Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 15 - Evidence for March 14, 2012
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, met this day at 4:15 p.m. to give consideration to the bill; and for the consideration of a draft budget.
Senator John D. Wallace (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good afternoon, and welcome, Senate colleagues, invited guests and members of the general public who are viewing today's proceedings on the CPAC television network. I am John Wallace, a senator from New Brunswick, and I am Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Today, we begin our consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act. This bill was introduced in the House of Commons by the Minister of Public Safety on October 25, 2011.
The summary of the bill states that it amends the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to remove the requirement to register firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted. The bill also provides for the destruction of existing records that are held in the Canadian Firearms Registry, under the control of firearms officers and related to the registration of such firearms.
To begin our public hearings today, I am pleased to welcome back to this committee the Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety. Minister, I believe you have an opening statement and would ask you to proceed.
Hon. Vic Toews, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Safety: I thank you for the invitation to be here to assist in your study of Bill C-19, the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act.
I might add as a comment that while I am scheduled to be with you for one hour, if you agree Mr. Chair, I will be pleased to stay longer. I have a vote, but I note that in a previous appearance here there was concern that I had not stayed long enough. I have a few extra minutes and will make myself available. I do have to get away for votes in the other place, but I will stay longer than the allotted hour.
The Chair: We would appreciate any additional time you could give us, minister.
Mr. Toews: Your committee's deliberation brings us one step closer to fulfilling our government's long-standing commitment to end the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry once and for all. Canadians from coast to coast to coast are watching and waiting for this bill to receive Royal Assent so that common sense can finally be returned to the way firearms are treated in this country.
Our government stands with law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters across Canada. We stand with rural, northern and remote Canadians who use shotguns and rifles as tools in their day-to-day lives. We stand with urban and suburban Canadians who enjoy hunting and target shooting and, most of all, we stand with Canadians who do not believe the state has the right to needlessly interfere with the private property of law-abiding Canadians. These Canadians have long opposed the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry, and I, along with my Conservative colleagues, am proud to stand up for them.
In short, Bill C-19 is about making sure we do not unnecessarily penalize honest and law-abiding Canadians with rules that have not had an effect on reducing gun crime.
What, then, does bill C-19 do? First and foremost, it removes the need to register non-restricted firearms, such as rifles and shotguns. Honourable senators, these are generally not the guns used to commit crimes.
Secondly, Bill C-19 ensures that we protect the privacy of law-abiding Canadians by destroying the long-gun data currently held in the registry.
The bill is clear: After Royal Assent, clause 29(1) directs the Commissioner of Firearms to ensure the destruction, as soon as feasible, of all information in the Canadian firearms registry pertaining to non-restricted firearms. Canadians can rest assured that our government will not share their personal information with other organizations or government bodies.
While I would not advise it, given the federal experience, provincial governments are free to use their constitutional powers in the area of property rights to establish a provincial long-gun registry. However, I cannot be more emphatic: The federal government will not assist in setting up a registry by the back door.
Contrary to the fear mongering of some opponents, Bill C-19 clearly does not do away with the need to properly license all firearms owners, nor does it do away with the need for the owners of restricted and prohibited firearms to obtain a registration certificate as well as a licence.
Registration of restricted and prohibited firearms, including all handguns and automatic firearms, will continue to be maintained by the Canadian Firearms Program. Under Bill C-19 Canadians will still need to go through a licensing procedure.
To obtain a licence they must be able to pass the required Canadian Firearms Safety Course exams. They also face a screening process to ensure that they have not committed a serious criminal offence, that they are not prohibited by a court sanction to own firearms and that they do not pose a risk to society.
Bill C-19 retains licensing requirements for all gun owners, while repealing the long-gun registry, because it targets those predisposed to complying with the law rather than thugs and criminals. Bill C-19 also maintains the current restrictions on the transfer and transportation of prohibited and restricted firearms.
What is proposed under Bill C-19 are changes that do away with the need to register legally acquired rifles and shotguns, owned largely by Canadians living in rural or remote areas, so that scarce government resources can be directed towards initiatives which in fact make our streets safer. This, again, is really what Bill C-19 is about. It is about ensuring that we invest in initiatives that work.
The bottom line is that measures taken in the area of firearms control should enhance public safety on our streets and in our communities by preventing firearms from falling into the hands of dangerous people and by setting tough consequences if they do.
That is what Canadians want, and that is what our government is committed to doing.
Throughout this debate we have heard all the reasons why Conservatives are opposed to the long-gun registry. We have heard how it is wasteful. According to the state broadcaster, the CBC, the cost of the long-gun registry has surpassed $2 billion. Can you imagine how many police officers that money could have hired? How many crime prevention programs could have been funded? How we could have used that money to support victims of crime? When you stop and think about it, the waste is absolutely astounding. We have also heard that it is ineffective.
Throughout the entire process of debate and, frankly, for the 17 years that we have lived under the long-gun registry there has not been one person who could convince me that the long-gun registry has ever stopped a single crime or saved a single life.
Mr. Chair, by eliminating the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry we can instead focus our efforts on more effective measures to tackle crime and protect families and communities. What will stop crime are smart prevention, effective policing and deterrent sentences. What will stop crime are those matters, not the long-gun registry. This is the approach to criminal justice that this government has taken and will continue to take into the future.
Supporters also claim that repealing the long-gun registry will loosen the rules around gun ownership and lead to increased gun violence in our streets. Mr. Chair, effective gun control exists through proper licensing and ensuring only qualified individuals have possession of firearms.
As I have said before, a gun in the hands of a law-abiding Canadian is just another piece of property. A gun in the hands of a criminal or the mentally ill only leads to tragedy. The long-gun registry does nothing to prevent the latter. Preventing guns from reaching criminals is done through screening and licensing, which in fact we have recently increased investment in.
Since 2007 our government has committed $7 million annually for enhanced screening of individual licensees. This ensures that over 20,000 first-time firearms licence applicants will be interviewed, along with references for the applicant, to help prevent guns from getting into the hands of those who are legally ineligible.
Ours is an approach to gun control based on common sense. Our government has clearly demonstrated that it is serious about getting tough on crime, and especially gun crime. This is evidenced through our implementation of the Tackling Violent Crime Act, and more recent legislation, Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. I want to thank senators for moving on that bill.
Our government believes that gun control should target criminals, not law-abiding citizens. It should promote safety on our streets, not frustrate hunters in the bush. It is about an approach that does not penalize law-abiding citizens, particularly those in rural areas. It is about an approach that will truly reduce gun crime and keep Canadians safer.
I therefore urge all honourable senators and members of the committee to ensure that Bill C-19 is quickly passed into law. Law-abiding Canadians are counting on you.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, minister, for those helpful comments.
We will now turn to questions from committee members and begin with our deputy chair, Senator Fraser.
Senator Fraser: Minister, thank you for joining us. It is a pity you were not been able to bring officials to stay on after you have to leave.
However, as you know, in 2000, in the Firearms Act reference, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that it was not possible to separate the registration provisions from the rest of the Firearms Act and that the registration and licensing provisions were inextricably linked. Both portions, the court said, are integral and necessary to the operation of the gun-control scheme.
Now you are removing the registration requirement for the overwhelming majority of guns in Canada. How, in the light of the Supreme Court's opinion, does the rest of the act still stand?
Mr. Toews: I am not exactly sure what the Supreme Court was saying there, given that the licensing provisions were in effect prior to the registry coming into force.
I think you might be taking that out of context.
Senator Fraser: I was quoting from a memo written in your own department, which said that there might well be constitutional challenges on this ground.
Let me turn to another area.
Mr. Toews: Let me intervene, then. If the licensing provisions were constitutional without the registry, and if the Supreme Court of Canada said the registry was constitutionally valid under the criminal law, how could removing the registry then subsequently invalidate something that the courts have already ruled, in terms of licensing, was constitutionally valid?
Senator Fraser: What they said was that licensing and registration were two sides of the same coin, if you will.
However, I have another question.
Mr. Toews: For 17 years that has been true. Before the 17 years it was not true, and hopefully within the next month or two it will not be true.
Senator Fraser: The chair will cut me off, but I have another question. We all have to be concise and terse around here.
As you also know, there are numerous international treaties, protocols and agreements involving firearms, particularly, obviously, aimed at controlling the international trade in firearms. I am particularly struck by the UN Firearms Protocol because last October, Prime Minister Harper, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, urged Commonwealth Heads of Government to comply with all obligations arising under international law and urged all countries to become parties to and implement the UN Firearms Protocol.
That protocol, like all the other agreements I referred to, calls for information to be kept and, in the case of that protocol, for information to be kept for not less than 10 years in relation to firearms, information that is necessary to trace and identify them, for example.
How do we square what we are doing in Bill C-19 — again, removing registration, that is, information about the vast majority of guns in Canada — with these international obligations?
Mr. Toews: I understand — and I am not an expert in international relations — that the repeal of the long-gun registry in itself will not impede Canada should it take steps to ratify those agreements. Some of those agreements have not been ratified, the ones you are referring to. There is no impediment, by simply repealing the long-gun registry, to that.
Senator Fraser: If you repeal it before we ratify, that is one thing; however, once we ratify, we are supposed to be bound to have that information, and we will not.
How would we square those international obligations with the fact that we will no longer be keeping the required information?
Mr. Toews: You will have to speak to an expert on that. My understanding is that repealing the long-gun registry itself will not impede Canada's ability to take steps to ratify these agreements. There would be nothing to legally impede Canada from doing that. We would not have to pass other legislation in respect of long guns in order to be able to comply with these agreements.
Senator Lang: I would like to welcome our guest here today. I want to commend you, minister, both for your perseverance and for your ministerial responsibilities and, as a member of Parliament, for taking on this particular issue over the years and finally bringing it to the forefront.
As I said in my opening speech at second reading, I pointed out that Canada faced the same issue, I believe, in 1919, where small arms were prohibited, and then they had to reverse that decision a year later because the law-abiding Canadians at that time said they would not put up with it. Subsequently, they reversed the law that was put in place, and here we are in the same situation.
