38^th Parliament, 1^st Session
(October 4, 2004 - )

Edited Hansard • Number 042

Thursday, December 9, 2004

http://www.parl.gc.ca/PDF/38/1/parlbus/chambus/house/debates/Han042-E.PDF

[Hansard Pages – 2579 to 2583]

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz ( Yorkton —Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Central Nova.

    We just heard the phrase “value for money”, and that is exactly what I will be zeroing in on as I make some remarks about one of the biggest areas of misspending that the Liberal government has ever endeavoured upon. It is an area in which we would like to have a modest reduction of about $20 million, or $24 million if we take in both motions, that we would like to see in the vote that will take place later today.

    The issue I am talking about is the gun registry. The government wants to portray this as gun control but it has gone 500 times over budget at this point and it could even be more than that. It is unbelievable that we would have the government portray this as wise spending and a good investment.

    I want to begin with a statement that was made by the Auditor General in December 2002 when she brought down her report on the gun registry. She said, “Parliament is being kept in the dark”. I assert today and I want to impress upon the members of the House of Commons that Parliament is still being kept in the dark. I believe that the minister and the bureaucrats are still deceiving MPs and Parliament.

    I have put in over 500 access to information requests on this issue trying to find out what this government is doing. It hides the information, not just from me, but by extension Parliament and all Canadians. It is one of the hugest boondoggles ever and we as Conservatives would like to reduce the spending in this area a little bit.

    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety sent out an e-mail a couple of days ago. In that e-mail he made 17 claims that I am going to point out are blatantly false. They are at variance with the truth and I will take them one by one and go through them.

    Twenty minutes ago a Liberal, who has since disappeared, came in here and said that she wants to hear some rational arguments. I am going to give some and I wish she would be listening because I do not think they can vote to support the ridiculous spending that is still going on with the gun registry.

    The following is the first claim that was made by the parliamentary secretary. He said, “important client service and public safety results are being achieved by the gun registry”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The entire premise of the gun registry defies all logic. Let us think about this. We have a firearm and beside it is a registration certificate. How can laying this piece of paper beside this gun prevent anyone from pulling the trigger or doing something with that firearm? It defies logic that it would ever work and yet that is the entire premise of the gun control measure that the government has portrayed as being an important client service and public safety results being achieved. That is why we do not see anything being accomplished by this.

    The following is the second claim the parliamentary secretary makes. He says, “An Environics survey taken in January 2003 found that 74% of Canadians support the current gun control legislation”. The questions that were asked in that survey were: Do you support gun registration? Do you support safe storage of firearms? Do you support background checks before people buy a firearm? Do you support safety courses being taken by firearms owners? If they had asked me those questions I would have forgotten they were even talking about gun registry by the time they went through the whole list and I probably would have said that I support those things, which I do, but the registry is the biggest boondoggle. Therefore to say that 74% of Canadians support the registry is misleading at best.

    I want to tell members about another survey that was taken in April, 2004 by JMCK. The question it asked was whether we would want the gun registry scrapped and put that money into fighting violent crime and devoting it to other areas such as frontline policing. The results, which I think were a very accurate indication of where Canadians were at, were that 76.7% of the people said to scrap the registry and put the money into places like frontline policing where it will do some good. That is what we are asking.

    It is very misleading for the Liberals to say that the public is on side. They are not.

    Another claim that the Liberals make is that the Canadian firearms program is much more than gun registry. It comprises safe storage, handling and transportation of firearms, safety, training and education, effective border controls, in addition to the licensing of firearms owners.

    Before the government passed Bill C-68 we had all of those things and it was done for approximately $10 million a year. Now the government is saying it will try to get the costs down to $85 million per year. It has been way above that at the present time.

    We had all of those things prior to 1995. Now the Liberals are starting to make the claim, “Oh, this is what it is all about”. That is extremely misleading and Canadians had better take a closer look when they begin to support the Liberals on this because it is not true.

    Let me talk about another Liberal claim. The government says that there are about two million firearms licence holders and about seven million firearms registered, a true success story in just over five years.

    I gasp when I hear the Liberals make this kind of a claim. They know and I have revealed to them the information that I have garnered through my access to information request. The government says five years. The Liberals cannot even count. The bill was passed in 1995. They cannot count years.

    The Liberals claim it was a success, when according to academic studies that have been done on this, more than 400,000 firearms owners are still unlicensed. Some 400,000 are unlicensed. According to the government's own import and export records, there are still at least eight million guns in this country that are unregistered.

    The government claims this is a success story. If there are less than half of the firearms registered, how can that be a success?

