EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, May 1, 1995

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[English]

The Chair: Order.

We are continuing our examination of Bill C-68, An Act respecting firearms and other weapons.

Tonight we have as witnesses the Canadian Museums Association, represented by John McAvity, Executive Director, and Brenda Brownlee from the Hamilton Military Museum.

We also have with us tonight, from the Army Museum of Halifax Citadel, Bruce F. Ellis, Curator and Properties Review Board, Expert Examiner of Military Objects for the Cultural Properties Review Board.

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We also have the British North America Living History Association, represented by Richard Feltoe, Coordinator, and David Webb, Historic Sites Representative.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will proceed in the order in which I have called you.

We have your briefs, so you can decide whether you want to read the brief or not, but I would ask you to be short, as we all want to go home before midnight. So if the brief is short enough you may want to read it, but if it's too long we will all have read it and you can refer to the major points in it.

After the three associations have given their remarks, we'll have the usual round of questioning. First, the Canadian Museums Association.

Mr. John G. McAvity (Executive Director, Canadian Museums Association): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to begin with two points of good news. First of all, we will not read our brief. We have submitted it to you and it is available. The second bit of news I would like to inform you about is something you have probably not heard very often in these hearings, and that is that we do not oppose this legislation. Rather, we are here today to express some of our concerns over the implications of this legislation as it affects the museums in Canada.

Before I begin, my name is John McAvity. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Museums Association, and I want to take a moment to tell you a little bit about my own background and then I'll introduce you to my colleague.

I have worked in the museum field since 1968 and have held a variety of positions ranging from assistant curator at Kings Landing Historical Settlement, which is outside of Fredericton - I was the provincial museum adviser for the province of New Brunswick. I was the first executive director of the Ontario Museum Association. Since 1981 I've been the executive director of the Canadian Museums Association.

My colleague, Brenda Brownlee, is really our subject-matter specialist today, and I'll allow her very briefly to introduce herself.

Ms Brenda Brownlee (Curator, Hamilton Military Museum): I am presently the Curator of the Hamilton Military Museum in Hamilton, Ontario. I have been working in military museums since 1972. I hold an undergraduate degree from Trent University and a Master of Museology degree from the University of Toronto in museum administration. I received the Canada 125 medal a couple of years ago for my 20 years of work with military museums.

It is a great pleasure to be here tonight.

Mr. McAvity: Now let me tell you a little bit about the organization we represent.

The Canadian Museums Association was founded in 1947. We are the national association for the advancement of museums in Canada. There are approximately 2,000 not-for-profit museums in Canada. These range from large metropolitan galleries, such as the Musée des beaux-arts in Montreal, to small specialized country museums such as the Kings Landing Historical Settlement museum in New Brunswick. These museums attract 60 million visitors per year, and these are studies that are well documented by Statistics Canada.

The association has 2,000 members. We're a service organization. We are dedicated to the professional development of the people who work in museums and we're also an advocacy organization for the concerns of museums.

I'm aware that often when interest groups such as ours appear before parliamentary committees, it's not unusual for members of Parliament to actually question to what extent they represent the views of their community, and I think that is a fair question.

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I would like to take a second to tell you about how we've reached the position we have.

Unfortunately, when the Minister of Justice did his cross-country hearings in 1994, the museum community was not notified, nor was it included in any of those consultations. Consequently, this legislation does not include any consideration of our specific concerns.

Starting in January, we sent out a notice to all our members and requested their input. I have compiled a copy of the comments and letters from all our members. It is attached to this document and I ask, Mr. Chairman, if it could be considered as an exhibit in our presentation.

The Chair: Is it the one that's entitled ``Canadian Museums and Bill C-68''?

Mr. McAvity: No, it's called ``Museums and the New Proposed Gun Legislation: Responses and Comments''. I've tabled a number of copies with the clerk. Unfortunately, we did not bring enough copies ourselves today for distribution.

The Chair: We'll copy it and distribute it to the members.

Mr. McAvity: Our position has been developed upon the input of our members, and we held a national meeting on January 26 here in Ottawa, which many of our members attended. At that point we met with the justice department officials in the last moments before finalizing the draft legislation. Unfortunately, in our opinion we were really too late to have any meaningful input into the legislation.

Since then, we have also kept our membership informed by a variety of advocacy alerts, as we call them, which have been sent to all of our members. So I hope we are seen as having consulted very clearly with our membership in that we are representing their views.

