Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 22 - Evidence for June 21, 2012
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs met this day at 10:32 a.m. to study the Proposed Firearms Information Regulations (Non-Restricted Firearms) tabled in the Senate on June 13, 2012, pursuant to subsection 118(3) of the Firearms Act (S.C. 1995, c. 39).
Senator Bob Runciman (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome everyone, including members of the public who are viewing today's proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on the CPAC television network. Today, we are continuing our consideration of a proposal with respect to firearms information regulations. The proposal was tabled in both the Senate and the House of Commons on June 13 by the Minister of Public Safety, pursuant to subsection 118(3) of the Firearms Act. The proposal was referred to this committee by the Senate the next day.
Bill C-19, ending the Long-Gun Registry Act, repealed the registry, which contained details of transfers of non- restricted firearms. Since that time, some firearms businesses have been required, as a condition of their licences, to record details of transfers of non-restricted firearms. The proposed regulations would specify that a person cannot be required, as a condition of a licence under the Firearms Act: (a) to collect information with respect to the transfer of a non-restricted firearm; (b) if they have collect such information, to keep a record of it; or (c) if they keep such a record to keep it in a form that combines information that identifies the transferee with information that identifies an individual firearm, links such information, or enables such information to be combined or linked.
This is our second meeting to review this proposal. We will turn to our first panel of witnesses. I am pleased to welcome back to the committee, from the Canadian Sports Shooting Association, Mr. Steve Torino, President; Mr. Solomon Friedman, a lawyer in the Ottawa area; and from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, Mr. Greg Farrant, Manager, Government Affairs and Policy.
Greg Farrant, Manager, Government Affairs and Policy, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters: Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee and fellow panellists. On behalf of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, our 100,000 members in 675 member clubs across the province of Ontario, we appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to speak to the proposed regulations. The OFAH strongly supported the government in its commitment to scrap the badly flawed long-gun registry through Bill C-19. We are equally supportive of the government's intentions in the matter of this regulatory change. I wanted to make that very clear from the start in light of testimony yesterday at this committee by Chris Wyatt, Chief Firearms Officer for Ontario. He stated, and I quote:
The . . . OFAH . . . recognizes the importance of record-keeping for firearms transactions to protect their members.
He also noted that OFAH had posted a form on our website for the use of our members or anyone else to detail the transfer of non-restricted firearms. Factually, Superintendent Wyatt was correct on the latter point. After the passage of Bill C-19, we received a few calls, fewer than dozen, from some of our members seeking clarification of what is required of them when they transfer a non-restricted firearm to another private individual. To assist them, the OFAH created a simple form for them to use for their own purposes, if they wish, although it is not required by law to do so, that quite clearly states that it is not mandatory. All that this demonstrates is that firearms owners are indeed a conscientious and law-abiding group.
Our primary focus since the passage of the bill has been to counsel our members to ensure that when transferring a non-restricted firearm to another person, they check to see if that person has a valid firearms licence. Any additional information they wish to collect for their own purposes is up to them. To suggest that this constitutes support for the collection of the information is a stretch and one that Superintendent Wyatt should not have made, given that in a meeting with him just a few weeks ago, we ended the protracted discussion on this issue by agreeing to disagree, as did the Canadian Sports Shooting Association, who were also present at that meeting. The superintendent knows full well where we stand on this matter, and it is unfortunate and factually incorrect when he characterizes information that we provide to some of our members as a blanket approval of the policy that he is pursuing in Ontario.
It has been commented upon several times at this committee that firearms retailers have been keeping ledgers for many years. That is indeed correct. However, a misconception exists that I wish to address that was raised, perhaps unintentionally, during questioning of the minister at the house committee. At the time, Mr. Randall Garrison stated that the ledgers in question are not in any electronic form so they could be searched and they are accessible only by warrant. " I am not sure that the fact that they are in written form as opposed to electronic form makes much difference if the information is used to create a database to track legal, law-abiding firearms owners.
To the point about the warrant, he is correct when he asserts that a police officer who wants to examine the records of an individual retailer in the course of an investigation must obtain a warrant. The Chief Firearms Officer, however, is not required to do so because the ledgers in question are considered the property of the CFO, not the retailer, and must be surrendered to the CFO or his agent on demand — no warrant required. At that same committee, Mr. Norlock confirmed this when he noted that retailers had indicated to him that the CFO has told them they will be asked from time to time to forward their records to the CFO for their own purposes. How this fails to set off alarm bills is beyond me.
Another concern regarding unfettered access to information by the CFO, which relates directly to the issue of an alternative registry, is based on an answer given by Superintendent Wyatt at this committee when asked what he would do if the regulation passes. He indicated, and I am paraphrasing, that he would approach the Ontario government to seek legislative or other authority to create some alternative record-keeping system.
It is not too far of a stretch to suggest that if the Province of Ontario wished to create a provincial long-gun registry, despite the outrageous cost of such a system, the ledgers in question, which are the property of the CFO who answers to the Commissioner of the OPP, who in turn answers to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, could be used to provide the data on which such a system could be based. Given the calls for such a registry by some Toronto city councillors and pressure by a variety of groups that opposed the abolition of the long-gun registry in the first place, it is not beyond the realm of reason to suggest that such an eventuality could occur.
Remember, if you will, that the premier who has repeatedly stated that he will not create a provincial long-gun registry is the same person who pledged not to raise taxes and then did so as his first act in office.
The suggestion has been made in this committee and elsewhere that retailers, like my colleagues on this panel, will see this as an opportunity to create a revolving door of firearms sales out the back door, and it calls into question the integrity of those retailers and, indeed, the integrity of legal law-abiding firearms owners.
During his testimony before the house committee, the minister made a good point when he noted that criminals are hardly forming a line outside of legitimate firearms dealers waiting to scam a gun. Those people were not impacted by the long-gun registry in the first place, did not purchase their guns legally and certainly did not register them. They care little about purchasing a gun through legitimate channels. They instead buy illegal guns on the streets of our communities, the vast majority of them handguns that are smuggled into Canada and used for the express purpose of committing crime.
The regulations introduced by the government on behalf of Prime Minister Harper ensure that the intent of Bill C- 19 is respected. It ensures the information demanded by the CFO of retailers as a condition of licence is not collected and therefore cannot be used to create another form of long-gun registry.
The premier of Ontario is on the record stating that if it was the federal government's intention to stop the collection of records for non-restricted firearms, they should find a way to do so. The sentiment was echoed by his minister of public safety. The Harper government, through the introduction of this regulation, has responded directly to that challenge, and we applaud them for doing so. Thank you again, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the courtesy of inviting us here this morning.
Solomon Friedman, Lawyer, as an individual: Good morning, honourable senators, Mr. Chair. Thank you for inviting me to address you today. I must confess that I feel a certain sense of déjà vu in my appearance today, and I do not blame you for feeling the same way. In fact, it was only three months ago that Parliament passed Bill C-19, a bill simply titled Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. As it turns out, there was little that was simple, either in the implementation or the interpretation of that act.
On April 10, 2012, five days after Bill C-19 received Royal Assent, firearms businesses received a memorandum from Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer. I received copies of this letter from several sources, including numerous business owners seeking legal advice. I provided the clerk of this committee with a copy for your review.
In this letter, the CFO, Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Chris Wyatt, informed businesses that despite the passage of Bill C-19 his office would require businesses to maintain a government-issued ledger containing all information about the transfer of non-restricted long guns, including make, model, serial number and the purchaser's personal information and firearms licence number. These ledgers, Wyatt explained, would remain the property of the CFO and must be made available for inspection without warrant at any time. Failure to maintain the ledgers would result in the suspension or revocation of a business's CFO-issued firearms licence.