I agree with your statement that a gun in the hands of a law-abiding Canadian is just another piece of property. I think the important issue here for us around the table is the question of safety for Canadians. It should be clearly delineated what is expected of those of us who do have a firearms acquisition permit. I do not know how many people around this table have a permit and how many people have gone through the process, other than my colleague Senator Baker. The point is that there is a requirement for a licence, a police check and a safety course. You have to meet all three objectives in order to be eligible for this particular licence.
Perhaps you could clarify the situation further on down, when one does acquire a rifle and goes to sell it, now with the registry gone, the requirements that will still be in place so that we ensure there is a requirement for licensing of every individual who acquires a long rifle once the registry is destroyed.
Mr. Toews: There is still an onus on someone who is going to sell a firearm to satisfy himself or herself that the individual wanting to purchase the firearm is properly licensed. If the owner does not satisfy himself of that, then they could be liable for prosecution, with a possible sentence of up to five years. There is a stiff penalty for selling a firearm to someone who is not licensed.
Senator Lang: Are you satisfied, minister, that there are enough protections in the system, so that for those Canadians who are concerned about safety, as long as those qualifications are met, the question of safety will be met?
Mr. Toews: I believe that the safeguards that are in place are appropriate for the long-gun transfers and the licensing of individuals who wish to possess that type of firearm. I understand that there are differences with short arms, with revolvers and pistols. For that reason, our government has not questioned the registry of pistols and revolvers.
Senator Lang: For the record, again, so that it is clarified for the listeners out there, the registry will continue for revolvers and those types of firearms that have been designated and prohibited. The public has, I think, in some ways been misled to believe that perhaps these will just be open market once this legislation is passed.
Mr. Toews: No. That needs to be clear, senator, and I thank you for raising that. Also with respect to restricted and prohibited firearms, there are certain registry requirements, if not outright banning of certain types of firearms by the general public. That, again, needs to be made clear.
Instead of focusing on simply the registry, even of pistols and handguns, what we have done in our time in government is tried to enhance tools that will assist police.
I had an interesting conversation just a week or so ago with Chief Chu in Vancouver. He said that when gangsters now carry a gun, they carry it for a reason, not simply because it is a status symbol. They are going out on a mission. The reason they are not now carrying guns all the time is because of some of the changes we made in the legislation, for example, the reverse onus on bail. A lot of these gangsters now do not want to be picked up with a gun, because if there is an illegal gun in their possession, they will not get bail, since the onus is now on them to demonstrate why they are carrying that gun.
It is changes like that. Mandatory minimum prison sentences, for example, which I am strongly in favour of when it comes to the possession of firearms, are very important in order to put a concern in the minds of these gangsters. If they are caught with these guns, they are incapacitated; that is, they are put behind bars so that they cannot use guns on a so-called mission.
Senator Lang: If I could move on to another area, it has to do with the long-gun registry and with respect to our police enforcement agencies. The position that many have taken, especially the front-line officers, is that the registry does not prevent crime and does not necessarily prevent those who would like to get a firearm from getting one. Perhaps you can tell us, from your experience in having to deal with the legislation, what has been brought to your attention with respect to the front-line officers and what they have had to deal with.
Mr. Toews: The idea that officers check the registry thousands of times a day is very misleading, given that whenever they stop someone in a car, for example, it is automatically checked into the registry, so that this somehow gives them this information automatically even if they are not looking for it.
What officers tell me is that they would not rely on the fact that someone might be a registered owner of a firearm. Those are not usually the people they are worried about. They are worried about the ones who are carrying unregistered firearms, handguns and the like. Many here would be in a better position to say it than I, but my information from these officers is that they approach every vehicle, every car and every house with the possibility that there could be a firearm there. Whether the registry says there is one or not is quite irrelevant.
The Chair: Just a quick clarification, minister. I am sure most people around this table are aware of this, but for the benefit of the viewing public: The distinction that Bill C-19 focuses on the long-gun registry versus the registration of what you refer to as prohibited and restricted weapons. Can you briefly clarify restricted and prohibited weapons? What types of weapons are those, and what circumstances will continue to apply to those weapons?
Mr. Toews: For example, pistols and revolvers are restricted firearms. There is one test for long guns and another for restricted firearms. Automatic weapons are, generally speaking, prohibited. In fact, I do not know of one that is available to an ordinary member of the public. The classification process is done by the RCMP, as a general rule, or by certain independent classification experts. I do not want to give a specific definition, but I think that most of us have the idea that long guns to which the long-gun registry applies are guns used on farms such as .22s, shotguns, 30.06 and .303 Enfields, which are typical long guns that have been registered under this long-gun registry that we say does not assist in crime prevention.
There are substantive policy reasons why revolvers and pistols need to be registered, and while people may differ on that, I think our government has taken the right position in maintaining the registry in respect of short arms.
Senator Baker: Minister, I think most people across Canada watch proceedings like this to try to discover what is actually happening. They want to know how this will apply to the ordinary person who owns a gun or a part of a gun. I learn something every time I listen to someone talk about this legislation, especially yourself, because you are very familiar with it.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the only thing this changes is that people will not have to register their normal guns that one would find in the basement such as, as you mentioned a .22, a 20-gauge, a 16-gauge, a 12-gauge, a 30.06, a 32 special, a .303 or a 30-30, or parts of those guns, which has always been a contentious issue. As far as I can see, this bill only removes the requirement to register the parts of the guns or the guns because, as you pointed out a minute ago, there will still be a licence.
Mr. Toews: Yes.
Senator Baker: Most of the criticism you hear about the long-gun registry is that to get a licence and you have to go through a very invasive and intrusive police procedure where they ask you who your girlfriend was, who your present spouse is, where they live, if you have ever seen a doctor in your life, and things like that.
Mr. Toews: You have obviously taken the test, senator.
Senator Baker: As you know, I was an MP for 29 years. Those things still remain.
Mr. Toews: Absolutely.
Senator Baker: Minister, all you are doing is removing what?
Mr. Toews: We are essentially removing the registry of the actual piece of property, but we are still qualifying the individual as being properly licensed to possess and use a firearm.
Senator Baker: Or ammunition. In other words, someone who buys ammunition will still have to have a licence?
Mr. Toews: Yes.
Senator Baker: They will still have to have a licence?
Mr. Toews: Perhaps one person out of ten in a coffee shop in my riding will have a registered firearm, and it will be a .22 or something like that. However, everyone sitting around the table relies on that individual to buy them ammunition, because if you have a registered .22, you can buy ammunition for a 30.06, a .303 or a shotgun. It looks a little odd if you come in with your certificate and buy ammunition for every other type of firearm, and that is the unfortunate kind of thing that happens with the registry. It really does not focus on who is a criminal.
I want all the people around that table who have firearms to be licensed so that we can satisfy ourselves that they are not mentally unstable and not criminals.
Senator Baker: The police will still have that person's name and address in the computer in their car because that person had to get a licence to possess a firearm or to purchase ammunition. I am trying to figure out what the change is and whether it is a substantive change. It is considerable in that you do not have to register parts of guns and certain guns, but as far as a substantive change in the intrusive nature of the police duties, they will still have these people on their computers.
Mr. Toews: I am not sure what all CPIC —
Senator Baker: You said they have to have a licence.
Mr. Toews: They have to have a licence.
Senator Baker: Would the police not have access to that?
Mr. Toews: I am not sure what all is on CPIC. A police officer would be in the best position to tell you that.
Senator Baker: We have two good police officers across the table, and they will be able to tell us.
Mr. Toews: They will be able to tell you exactly what is on CPIC. I know that on CPIC is the fact that someone has been acquitted of a crime, that someone has been arrested but not necessarily convicted, or that someone has been picked up under the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act. That is information kept for police purposes specifically. I am not sure whether the licensing computer is linked into that. I know the registry is automatically linked in.
Senator Baker: Mr. Chair, maybe future witnesses can answer that.
Senator Runciman: Were you the Justice Minister in Manitoba when this legislation was being considered?
Mr. Toews: I was.
Senator Runciman: I thought so. I was the Solicitor General of Ontario and I appeared before this committees and expressed the concern that bureaucrats in the provincial government at the time estimated that the cost would exceed $1 billion. I think Mr. Rock, the federal attorney general and justice minister at the time, was suggesting that it would cost $2 million.
Mr. Toews: That would be the net cost.
Senator Runciman: We certainly expressed our concern, not only about the cost but about the lack of impact it would have on gun crime. We said that our preference was to put that into front-line policing. I am not sure whether you appeared on behalf of your province.
Mr. Toews: No, I did not. I became the provincial attorney general in 1997, and shortly after that time Mr. Rock came to visit me and indicated to me in no uncertain terms that if we did not enforce this he would sue me. He still has not sued me although I told him very clearly that we would not enforce it. That was a very clear direction from our government. I found it ironic that at the same time they were bringing in this massive gun registry they shut down RCMP Depot in Regina. One of our MPs, the MP from the Yukon, was in Troop 4 in 1998 when they told him that his would be the last troop to graduate from Depot, that there would not be any more RCMP officers graduating because they could not afford it.
I found it amazing that at the same time as they shut down Depot they were bringing in this registry. That was going to make it very difficult for people trying to enforce the law in places like Manitoba, because we could not find enough police officers. There were huge vacancies. With the retirement rate at that time, within five years 50 per cent of the RCMP would be eligible for retirement.
That was why, when we came into government, 300 officers were being graduated a year. They reopened Depot and there were 300 officers in 2006. We ramped that up to 1,800 a year very quickly in order to meet these huge deficits that we had in terms of police officers.
Senator Runciman: I have found in this assembly, people who reside in urban areas or bigger cities seem to have a confusion, which I will describe, with respect to doing away with the registry. They think the government is doing away with gun control. In my view, real gun control is a licensing regime, safe storage and background checks, and really has nothing to do with the registry. I am not sure how you or the government overcome that perception, but it is relatively widespread in heavily urbanized areas. I do not know if you see that as a concern and, if you do, if there is any way it can be addressed.
Mr. Toews: You will notice that when members of the opposition, and I am sure that does not happen in the Senate, talk about the gun registry, they always talk about gun control generally and confuse the issue and do not make that distinction between the registry and licensing. You will note that people on the government side will always talk about licensing and gun control in a different context. They will make clear when they are talking about the registry as something different from what we consider gun control. That loose use of language contributes to people's genuine confusion.