We do not believe this legislation should adversely affect the bona fide museums in Canada, but unfortunately it does. I might mention, by way of passing, that many people, many of my friends and neighbours, and even my mother, said, ``Why on earth are you appearing before the parliamentary committee on this subject? What on earth does this legislation have to do with museums? Isn't this legislation really pertaining to those people who are collectors and carriers of firearms?'' Unfortunately, that's our very concern. This legislation does affect the bona fide museums in this country.

Museums are not institutions that pose a risk to society. In fact, and to the contrary, museums are educational institutions run in the public interest. Our bona fide museums are all non-profit organizations, all registered charities, and stewards of our past. Canada's museums have the highest of professional standards in the world, especially when it comes to professionally designed facilities, conservation practices, and collections management procedures, including a national computer database for registered artifacts. We have one of the most trained, professional workforces in the museum community.

Consequently, this legislation to us is actually redundant and totally unnecessary as it pertains to museums. Our concern is over the cost and administrative burden to conform with this legislation.

The legislation actually shares many of the common concerns museums have. For example, we believe in having our collections fully catalogued. We believe in safe and highly secure protection for our artifacts, whether they be valuable paintings or firearms. We believe in professional training of our staff in the care and handling of our collections. We believe in public education; in fact, the museums could serve a role in greater public education and understanding over the care, handling and safety of firearms. We also believe in means to coordinate information on lost or stolen artifacts, such as firearms.

Our position with respect to Bill C-68 is not that museums are above the law, but that the legislation's objectives are parallel to the very role of the museum. We are ahead of the law by the very nature of our professional standards, and yet this has not been recognized in this legislation. Furthermore, we feel that the museums of Canada can serve as an educational forum for public information on the safe handling, storage and documentation of firearms.

Our bona fide museums hold the treasures of Canada, and we want to continue that tradition. We are dedicated to the conservation and protection of our collections in perpetuity. When an item goes into a museum, it is withdrawn from public circulation, and kept there forever.

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If museums are not exempted from this legislation, or at least do not receive more special considerations than are presently accorded in this bill, we are aware of a number of museums that will be forced to destroy their collections or de-access them. This will be a loss to the future generations of all Canadians, and a loss we implore you to avoid by considering our recommendations.

Having given you our argument for the exemption of museums, let me give you one cautionary note. I have been talking about what I call bona fide museums, such as the New Brunswick Museum, the Musée de la civilisation, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Regina Plains Museum. These are professionally run institutions, all registered charities, and administered in the public interest.

There are some other organizations, however, that call themselves museums, but on closer inspection these are merely private holdings of private collectors. These may or may not be bona fide museums, and for this reason we continue to support the role of the provincial or territorial attorneys-general to inspect all museums as to their roles and standards, and to be judges of any exemption you are prepared to consider.

I will now turn the presentation over to my colleague, Brenda Brownlee.

Ms Brownlee: As John mentioned, we are seeking initially an exemption for our bona fide museums from the legislation. There are some museums in Canada that already enjoy this privilege to a complete extent; there are some other museums that are able to take advantage of provisions within the existing and proposed legislation to be at least partially exempt; and then there is the wide body of museums that must conform totally. So we have three different levels of museum systems being created.

Museums that could be exempted, we feel, would still have to conform to all legislative requirements for the safe storage and handling of firearms, including antiques; report any theft or loss immediately, as per the legislation; maintain and have available for inspection a complete registration system, which is in excess of what is required by the legislation in most museums; and not engage in the use of live ammunition.

If this is not possible, we would still like to continue to offer some suggestions of how it could be made more workable for museums. There are three areas that particularly concern most museums, and they include not just large collections of firearms. It could be a historic house that has a firearm over its mantelpiece in its reconstructed house setting. It could be a small county museum that has five or six weapons that were used by their local soldiers during World War I and World War II, as well as larger, more military collections.

The current firearms acquisition certificate, or what will become the firearms possession certificate, has become, in some cases, difficult to acquire. It has forced virtually all staff members who work right now with restricted or prohibited weapons and general firearms to have one. This includes the cleaner who has to get into the case to dust it off; the tour guide who may have to pick up a reproduction flintlock to show a class how a War of 1812 weapon might work, without using any ammunition; the registrar who has to pick up the weapon to read the serial number on it - and the list of museum employees goes on and on. At $200 per FAC, plus if you have to pay for up to another $400 worth of staff time, this can become a very expensive proposition for both large and small museums.