The CFO stated that in his view:
The Chief Firearms Officer is taking the interpretation that a record of registration is the registration certificate number or a firearms identification number, only.
In other words, Superintendent Wyatt believes that Bill C-19 does not prevent his office, a federal creation of the Firearms Act, from maintaining a paper registry of firearms as long as there is no "registration certificate number " included in this database. This announcement, coordinated with similar advisories by CFOs across the country, sparked an uproar among gun advocacy organizations, firearms businesses, hunters, target shooters and collectors, and for good reason.
First, the ledgers can only track firearms purchased at licensed businesses. Transfers between individuals by definition will be exempt. Accordingly, it is quite conceivable that the police, in attempting to trace a firearm via the ledger, will focus wrongly on the original retail purchaser. Search warrants may be sought on this basis; individuals may be detained and interrogated despite the fact that the firearm may have changed hands countless times, entirely legitimately. Police time and resources will be wasted and misdirected. The innocent will be ensnared by a useless ledger. This is dangerous in terms of public safety; this is dangerous in terms of civil liberties.
Second, while the CFO claims that these ledgers are not a registry, Superintendent Wyatt stated that they will be useful in police investigations. On this issue, he cannot have it both ways. Either he believes they are useful and are therefore a registry of sorts or he believes they are useless and should not be maintained.
Finally, this Parliament, the lawmakers of this country, have stated unequivocally in Bill C-19 that it is not desirable to keep a record of the purchases of non-restricted firearms by licensed law-abiding citizens. It is not desirable, and now, following Bill C-19, it is illegal, full stop. Contrary to the position of the CFO, that is not open to interpretation.
In effect, Chief Firearms Officers like Superintendent Wyatt undermined the will of our democratically elected Parliament. It is the job of police officers to enforce the law as it is written, not as they wish it was written. A state in which the police make the laws is precisely that, a police state. In our democracy, we cannot stand for law enforcement officials who thumb their noses at the legislature and substitute their views and ideology for the public policy decisions of Parliament.
The regulations that have been tabled before the Senate seek to redress this situation and leave no room for further misunderstanding or misapplication by the Chief Firearms Officer. I would ask you, therefore, to recommend that the regulations be passed swiftly and without amendment. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Steve Torino, President, Canadian Sports Shooting Association: Thank you, members of the standing committee, for inviting Canadian Sports Shooting Association to participate and express the views of our members and of other Canadian firearm owners and users.
My name is Steve Torino, and I am President of the Canadian Sports Shooting Association. I also co-chair the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee reporting to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. I have occupied this position for the past six years. Previously I served as Chair of the User Advisory Group on Firearms for Justice Ministers Allan Rock, Anne McLellan and Martin Cauchon from 1996 to 2003, and then I was part of Firearm Commissioner William Baker's Program Advisory Committee where I chaired the Firearm Subcommittee.
The Canadian Sports Shooting Association represents Canadian target shooters, hunters and collectors. The volume of communication we received concerning the cessation of the long-gun registry and its implementation shows it has great meaning to our members and they have great concerns in this area. The question of the Quebec court case and the issue of businesses still being required to keep the same records prior to the passage of Bill C-19 represent a major source of concern.
The CSSA applauds the government's proposal of these new regulations to reinforce and clarify its commitment to fairness for the millions of Canadians who own firearms. Some concern has been expressed by those who do not understand the nature of the legitimate firearms trade and assume that records will be non-existent. This situation is highly unlikely. Firearms are a relatively large-ticket item and likely more expensive commodities. Sales information is kept for the purpose of warranty and insurance. I must emphasize this is sales information, sales records. Additionally, firearms carry an onus of responsibility shared by other items in our society, such as vehicles. This responsibility has always been taken very seriously by our community and failures are very few.
As has been demonstrated for a very long time, licensed firearm owners and businesses are not part of the criminality problem. They are and have always been part of the solution. However, the current legislation, specifically the registry, has criminalized the legitimate possession and movement of long guns without a bureaucratically mandated paper trail, while not affecting the real criminal use of firearms. This has been proven to be an ill-advised targeting of the wrong audience. Without concentrating on the real criminal misuse of firearms, the program was predestined to disappoint at best, a fact recognized by many Canadians since then. The current government also recognizes this and, by scrapping the long-gun registry, has acted on behalf of responsible firearm owners.
At this point I would like to present some facts that may be pertinent in any deliberations this committee's members may hold in regard to the tabled regulations. The number of small arms in civilian hands in Canada is between 15 million and 22 million and increases by about 250,000 per year, yet Canada's firearm homicide rate is 0.5 per cent or about 175 persons per year. The number of homicides with all firearms registered to the accused in Canada totals under 3 per cent of this number.
Juristat publication, in terms of homicides in Canada 2010, says much of the decline in firearm-related homicide since the early 1980s can be attributed to a decrease in homicides involving a rifle or shotgun. The program began in December 1998 and full registration was required by January 2003, long after the decline began.
As the number of legal firearm owners and the number of legal firearms in Canada increases each year, Canada is strengthening its defensive lines against the illegal markets with the aid of the legal firearms possessor. It is essential to realize that without the legal flow of firearms, only illegal markets would exist.
As of March of this year, there are over 1.9 million licensed firearms possessors. Renewals are up by some 40 per cent over the same period last year, and over 80 per cent of licences issued are for acquisition. To our members, this means that the debate over cancellation of the registry has had a positive effect and that Canada is strengthening the defensive lines against the illegal markets with the aid of the legal firearms possessor.
The major line of defence against the black and grey markets in firearms is the legal firearms possessor, being both the individual and licensed businesses. After the individual, the business is the main line of defence because they are open to the public and to anyone almost seven days a week.
As has been reiterated, licensed businesses are still required in general to keep the same records for firearms transfers as in the past. This has resulted in numerous objections being raised concerning this practice still being required in light of Bill C-19's passage that requirement seems to be a backdoor registry. I believe comments have been made by my colleagues on this already.
Our members believe that the will of Parliament was expressed in the passage of Bill C-19. Simply said, they believe that these proposed firearm information regulations specify in more detail Parliament's intentions and will regarding the registry, which is now the law of the land. Until this regulation is passed, the will of Parliament does not seem to have been accepted by all.
In summary, Canadian Sports Shooting Association members and Canada's recreational firearms community are encouraged by the government's prompt attention to this issue and respectfully request that the government stay the course as outlined to date and continue the trend toward legislative fairness and effectiveness.
Senator Fraser: Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you all for being here. Let me go back to the years before the establishment of the long-gun registry, when there was a requirement for gun merchants to keep these ledgers, these green books.
Are you aware of whether legitimate, law-abiding, honest citizens who had guns had any problems with those ledgers? I do not care who answers first, but I ask you all.
Mr. Friedman: I can simply point out one difference in the situation that existed then and the situation that exists now before my colleagues can answer that question from an historical perspective.
As it stands now, and that is post gun registry, there is a centralized federal database of licensed gun owners. In times previous, when we discussed the ledger system before the registry, there were no firearms licensing systems. There was a firearms acquisition certificate system, but there was no way to determine on the spot with certainty, as there is now, that an individual who is purchasing the firearm is licensed, is not prohibited and that the licence has not expired or been suspended.
In fact, as you will recall, senator, in Bill C-19, the Canadian Firearms Program now has a telephone hotline where businesses and individuals can call to determine if an individual is licensed. If one of the purposes of the old ledgers was to keep a record to ensure that law enforcement could go back and check that those individuals were indeed authorized, that requirement is vitiated now by the fact that there is a central licensing database.
It is really comparing apples and oranges to look back at that situation. It may have been necessary then; there is no need to comment on that now. However, with the availability of a telephone hotline to determine the legitimacy of a licence, that rationale falls away.
