understand it there's a difference here between information that is collected for purposes of registration and what is actually printed on the registration certificate. But having that in the data base can be helpful.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Can I just make one comment? This shows how impractical it is. Let's say you're a wildlife officer or a police officer and you stop somebody and look at the gun. The first thing you note on that is the calibre of the gun and you wouldn't know if the registration certificate matches the gun.

Mr. John McKay: On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank all three witnesses for coming this afternoon and I'm sure Mr. Breitkreuz may want to carry on this conversation with you off the record but I appreciate you doing this.