A second concern is the current definition of ``antique'', which was changed in the 1992 legislation to be a more restrictive definition. We are suggesting that it be changed to ``all single-shot firearms that use black powder and were manufactured before 1898, including reproductions of such weapons''. We don't see a difference between one that was made 100 years ago and one that was made yesterday, if they are the same and it is not a new, improved, 1990s version of it.

Right now, with a definition that refers to ammunition commonly available in Canada, the police are saying they don't know what ``commonly available'' is. If they can find that ammunition anywhere in the country, they're saying that weapon has to be registered and is not an antique.

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That's causing some problems, particularly for things such as the re-enactors who work for the museums, trying to get an FAC for a summer period guard, students who are hired to work at a specific museum for the summer to provide some animation at the site. They can't get through the training course and the background check in time to work for the summer to earn money for university. They are working with weapons that, if it weren't for the manufacturing date, would probably be antiques, and they do not use any live ammunition.

The last concern is the fees in general. Right now museums are exempt from the firearms and ammunition business permit-museum permit fee of about $200. Now this will be expanded to cover not just restricted and prohibited weapons, but any museum with any firearm will have to have a business licence. Fees were proposed for that. There are of course the FAC fees, training course fees, registration fees. If a weapon is donated to a museum, there will be a transfer fee. We're not sure whether the donor will pay that or the museum will have to pay that.

Large amounts of money are involved. We are trying to come up with some numbers, because the fees haven't been set in some cases. We could be looking at $3 million or more out of the cultural sector, which is very hard-strapped at the moment, when we look at the numbers of museums and the numbers of people, and the numbers of weapons that may require these fees.

There are some other minor considerations in the paper that do not apply to all museums. Some museums with medieval collections have some concerns about crossbows and other weapons. We'll leave you to read those and take care of them as you see fit.

As John said, we wish to work with this system, with the legislation. We want to make it so that we can continue to provide Canada's heritage, to provide some animation, to provide interest, and not just say, ``No, no, no, we can't do this, we can't do that'', or, ``No, no, no, we don't want the legislation''. We do want to work with people to come up with a positive solution to this.

Thank you very much for your time.

The Chair: Now we'll hear from the Army Museum Halifax Citadel, Mr. Ellis.

Mr. Bruce F. Ellis (Curator and Administrator, Expert Examiner of Military Objects for Cultural Properties Review Board, Army Museum Halifax Citadel): Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening.

I will omit reading through my report. I would ask that you give it a degree of attention, as your situation permits. Primarily I will reiterate what my colleagues in the Canadian Museums Association have said.

The Army Museum is a member of the CMA. We are also a charter member of the Organization of Military Museums of Canada. So I speak not only for my own small institution, but for a number of my partners in heritage as well.

My specific concern with this legislation - when I had the opportunity to read the draft - dealt with the inclusion of museums as a business. This has been approached by my colleagues quite clearly. We are not a business. In fact, institutions in the province of Nova Scotia are funded directly through the Department of Education. We are in fact registered not-for-profit institutions, supported almost wholly by the Department of Education in my province.

My concerns with respect to certain definitions and terms in this draft of the legislation, which may seem mundane and slightly picky, from our point of view nonetheless have a great impact.

Ms Brownlee referred to reproduction firearms. The institution associated in the Citadel, Parks Canada, uses original muskets in their animation drill. Many of these are well over 100 years old, and although meeting the legal requirements as proposed in this legislation, the concerns of using a piece of equipment on a steady basis that's well over 100 years old, subject to the stress and strain and corrosive effect of not only metal fatigue but also blank charges, is some cause for concern of the animators. I should stress that these are given periodic checks.

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Certainly I would ask the committee to look favourably upon the inclusion of reproductions of period firearms as in fact a legitimate concern, not necessarily detrimental to the public safety.

Another concern of the heritage community is the term ``replica''. This can be construed to be any model or non-functioning aspect that resembles a firearm. We're a bit at cross-purposes, because the government recognizes that a firearm can be registered into an inoperable, inactive doorstop - for want of a better term - through a system of cutting, welding and insertion of pins.

If we can take a firearm and technically, through physical alteration, remove it from any consideration of legislation, then certainly if we have an item that looks like a firearm, but was never intended to shoot, only to look like a firearm, then perhaps we should allow it the same degree of latitude.

I recognize of course that any item, when used in an offensive manner to intimidate or in the commission of a felony, is in fact a weapon under the law, as I understand it, and certainly that is covered quite clearly in aspects of this legislation under the Criminal Code.