Senator Fraser: My question was actually did your members have difficulties with the ledgers? Maybe Mr. Torino can recall.
Mr. Torino: The ledgers applied only to firearm merchants. The vast majority of firearms that were transferred and are transferred today are transferred between individuals. There are approximately 250,000 firearms imported per year at this particular time. There are 800,000 transfers recorded by the RCMP in 2011, so the vast majority are between individuals.
I think maybe that rationale might be expanded a little bit to view the fact that back then, the requirement was only for acquisition and not for possession. Individuals who transferred between themselves at gun shows, gun clubs or wherever it happened to be simply showed each other their licences to accept the firearm and moved on. There was no record, so the record for the vast majority of firearms in Canada did not exist.
Senator Fraser: That will continue to be true if we retained the ledger system, would it not?
Mr. Torino: No, it will not because there are two things that apply here, in my personal opinion. First, the error rate in the registry of long guns was touching 50 per cent — let us say 45 per cent. Second, about half of the firearms in Canada were in the system due to a number of reasons that were discussed in the past. Really, there was a record of maybe 25 per cent of the firearms in Canada, and there was no requirement to keep these long guns at a particular place as there is for restricted or prohibited firearms.
A long gun can be transported anywhere without a permit and can be kept anywhere, so you really have no idea where the firearm is or who has it at any given time. I could loan it to you, for example, and you could loan it to the senator on your right, and I would never know where that firearm is. All I know is that I loaned it to you, you had a licence and I lost track of it afterwards.
It really does not give anything. The actual ledgers at the time were only for merchants, and they were accessible only locally.
Senator Fraser: It is my understanding that absent a change, that would continue to be the case.
Mr. Farrant, did your members find that the existence of the ledgers prior to the gun registry created difficulties, burdens or complexities for them?
Mr. Farrant: I think our members would largely suggest that they have long held the opinion, both before and post the long-gun registry, that the information required of them was onerous and was more than what should have been required under the law. We continue to have that to this very day with many retailers in this country. The CFO knows this very well because they continually instruct retailers that they are collecting too much information, have done so for some time and they are not required to do so. We have always had an issue with what they felt they had to collect under the jurisdiction of the CFO, and some of them have been overzealous in that collection over the years simply because of the concern that their licences could be revoked were they not "playing the game. "
It is something that has been a concern to our members. It was a concern when the FAC system existed, and it has certainly been a concern ever since the long-gun registry came into effect, so I would say yes.
Senator Fraser: They had a problem because gun merchants were going further than they were required?
Mr. Farrant: Also, the information that was being asked for was not necessary.
Senator Fraser: By the gun merchants?
Mr. Farrant: By anyone. The variability of the system that has existed, even going back to the FAC days, has been a long-standing problem because it has never been quite clear. Some have collected, some have not collected, some have collected more and some have collected less. It has always been a fact that the merchants themselves kept telling our members and any reasonable firearms owner in this country that they had to do so for fear of prosecution if they did not collect this or that information.
Senator Fraser: That is very interesting because last night we had a chance to examine one of the ledgers, and it was very clear; there were specific columns with specific headings and specific information required, and there was no vacant space for adding in anything else you felt like adding. Although, as Senator Baker reminded us last night, manufacturers' warranties required vastly more information than was required for the ledgers. I wonder if maybe that did not lead to some of the confusion.
Senator White: Should this regulatory change take place — and correct me if I am wrong — there will still be a requirement for business owners to satisfy Chief Firearms Officer that their internal audit system and their inventory is correctly maintained. The difference will be that it will be their own records and whatever way they have to do that it will not be a registry of the CFO.
Mr. Friedman: I believe that is right. Firearms businesses will be bound essentially by two distinct sets of regulations. They will be bound by the same obligation that ordinary citizens have when they legitimately transfer firearms, which is they are satisfied that the person they are dealing with is a licence holder and that licence is not expired or suspended for whatever reason.
The Chief Firearms Officer has the power to regulate its business licences and of course that is the power they are using here to maintain the ledgers. There are many reasonable impositions that the CFO can make on firearms businesses in order to ensure they are conducting their firearms sales legitimately. The firearms ledger, however, in my view contravenes Bill C-19 and that is the only portion that is being affected by the regulations that are before the committee.
Senator White: In fact, we have looked at the ledger. We had one presented to us last night. It actually has the CFO's insignia on the front cover. It is not the record of the business at all, it is a record of the Chief Firearms Officer and the whole intent here is that the business owner must keep their own records, of course, if they want to continue to sell firearms. Realistically though a provincial firearms officer should not have to maintain a record for them since the registry was abolished.
Mr. Friedman: That is absolutely correct. All you need to do, like you said, senator, is look at the front cover and you know this is not a private record that will require, for example, a warrant for the inspection. This is the property of the Chief Firearms Officer, and Parliament has said the government no longer requires a keeping of records on the registration or transfer of long guns.
Senator Angus: Good morning to all of you and thank you for coming.
Mr. Torino, the numbers are staggering, with 250,000 new guns each year. You used the word "imported " at a certain point. Are all these guns coming from outside of Canada?
Mr. Torino: Yes, senator. Canada is a nation of importers in so far as firearms are concerned. We have one manufacturer, Savage, which manufactures primarily for shipment to the U.S.
The only other manufacturer of note was Para-Ordnance in Toronto, which manufactured handguns, and they moved to the United States. We import approximately 60 per cent from our neighbour to the south and the balance comes from Europe, Asia and any other place. All of these imports go through Foreign Affairs, through import-export controls.
Senator Angus: It is monitored then; they are not under the radar.
Mr. Torino: All firearms imported that go to businesses specifically but also individuals require an import permit, specifying make, model, serial number, et cetera. Anything new, of course, ends up going to the RCMP lab for examination.
Exports are also controlled the same way. You would file for an export permit. If I as a dealer wish to export a firearm to the U.S., or wherever, I have to have an export permit and show that the firearm was legitimately acquired in Canada, where it came from and so forth. I am issued an export permit only after the importing country issues their import permit. For example, Foreign Affairs matches the import permit from the U.S. with the permit they are about to issue. When I receive that as a merchant, I can then ship the firearm out according to approved methods.
Senator Angus: You characterized these as small arms. They are all handguns, are they?
Mr. Torino: No, sir; the vast majority will be long guns.
Senator Angus: Do small arms include long guns?
Mr. Torino: There is no real definition of small arms and light weapons. Small arms include anything that can be held in one hand or two hands by an individual. That includes handguns, long guns, rifles, shotguns and so forth.
Senator Angus: There is another thing I did not understand and I think for some of my colleagues it was perhaps the same. You were talking about dealing in firearms through merchants on the one hand, but then you went on to say that over 50 per cent of the transfers, which I understood to mean change of ownership of these arms, takes place directly between individuals. I think you said some of them happen at gun shows and other expositions. Can you elaborate? This is totally unregulated obviously.
Mr. Torino: It is totally regulated. When you use the words "totally regulated, " up until the passage of Bill C-19 all transfers had to be approved. All firearms were transferred legally. You received a reference number and the buyer received a new certificate number and the firearm could not be transferred without that. This has been in existence since December 1998. I am not aware of any problems in that area. Everything was transferred legally.
At this point the requirements of Bill C-19 are that the buyer must possess a licence and the vendor assures himself or herself that that licence is valid at that point.
Senator Angus: Are you making the point that these ones that are dealt with between individuals simply do not get recorded?
Mr. Torino: No, they all got recorded. The 800,000 transfers included approximately the number of imports. The balance was between individuals or, for example, an importer records a firearm, sells it to a distributer who then sells it to a retailer, and then sells it to an individual. You have a series of transfers going on but the import number stays. The balance is already in the country, either between a merchant and an individual or between an individual and another individual, who then calls in and states that they want to transfer the firearm. Verification is done at a time before the passage of the buyer's licence, the seller's licence and the description of the firearm itself.