    That begs the question, even if the firearms were registered, how does that piece of paper affect what the criminal does with his firearm? It does not. He is probably not even in the registry.

    Here is another Liberal claim. Approximately 12,000 individual firearms licences have been refused or revoked to date by the chief firearms officers across Canada . What does that amount to? It is a 0.6% success rate. Canada had a 20 year licensing program previous to this which had over twice that rate and we did not have to spend over $100 million per year.

    What does that $2 billion firearms centre do with the 12,000 newly identified criminals, the 12,000 who have not been approved to buy a licence? They are taken off the list and they are never checked again.

    In fact, there are 176,000 people in this country who have been prohibited by the courts from owning firearms. There are 176,000 people who do not have to report their change of address, but if they are licensed firearms owners they do.

    If a person does not report their change of address within one month, that person could end up in prison for up to two years. However, if a person does not have a licence and the person is one of those 176,000 that should not own a firearm, that person does not have to report a change of address and no one will check.

    If I were cynical I would say that if a person wanted the government to stop hassling him, he should apply for a licence and be rejected and then he would not have to worry any more. Then he would not be hassled by the government.

    I have counted 17 claims that the parliamentary secretary made that are blatantly false. I would like to deal with more of them, but my time is running out.

    I will read something that was said in reply to the Liberal claim that there are 6,000 firearms that have been traced in gun crimes and firearms trafficking cases within Canada and internationally. Here is what the police chief of the largest police force in Canada said:

    That sums it up.

    Hon. Roy Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I must say that I do not agree with much of what the member for Yorkton —Melville said, but I admire his tenacity. It is sort of like the flat earth society, never yielding to the fact that its theories are wrong. In fact, day by day, month by month and year by year, the firearms program is proving that it is making Canada safer.

    If what the member for Yorkton —Melville said is true, then he is saying that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is wrong, because it supports this tool. In fact, there are 2,000 inquiries a day at the firearms registry by police officers, by law enforcement people. Are we to think they sit around all day just playing with their computers? What an insult to front line policemen who also support the gun registry and the firearms program.

    The member minimizes the effect of 12,000 individual firearms licences that have been revoked. Why have they been revoked? Because of a history of domestic violence, drug offences, mental health issues and other public safety concerns. They are 12,000 firearms owners who would have been in the possession of firearms and able to do something with serious consequences. That is the benefit of the firearms program. I could go on and on.

    Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Speaker, I wish the person who asked the question had been here from the beginning. I have already refuted a lot of what he said.

    I want to pick up on the issue of the 2,000 inquiries at the firearms registry every day. I have put in numerous access to information requests. I have tried to find out if they are made by bureaucrats in the justice department or front line police officers. I have talked to front line police officers. They have no use for the registry. They have told me that any self-respecting police officer who trusts any of the information in that registry would be taking his life in his hands.

    In fact, the Auditor General herself said that over 90% of the registration certificates contain errors. Over five million registrations have never been verified.

    I know the minister is not listening to what I am saying but if the Liberals would listen to some of the arguments in regard to this, and some of the research that has been done, they could not support the registry. It is riddled with errors. The 2,000 hits per day are not being done by policemen who are interested in public safety or finding out where the firearms are.

    We cannot find out from the government who is accessing the registry.

    Hon. Keith Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member has done a lot of work on this and I would ask him to think outside the box a little bit. I am wondering whether in order to deal with public safety he would advocate compulsory penalties for those who use a gun in the commission of an offence. Those penalties would run consecutively and not concurrently, those penalties could not be plea bargained away and there would be penalties for those who trafficked in weapons.

    The trafficking in weapons is a big problem. Weapons are one of the products involved in the trafficking of illegal products across our border with the U.S. , something which concerns all of us. I am wondering if he would be an advocate for those types of solutions to address the gun problem but also to address the trafficking issue which obviously involves organized crime.

    Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Speaker, I wish I could go into some depth. That was a very good question and I appreciate the member raising it. I wish he would raise this issue within his own party and start talking it up.

    Yes, I am in favour of punishing people who use a weapon in the commission of a crime. More and more knives and all kinds of other things are being used in the commission of crimes. It is not just guns with which we have a problem.

    As far as consecutive sentences, I think that is an excellent suggestion. I wish we would start talking more about these kinds of solutions to crime problems in this country, and not just with firearms. We should be talking about consecutive sentences in many other areas. It becomes a deterrent and we should be looking for deterrents. We should be looking for ways that substantially improve public safety. The gun registry does not. It is a bureaucratic exercise.

    Mr. Peter MacKay (Central Nova, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate in the House of Commons tonight that deals with the opposition's efforts to bring responsible spending back to the forefront. I want to take a moment to congratulate my colleague from Yorkton --Melville for the incredible tenacity and work that he has done on this file, as demonstrated by his very factual and erudite presentation moments ago.