In my own institution we have a number of replica firearms we cannot afford, or these pieces are in fact too rare to purchase or too uncommon to acquire. Therefore we have had copies made. I ask that be given a degree of consideration in the sense that we're dealing within the heritage mandate at present.

My colleagues will be discussing aspects relative to the use of period and reproduction firearms for animation purposes; that is, for the instruction of our military heritage as a learning tool.

I want to make one note. A number of you have seen a front-lock musket. National Firearms Manual, appendix 4-1, page 1, black-powder rifles and shotguns: the barrel must be blocked immediately forward of the flash hole - that's where the ignition of the charge takes place - by a hardened steel pin force-fit through the barrel and through the frame to prevent the chambering of ammunition. It must be welded in place.

If we're dealing with an earlier type of firearm, such as those used during the Fenian raids, these must be blocked by a hardened steel pin, the entire length of the barrel, and if we're dealing with a handgun, the cylinder as well, welded into place, all parts welded together, all ignition system parts welded one to the other.

I find the possibility of the implementation of this legislation with respect to representations of our heritage rather alarming. When I spoke with the justice minister last fall in Halifax, there was no indication that the intent of this law was to reduce the quality, the care, or the preservation of the heritage of this country. And, at the risk of second guessing the minister, I don't believe that it is.

If we're dealing with a sin here, it's a sin of omission as far as the heritage community is concerned. With the great and legitimate pressing concerns of this legislation, the heritage community was overlooked. I ask this committee to perhaps remedy that by the consideration of our requests.

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Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Ellis.

Now we'll hear from the British North America Living History Association, Mr. Feltoe and Mr. Webb.

Mr. Richard Feltoe (Coordinator, British North America Living History Association): Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Richard Feltoe. I am a living history re-enactor with about 15 years' experience.

Recently, with the development of legislation, a number of living history re-enactment groups got together to form a cooperative organization, called the British North America Living History Association, to look at what we could do to express our concerns regarding the proposals of the legislation. I am here on their behalf as the coordinator for that group.

With me is Mr. David Webb, a representative from Historic Sites, which makes use of living history re-enactors. He is in fact the Chief of Visitor Activities for Niagara National Historic Sites, Parks Canada and an instructor for Parks Canada national historic weapons courses. He has been a host of many events.

We will be speaking with one voice - mine initially - to make the presentation. Mr. Webb will be available at the question point to answer aspects on site views on re-enactments and some of the statistical and economic impacts that might result if this hobby dies. Since we're speaking two for one, I will ask for your indulgence if you allow me to actually read my brief.

For many Canadians just one generation ago, an understanding of this country's heritage was basically limited to the reading of a historical novel, the watching of a history documentary on television or a visit to a museum where you could see cases filled with historical items. More recently they have been able to watch costume displays presented by museums, pioneer villages or historic fortifications and have learned a bit more about our ancestors and the life they led.

For some, however, there was a much wider recognition of how much the historical heritage of Canada has to offer beyond a book, TV or displays. For these individuals, history is not some dead and gone subject, but a cultural heritage from which our modern society can learn and benefit through the preservation of lifestyles, trades, craft skills and folklore. Within this latter group there are enthusiasts who use this knowledge to its absolute maximum through accurately recreating or re-enacting these lifestyles of past eras to the public.

It's on behalf of these dedicated amateur social historians that I speak to you this evening and the threat that an unamended Bill C-68 poses to the activity of living history re-enactment.

To understand the special nature of living history re-enactments, the contribution they make to public education and their generation of revenues for museums and communities, the following points should be recognized. I would ask at this time that the photographs and illustrations that we brought along with us be distributed so that you get an idea of what we're about.

First, the activity of living history re-enactment is an international phenomenon recognized in many countries as a valuable cultural and educational resource and encouraged by legislated tax exemptions, awards and grants. In Canada no such overt benefits accrue to living history re-enactors, yet thousands of individuals participate at their own expense, volunteering their time and efforts to historic sites, museums, schools and communities across the country.

As an example, the British North America Living History Association is a cooperative federation of a number of independent living history re-enactment societies that are themselves composed of enthusiasts dedicated to the promotion of research, interpretation and portrayal of specific historic time periods.

Second, as part of these portrayals, living history re-enactors use weaponry appropriate to their time period, and these weapons are an essential and integral part of the portrayals.