Senator Angus: These errors you referred to was another staggering point to me when you were criticizing the ledger. What type of errors? Are they just clerical errors?
Mr. Torino: The errors that I quote are from the RCMP 2009 report, which quoted 3.4 million firearms that had errors. Either they were marked as unknown or had an incorrect serial number.
We have to remember that many firearms imported were former used military firearms from World War I, the Boer War, wherever, that were chopped up and made into hunting firearms and sporting firearms. Just about any military firearm does not have a name on it because the country that issues them to their soldiers passes over a rifle and tells them to go out and do what you have to do.
Someone acquiring this firearm through the legal trade will probably not be able to identify the firearm. Is it a Mauser or a Lee-Enfield? They will look for markings on it and take whatever they can and identify the make and model. Individuals were required to register their firearms by January 2003. Most of them had no idea what they were registering and no verification was done.
The errors are there. In relation to the serial number, in many cases the patent number was put down as a serial number. This is only picked up upon transfer. The program did not have the resources to verify each and every single firearm. Approximately 7 million were registered. As a result, there is this compound going on.
Senator Angus: I get it. Thank you.
Senator Peterson: Mr. Friedman, I may have misunderstood but I thought you said that after the passage of Bill C- 19 any keeping of a registry was somehow undemocratic. Therefore if a province or a municipality were to pass legislation that permitted the keeping of a registry, would that still be undemocratic in view of Bill C-19?
Mr. Friedman: Yes. Let me distinguish between two separate legislative tracks.
The Chief Firearms Officer, despite the fact that he wears an OPP uniform and is a senior OPP officer, is a creation of the federal Parliament. He is a creature of the Firearms Act. The Firearms Act has an opt-in and opt-out clause, meaning that provinces like Ontario that wish to opt in can appoint their own Chief Firearms Officer from the ranks of their own police forces, but his duties are circumscribed by the Firearms Act.
The Firearms Act was amended in Bill C-19 with transitional provisions. I would turn your attention to clauses 29(1) and 29(2), wherein subclause 29(2) reads as follows:
Each Chief Firearms Officer shall ensure the destruction as soon as feasible of all records under their control related to the registration of firearms that are neither prohibited firearms nor restricted firearms . . . .
If a province, which is not bound by the Firearms Act or by Bill C-19, wanted to have a registry of firearms like they have legislative authorities and jurisdiction to register automobiles and fishing licences that would be fine. The Chief Firearms Officer cannot use the Firearms Act, the very Firearms Act that says that he has to destroy all records related to registration.
In my view, in fact, all of the ledgers that have been kept between 1995 and the present day constitute records related to the registration of firearms that must actually be destroyed by the Chief Firearms Officer.
I would simply point out that in his letter, which I provided this committee with, he writes: "Bill C-19 does not define record of registration. " He says that in his view record of registration means only a number.
I do not know if he received bad legal advice or simply misread the legislation, but the words "record of registration " are never used in Bill C-19.
The terms are, ". . . records under their control " — that is his, Chris Wyatt — "related to the registration of firearms. . . " If a book, which contains make, model, serial number, licensee's purchase information, address, et cetera, is not a record related to the registration of firearms, I do not know what is.
In my view, the subversion of democracy here results in him failing to comply with his obligations under Bill C-19.
Senator Peterson: If the province were to pass legislation that permitted the keeping of a registry, he could do it.
Mr. Friedman: I do not know if he could do it as Chief Firearms Officer. They could pay for it themselves and they could do it. Right now, of course, the Firearms Act funds them as well. I do not see any major constitutional problem with the provinces going off and doing it on their own.
He is using his legislative authority under the Firearms Act to do it and, in my view, that is impermissible.
The Chair: Before Bill C-68 was there any provincial regulatory regime in place?
Mr. Friedman: There was, and in that regard that is why I specified the records between 1995 and the present. The ledger system, as it exists now, is being enforced by a post-Bill C-68. I do not think the records pre-Bill C-68 would constitute records related to the registration of firearms. I think that is a serious problem that is not directly addressed by these regulations but still exists in terms of the CFO's conduct.
Senator Campbell: Thank you very much for coming today.
Would it not make more sense if we simply waited until the court case was finished from Quebec to find out what the Supreme Court says about this rather than putting in new rules and regulations? We could find ourselves — and I suspect we will — in the position of having this struck down and then we will back at square one again, trying to figure out where we should go with a gun registry, registration and everything that ensues from it.
Mr. Friedman: Is that a question for me?
Senator Campbell: Everyone can have a chance.
Mr. Farrant: I am not sure how to respond to that. The case involving Quebec and the federal government over whether or not they should have access to the records or the maintenance of records is based on their opposition to Bill C-19.
If we put everything in abeyance and wait for that, and the legal process for that could take a long time to wind its way through, in the meantime we still have this issue that we believe quite strongly is a problem. Do we let that problem manifest itself while we wait for a legal case to go through the system, which could take another couple of years if it goes all the way to the Supreme Court, which, you are quiet right, it is likely to do? What is wrong is wrong, and knowing what is wrong and not addressing it is more egregious than sitting there and saying in the end this or that may happen. The Supreme Court may take this view, and therefore this is a wasted exercise.
We do not share that view.
Senator Campbell: You say it is wrong and I say it is not wrong. That will be the simple argument.
Mr. Friedman: It is helpful in this case to contrast the position of Quebec with the position of the Chief Firearms Officer that brings us to this committee today. Quebec is willing to put their money where their mouth is. They say they will pay to maintain the registry. They just want the old data. That is the democratically appropriate way of challenging Bill C-19.
The Chief Firearms Officer says they do not want to pay for a registry. Dalton McGuinty has said himself on the public record that Ontario has no intention of creating a separate gun registry. However, he wants to have all the benefits of the gun registry without doing the appropriate thing, which is challenging it in court.
With regard to the Quebec case, it is the only province that has expressed such interest. Maybe this is reading the tea leaves, but it would seem as if the Supreme Court at some point might be asked to rule on the discrete issue of Quebec and their intention to maintain a gun registry, not necessarily the Canada-wide implications.
The Chair: I may have read too much into what the minister said before us yesterday, but he talked about pulling the Quebec data out of the information, which would indicate again that it was only the Quebec data that would be preserved, awaiting the decision of the court.
Mr. Friedman: By now, even by today, three months later, the data for the rest of the country is so irretrievably stale that one would have to essentially start up a brand new registry for each province, given the number of transfers per year. This is an issue that only affects Quebec.
Senator Di Nino: Mr. Farrant and Mr. Torino, there has been some discussion on the provinces having the ability to create their own registry under certain mechanisms, which exist in the laws. Would the two of you like to see that happen?
Mr. Torino: I think that the federal law is what applies to firearms. I think that it is within the purview of the federal government to decide that, and any province that wishes to proceed has to discuss this with the federal government and settle it between them.
I do not think that anything that I would say or that Mr. Farrant would say has any implication in there whatsoever. I believe this is between the two governments.
Senator Di Nino: The minister said yesterday that, if the provinces wished, there are mechanisms for them to do this. I would like to know if your members would welcome that or otherwise.
Mr. Farrant: I am pleased to respond to that. No, they would not welcome that. The creation of a provincial registry would be fraught with the same issues that the federal registry was fraught with from day one: the inaccuracies, the flaws and the fact that it did not do what it was intended to do in the words of its creator, Mr. Rock, to enhance public safety and save lives, no more than a provincial registry would do.