The place where they are not confused is in the rural areas. Come to a riding like mine back in 2000, when I was elected. We had American hunters come up, especially into the poorer areas of that riding in the southeast corner of Manitoba, with ATVs and rent hotel rooms, use the restaurants and hire guides. That industry is devastated. Now, you can basically go down highway number 12 in the fall and honk your horn at the deer that are standing on the highway every minute and a half because people have basically given up on hunting and on a way of life. I think many people are very resentful that they have somehow borne the brunt of a misguided attack on what it means to fight crime. Hunters, guides and others saw this as a natural part of their lives, and somehow they felt they were being viewed as criminals. The worst thing about it is that it has created a divide between the police and ordinary law-abiding citizens who should be supporting the police on many initiatives and yet now are suspicious of the police because they have a .22 hidden in their barn or in their basement. That is terribly unfortunate because it has alienated the wrong people and not focused on the individuals who are in fact the criminals.
Senator Runciman: Whether it is appropriate, perhaps you might consider some sort of advertising program about gun control to reassure Canadians who have concerns.
Is there anything in this bill that in any way has an impact on the licensing process, background checks or the types of weapons that can be legally bought or sold in Canada — in other words, the control of firearms?
Mr. Toews: No change in that respect. In fact, I have noticed there were questions coming up when we brought this bill forward that somehow this will affect the classification of firearms. That is a totally different issue. There are legitimate questions one way or another. Should this be a restricted firearm? Should this not be a restricted firearm? That is a totally different issue and it is not affected by the repeal of the registry.
The Chair: We have Senator Jaffer followed by Senator Dagenais.
Mr. Toews: I will keep my answers a little shorter.
The Chair: We are here to listen to you, minister.
Senator Jaffer: Further to what my colleague Senator Baker was saying, I am trying to grasp this. I am proud to say that I am not a gun owner, holder or licencee because that is not my lifestyle. There are many urban people like me and for them to understand what is happening, is that the best way? Maybe you can correct me if I am wrong. To drive a car, I need a licence, right?
Mr. Toews: Right.
Senator Jaffer: If I have a car, I have to register it.
Mr. Toews: That is correct.
Senator Jaffer: If I want a long gun and to use it, I still have to have a licence.
Mr. Toews: That is correct.
Senator Jaffer: I still have to go through police checks.
Mr. Toews: That is correct.
Senator Jaffer: The only difference now is that under the bill, I do not have to register it.
Mr. Toews: A long gun, yes.
Senator Jaffer: I still have to register the short gun.
Mr. Toews: Yes.
Senator Jaffer: I do not have to register the long gun, if the new bill comes into effect.
Mr. Toews: You do not have to register your long gun; that is correct.
Senator Jaffer: I believe it is non-restricted.
Mr. Toews: Let us be very clear. I appreciate the distinction, Senator Baker.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, I get it: Law-abiding farmers and hunters feel the stress of being treated as criminals. I can understand how they feel. Where I come from in Vancouver, I work in schools where young children tell me, and it is very embarrassing for me as a parliamentarian, that they cannot go and play on their street because of who lives three doors down. That is the reality of where I come from and what happens to long guns. The police report here talks about the RCMP and in Western Canada the cut-down long guns are the guns of choice due to availability.
Mr. Toews: Cut-down guns are prohibited.
Senator Jaffer: I understand they are cut down.
Mr. Toews: Yes.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, do you have the bill in front of you?
Mr. Toews: Yes, I do.
Senator Jaffer: Can you turn to page 5, please?
Mr. Toews: Are you talking about clause 5 or page 5?
Senator Jaffer: Page 5, section 23. My preoccupation is where I live. My reality is such that my children and my grandchildren cannot walk on the streets because of the criminals. How do we stop them? Look at proposed section 23, on page 5.
Mr. Toews: I am not sure I have the same because I have a clause-by-clause analysis here.
Senator Jaffer: My assistant will give it to you. We have highlighted it for you.
Mr. Toews: Yes, I see it. Section 23 states:
(b) the transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee is not authorized to acquire and possess that kind of firearm.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, I want you to look at 23(b). The transferor has to look at that. Every act I have looked at from previous — "the transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee is not authorized to acquire and possess that kind of firearm." I may be mistaken, but this is a new thing that has been added to this bill. Minister, why has this been added?
Mr. Toews: This puts an onus on the individual who lawfully owns the firearm when he or she is transferring that ownership to someone else, to make sufficient inquiries to ensure that the person first of all is licensed and second is not under some kind of core prohibition.
Senator Jaffer: I am really glad you said that. Minister, when you look at your media campaign that my colleague Senator Runciman has spoken about, I hope you will put this provision in it. You have now placed an added burden on the gun owner of having to, when he or she transfers the gun to another person, check a license and ensure that there is no suspicion of how the gun will be used.
Mr. Toews: There is an onus, whether this is new or from, let us say, 1995, I cannot remember. What I can say is that we feel it is important that somebody who has a firearm satisfies himself or herself that the person they are transferring it to has the legal authority to acquire that firearm.
Senator Jaffer: This is an additional requirement that you have placed on a person that is transferring or selling a gun.
Mr. Toews: I would not say it is an additional one. It certainly replaces what is presently in place under the registry because a registry takes care of that. Now the onus is on the individual personally. They have personal responsibility in that sense.
Senator Jaffer: If I may paraphrase you, you are saying that instead of registering the gun with the registry you are putting the onus on the transferor to ensure that there is no suspicion as to why this gun should not be transferred to the transferee. The onus has gone from the seller to the buyer.
Mr. Toews: That is correct. That does not eliminate the responsibility of the transferee to have that license. That individual could still be charged, but the transferor could be also.
Senator Jaffer: Here it already says that you have to have a licence before it is transferred.
Senator Fraser: I have a supplementary if you are changing topics.
Minister, it is wonderful to hear you say that. I am delighted that you believe that, and I hope you will tell the people of Canada that. However, I am not the only person who has read this clause of the bill and has not seen that onus in there. The onus, as I read it in subsection (a), is that the person buying or receiving the gun must have a licence. The only onus on the person selling, giving, or bartering the gun is that that person must have no reason to believe that the other person is not authorized to acquire and possess that kind of firearm.
That strikes me as a far more passive requirement. I could say that I have no reason to believe that you are a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. Well, no, there is not one anymore, so I have no reason to believe that you are a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. Maybe there is one somewhere, and you are a member.
Mr. Toews: When you loan someone your car, you say, "Yes, you can drive my car. Do you have a licence?" We all ask that. If it is someone that you do not know that well, you sort of ask, "I hope your licence is current." You satisfy yourself, in one way or another. This is no different.
Senator Fraser: If I were operating just barely this side of the law and if I knew that most of my customers were not necessarily fine, upstanding, honest Canadian citizens, but were shady characters, it would be in my interest just to look at these people and say, "No reason to believe they do not have a licence. Here is the gun."
Mr. Toews: I do not think that you would find dealers in guns — retail dealers, especially — who would do that kind of thing.
The criminals will always avoid that type of thing. If you go to a store, buy a stereo, get your receipt, and then go back in six months for the warranty because someone broke it, they will go into the computer, and it is all there. They will know, as a general rule, what you purchased and when you purchased it. That is something that the stores do.
In this context, all we are doing is putting a legal onus on an individual to satisfy themselves that there is, in fact, a legal entitlement to possess. Failure to comply with that could result in a very substantive prison term.
The guys dealing in sawed-off shotguns are not worried about the licenses because they are dealing in prohibited firearms. The gang members do not care about the registry or the licensing system. What we have to do then is the mandatory prison sentence, reverse onus on bail and many other initiatives that our government has —
Senator Fraser: Minister, I would love to go on about this, but I am eating into my colleagues' time.
Mr. Toews: Okay.
Senator Baker: Just a short supplementary because you litigated this, minister, when you were a crown prosecutor. It is the difference between a reason to believe and a reason to suspect. What they put in here is a "reason to believe," and that is considerably different than a reason to suspect. Could you elaborate?
Mr. Toews: For example, if I am not mistaken, when you prosecute impaired drivers and go to "reason to believe" that somebody has been drinking, you can give them the alert, the roadside demand.
When the person has, in fact, been drinking — it is confirmed by the alert — you have "reasonable and probable grounds to believe."
Senator Baker: You have two different standards. "Reason to believe" is the higher standard.
Mr. Toews: I think "reason to believe" might be higher than "reason to suspect."
Senator Baker: That is what you said when you were a prosecutor.
Mr. Toews: However, it is not as high as "reasonable and probable grounds," so it is different.
For someone on the street, so to speak, trying to determine this, these are not exact legal standards. We are trying to ensure that they understand that they have to take reasonable steps in order to satisfy themselves that the person can acquire a firearm.
The Chair: We will have to move along. Again, we are aware of the limited time that you have, but I want to come back to Senator Jaffer. She has one further question. Then we have five other senators who wish to ask questions.
Senator Jaffer: A few weeks ago, you were in front of us, speaking very passionately about Bill C-10, and you wanted safer streets and communities
Mr. Toews: I do, and I thank the Senate for passing the legislation.
Senator Jaffer: I heard your passion on that. I am really confused as to why you now bring up Bill C-19. The steering committee had us hear from probably every police officer in the country. There was a mantra that came from them: "We want the tools to fight the crime; we want the tools to fight the crime." I could hear it in my sleep every night.
This is a tool that police officers have to fight crime. I understand that they check the registry 16,000 times a day! I have been in the car with them when they have gone to a scene of violence and checked if there was a gun.
A few weeks ago, I was in the car with them going to a situation, and they were checking in the car to see if there was a gun. We did not enter the house because there was a gun inside. Why are we taking this tool away from police officers?
Mr. Toews: Are you saying that, if no gun showed up on the registry, the officer would say, "I will now enter into the house?"
Senator Jaffer: They feel safer if they do not see a gun in that house. That is what they tell me.
Mr. Toews: I never heard a police officer say that because every house has a gun in it when you get out of that car and walk out to that house.
Senator Jaffer: They check before they go in. They told me that time after that time. They check to be careful if there is a gun. They check if the person has a license.