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Furthermore, living history re-enactors are extremely sensitive to the maintenance of safety standards and the proper use of any weapon. To this end, as well as complying with all appropriate federal, provincial and individual site restrictions, living history groups have developed self-imposed safety codes that go far beyond any governmental statutes for the use of weapons within re-enactments.

I have some copies here if anybody would like to look at what we do at these re-enactments and what we don't allow.

For example, under the safety code of the BNALHA, only blank rounds are used. Live rounds are not even permitted to be part of an individual's equipment. It may also be noted that, in Europe, Canadian living history re-enactors are regarded as role models of superior quality in accuracy of portrayal and dedication to safety consciousness.

We certainly found this out in 1990, when about 250 Canadians went over to Waterloo in Belgium and participated with about 5,000 re-enactors from Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Soviet Union at that time, and many other countries in the world. Standing on the original battlefield and being able to portray the original battle was a lifetime's experience, I can assure you.

Third, during any calendar year, living history re-enactors invest substantial portions of their incomes into the research and acquisition of heritage trade skills, which they then use for the production of artifacts, equipment and clothing.

For example, an individual man representing a common soldier can expend upwards of $2,200 to properly and accurately outfit himself with clothing, accoutrements and black-powder musket. To this must be added the costs for other family members who are also outfitted with historically correct fashions. Those portraying the officer class can incur costs upwards of $4,000 just to be able to appear in public.

Furthermore, any individual wishing to participate over time must add the expenses of acquiring authentic period-style tents, camp equipage, cooking and other domestic impedimenta.

Beyond these direct costs, a recent survey of our re-enactors has revealed that an average individual will expend over $2,600 per annum in communities associated with re-enactments for the purchase of food, additional accommodation, gasoline, etc. Since there are known to be a minimum of 3,500 volunteer living history re-enactors within Ontario alone, the total investment of this activity can be readily deduced if applied to a national scale.

This can be further added to if one includes the large number of U.S. citizens with a similar heritage interest who travel to Canada numerous times each year to participate in our living history activities, investing their money into the Canadian economy through the purchase of similar supplies.

Fourth, for those heritage sites and museums that take advantage of living history re-enactors, those societies represent a pool of experienced labour that can be incorporated into site programming as a valuable educational tool. Furthermore, the inclusion of living history re-enactment activities provides a significant revenue generation source through the attraction of additional visitation and associated visitor expenditures at these sites and nearby communities.

Mr. Webb has some information on Louisbourg for this year alone.

With the threat posed by the bill, and given an understanding of these points, it is important to state that while the community of living history re-enactors supports the principles inherent to Bill C-68, it is gravely concerned that this social and educational activity is now threatened with effective extinction should the proposed legislation be implemented without amendments.

Initial study of the draft legislation and discussion with authorities clearly indicated that while a laudable purpose of the legislation was to reduce the risk of crimes in which firearms are used, it was intended for situations in which modern weapons technologies might be used. In other words, the antique and obsolete weapons technologies represented by black-powder muskets, etc., had never been considered as relevant to the legislation.

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This is not surprising, because it can be readily shown that no criminal would choose to acquire and use a single-shot, muzzle-loading, black-powder matchlock, wheel-lock, flintlock or percussion cap firearm for the purposes of committing a crime, when other much more technologically advanced weapons are available.

These antique and obsolete weapons are of a type for which no commercially ready-made examination exists. They utilize a propellant substance that's difficult to obtain and that deteriorates to the point of becoming inert when exposed to humidity. They incorporate an ignition system that suffers frequent mechanical failures and fails to fire altogether under less than perfect atmospheric conditions. Finally, it requires a minimum time of 15 to 20 seconds for an expert to reload for each shot.

This concept of the exclusion of black-powder weaponry is reinforced by a study of the recently revised FAC certification course. The curriculum contains minimal reference to black powder. Many of the training officers have no significant knowledge or experience of black-powder weapons superior to that already held by re-enactors. Now this has created a situation where upon occasion the re-enactors, who are candidates paying for the course, are called upon to teach the teachers.

In other words, the authorities did not initially consider these antique and obsolete weapons technologies as requiring inclusion under the FAC regulations. As one officer said to me, it's not what we need to be trying to control...it's not what the legislation needs to be about.

Now we come to the fact that a belated recognition by the authorities has arisen of the need to consider these obsolete technologies. As a result, instead of developing new clauses, black-powder weapons are being shoved in under provisions that were never meant to include them and are being treated as if they are the equivalent of modern weapons technologies. To use an appropriate metaphor, this legislation is using a shotgun technique in the hope that by blasting a wide spray of projectiles everything will be covered and the target area will be hit. Unfortunately, the danger with this kind of shot is that it not only hits the target but impacts on a wide peripheral field and injures innocent bystanders.