First, it would be prohibitively expensive. Second, Mr. Friedman has addressed the salient issue that because of the stale-dated information that is there, bringing that up to date would be an astoundingly complicated process, if they could do it at all. Most importantly, it would be no better off than the federal registry was, which did not satisfy its intention in the first place. No, we would not be supportive of a provincial registry.
Mr. Torino: I think the bottom line to this whole thing is no registry will prevent a crime and has been proven never to have prevented a crime. At best it may help, at some point in the future, to solve some crimes.
If you look at traced firearms, approximately 5 per cent are traced back to a registration, possibly 2 per cent are traced back to the original owner. The proof is that it has not done any good and certainly has not prevented any crime.
If a province wishes to pass it our members would definitely not agree with it but I think, as I said, that is between the federal and provincial governments.
Senator Fraser: Thank you very much.
I think it is very important for us to remember that we are no longer discussing the gun registry. We are discussing individual ledgers that would be kept as business records by individual businesses.
I see no provision anywhere to indicate that those ledgers would somehow transmogrify themselves into a gun registry of the kind that Bill C-19 addressed.
I am interested in your legal argument, Mr. Friedman. However, I would suggest that Bill C-19 left intact section 58 of the Firearms Act, which allowed CFOs to set such conditions for businesses as they considered reasonable.
We have heard from the police both yesterday and in our very detailed hearings on Bill C-19. Even police officers who supported the abolition of the registry considered the maintenance of the ledgers to be an important tool for them. It is not a panacea — clearly not — but nonetheless it is a tool that would be brought into use only after a crime had been committed.
The maintenance of the ledgers would have no effect at all on anybody until a crime had been committed. Once that crime had been committed, it is a fairly cumbersome process and, as has been observed, if the gun has been transferred, then all the ledger can do is provide a starting point for the police to pursue their inquiries.
However, I cannot quite grasp something. I would like you to explain to me why a group as adamantly insistent on being law-abiding as you gentlemen are — and I know you are — why would you object to leaving in existence this tool that the police tell us they need?
Mr. Farrant: I would be more than happy to address that, senator. I appreciate the question. Thank you.
One of the things this hinges on is the fact that you are correct: Police must obtain a warrant to view those records. You are quite correct.
Unfortunately, in Ontario, in particular — I will speak to Ontario because that is where we are based — that is not true of the Chief Firearms Officer. When we met with him a few weeks, Chris Wyatt made the comment, "I am not sure why you guys object to this because cops have to get a warrant. " I said, "But you do not. " He said, "I do not, but they have to get one. "
The ledgers are stamped property of the CFO, or they have the CFO's seal on them, and the CFO may at any time demand that they be turned over to his office. I know it is speculation, and I agree that it is speculation, but if the CFO was given the instructions by his political masters to collect all of the registers from firearms merchants in the Province of Ontario, you would indeed have the foundation for a firearms registry of long-guns.
Senator Fraser: That is a very big "if. "
Mr. Farrant: It may be a big "if " but we know a CFO has the authority to collect them at any time. We know that the CFO has, from time to time, gone to businesses and said, "Send us your records 'for our own purposes' " — whatever that means.
Therefore, it is not beyond the pale that it could happen.
If the CFO himself had to get a warrant to view any of these records, or if these records were kept by merchants for purposes of inventory and warranty — business purposes — but were not subject to the dictates and whims of the CFO and were not conditions of their licences, where the CFO can say, "You do this or else, " then we would be in a different place and having a different discussion, but they are not. I know it is a very cliché or hackneyed phrase, but that is why we hear that this backdoor registry is possible. It could exist, it could be created, and it would not be that difficult.
Senator Fraser: It is possible that I could run out and try to steal $1 million tomorrow morning, but we try to deal in the realm of the likely.
Mr. Farrant: Senator, he is legally allowed to do that. You are not legally allowed to steal $1 million, but we he can certainly legally demand that those ledgers be turned over.
Senator Fraser: I might run for election tomorrow. It is equally unlikely.
Mr. Friedman: Senator Fraser, two important points need to be made in response to that question, and it is the right question to ask here.
First, you talk about this only being useful for police if a crime has been committed. It is for a post-offence investigation. I also want to address your question as to whether people in the past protested these ledgers. The answer is the same. These ledgers were previously used — this is historical fact — to confiscate firearms that had been prescribed as prohibited by Parliament. In other words, a person bought a firearm that was unrestricted at the time of purchase, and then Parliament arbitrarily reclassified it. These ledgers themselves were used pre-Bill C-68 to go and track down those firearms and confiscate them from law-abiding owners. No crime committed.
We talk about green bound books. I do not think I need to be a prophet to suggest that in a short amount of time the CFOs will say "Who is using green bound books anymore? Here is a computer program. Here is an Excel spreadsheet. Input the data. " Suddenly we have crossed the Rubicon from a paper ledger system to a computer database that can easily be manipulated and turned into a gun registry. One does not need to overly speculate on that point. It is just common sense.
If I was the Chief Firearms Officer, I would ask why on Earth, in 2012, we were using handwritten green bound books.
Finally, I would say that some police officers, some chiefs of police and perhaps even some front-line officers have said that these are powers that they would like to have. I am speaking unabashedly as the criminal defence lawyer at the table. In a liberal democracy, we have to strike a balance between the powers that police want and what they say will help them and is necessary in their investigations — and I am sure the police would like a whole slew of powers — balanced against the right of citizens to live without government interference and to use their legally purchased property peaceably. Of course, that is what our Parliament and our courts are for: to strike that balance.
In my respectful view, the fact that the police have requested it is not enough rationale to sign it into law.
Senator Fraser: I understand what you are saying. I would observe that if Parliament has made the possession of something illegal, then it is illegal. Thank you.
The Chair: That wraps it up. Gentlemen, thank you for appearing before this committee. It is much appreciated.
We will get under way with our second panel. Welcome, via video, Tom Stamatakis, President of the Canadian Police Association; from Project Ploughshares, Kenneth Epps, Senior Program Officer; and Heidi Rathjen, Spokesperson, Groupe des étudiants et diplômés de Polytechnique pour le contrôle des armes (Polysesouvient).
Welcome all.
[Translation]
Heidi Rathjen, Spokesperson, Groupe des étudiants et diplômés de Polytechnique pour le contrôle des armes (Polysesouvient): Mr. Chair, honourable senators, I want to thank you on behalf of Groupe des étudiants et diplômés de Polytechnique pour le contrôle des armes (Polysesouvient).
Many other victims groups wish they could have appeared before you today. Allow me to underscore the viewpoints expressed by the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Sue O'Sullivan, whose brief I believe you received, by Steve Sullivan, from Ottawa Victim Services, and by Priscilla de Villier, who also submitted a statement. All of them share our position.
With Parliament's summer recess only a few days, the federal government tabled regulatory amendments specifying that businesses cannot be forced, as a condition of the federal Firearms Act, to collect or keep point-of-sale data on long gun transactions — a Canadian requirement since 1977.
These records make it possible to track gun sales in businesses and represent an easy and cost-effective way to prevent guns from being sold to unlicensed buyers.
In 35 years, these sales ledgers have never given rise to any serious complaints. The debate on records of sales is a manufactured controversy that did not arise until Bill C-19 was passed in April, with some gun groups deciding that doing away with the gun registry was not enough.
Having seen first-hand the damage that a single gun can cause when in the wrong hands, we are astounded and outraged by this new claim from the gun lobby. These regulations add insult to injury to the victims and witnesses of gun-related tragedies, to police officers who put their lives on the line daily and, not to mention, to the public, who expects a modicum of precaution when it comes to the illegal sales of guns.