Mr. Toews: Let me conclude by saying that at least you know that the person who has registered the gun is law- abiding. Criminals do not register.
The Chair: We will have other witnesses, and you can put that question to them.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Minister, thank you for being here and for persevering in this matter.
You know that, in Quebec, we have a minister of public safety, Jean-Marc Fournier, who is asking for data from the national registry to build his own. Could you explain to us why the government is refusing to provide that information?
[English]
Mr. Toews: The registry was created under certain conditions in respect of certain principles in respect of a criminal law scheme. We told Canadians that this information would be used by the federal government for the purposes of a criminal law registry, which in fact it is.
We now have made a commitment, given that we do not believe that the registry is effective, to get rid of the registry. The registry and the data are inseparable. As one of my constituents so very clearly told me, he said, you know, not getting rid of the data is like saying to my neighbour who wants to buy my farm I will sell you the farm but I am keeping the land. It does not make any sense. They are inseparable, so we made a commitment to get rid of the registry. In other words, we are selling this particular farm. The land goes with the farm; it is gone.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Could we go as far as to say that the opposition to the gun registry being abolished comes from urban areas and is due to a lack of understanding of what goes on in rural and remote regions?
[English]
Mr. Toews: To an extent that is true. When I first came to my riding, because I came from the northeast quarter of Winnipeg where I served as an MLA, the registry was a big issue there as well among hunters and individuals. When you got into the rural areas, it was not an issue just among the hunters and farmers; it was their spouses who were angry about the registry. It was something that I had quite never experienced because it was seen as an insult to their way of life, that somehow someone branded all of them as criminals, and I do not think you can really understand until you live in one of those areas how deeply personal an issue this is for many of these people.
Having said that, as a provincial MLA, I found very strong opposition to the registry in my own riding of Rossmere. It is interesting that the NDP government that succeeded our government maintained its opposition to the registry and said they would not enforce the registry either, and most of their support is urban based as opposed to rural.
The Chair: We have Senator Hervieux-Payette, Senator White and others. I would like to see everyone have an opportunity on first round.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Welcome, minister. I have a quote in English from your brief. I would like to hear your comments on that quote. With your indulgence, I will speak in my language.
[English]
. . . there has not been one person who could convince me that the long-gun registry has ever stopped a single crime or saved a single life.
[Translation]
When I spoke to the bill in the Senate, I said that — and I want to point out that four of the five senators on this side are women — statistics show that the spousal homicide of women involving a firearm decreased by 64 per cent from 1995 to 2007. From 2000 to 2009, a firearm was used in nearly a quarter — 23 per cent — of spousal homicides.
Those statistics generally even come from federally run organizations, as Statistics Canada and your department also keep statistics.
Could you tell me where you obtained that data? Or is that just a personal opinion?
[English]
Mr. Toews: As I indicated, it is a personal opinion, but it is based on conversations I had as recently as a couple of days ago with a former chief of police of a large urban police force who had a senior person ask one of his deputies, who subsequently became the chief of police, if he could find one case, one murder that was solved because of the registry, and the deputy came back and said zero.
That is the kind of evidence I have been hearing. I do not think you can make a correlation between the fact that spousal assaults or violence has gone down because of the registry. I think the better argument that could be made is in respect of the licensing and ensuring that mentally unstable or dangerous people do not have access to firearms, but that is a separate issue from the registry. You might have an argument with the licensing.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: You just finished my second question. The rate of firearm-related suicides dropped by 48 per cent from 1995 to 2008.
Usually, people suffering from depression commit suicide. A distinction should still be made when it comes to the various mental health problems, and depression is one such problem that leads to suicide in extreme cases.
Suicide rates have dropped. You will tell me again that this is just another coincidence, that there is no direct correlation between the drop and the ability to ascertain that an individual is suffering from depression or other mental health problems. People close to the individual can get involved and ask for help in order to take the gun away, as the individual is no longer fit to own a gun and may commit suicide.
So there are statistics that show a drop in the suicide rate. To what do you attribute that drop? Is it a matter of science or is it a coincidence? The suicide rate is decreasing while the population is growing.
[English]
The Chair: I think the minister does understand your question. I am sorry to cut you off, but I do believe he probably understands the question.
Mr. Toews: Yes, I do understand the question. I just have not seen any evidence of a correlation between the registry and the reduction in suicides.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Are you going to dispute all of Statistics Canada's related data, which indicates that, from 1995 to 2010, the rate of homicides committed with long guns, rifles and shotguns dropped by 41 per cent? The number of homicides committed with long guns was the lowest since they started collecting data in 1961. Is that also a coincidence? It just fell out of the sky. The registry has not at all played a positive role and all female Montrealers, including the mothers who lost their children at the École Polytechnique, are worrying for no reason?
Statistics would have us believe that a decrease has been noted since the registry was established, but what do you think the real reason behind the drop is?
[English]
The Chair: Senator, please, is there a question in that? I think you have asked the minister is it —
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I asked the minister to explain why there has been a decrease. I think it is clear.
[English]
The Chair: Is that the question?
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Yes.
[English]
The Chair: Minister, do you understand the question?
Mr. Toews: I do.
The Chair: Do you care to respond?
Mr. Toews: I have not seen the correlation between the registry and the reduction in suicides with firearms.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I also talked about homicide.
[English]
Mr. Toews: I cannot explain that.
The Chair: I am sorry; we will have to move along.
Mr. Toews: All I can say is that on the basis of the registry, I have not seen that correlation.
Senator White: I will apologize later if I am out of line, but I would first like to correct a misperception. After 31 years of police training, every home has a gun, and that is the training in Canada. Second, having worked in Northern Canada for 19 years, if I waited to enter because there was a firearm inside the house, I would still be outside the first house.
To correct the public perception, there are over 1.9 million Canadians who have possession and acquisition licences or minor licences in Canada. With the changes proposed, the same requirements I am asking would be expected of each of those individuals in the future as in the past. Is that correct?
Mr. Toews: Absolutely.
Senator White: Would there be changes — I would suggest no changes — to the safe storage of long guns or ammunition as a result of Bill C-19?
Mr. Toews: That is unchanged.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: Minister, I listened to your presentation carefully, and you said that Bill C-19 retains the licensing requirements for all gun owners and the current restrictions in terms of the transfer and transportation of prohibited or restricted firearms. It also removes the obligation to register legally purchased rifles and shotguns.
I would like to bring to your attention an issue you have not talked about. You probably know this. Bill C-19 removes the obligation to check whether the license is valid when a gun is purchased.
That is no longer mandatory. It is now voluntary. Why was that obligation retained in Bill S-5 but was done away with in Bill C-19?
[English]
Mr. Toews: We have made it very clear that there is still an onus on the individual selling the firearm and the onus on the person purchasing that they are lawfully entitled to make that transfer. We have maintained that onus.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: The seller is no longer obligated to check licenses. That is now voluntary. There is no obligation to check whether the licence is valid. That is how I understood it.
[English]
Mr. Toews: They must have reason to believe, and that reason to believe must be on some type of objective basis. They cannot simply be wilfully blind in the same way that someone says to you, "I will sell you this bicycle" and you are wilfully blind to the fact that it may have been stolen. You have an obligation to find that out because if you do not satisfy yourself in that context, you will be charged and convicted of possession of stolen goods.
The analogy is similar here. No one says to you as the owner of a bicycle, "Please produce some documentation." You may want that documentation and you may request it, but you will look at the circumstances and, objectively speaking, determine it was reasonable for this person to believe in these circumstances.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: With all due respect, minister, buying a permet for a bicycle is different from buying a gun license.
Do you not think that, if a valid license is required for buying a gun, checking the license at the purchase should also be required? Do those two things not go hand in hand?
[English]
Mr. Toews: Knowing there is a five-year penalty for a transfer, that is enough motivation on my part to ensure that the person I am selling it to satisfies me that they in fact have the legal authority to acquire that firearm.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: So the onus is on the buyer and not the seller?
[English]
Mr. Toews: The onus is on the person obtaining the gun to have the legal authority, and the onus is on the person selling it to ensure that person has that legal authority.
I am not equating a bicycle and a gun. I am simply saying that in these circumstances, when goods are sold privately, you have to satisfy yourself that you are not acquiring stolen goods. The onus is the same for both parties.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Minister, thank you for coming to explain the objectives of this bill. I know that the gun registry is a very emotional topic, especially in Quebec. We know that the registry was created in the wake of a terrible tragedy at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, when 14 women were gunned down. Over the years, that registry has become a symbol of denouncing violence against women. So today, merely questioning the registry's usefulness makes many men feel guilty, and many people want to question it. It is as if we were being blamed, and violence against women was the only argument being used. It is difficult to have an objective debate on the usefulness of the gun registry.
We have to be careful with statistics. To my knowledge, the compilation of gun registry statistics started in 1995, as far as the drop in homicide and suicide rates goes.
I conducted another analysis because, scientifically speaking, in order to compare statistics, we have to compare time periods. I selected the 15-year period from 1979 to 1995, and another 15-year period from 1995 to 2009. I compared the drop in suicide rates from 1979 to 1995 with the drop from 1995 to 2009. The decrease was about 100 per cent a year, unrelated to the registry's establishment. The crime rate increased in 1995. The number of suicides and homicides increased in 1992, and again in 1995, when the registry was already in use.
When you look at the data, what does it say statistically or scientifically speaking?
[English]
Mr. Toews: That is why I did not want to get into that argument because I have been through these statistics repeatedly. That is why I have said there is no correlation between the registry and the long-gun registry. There simply is not one correlation. It depends when you start, as you have just pointed out very effectively. That is the difference.
The École Polytechnique shooting was a horrible situation. Tragic events such as these have emphasized the importance of taking strong and effective measures against the misuse of guns, as well as pre-emptive measures to prevent guns from coming into the hands of those who are perhaps mentally unstable or criminally intended. That is what we need to be doing. I am not interested in simply making people feel safe. I want people to be safe, and there is nothing in the registry that in fact makes people safer.
I can tell you that mandatory prison sentences for those who choose to use guns have a wonderful effect of incapacitating those individuals. If you use a gun, you will be behind bars.