    When I personally think of the gun registry, I think of a comment by Winston Churchill that is somewhat apropos because never have so few spent so much and achieved so little.

    The debate tonight should focus in on the ineffectual and completely intellectually bankrupt approach that the government has taken in presenting the gun registry to Canadians. It promised almost 10 years ago that this was going to cost $2 million. We now know that this has ballooned and is now approaching $2 billion. That is like a kid going into a store and picking out a bag of candy that is priced at $2 and by the time he gets to the register, he is told it is going to cost $2,000. One thousand times over budget is what we have seen with respect to the gun registry.

    Let us take a look at some of the facts that the parliamentary secretary and the current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Responsible for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness do not tell us. They do not tell us about the inaccuracy of the information that is found in the registry. They do not tell us the number of long guns that are still not registered. They do not tell us about the inescapable fact that is so absent from the discussion on gun registry. The Hells Angels are not registering their long guns, shocking as that may be.

    To hear government members opposite trying to defend this complete waste of money in this black hole is reminiscent of the great Lincoln Alexander, the member from Hamilton, who used to talk about the personification of bamboozle and bombast. I am reminded very much of that statement when I look at the President of the Treasury Board and some of his characterizations of why we should put money back into the budget of the Governor General.

    In terms of the out of control spending on behalf of the government, most Canadians sitting at home tonight would be shocked to learn that we were actually going to put millions more into a system that has proven to be so ineffective, not connected to public safety in any way shape or form.

    The suggestion that the police are using this to any great effect is simply not true. We just need to talk to front line police officers. They approach every domestic call as if a weapon is present. That is the way they should do it.

    Mr. Roy Cullen: They passed a resolution supporting it. Speak the truth.

    Mr. Peter MacKay: I hear the member opposite shouting and shaking his head. I can hear it rattling from here. He is suggesting that front line police officers are in favour of this. I do not know who he has been talking to. We have heard from plenty of front line police officers. Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino, the police chief of the biggest city in Canada , said on January 3, 2003:

    Here is the final unkindest cut of all. He continued:

    There are many other references that could be made and a lot of issues that the Liberals like to overlook. They talk about the number of firearms registered. They say 7 million. It is estimated that there are over 16 million firearms in the country. They suggest that the firearms are just going to disappear or evaporate once the computer system is up and running. More than 300,000 owners of previously registered handguns still do not have a firearms licence.

    If the emphasis is to be on licensing, let us put it on licensing, training, public safety and proper storage, all of which were put in place by a previous Conservative government, where the emphasis was actually on public safety. There was some nexus to protecting the public, not simply putting money into a registry.

    I will explain very simply how the firearms registry is flawed. If I took one of the little laser-guided stickers that are placed on a long gun and stuck it to this chair and picked it up, and hit my friend from Cumberland --Colchester-- Musquodoboit Valley over the head with it, it would not prevent a thing, whether that number was registered in a computer or otherwise.

    It is completely flawed from start to finish. It was presented to Canadians in the wake of a terrible tragedy that we commemorated this week, the terrible massacre of women at École polytechnique de Montréal.

    The totally offensive way in which the government has tried to play on the sentiments of Canadians in suggesting that somehow this registry would have or could have prevented that tragedy is asinine and offensive. That incident took place because a deranged individual used a restricted weapon that would never have been caught by this firearms registry.

    I would like to put on the record some more facts. More than 315,000 owners of a registered handgun still have not re-registered them. We have had the registration of handguns in Canada for 70 years. The biggest problem in Canada today is related to handguns, not Uncle Henry's duck hunting rifle or a person who has collected a rifle for sentimental reasons or a person who engages in a completely lawful and understandable practice of hunting or shooting for sport.

    Only 282,000 plus of the 2 million firearm licence holders have taken safety courses. There is a bit of a focal point that maybe we should revisit. More than five million of the seven million firearms in the gun registry still have not been verified, according to police. There is no requirement in the Firearms Act for gun owners to tell anyone where they store their guns or who they would loan them to. Firearms registration for the Nunavut Inuit has been temporarily suspended for two year. There is an entire region of the country where this registry is not even operating.

    A briefing note to the current minister when she was the minister of justice back in 2001 in relation to the firearms registry stated:

    It continued, “The Liberals have refused to provide a complete statistic on the number of employees associated with the firearms program since that date”. This is part of the ongoing mystery as to how close to $2 billion could be spent on a registry system.