It is false and dishonest to claim that records kept by gun merchants bypass the spirit of Bill C-19 by creating another long gun registry through the back door. In actual fact, the information contained in these records is not stored in a centralized electronic database, is not easily accessible, is not used to track subsequent sales between private citizens, and so cannot serve to monitor firearms possession, and costs very little to maintain. The information in these records was not even used to create the central long gun registry that is on the verge of being destroyed.
The ledger books consist of forms providing details about the gun, such as the make, model, serial number and information on the status of the weapon, in other words, sale, buyer and the reason for which it is in the store — repair, storage and so forth. Police compare these ledgers to the merchant's inventory to make sure everything is in order. If a weapon is missing, it raises an alarm. These ledgers enable police to reduce the diversion of legal firearms to illegal markets.
Unfortunately, the proposed regulations will make it much harder to catch gun store owners who illegally sell weapons to unlicensed buyers.
Police associations have also said that records of gun sales are essential to solving gun-related crime. Logic dictates that tracing the original merchant and buyer of a weapon that is found at a crime scene is an important starting point in a police investigation. What is more, it is thanks to these sales ledgers that Montreal police were able to quickly identify the perpetrator of the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989.
It was recently said that these amendments are necessary so as not to cause problems for hundreds of thousands of people. What are those problems exactly? Is it a problem to provide a minimum amount of information when purchasing a firearm, a practice that has run smoothly for the past 35 years and that is in keeping with requirements when purchasing a warrantied electronic device, a car, or telephone or Internet service?
It is virtually obscene to label something so trivial and frivolous a problem, whereas the consequences of facilitating the diversion of firearms to illegal markets could actually cost lives.
Sales ledgers are used to monitor dealers' activities, not the possession of firearms by individual owners. The only people who might truly have a problem with these ledgers are the merchants and the buyers seeking to engage in illegal transactions. It is no doubt this group of individuals who are most appreciative of these new conditions that are conducive to the trafficking of firearms, conditions introduced by a government that consistently touts its tough on crime approach.
As with Bill C-19, the government is allowing the gun lobby to dictate our laws and thus the kind of society we live in, a society that is moving irrevocably backwards towards easy access to firearms. So, in addition to abolishing the long gun registry, the bill removed the requirement to check a buyer's licence when selling a gun or hunting rifle. Soon firearms will be harder to trace in Canada than they are in the United States, where all gun merchants must maintain sales ledgers.
Like Bill C-19, these regulations will inevitably lead to more lives and families being destroyed by the pull of a trigger. For all these reasons, we ask that you reject these regulations.
[English]
Kenneth Epps, Senior Program Officer, Project Ploughshares: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to address you today on the proposed firearms information regulations. My brief statement focuses on the implications of the regulations for Canada's international commitments related to reducing and eliminating firearms trafficking.
Every UN member state recognizes that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons is a widespread and persistent problem. This is because we know that international arms trafficking feeds lethal violence worldwide. In spite of a global decline in the number and lethality of armed conflicts, the devastation from criminal, urban, domestic and other forms of armed violence persists and even is growing in many states.
In the past 15 years, Canada has actively supported the development of several regional and global agreements designed to establish international laws and norms to rein in the illicit trade in small arms. In the case of four of the most important of these agreements, Canada is unable to meet core commitments; and the proposed regulations will make matters worse.
Canada signed the CIFTA firearms convention of the Organization of American States in 1997. CIFTA is a hemispheric, legally binding agreement to tackle illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms and related materials. Canada has not ratified the treaty, largely because it has not met provisions for the marking of imported firearms. The proposed elimination of records of sale will reduce Canada's ability to maintain basic record-keeping and exchange of information provisions of CIFTA, especially those related to international tracing requests. This means that Canada will not soon become party to the most important anti-firearms trafficking agreement of the Americas.
Similarly, Canada has signed but not ratified the Firearms Protocol of the UN Conventions on Transnational Organized Crime, which entered into force in 2005; and because the protocol contains provisions parallel to CIFTA, it is apparent that Canada will not become party to the protocol for some time either.
The third international agreement, the 2001 UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons, is arguably the pre-eminent global agreement to eliminate trafficking in small arms and light weapons. It was agreed at the United Nations by consensus and Canada, like all other UN member states, is politically bound to implement its provisions. At the national level, the Program of Action calls on each state "to ensure that comprehensive and accurate records are kept for as long as possible on the manufacture, holding and transfer of small arms and light weapons under their jurisdiction. " Eliminating records of sale will ensure that Canada cannot meet this commitment and others in the program of action.
Finally, as an additional product of the Program of Action process, the UN International Tracing Instrument was agreed by the UN General Assembly in 2005. ITI provisions emphasize record-keeping and cooperation in tracing with regard to all small arms and light weapons under each state's jurisdiction. The proposed regulations will hamper Canada's ability to participate in international cooperation on firearms tracing.
The elimination of records of sale will prevent Canadian implementation of core provisions of these four international firearms agreements. Also, they may impact imports of firearms into Canada. Recent European Union firearms regulations, for example, include specific assessment of international obligations, intended end use, and the risk of diversion of firearms exported by the EU states.
These raise important questions for Canada. In particular, has the Canadian government consulted with the EU on these regulations and does the Canadian government know how the elimination of records of sale will be assessed by EU exporters?
Thank you for your attention.
Tom Stamatakis, President, Canadian Police Association: Good morning, honourable senators. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today on behalf of Canada's front-line police officers regarding the proposed regulations related to the Firearms Act. I apologize for not being there in person today.
Before I begin with my remarks, I want to echo some of the comments that were made yesterday by the Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Vic Toews, as well as my colleague Mario Harel representing the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. We are not here to debate the relative merits of the gun registry itself but to focus on what effect the proposed changes might have on policing in Canada, as well as the impact they will have on the dissemination of information to our members in the course of their duties.
It is also important to note that while I understand the concerns the minister expressed regarding the re- establishment of a registry, the regulations we are discussing today are not a form of a backdoor registry as we have heard in the media over the last period of time. The information contained within the ledgers held at point-of-sale are not centralized, easily accessible or searchable by an officer in the course of an investigation. That being said, the information contained in those ledgers can be a valuable tool in the course of our analysis during an investigation. However, I should note that I do not think this information is going to disappear overnight with these changes either.
While a business will no longer be required to keep a ledger as a condition of their licence to sell firearms, there are still a number of requirements that gun store owners will have to fulfill, particularly regarding ensuring that every gun sold is sold to consumers who possesses the valid power or are legally authorized to possess a firearm.
I believe that many vendors will continue to maintain necessary records, if only just to cover their own liability with respect to the sale of firearms. That information will continue to be available to police even if it will be harder for our members to acquire that information, which of course represents another strain on our already stretched resources. It could negatively impact our capacity for analyzing the information that we receive, which is key towards actually solving the crimes that we are investigating.
The changes we are studying today are just another of the myriad of challenges that our law enforcement community faces on a regular basis. Our members equip themselves with professionalism every day, particularly in the face of ever-changing conditions, from new technologies to legislative and legal policy requirements. From my perspective, if we can take steps toward addressing those serious issues, I would suggest that it will have a far greater, positive impact on front-line policing in Canada than focusing on an issue such as the gun registry or any efforts to revive one. I would be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Senator Fraser: Good morning. It is still morning here in Ottawa and it is certainly morning in Vancouver. Thank you all for being here.
I have a couple of questions. First, Ms. Rathjen, you said — I want to have this said again in English to be sure everyone has really understood it — that even in the United States, gun owners' heaven, gun merchants must maintain records?
Ms. Rathjen: Yes, gun stores must maintain records. There may be a loophole with gun shows, which is a big problem, but legitimate gun stores have to keep sales records.
Senator Fraser: Would the sales records be comparable to the information?
Ms. Rathjen: I do not know the details on that.