Senator Lang: I want to follow up on that. Let us go to the gun registry. Talking about statistics, the reality is that it is not an accurate registry. The information we have been provided is that it is up to 90 per cent misinformation, as far as documentation is concerned, and with errors within the registry.
I would like the minister to comment on that aspect of the registry, which is really not a registry if it is not accurate.
Mr. Toews: It is true. When I deal with my constituents on registry-related matters, especially prior to the amnesty coming in 2006, it was constant.
I am dealing with one of my constituents now who is in a situation where the firearms were stolen from his home. They were seized by the police. They were registered in the name of either the thief or someone who acquired it from the thief, even though he had already registered the firearms.
This is the kind of problem that can exist. Now this poor man is trying to say that he just wants his firearms back, and someone has registered it. It is probably the thief selling these guns to a third party, who then registered these guns. Regardless, they were already registered in the registry; you have the same gun registered to two people.
The Chair: Senator Boisvenu, are you fine if we move along?
I would like to make a point —
Senator Hervieux-Payette: — referred to what I mentioned?
The Chair: If you do not object, senator, I would like to come back to Deputy Chair Fraser. She has another question, and if it can be brief, I would like to give her the opportunity to ask it.
Senator Fraser: Senator Hervieux-Payette believes she has been misinterpreted in some way.
Senator Jaffer: I want to clarify something. The chair said we were going to 5:30. The agenda says 5:45. The minister has kindly agreed to stay a little longer, so we do have time.
The Chair: If we have until 5:45, but my understanding is that it is not the case.
Mr. Toews: I had been scheduled for an hour, from 4:15 to 5:15, but indicated that I would be willing to stay for 10 minutes more. I have stayed for 15 minutes more. I have a vote at 5:45.
The Chair: Please go ahead, senator.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I actually wanted to follow up on what Senator Boisvenu said concerning the statistics I mentioned. As I understood it, he said that the gun registry was the product of an emotional response by women. To my knowledge, statistics are usually based on rational information.
Mr. Minister, do you agree with Senator Boisvenu that female emotions were the impetus for the registry, or do you think there was a valid reason for gun control?
I would remind you that in Quebec, some 50,000 people have an expired health insurance card; I hope you realize that every system has its own percentage of error.
My question is simple: do you reject the scientific evidence or do you subscribe to my colleague's theory that women are all just emotional beings?
[English]
Mr. Toews: I try not to base my arguments on emotion, but what I can indicate is that very many women feel victimized in the criminal justice system. They have often been the victims more than the perpetrators of the crime. Those are just statistics. Therefore, I think that women have a legitimate concern about being victimized.
My responsibility as Minister of Public Safety is to ensure that there are mechanisms that not only make women feel safe but in fact keep them safe.
Senator Fraser: May I ask a question? Maybe the minister could answer it in writing.
As you know, there is a category of guns that are neither restricted nor prohibited but that, in the view of most people, fall outside the normal law-abiding, hunting citizen's needs. The most famous example is the Ruger Mini-14 that was used in École Polytechnique in Montreal. As long as those guns had to be registered, the fact that they were not classified as restricted or prohibited was perhaps less serious. However, now they will not be registered; now we will have no information at all about them.
Are you prepared to instruct the RCMP to go back and make its classification system considerably more rigorous on that front?
Mr. Toews: I will not interfere with the classification system that the RCMP have developed.
Senator Fraser: I thought you were here to answer for the RCMP.
Mr. Toews: I do answer for the RCMP, but I leave the issue of the classifications for the RCMP, based on the law. The classification issue is an issue separate and apart from the long-gun registry. If the committee here wants to look at that issue and say "There are issues in respect of licensing that we do not agree with" or that "classification is not exactly what we should do," I think that is something this committee could look at. I have no objections to that.
I do not think that question is raised in the context here. Whether the long-gun registry remains in effect or not, the classification system is exactly the same. That is a separate issue.
The Chair: Senator, we will have to allow the minister to return to the house.
Minister, thank you. You can tell from the questions that we wish we had you longer but the time you have given us has been useful and valuable; we appreciate it. We thank you so much for being here.
Mr. Toews: I appreciate your thoughtful questions and your heartfelt concern about this particular issue, on both sides of the house. I certainly appreciate that very much. I think both sides are here in good faith to bring forward issues that need to be discussed, and that is exactly what you are doing. Thank you.
The Chair: We continue our consideration and study of Bill C-19, and we are very pleased to have with us Constable Randall Kuntz from the Edmonton Police Service; and Roger Granger, a retired police officer from the Montreal Police Service, who I understand is a ballistics expert. I am sure both gentlemen will be helpful in our consideration of Bill C-19.
Constable Kuntz, I understand you have an opening statement and will proceed first.
Randall Kuntz, as an individual: It is an honour to be here. Thank you very much for the invitation. I am appearing here as an individual, but I am also a 24-year member of the Edmonton Police Service. I have been involved in the homicide cold case section, sex crimes and child abuse investigations, property recovery and general criminal investigations as well as patrol.
Bill C-19 is simply a stitch in a wound that requires about 20 stitches. I support Bill C-19, but there is much more to be done. Canada does not need a Firearms Act because firearms ownership and use is not a concern that warrants such an act. Firearms are used every day in various capacities by law-abiding citizens without any problems, injuries or concerns. Criminal use has been effectively addressed in our Criminal Code already under the sections for robbery, assault with a weapon and murder.
Bill C-68 and the Firearms Act were implemented in response to a mass murder in Quebec. The murderer killed himself, therefore there was no trial, and no one got their judicial pound of flesh from this criminal. What happened next was the government, supported by an encapsulated fringe group with anti-freedom and anti-Canadian values, brought in Bill C-68 and took their pound of flesh from the collective rear ends of lawful gun owners.
Focusing in on an inanimate object and neglecting to focus on the crime has brought us to this point. It was an illogical, incorrect and ineffective stance that has cost the taxpayers almost $3 billion with zero return. This Firearms Act reads like a comic book, pieced together in boxes with no basis in logic to anyone with knowledge of firearms. Its nature is simply to hinder law-abiding firearms owners, not to prevent crime or make people safer.
I am a firearms instructor for the Alberta Hunter Education Instructors Association. We have had over 1 million students attend our seminars in outdoor education camps. We have fired millions of rounds ammunition. The total number of injuries and deaths is zero.
I, myself, have owned over 1,000 firearms. I have fired over a million rounds of ammunition in my life. Total injuries to humans: zero — moose, bear and deer excepted. Bill C-19 is simply a correction to an error made by a previous government. This is not an urban versus rural issue. Firearms ownership in cities like Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, St. John's, Calgary and Edmonton are wonderfully staggering. Lawful firearms owners come from all walks of life, all ethnicities, and the millions of us share a common bound: the enjoyment of shooting sports. To demonize our activities is discriminatory, unfair, overtly weird and counterproductive.
We are of no concern to the safety and security of Canada. As a matter of fact, we enhance it. A firearm knows nothing of good or evil. It is simply a tool. Good or evil comes from its user, much like any other inanimate object on earth.
As an example, currently I can legally hunt with a .45 Colt rifle, but I cannot hunt with a .45 Colt handgun. Why? Because it is smaller. That seems bizarre to me. This is just one of the dozens and dozens of examples of how our laws so pathetically and ineffectually affect firearms owners.
Bill C-19 seeks to alleviate the financial burden on the Canadian citizen, for a financial burden is all the long-gun registry is. Sixteen years has proven that it is not an effective public safety program. The sooner it and the Firearms Act in its entirety are removed from Canadian law, the better.
Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Granger, do you have an opening statement?
[Translation]
Roger Granger, As an individual: I was a police officer for 35 years, and I retired from the Montreal urban community police department. I became a detective sergeant in 1970. I have been a gun owner for 58 years. I used to be an instructor. I spent a good part of my life, since 1974 in fact, appearing as an expert witness in court — in cases with both a judge and a jury, as well as those with just a judge. I also appeared before the provincial court in cases involving police ethics. I taught classes to crown prosecutors and to all of the justice ministry's para-public agencies.
I worked on the École Polytechnique case. I was involved in that investigation, and I was the one who identified Marc Lépine. During that period of time, a number of homicides were committed in school settings, including by Valery Fabrikant at Concordia University, by Kimveer Gill at Dawson College and by Marc Lépine at École Polytechnique. The killers always had registered guns and licences to own them.
I do not think there is any benefit to registering a long gun. It was a total mess. Personally, as far as the first batch of registrations goes, I registered 80 firearms, and there were 80 errors. They were all considered frames. For years afterwards, I was somewhat regarded as someone who was breaking the law. I did not even have licences for my firearms because those issuing them could not keep up with the demand.
Still today, there are flaws. I received licences this week for a firearm transfer that happened two years ago. The system does not work and does absolutely no good. What matters is the person behind the trigger, and the measures taken to deal with those who use guns illegally.
It is always the legal gun owners who are subject to the restrictions under the current system; it does not bother the criminals. They do not register their guns, nor do they use longs guns to commit their crimes, aside from domestic disputes. For all intents and purposes, however, the people with the licences are always the ones who have the trouble.
It does absolutely no good to have a long gun registry, because that is not the type of weapon being used in crimes. It is usually prohibited weapons. Lawmakers expanded the restricted and prohibited weapon category. There were storage provisions stipulating that ammunition be kept separate from firearms. That is fine. But including long guns is a mistake, in my opinion.
It created a monumental task for those working in these areas. Legal gun owners ended up being the ones with tarnished reputations, not the criminals. So if you have any questions about the weapons that are used, feel free to ask, as I have a fair bit of experience in that area.
[English]
The Chair: There is something I might ask. You mentioned your involvement in the investigation of the École Polytechnique murders and Marc Lépine. Could you expand upon that? What was your involvement in that investigation? I am sure that will be of interest to all of us.
Mr. Granger: Marc Lépine had no fingerprints, and he shot himself. There was no way that we could identify the person. It was not a good idea to put his head on the television because he shot himself with a 5.56 millimetre. He was not in good shape. I succeeded in identifying Lépine with the bullets he was using. They came from Yugoslavia and were bought at Checkmate Sports on St-Hubert Street. Within a few hours, I was able to get his identity.