    I am told there is a program in the country now, and many of my colleagues from the west would know this, where every cow in the country has been registered for somewhere in the range of $2 million. The registry is aware of every cow in the country, but we cannot register firearms for a cost of less than $2 billion. It is absolutely shocking.

    Here is what $2 billion would pay for, just to put it into perspective for some members. It would be the average income of 76,136 Nova Scotians for a year. It would be the salary of 4,444 new police officers for eight years with an average salary of $66,000. It would be the maximum annual salary for 25 years for over 1,500 nurses in the province of Nova Scotia . It would have paid for 500 installed MRI machines. It would have paid for all kinds of practical programs that would actually save lives, prevent crime, and enhance the lives of Canadians living at home.

    This program has been perhaps one of the most abject failures of any program. It is probably the biggest and most serious case of fraud ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public by any government at any time in this country's history. It should be reduced, cancelled, and the money should be put into front line policing where it would actually do some good.

 (2135)  

    Hon. Roy Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it looks like the member for Central Nova has paid his $25 and joined the flat earth society. Perhaps he has subscribed to some of the statistics supplied to him by the member for Yorkton --Melville.

    First of all, the figure of $2 billion for the firearms program is a total myth. The member knows it and he is trying to deceive the Canadian public, but they are not so naive.

    Second, I would like to rebut his statement of how many firearms there are in Canada . The government engaged a private consultant with a methodology that was signed off by an expert in methodological approaches. That is the reason why the government is saying that there is a 90% compliance in licensing and a 90% compliance in registration. The member's numbers are totally fallacious.

    Third, we all know that there are crimes with handguns and that the Hells Angels do not register their guns. The police are saying that this is a useful tool. In fact, our government will be introducing measures which will bring in tougher sanctions for crimes using long guns and shotguns. Crimes using long guns and shotguns have actually been on a steady decline. That is the kind of result we are getting from this firearms program.

    Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, to round out my presentation I quoted the former British prime minister Winston Churchill. I want to respond to this by quoting the great Labour leader of Great Britain at that time, Aneurin Bevan, who in response to some of the rhetoric that used to come from the benches in Great Britain said, “I welcome this opportunity of pricking the bloated bladder of lies with the poniard of truth”.

    What we have heard from the parliamentary secretary, suggesting that these statistics represent the truth, is absolute nonsense. What happens, and we have seen it consistently from Statistics Canada, is that rifles and handguns are interspersed. We have known since 1975 that weapons-related crime has been on the decline. The government likes to suggest that there is some connection with the long gun registry and the decline in the use of firearms. It is simply not true.

    According to Statistics Canada, in relation to firearms-related homicides, most firearms that are used to commit homicide are not registered. It says that in 1997 the homicide surveys began to collect additional information on the firearms-related homicides, including firearms registration, ownership, possession.

    It goes on to say that this information that has been reported, and documented by police services, shows that in 87% of the firearms-related homicides, the firearms were not registered.  

    Mr. Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, BQ): Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question I just want to say that I do not intend to defend the administrative fiasco surrounding the gun registry. I would also like to add that this subject seems to get a very passionate response. If ever there were a subject we should speak rationally about, it is the use of weapons that can kill, it seems to me.

    I want the hon. member for Central Nova to tell me what he thinks of the statistics that have been presented to us. The homicide rate in the United States is three and a half times higher than in Canada . The rate of gun-related homicide is five times higher than in Canada . The rate of gun-related homicide in which women are killed by their partners is eight times higher than in Canada .

    I agree with him that perhaps Hells Angels and other criminal organizations will still acquire guns, but does he not agree that the difficulty in obtaining guns in Canada will have an impact on street gangs that do not have a lot of money and do not plan very far in advance?

    Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the hon. member who just asked that question. The response is simple. The differences between the United States and Canada are cultural. To make an accurate comparison, it is necessary to compare both cultures.

[English]

    The issue in the United States , as it is in the large cities in Canada , is handguns. What we have talked about and what we have overlooked, and I appreciate the hon. member trying to bring this back to some rational level, is the registration of long guns versus handguns. There is no connection with putting this registry system in place, therefore taking resources away from front line policing.

    While at the same time what is being done in the United States , and I hear the chipmunks opposite again getting agitated, taking resources away from front line policing, closing detachments in the province of Quebec and suggesting this is going to enhance law enforcement is asinine. It does not work because the criminals do not participate.

    Hon. Peter Adams (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Parkdale— High Park .

    I rise today to speak in favour of reinstating the full budget of the Governor General. I do this because I believe the Governor General is an important institution of the country not something to be used as a political pawn.

[SNIP]

HOW DID YOUR MP VOTE ON FUNDING FOR THE GUN REGISTRY?

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Article500.htm