Senator Fraser: We know the records must be kept, in part, so that if law enforcement people need to consult them they will be there?
Ms. Rathjen: Yes, and I believe the RCMP has said that with the loss of the registry, at the time, they would have to rely a lot more on information coming from the United States in order to trace guns back to their beginning. The record-keeping will be better in the United States than in Canada.
Senator Fraser: However, the manufacturers would at least know to whom they shipped the guns initially?
Ms. Rathjen: Right.
Senator Fraser: That would just be, perhaps, the beginning of the chain. That leads me to a question for both Mr. Epps and Mr. Stamatakis.
Mr. Epps, thank you for reminding us of the international context in which we are operating here. The minister told us yesterday that this regulation was still within what we are required to do by our international obligations.
However, I think he meant, although he did not say, that because we have not ratified these treaties we are not yet fully bound by them. There is, however, a principle that if you have signed them you are politically supposed to abide by their spirit and general thrust until you get around to ratifying them. I am wondering about the effect, not so much in our treaty obligations as on our working relationships with other countries' law enforcement, notably Interpol.
It is my understanding that there are agreements between many countries for the exchange of information, including information about firearms. If we do not have the information to exchange, are we likely to suffer in the sense that we will not get the information we need from other countries?
Mr. Epps: I think Mr. Stamatakis will be able to talk more about the operational aspects of your question, but in terms of the political situation, it is apparent that Canada would be seen by other states as not meeting its commitments around trying to control firearms trafficking.
If other states see the current regulations as weakening Canada's ability to track, trace firearms, it will certainly be seen as a weak member of the system. Given that Canada was a part of the process of generating the four agreements that I made reference to, it will be seen as a step back in Canadian responsibilities. There is no doubt about that.
Senator Fraser: Mr. Stamatakis, do you have any comments?
Mr. Stamatakis: From an operational perspective, police agencies regularly cooperate with each other, whether it is locally, within this country, internationally with our partners to the south, or beyond that. I do not see anything from a practical operational perspective in any of this, frankly, that will impede our ability to exchange information with other police agencies.
From an operational perspective again, all legally manufactured firearms will come with identifying features, serial numbers. Typically if you come across a firearm in the course of an investigation you will start with that serial number; you will track that firearm back to whoever manufactured it. From there you will go down whatever route that firearm travelled, accessing information by whatever means we can.
It adds to the work and it will often require judicial authorization to obtain records or search different places, but we will still do what we always do: gather the evidence and then follow whatever trail that sends us on.
Senator Fraser: If the trail comes to a blind end because the records do not exist, what do you do then?
Mr. Stamatakis: Then we come to that blind end and look at other investigative avenues. That is where records are useful from a policing perspective. We use them during the course of our investigation. Any time you can create a mechanism where records have to be created and exist, it is certainly helpful to any police investigation.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses. My question is for Mr. Stamatakis, an old co-worker of mine. You are a police officer, as was I for a long time. You know that gun-related crimes are easier to investigate because they leave behind a crime scene, and that speaks for itself. Often, before resorting to sales records, police are able to gather considerable evidence from the crime scene.
If the crime scene yields no information, the reason is that the crime was ordered by a structured criminal organization that uses unregistered weapons. I would also point out that Basil Parasiris used a registered weapon to kill police officer Daniel Tessier.
Maintaining an information registry, as the Province of Quebec wishes to do, will generate indirect costs. Would you agree with my assessment that this money would be better used to put police out in the field, ensuring public safety?
[English]
Mr. Stamatakis: If we were talking about spending more money today, then not only would I be arguing for dollars to be committed to police organizations so that we can maintain our capacity with respect to officers on the street, on the front line, officers available to conduct investigations, but there are many other challenges. I was having a conversation last night with a homicide investigator in Winnipeg who was describing to me some of the challenges around just getting exhibits analyzed where he submitted, in a particular investigation, 28 exhibits for analysis in our national crime labs, and the response he got back was, "Pick your four best and most important exhibits and we will analyze those and forget about the rest. "
We are struggling with resources, and I am involved in other conversations across this country with respect to the cost of policing and how it is not sustainable. Yes, if we were to have a discussion today about spending dollars, this is not where I would probably suggest we would get the best value back for any dollars committed by any level of government.
Senator Fraser: Mr. Stamatakis, in terms of resources, I think we all really understand how police budgets are stretched, everyone's budgets are stretched, and we all have a lot of sympathy for you. However, it is my understanding that the cost of maintaining these ledgers is borne by the merchants and has no impact on police budgets.
Mr. Stamatakis: If I go back to my comments, you are absolutely right. That is why I raised the issue around the notion that the maintenance of these ledgers somehow creates a backdoor registry. They are maintained independently by the merchants. They are a source of information for police during the course of an investigation, and I do not believe they could be used in that way, at least at this time.
Senator Fraser: Thank you very much.
Ms. Rathjen, I know that you have been following this issue for many years, not just as a survivor but as an actual member of a very important organized group and in cooperation with other groups. You have actually had the opportunity to study this issue for longer than most of us would wish. Was it your understanding, until very recently, that these ledgers would be maintained?
Ms. Rathjen: That is a very good question. I think the government purposely did not specifically include the ledgers in the legislation, as they did not in Bill C-21 and I think Bill C-24, two bills that were tabled in 2006 and 2007.
Senator Fraser: Those bills included the ledgers?
Ms. Rathjen: Yes. They did not mention them in Bill C-19, but in those cases they specifically said that the ledgers would be kept because this is another measure that will assist police investigations in locating owners of stolen firearms and those used in the commission of a crime.
With Bill C-19, it was not mentioned; it was not clear. We feared that we would lose them with the registry because it was part of the system, because with the implementation of the registry the ledgers became redundant because they existed for a long time.
With the introduction of Bill C-19, they were not clearly reinstated, but the power was still there for the Chief Firearms Officers to do it, so it is true that under the powers of the CFOs through the Firearms Act they could individually continue to impose the ledgers. That is what they did, and we are happy about it. I do not think the ledgers were a problem before. I have been on this file for over 22 years, and they existed long before I got involved in the issue, and I have never heard one complaint about the ledgers.
The first complaint about the ledgers came about six weeks ago after the Bill C-19 was passed in the Senate when the CFOs made clear that they would continue to require ledgers through their powers, and maybe a couple of other gun lobby groups who had supported ledgers during the hearings decided that they did not want them any longer, probably because of what Quebec is doing. I do not want to say paranoia, but this information in the ledgers was not used for the registry, but they decided they want to get rid of those now too. This is a new thing and the government responded quickly with these regulations.
Senator Fraser: Were you consulted?
Ms. Rathjen: No.
Senator Fraser: Do you know if any victims' organizations were consulted?
Ms. Rathjen: No, this was a surprise for everyone.
The Chair: The gun dealers, the merchants can maintain the ledgers on their own. It is a voluntary process if they wish to do so. Mr. Stamatakis and other witnesses indicated that the suspicion is that most if not all will continue to do so if they are responsible merchants. I do not know if you have any reaction to that.
There is also the possibility that the provinces can institute their own initiatives to require maintenance of these ledgers, and I am not sure if you have any views you would like to express in that regard.
Ms. Rathjen: Yes, stores can keep ledgers on a voluntary basis. However, if there is no framework, they can keep them any way they want. It could consist of piles of paper, lists, whatever the store decides, and that makes the job of Chief Firearms Officers very difficult in verifying that the inventory matches what comes in and what goes out.
The other thing is in terms of the provinces. Yes, the provinces under civil law would be able to pass a law to require ledgers, but why do we have to make it so complicated? Why do we need a patchwork? Some provinces would do it and some provinces would not. There would be a gap in between the time the ledgers now stop and would start again in difference provinces. This is a criminal law issue. The ledgers are there to prevent illegal sales of firearms. It should be the government, and it should be across the country. You are now creating a lot of problems for police to better do their jobs to protect the public.