The Chair: The role you played in that investigation was to identify —
Mr. Granger: I was on the premises because all the detective sergeants were on duty that particular night on account of a girl that had been killed and found near where they put all the garbage. She had been cut into pieces. We were all working on that case on that particular day when Lépine came up to École Polytechnique.
I worked also when Corporal Marcel Lemay was shot during the Oka crisis. I investigated that. It was mostly with regard to guns and ammunition that my services were required.
The Chair: Thank you for that, Mr. Granger.
Senator Fraser: I have no questions for these witnesses. I have two things I want to say.
[Translation]
Mr. Granger, I want to thank you for all the work you have done, especially in the cases you mentioned earlier. As a Montrealer, I am extremely grateful for your contribution to those investigations.
[English]
As a Montreal woman, I never sought, nor do I know, anyone who ever sought a pound of flesh, nor did any of us ever believe that the gun registry would solve or prevent all crime. However, as noted earlier, we did believe that any tool that might help to avert or solve future tragedies was useful. My daughters both attended Dawson College and Concordia University, and the notion of armed men roaming the halls where my daughters were was enough for me to say, "The police need lots of tools, not just this one, but this one among others."
Senator Lang: I welcome the guests here this evening, and I would like to first put a number of questions to Mr. Kuntz. Just so I understand your background correctly, are you a police officer?
Mr. Kuntz: Yes, sir; 24 years at the Edmonton Police Service.
Senator Lang: Did you not do a number of surveys within your rank and file of the Edmonton police force as well as nationally in respect of whether the gun registry was of value and to get a feeling what the front line officers felt and whether this was a good use of taxpayers' money?
Mr. Kuntz: Yes, I conducted the nationwide survey of police officers over a 14-month period. The Edmonton Police Association conducted its own survey. The results came out at the end of April, just prior to the federal election last year.
Senator Lang: Do you want to expand a little further on the results of that?
Mr. Kuntz: I had 2,631 police officers from every province and territory contact me; 2,410 of them were in favour of scrapping the gun registry and 211 supported it. The Edmonton Police Association conducted a survey of their members, and 81 per cent of police officers of the Edmonton Police Association voted to scrap the gun registry. They saw it as a useless law enforcement tool. I am associated with a couple of members of National Weapons Enforcement Support Team. They have made it clear that not only is the long-gun registry a useless enforcement tool but also you cannot obtain a search warrant based on the information contained within the long-gun registry alone.
Senator Lang: Perhaps I could pursue this further because I think it is important testimony, especially in view of Senator Jaffer's observations about the police forces and the fact that they support the continuation of the gun registry. There is obviously a difference of opinion. I want to go further on that.
Could you expand for us why it is seen as a useless tool with in respect to its utilization by front line police officers?
Mr. Kuntz: I have discussed this with other officers. I field probably three to four questions per week based on this subject alone. The long-gun registry is simply a list of legally licensed law-abiding firearm owners. There is no criminal information in the long-gun registry. You can run it and see that my name is in it, my father's name is in it and my 12- year old son has a federal firearms licence to possess non-restricted firearms. Those are the kind of people who are on this list. There is no criminal information in there.
I tell young policemen who come out on the street, whether they know me or not, I say, "If you rely on a data base for your safety, you are an idiot." In plain words, no one can misunderstand what I mean. The list tells you two things: There are firearms in there or there are not. There is nothing definitive. If someone runs my house, yes, it shows I have firearms there. What does that tell them? Does it tell them, "I have to be careful because this man has firearms"? Or, "By golly, there is a law-abiding man that went out on his own accord, out of fear of the law and prosecution, among persecution, and complied with the law of Canada"? There is no safety issue to this.
Senator Lang: I want to pursue this a little further because this is very important, and Senator White referred to it. Would the registry, with the younger generation of police officers coming up, give a false sense of security —
Mr. Kuntz: Absolutely.
Senator Lang: — for an officer and put him in harm's way if they took the registry verbatim?
Mr. Kuntz: I started with the old-school style of policing. A lot has changed in 24 years. If we have a power outage at the Edmonton police service, we have policemen that honestly do not know what to do with their time. They do not have a database to dispatch them to a call. The training for police, when it comes to this, is reliance on electronic information, and for them to run someone's name purposefully into a computer database and find where it says there is no licensed owner there, for them to believe that information and to knock at the front door — it puts them in jeopardy. It is a different generation of policing that I see. I am fortunate enough to see it and add my two cents towards their safety, not for their future careers but for their lives. I explain it to them bluntly: If you rely on a database for your safety, you are an idiot.
Senator Baker: This act says there will be a destruction, as soon as feasible, of all records in the Canadian Firearms Registry, and then it says, "all copies of those records under the commissioner's control." That is all information under the control of the federal government. In reading the case law about databases I find that the police have access to more databases than you count.
If I were to ask Senator Dagenais or Senator White, I am sure they would verify that. There are police databases accessible in Quebec, in British Columbia, in Alberta and so on, but this act only applies to databases and information under federal jurisdiction and control. Could it be that the information that is in the federal registry and under the control of the federal commissioner could be in all sorts of other police databases?
Mr. Kuntz: When it comes to stolen firearms, absolutely. CPIC has been running for years and is an effective tool for this. It exists already.
Senator Baker: You have a couple of other databases from which you could get the same information?
Mr. Kuntz: I deal with 11 databases every day at work. I have to write pass words down, although we are not supposed to. I physically cannot remember them all, and they have to be changed every few weeks.
Senator Baker: In other words, the police could visit the same information concerning gun ownership in several different databases concerning a particular individual or home?
Mr. Kuntz: I cannot answer that.
[Translation]
Mr. Granger: It has no bearing whether the database shows the person as having 6, 14 or 300 guns.
It is more important to know whether the person has a possession or an acquisition licence. The database does not tell you that. When I started, there were no computers, just telex. It would take a day to find out if a car had been stolen.
The important thing is never to stand in front of a door. Even today, at 70 years old, whenever I knock on the door of a house where I do not know anyone, I do not stand in front of the door. It is an automatic reflex.
The registry is worthwhile as far as restricted weapons or prohibited weapons are concerned; those are the ones used in crimes. The registry has no benefit, however, in terms of long guns used by hunters and shooters.
[English]
Senator Baker: Could you find the same information concerning individuals in more than one database to which police officers have access?
Mr. Granger: Right now I am not allowed to go into those databases because I am retired.
Senator Baker: Let me leave that subject for a minute. It amazes me that we sometimes pass laws here that say that the federal commissioner will destroy all of his or her records when a dozen databases exist with the same information in them.
[Translation]
Mr. Granger: When you watch the news, you see that bladed weapons are used just as much as firearms to commit assaults. It is akin to making people register their kitchen or hunting knives; I do not think that would do any good. There would be way too much red tape. It would do nothing to bring down the crime rate.
[English]
Senator Baker: My final question relates to the actual effect of the bill. The bill only relieves people of the requirement to register so-called long guns that are not restricted in any way, and parts of guns. It relieves the owner of the onus of registering those guns, but it leaves in place all the other requirements of licensing. Many of the complaints that I heard as a member of Parliament and as a senator are about registration and so forth. It is not just about registering the long guns but about everything associated with it.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I saw in the record that we have about 7 million long guns owed by 3.5 million owners. That is approximately three guns per owner, but some may have ten and some may have one. My family had four guns and one day it became against the law to own the fourth one, so we called the local police and they came and picked it up. The rest of the guns were for regular hunting.
I want to correct your figure of 3 billion. You can access the Public Accounts of Canada and correct your figure. It cost $200,000 at the beginning to register the 7.1 million. You do not reinvent the system all the time. According to the Auditor General of Canada, the annual cost is $82.3 million. That is just for the record.
You said that we have to scrap Bill C-19, but that we should do more things. I would have appreciated it if you would have told us what things would ensure that our people are secure. I suppose these things are so monumental that it would take too much time to tell us about them here. Would you agree to send your solution to increasing the security of our people and to reassure the women of my province?
Mr. Kuntz: The Supreme Court has determined that a police officer is not responsible for the safety of citizens. As a police officer, I cannot guarantee your safety. As a neighbour, I cannot guarantee your safety. There is nothing that this government can put in place that will guarantee anyone's safety.
That is what frustrates gun owners. This registry has not saved anyone. If it had, the members of the CACP would have been screaming it from the mountaintops. They do not have a statistic because a statistic does not exist.
I know a few policemen who have been killed since the registry has been in place. I personally know people who have committed suicide with firearms since the registry has been in place. It is a back and forth.
The only person who can ensure your safety or give you the best chance at safety is you.
As I said before, I can hunt a deer with a .45 Colt rifle but not with at .45 Colt handgun, because it is smaller. That is the only reason. Both are designed to fire a projectile, period. The gun does not care who or what it fires at, or if it fires or misfires. It is irrelevant. We could lay a loaded handgun on that table and let it sit here, and until you have external influence on it, it will remain this that state for infinity.
It is the people that cause the problems. We cannot eliminate them. It does not work that way. We have to incarcerate, and try to rehabilitate because I do not believe that someone who goes to prison for 10 years should have to live a life after he has paid his due in that way. Eventually that man has to be free. Is he really free or will we hold it over him forever? If we are going to do that we may as well leave him incarcerated or have a special place to put him. He will never truly have the opportunity to redeem himself. People make mistakes.
For violent criminals that are repetitive and recidivistic, we need laws to toughen that up and thicken this place up, or we will turn out like a place like France or the Congo. That is what Canada is aiming at. I am sure everything I did from the time I got up and from the time I got here is probably illegal in France.
Senator White: Thank you very much. You mentioned earlier — and because it came up a few moments ago — about tools the police may need. Can you explain NWEST, National Weapons Enforcement Support Team, and what their focus is in Canada?
Mr. Kuntz: I will do my best.
I have two friends that operate the Edmonton office. One is from the RCMP and one is from the Edmonton Police Service. A lot of their support is interpretation of the law because there are few citizens, fewer prosecutors, and maybe a handful of lawyers that truly understand all the aspects of the Firearms Act.
As I said, t is pieced together. It is an illogical document.
They supplement an investigator. They will add clarification. Can we charge a person who has ammunition in his glove compartment, and a restricted or non-restricted firearm — not unloaded but not locked up — on his back seat? These are questions of police officers every day because they do not know the Firearms Act, or the ramifications of charging someone with it when there is no charge to begin with. We need a group like NWEST to provide that interpretation strictly for the Firearms Act. They have access to the firearms registry. They also have access to CPIC, where stolen guns will show up. That is accessible to anybody. I have only used the firearms database once. A person wanted to donate a firearm and did not have his registration certificate. That was the purpose of it.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Would you say, then — maybe it is a philosophy, and I respect other philosophies — that you would abolish any kind of registry that governments have on citizens, like a car registry, some municipalities have a bicycle registry, or dog registries? We have many registries in this country, which means they certainly serve a purpose.
Is it totally useless or if it is serving a purpose, why should we not have a gun registry if we have a car registry?
Mr. Kuntz: Fair enough and let me clarify that. An issue with firearms would be if they were stolen. If you catch a person with the smoking gun in their hand, it does not matter who that gun is registered to. CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre already holds, and is accessible to, every police officer and is capable of holding that stolen information in a better format than the current firearms registry. We already have that. If the concern is for stolen or recovered property or where it came from, CPIC is well equipped to accomplish that task.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I am learning that. I was not a policeman.
[Translation]
Is it useful or not in determining who owns the gun that was used in a crime? I understand there is already a place where guns are registered. Why, then, have two registries if police already know the owner's identity and the futility of investigating every single gun dealer to find out that information?
With respect to long guns, how do you find the person whose firearm was stolen or the person who used it to commit a crime?
Mr. Granger: Your question has two parts. When a crime is committed, do you have the gun or not? If you do, that is secondary. What matters is who pulled the trigger. That is the purpose of the investigation.
If you are talking about a restricted weapon, in which case a prohibited gun was likely used, by a member of a biker gang or an organized criminal, for example, the weapon is clearly not registered. It never is. I have never seen a member of a biker gang with a criminal record from here to tomorrow apply for an acquisition licence on the reasonable grounds of obtaining a gun to go shooting. That would not work. He will have an unregistered weapon that is usually not a long gun. Normally, it will be a sawed off firearm, automatic or semi-automatic, that can be easily concealed. If a registered gun is used, it will end up being stolen or possibly borrowed from someone. Those are the databases police check on a daily basis.
I fully believe, if the legislation is changed, if Bill C-19 is amended, that police officers will use the database just as often as they do now.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: For what information?
Mr. Granger: To find out if the firearm has been stolen or not. The fact that the firearm has been stolen does not tell us who stole it, because, if we knew that, we would have started by investigating the theft of the firearm before investigating the crime that had been committed with it. The fact that the firearm is registered changes absolutely nothing.
Rarely does the owner of a registered firearm commit a murder and leave the murder weapon at the scene of the crime. He will be caught for sure. It is not a good idea.
Senator Dagenais: My thanks to the two witnesses for appearing. Mr. Granger, for 24 years, I was a police officer in the beautiful community of Rawdon, where you live.
I was the president of the largest police union in Quebec and my position on the registry surprised the police unions that were criticizing its abolition with one voice. As a result, the word now is that all police officers are demanding that the firearms registry be kept. I gather from your comments that this is not exactly the case.
What do you think about this false unanimity? Would you say that the unionized police officers who support the abolition of the firearms registry are considered dissidents?
Mr. Granger: That is one interpretation. There are people who say that police officers check the system 12,000 times per day and that now they will not do it anymore. That is absurd. It is not the case at all. They are going to check as much as they ever did. They will check according to the kinds of weapons used, and, I am sorry, but the weapons used are not long guns. When registered long guns are used, it is by people with mental health issues. But they were healthy when they acquired the firearm.
Then there are things that can be done. If your neighbour is acting strangely and goes out in the evening and fires shots in the air for no reason, you can dial 1-800-731-4000 and something will be done about it. If you say "someone is using a firearm," I can guarantee you that the police will respond immediately. That service operates around the clock.
Senator Dagenais: Mr. Kuntz, you are a career police officer and you know that most officers, when they pull over a vehicle on the highway, will ask the driver for his licence and registration. They will immediately consult the CPIC, as we call it, to find out whether the person has a record, whether the licence is valid or whether the person has anything to hide.
Would you agree that, when you run a request through the CPIC, it is automatically linked to the firearms registry without the officer knowing? So to say that the police make 17,000 enquiries each day is not really true. They make those enquiries because they happen in the course of the job, but it does not mean that they are contacting the firearms registry directly. So it is just not true to say that the police consult the firearms registry 17,000 times.
I have to tell you that I have worked with the registry; I never consulted it when I was on the highway, but let me ask you.
My question is this: when you consult the CPIC, are you consulting the registry?
[English]
Mr. Kuntz: I am glad you asked that. I have been telling people across Canada for two years that the only way that the firearms registry is being queried 17,000 times a day is an automatic query. I have been called a liar more than once. I challenged the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police on this, and on November 17, 2011, I was sitting in the parliamentary committee on this when one of the representatives from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police admitted that their queries were automated, meaning that if a police officer goes to an 80-year-old woman's house for a barking dog complaint, that house is automatically checked against the firearms registry. Seventeen thousand hits on the registry equates to over five million queries a year. It is ridiculous. Our military would be running the streets of Canada if we had that many firearm-related issues.
Senator Jaffer: Mr. Kuntz, the Canadian Chiefs of Police are in favour of the registry.
Mr. Kuntz: They are.
Senator Jaffer: Mr. Granger, you were quoted in the news reports after the Dawson College shooting as saying that the long-gun registry is totally ineffective. However, after the shooting, the Montreal chief of police confirmed that information in the long-gun registry allowed them to disarm a copycat after another individual announced his intentions in the chat room. They were able to find this individual through the long-gun registry. Is that not correct?
Mr. Granger: Are you talking about Dawson? It was not a non-restricted weapon. It was a restricted weapon.
Senator Jaffer: I agree, but that is how they were able to track him. I understand it was a restricted weapon.
Mr. Granger: Automatically, on a restricted or prohibited weapon, there is a registry, and they get the name of the person. Let us say that he would have used his neighbour's gun. It would not have changed the situation.
[Translation]
Senator Fraser: I think there is some confusion. The case my colleague was referring to was not the incident at Dawson College. It was a young man who lived in Hudson, if memory serves. He had said on the Internet that he intended to kill people and the Montreal chief of police felt that they had been able to track him down because of the firearms registry. There was no reason to doubt what he said.
Mr. Granger: If someone goes on the Internet and says that he feels like killing everyone, someone has to react immediately, registry or no registry. First, you put his picture on TV, and it will happen in record time. Announce that the person poses an immediate danger because he wants to kill people, whether it is with a razor blade or a revolver, and there will be immediate action.
Senator Chaput: My question is for Mr. Kuntz. In your presentation, you said that the person using the firearm poses the threat, not the firearm itself. Did I understand correctly?
Mr. Kuntz: The person.
Senator Chaput: You also said that you support Bill C-19. You say that "everyone should have to have a licence to buy a gun," but because Bill C-19 removes the requirement to check licences, given that it is the person that poses the threat, all those people should have licences even though there is no requirement to check whether the person poses a threat or not. I see an inconsistency there.
[English]
Mr. Kuntz: If I understood the question correctly, the firearms registry has nothing to do with licensing. If you want to legally own a firearm in Canada, you have to first complete the Canadian Firearms Safety Course, which is a prerequisite. The next step is to apply for a non-restricted firearms license. After scrutiny and after going through the process, which is even more taxing than getting a Canadian passport, you are eligible to write the Canadian Firearms Restricted Course. Then you may also apply to obtain a restricted firearms permit.
Nowhere in Bill C-19 is there any reference to not licensing people. It is simply the registration. It is actually putting the onus where it belongs, on people like me who will sell a potential buyer a firearm. It puts the onus on me to ensure that he has a license and that I verify it in some manner, which is reasonable.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: Sir, my understanding is that when you sell a firearm to someone and that someone has a licence, Bill C-19 does not require you to check the licence. Bill C-19 removes that requirement. There is no requirement to check the licence. It is voluntary now. You sell a guy a gun, the guy has a licence, but you are not required to check whether the licence is valid or not. So what you are telling me does not match.
[English]
Mr. Kuntz: Bill C-19 does put more onus on anybody. Before we had to phone in and trust a third party. This is a possession licence. This is what it looks like. It is not much different than a driver's licence. It has my name, birth date, expiry date.
Senator Chaput: You are not answering my question, sir.
The Chair: Let us clarify. Could you repeat the question to ensure that he understands?
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: You are a salesman, Mr. Kuntz. You sell firearms. Someone comes into your store to buy a firearm. He has a licence. Bill C-19 does not require you to check whether the licence is valid or not.
Bill C-19 has removed the requirement to check; it is now optional. You say that it is the person who poses the threat. The guy may be dangerous, you have no idea, but you have no obligation to check his licence. It just does not fit together, as I see it.
[English]
Mr. Kuntz: The question is validity. I know what one looks like. I look at it, that is fine by me, and I am good to sell it.
Believe me, when this registry is dissolved, there will be police stings. There will be undercover operations. There will be buys and busts, make no mistake about it.
Senator Jaffer: What are "buys and busts"?
Mr. Kuntz: As an officer into, I would go into, let us say, a big box store that sells firearms. I would attempt to buy a firearm or ammunition without a licence. If they need that $500 bad enough, they will face a federal institutional sentence.
The Chair: Mr. Granger has a response to that.
[Translation]
Mr. Granger: It is the same as if you arrested a person who was drunk behind the wheel of his car. The police officer is going to take his licence away. If you are arrested for an offence, you are put into the justice system, and, if you are found guilty, your licence will be taken away for sure.
If I go into a store where I am not known with a fake card, do not ask too much of the store. I have 750 firearms myself. I do not handle them every day, but I do every week. I always deal with people I know or who are referred to me. I do not run a store, I am a collector. If an Iranian with a turban on his head comes in to buy an AK-47, I will not sell him one. No one knows my address, at least, before today, when I wrote it on my résumé. I am recognized by the court and that is that. I make sure the right card belongs to the right person, then I make the sale.