There is absolutely no reason why you would want to transfer that responsibility over to the provinces, and now, by associating the ledgers with the registry, which I think is very wrong, it creates a stigma for certain provinces where the gun lobby is very strong. It will become a political issue and not a public safety issue. For that reason, I am sure not all provinces will impose these ledgers.
Senator Unger: We heard that the only records to be destroyed pertain to the registration of long guns, and provinces, as you just said, can opt to create their own registry.
We heard earlier that, from a 2009 RCMP report, the error rate on the long-gun registry was near 50 per cent and, in effect, a record of only 25 per cent of long-guns was actually created.
How can you advocate for the reinstatement of this, which was a part of Bill C-19 and which Canadians supported when they elected the current government? I am wondering how you can want so much to hold on to this, which really has little value, one could say. I know, anecdotally, that people were registering their pets and their Black & Decker tools, so did the registry really have that much value?
Ms. Rathjen: I am not a police officer, but you have heard testimony from the chiefs of police, the police association, the Chief Firearms Officers, and many other police organizations, who do say that the ledgers are important tools to investigate crime.
There is never 100 per cent accuracy. I have never heard the numbers that you have given me. It has never been that high. However, there are certainly inconsistencies in any large database.
The golden rule is that more information for police is better than less information, and now the government wants to eliminate information that can serve — not all the time, not in every case — but that can serve to catch criminals, to identify killers, in addition to preventing illegal sales to criminals, who do not have a permit, which is what the government says is the most important thing in terms of gun control.
Senator Unger: I think it was generally accepted, right from the beginning of Bill C-68, that criminals will never register their guns. The only people who did register were law-abiding citizens, and it was a tremendous invasion of their privacy. The information was very detailed, and that is the information that is now being eliminated. You say that, yes, there are some mistakes and flaws. What about the private citizens whose rights are being violated when, through some mistaken piece of information, their doors are kicked in and their houses are raided and "Oh, I am sorry. It was the wrong house "?
Ms. Rathjen: I think you are talking about the registry, which is a debate I love to take part in. However, today we are talking about the ledgers, which is a different debate in terms of the complaints about invasion of privacy and all those things.
The ledgers do not concern gun ownership; they concern only the sale, what the store sold to whom. After that, the ledgers do not follow the history of the gun and the subsequent sales. It is not a control on ownership; it is a control on a business that has a large inventory of weapons and that sells them to individuals. The ledgers help the police ensure that these guns are only sold to licensed individuals.
We have business permits for a reason. Business permits are not just a piece of paper. They come with conditions and responsibilities. One of these responsibilities is that you have to take very good care of your inventory, especially when it concerns weapons that can kill very easily and quickly.
I do not know how the Chief Firearms Officers now will ensure that everything is in order and that every gun is accounted for if they have no paperwork to match against the inventory. That is what we are taking away today from the police. This is not about control of gun ownership. This is not about the firearm registry. It is about stores.
Senator Unger: I understand that it is about ledgers. Still, even those ledgers — and I have not read the RCMP report. It was mentioned this morning. However, the point I really wanted to make was how you could be adamant when the error rate in the registry was so high.
The Chair: We are getting off on to Bill C-19 again.
Just dealing with the ledgers, Mr. Epps?
Mr. Epps: It is dealing with the original question.
The Chair: I think that has been more than adequately responded to.
Senator Campbell: I find it quite unbelievable that we would be comparing registering Black & Decker tools with handguns.
I agree with you; we are not discussing Bill C-19. That is done.
I would like to put a question to Mr. Stamatakis. From the point of view of police officers — this is from Police officers murdered in the line of duty, 1961 to 2009, Statistics Canada — between 1961 and 2009, 92 per cent of all officer- related killings were committed with a firearm: rifles and shotguns, 56 per cent; handguns, 44 per cent.
What effect will it have upon your investigations of not only police deaths but also deaths in general, by not having the opportunity to get at a ledger, by the ledger not being available to you?
Mr. Stamatakis: It will have the effect of making that investigation more complicated in terms of where you would go to get information related to a firearm that was used in the commission of an offence, whether the offence led to the death of a police officer or any other citizen. It makes things more complicated. By "more complicated, " it is not only that you likely have to go to more or different sources to get the information, but then, depending on where you are going and the willingness of a merchant or anyone else to provide that information, you would have to get judicial authorization and so forth.
Senator Campbell: How important is timely information in a homicide investigation?
Mr. Stamatakis: Critical. The first 24 to 48 hours is when you will gather the bulk of your evidence that you will rely on to get to a successful conclusion in terms of the investigation. You gather the information and then you spend the rest of the time following up on all the evidence you have gathered and any leads you have identified.
Senator Campbell: I take it you have been involved in homicide investigations.
Mr. Stamatakis: Not as a primary investigator, but I have been involved.
Senator Campbell: How important is it to the victims of this, their families, friends and loved ones, that this issue is dealt with as expediently as possible?
Mr. Stamatakis: When any criminal offence is committed, it is the victims who are impacted the most and for whom it is most important to reach a successful resolution, and by that I mean being able to identify who committed the crime and to successfully, hopefully, prosecute whoever that is. That process and the successful resolution of it is really what typically allows the victim to move on and learn to live with and manage the trauma associated with these kinds of events.
Senator Campbell: Thank you very much. It is good to see you again.
The Chair: I have no other senators on the list; and looking around the room, I do not see any hands going up.
I thank our witnesses for appearing before us today. We very much appreciate your contribution to our deliberations.
We will now deal with the draft report.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: I have a motion — I think we require a motion — that the committee adopt its fifteenth report and that the chair table the report in the Senate.
Senator White: So moved.
The Chair: Moved by Senator White. All in agreement?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Since this is our last Legal Committee meeting before we break, I want to mention that this is Senator Angus's last meeting as a member of the committee. He has been a member for a long time. I have the breakdown here, from 1994 to 1996, and 2009 to 2012, so a total of six years of service. It is not just service, but a significant contribution to the deliberations of this committee.
Certainly in my two and a half years, you have been a most valued member. There were many expressions of commendation and appreciation conveyed in the chamber yesterday. I think that it is a view shared by all of us who have had the opportunity to serve with you on this committee that we will miss your participation and the contributions that you have made to make this committee the successful body that it is very much. We will also miss the way that we have been able to collaborate on this committee, on matters like Bill C-10 for example, where you played a significant role in our being able to do that. We will miss you, and all the best for the future.
Senator Angus: Thank you most sincerely, Mr. Chair. In this committee more than any other — and I mean any other of our some 18 standing committees — there is the importance of continuity. I have observed it time and time again. There is a certain element of corporate memory that is so important when we are dealing with one statute, essentially, the Criminal Code of Canada. To have Senator Fraser, Senator Joyal and Senator Baker is important. We have it to a lesser extent on this side, but I think that we have taken note of how important that continuity is. I certainly have not been here that long when you think that it is six years out of 19, but continuity is key. My recommendation would be that we try to prolong that tradition and build on it because it is very important. People I talk to say that, funnily enough, this is one of the committees that they follow on CPAC more than other different kinds of committees. This touches the daily lives of Canadians at all levels, and they are interested in what we do. I have heard many comments from people that Senator Fraser and Senator Wallace are really tough chairs, but they are really good and know their onions. I know that you are finding it challenging, but you are doing a great job. I hope you will continue. Thank you for your remarks.
The Chair: Before we adjourn, I want to thank all the staff who assist us in making this committee work as well as it does, and I hope you all enjoy the summer break whenever it happens.
(The committee adjourned.)