Senator Boisvenu: My question will go to Mr. Granger, but first, I would like a clarification in the record of this committee about a comment from my colleague Senator Hervieux-Payette. I did not say that the women were emotional about the firearms registry; I said it was an emotional issue.
I have two technical questions that you can answer quickly.
First, could you tell me about the gaps in the registry at the moment?
Second, we know that there is much more resistance to the firearms registry or the long-gun registry in rural areas than in large cities. Your career was in Montreal; could you tell me about the number of murders, to your knowledge, that involved hunting weapons?
Mr. Granger: Honestly, I do not think I came across any. The only time was the Lépine case, and that was not a hunting rifle.
Senator Boisvenu: How do you explain the fact that there are almost no murders with hunting weapons in cities, certainly in Montreal, and yet the resistance to the abolition of the requirement to register hunting weapons comes from cities?
Mr. Granger: Frankly, I have to say that someone walking around a city with a 30-06 would attract a lot more attention than someone with a .45 in his pocket. I would not walk around with a prohibited or restricted weapon, even a musket. It is not very easy to carry and it is too conspicuous. Generally, people do not use things like that.
Senator Boisvenu: What about the quality of the information in the registry?
Mr. Granger: The registry works at the moment. If you are looking for someone's identity, it works. With the previous registry, you got the whole list of previous owners, but now, you just get the present owner. And when you dispose of a firearm, you are not even given the details of the buyers. The person buying the firearm has the right to own it and the details of his residence are no longer required. For a restricted weapon, a long gun or a handgun, you just get the confirmation, and that is all.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: Mr. Granger said he did not wear turbans and implied that the Taliban wear turbans. I take offence to that. There are over a million Canadians who wear turbans, and I want to make sure this is not an issue that those people are not Taliban but are law-abiding citizens. I feel this hearing should not be about pointing fingers at other Canadians.
The Chair: I think it is quite proper for you to point that out, senator, and I can say with certainty there would be no disagreement with that around this table. I am not going to ask for Mr. Granger to give any further explanation of what he had to say. In the heat of the moment, things are said, but I quite agree. What you said is, I am sure, in total agreement around this table.
Senator Jaffer: I appreciate that, chair, but it is very sad that I have to bring that up. We are all members of the Senate and we represent all Canadians. It should not be my responsibility to bring that up. It is very derogatory for a million Canadians who wear turbans to hear this in a Senate committee.
The Chair: I thank you for saying that, senator.
Mr. Granger: You can look through the notes; I did not talk about Taliban. I talked about someone who had a turban and wanted an AK-47, but it would not make any difference whether he had a turban or not.
The Chair: Please, enough has been said about all of that. Senator Jaffer has made her point, and I believe I said she was right.
Senator Fraser: I am just confirming this.
The Chair: I am confirming I said she was right, and I do not have to have that confirmed.
Senator Lang: I would like to get back to the registry and how it works or does not work. I would like to put my question to Mr. Kuntz again, if I could, because of your experience, obviously, with teaching the course, and you are very familiar with how one goes about registering their long gun.
I want to give a brief description of what I have seen happen to some people, where they have gone through the police check, they have gone through the safety course, and they go to register their long guns, in this case long distance.
You provide the numbers of your rifle for the purposes of the computer, and then you renew it. Then you phone, and it turns out you are phoning Miramichi. You find out where Miramichi is, then you speak to someone who does not know anything about rifles, and you renew your registration of your gun after that five-year period. When you go through your numbers, they may say, "No, that is not the number we have." Automatically it is you that is wrong, not the computer. It is the same rifle, same person; you have not changed anything.
Subsequently, all of a sudden, you get into a conversation with the individual and realize you cannot argue with them because now you will be flagged in the computer as someone who is perhaps a little unbalanced. Therefore, you are automatically wrong and they are right.
The reason I recount that story is because that is one of the reasons law-abiding people with long guns feel they have been infringed upon as a result of the system automatically making them a criminal unless they prove otherwise.
With the number of people you have dealt with and your obvious knowledge, can you tell me if you have come across this situation and perhaps expand a little further on that?
Mr. Kuntz: The problem got to be so great that I actually went to the Chief Firearms Officer and became a firearms verifier so that I could be certified to make corrections on the computer to try to circumvent people having to go through this, mostly when they were doing a transfer. Your registration is effective for as long as you own the firearm. Renewals of licences — your personal licence, like I showed you, with my picture on it — is every five years.
I went through the process of being a firearms verifier. I have probably made between 300 and 350 corrections in the time I have been a verifier, which is less than 10 years. Many mistakes were made by honest people filling out paperwork and mistaking an 8 for a B. It was an honest mistaken; it was not a criminal offence. Regardless, things got to that point.
We had a lot of verifiers. It was legislated that we were not to accept any payment for such services. That was a service to aid the Firearms Centre in doing their job. The verifiers were basically putting a Band-aid on what was bleeding — having us to volunteer and try to make this work. Someone might look at me and say, "A guy in your position that does not agree with it, why would you do such a thing?" It is the law of Canada. I am a law-abiding person. That is why I did it.
The only way to discover the errors in the system they do not even know about is for someone to transfer that firearm to another person and then find out that the serial number or the model is incorrect. We had an example of someone abusing the system, who registered a glue gun. "Make: Mastercraft;" and the serial number. We had people messing with the system, trying to subvert it.
People did not have to try to subvert it; it destroyed itself. That is why we are at the point we are at.
Senator Lang: I would like to recap that; I want to get it clarified for the record.
The Chair: There should be a question.
Senator Lang: I want to get this clearly on the record. You just said to us that we have a registry but the registry is so badly flawed that it is of no value to the law enforcement agencies that are supposed to be utilizing it, or to anyone else; is that not correct?
Mr. Kuntz: That is correct.
Senator Lang: That is all I want to know.
[Translation]
Mr. Granger: When the act was passed, firearms without serial numbers were generally 50 or 60 years old, because there were no serial numbers at the time. There was a system of stickers to be placed on the firearm. You had to write the make on the sticker, not the calibre or the action. I had about 50 firearms in that category; the act required me to put a sticker on the proper gun, but I could not do that, because if I put the wrong sticker on the wrong gun, I could be charged with an offence. It was not a great situation.
[English]
The Chair: Senator Baker with a quick supplementary.
Senator Baker: Following up on Senator Lang's question, there were, as I understand it, a great many problems with parts of guns. Someone would have in their possession a barrel belonging to such-and-such a gun, a stock belonging to another gun, and so on. Some of the guns might not be in workable condition, yet you were on the record as owning that gun. The question came up: Should you register a barrel? I imagine that would still apply, even with the passing of this legislation, but it is terribly confusing to an ordinary Canadian citizen as to what the requirements were and still are. Do you find that?
Mr. Kuntz: Yes, parts and pieces were an issue. The law says that the receiver of the firearm, which normally holds the serial number, is the firearm.
Senator Baker: It is just the barrel?
Mr. Kuntz: It is not the barrel, stock, trigger mechanism, bolt, or action — it is simply the metal machined receiver that may say "Winchester" on it and have a serial number, if indeed it has a serial number. I say that because I have numerous firearms that have no serial number, yet they are similar. In the event of the registration, one card could easily be valid for seven firearms.
That is why I describe it as being like reading a comic book where everything is in boxes, because it is such a chewed up, non-cohesive act. It is difficult for most people.
If I may just —
The Chair: Briefly, if you could.
Mr. Kuntz: This is for Senator Jaffer. I just wanted to assist you in time saving; I think someone has perhaps misguided you. Just for the future, vehicles do not have to be registered. If the vehicle is operated on private property, it does not have to be registered or insured. We have farm vehicles that have never seen a licence plate. There is no legal requirement to do so.
As far as dogs and things, that is fine, but if you do not register your dog, you do not go to prison. However, when someone tells you about a vehicle having to be registered, they are technically incorrect. I say that just to save you time in the future.
Senator Jaffer: If you drive it on the road, you have to register it.
The Chair: There are always exceptions. We are aware of that.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: Could you clarify something for me, Mr. Kuntz? When I asked about the requirement to check the validity of licences, I was talking about Bill C-19.
So, Mr. Kuntz, would you be so kind as to take a couple of minutes to reread section 11 of Bill C-19 carefully? It really does remove the requirement to check the validity of licences.
[English]
Mr. Kuntz: I was present when Minister Toews perfectly explained how that worked. I would just have nothing more to add.
The Chair: We will leave it at that.
Honourable senators, thank you. That concludes our time with this panel. Constable Kuntz, Mr. Granger, thank you very much. You have a lot of experience in dealing with this. I was going to say more than us around the table, but with a couple of exceptions, perhaps not. However, you certainly do have more than the majority of us around the table. Thank you for taking the time to be here.
Colleagues, before I suspend, we have a budget issue to deal with, which will take us a couple of moments.
You have in front of you the proposed budget for our upcoming year. There are two changes from last year's budget. The legal fees, the number one item shown here, are budgeted at $5,000. We had $10,000 last year. We did not use any of it. Again, that would be if we had to hire outside counsel to assist us with any work we were doing. We felt we could probably safely cut that in half, so that goes from $10,000 to $5,000.
Communications, again last year we had budgeted for $30,000. We used none of it. We had good help with our Senate communications and we feel comfortable with that. The $15,000 will probably be more than we need, but again that is a reduction from $30,000 to $15,000.
Books, we reduced from $5,000 to $3,000.
If all of that seems acceptable to you, I would entertain a motion to approve this budget. Senator Lang, seconded by Senator Baker. All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Contrary?
Carried.
Senator Fraser: Given that you have even improved upon this committee's bragging rights for being cost-efficient, if you find yourself speaking to this in the chamber, why do you not do a little per-hour calculation, given how many long hours we sit and how little money we spend. People really ought to know.
The Chair: The per hour is something I can relate to. I think back to when I was charging in private practice before I retired. You are right.
Senator Jaffer: I would like to go in camera, if I may, after we finish the budget.
The Chair: We are in camera. Are you comfortable with the staff being here? Do you want staff to leave?
Senator Jaffer: No.
(The committee continued in camera.)