I would submit that unless amended, the living history re-enactment field will be just such a victim of this legislation through the imposition of additional costs and restriction of use. This would then cause historic sites, museums, schools and communities to avoid using living history re-enactors as part of their program. It would also create such a morass of regulations and additional start-up costs that it would deter or prevent interested individuals from participating in living re-enacting as a legitimate and legal pastime.

To continue the metaphor, a proper legislation should be likened to an Olympic Games competition rifle, i.e., finely crafted and tuned with an accurate sight used by experts and aimed at specific targets. To this end the British North America Living History Association wishes to submit its recommendations for the following amendments to the proposed legislation as it would apply to our situation.

First, if you give what the CMA has asked for, namely, a dated dropping of all weapons prior to 1898, you'll have a lot of happy campers in the living re-enactment field, because we're covered. If not, we would recommend that all antique weaponry or reproductions of antique weaponry having the characteristics outlined below be exempted from categorization as firearms under the terms of legislation, including the requirement for licences, FAC-FPC certificates, training courses, firearms registration and all registration at transborder crossings, and these include having a barrel designed for single-shot capacity without any capacity for incorporation of a repeat shot magazine, having a muzzle-related system of loading its ammunition, using black powder as its substance of combustion, utilizing an ignition system incorporating matchlock, wheel-lock, flintlock or percussion cap technologies, and having a barrel length of not less than 18 inches.

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However, recognizing the concerns of those involved in firearms legislation, and subject to the inability of the legislation to encompass the degree of exemption outlined above, we propose the following alternative. All antique weaponry or reproductions of antique weaponry as referenced above should be reclassified as heritage weapons and subject to the following terms: that they be exempted from the current FAC-FPC certificate training courses, firearms registration or registration at transborder crossings; instead, that a new separate system of training, examination and certification under the form of a heritage weapons certificate be developed in cooperation with police authorities and administered by designated heritage sites and specialized representative committees of experienced re-enactors; that each owner be required under the provisions of the weapons certificate to comply with all appropriate standards of maintenance, storage and weapons security while maintaining a detailed log of each weapon within its possession, i.e., self-registration. This log and the weapons would then be made subject to inspection by the authorities to ensure compliance of standards with a threat of penalties for non-compliance. Likewise, any losses, thefts, alterations, sales, etc., would be required to be reported immediately.

Any club, group or museum wishing to hold such weapons as part of their collection would be individually categorized and certified separately by a single one-time application and approval. The certification would be based upon their official collections policy and appropriate documentation relating to the purpose for which the collection is being obtained or held.

The club, group or museum would be responsible to maintain appropriate standards for maintenance, storage, logging and security within its collection, again producing a self-registration readily available to the authorities for inspection.

Finally, provision should be established for the transport or movement of antique and reproduction antique firearms for the purposes of participating in living history re-enactments on both sides of the U.S-Canada border, with special arrangements being provided for U.S. re-enactors holding a heritage weapons certificate obtained from the appropriate sources and showing documentation indicating the living history re-enactment event being attended within Canada.

I wish to stress again we are not against the legislation. We are concerned. We value extremely the opportunity you've given us, ladies and gentlemen, to have our points heard. We trust you to do the right thing. We hope you will take our representations into consideration.

On behalf of Mr. Webb and myself, I would like to thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Feltoe. We will now proceed to the rounds of questioning. I would ask members, since we have three groups before us, to indicate in asking your question to which group you want the question addressed. Maybe you might wish all groups to answer the question. If that's the case, specify.

[Translation]

We will start with Mr. de Savoye from the Bloc québécois.

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Mr. de Savoye (Portneuf): First, I would like to congratulate and thank you for presentations that were very well tuned, with a very clear line of sight and directly aimed at the bulls' eye. I don't know how it sounds in English, but in French, it makes some sense.

For the BQ, Bill C-68 aims at reducing violence caused by firearms, the number of accidents, the death rate and the number of crimes committed with firearms. We must also avoid what is called collateral damage, that is harming decent Canadians such as hunters, farmers, forestry workers and, of course, undermining Canadian heritage activities or limiting, their scope.

As you know, the Bloc québécois supported the Bill at second reading because we share these objectives. These are commendable and important. At the same time, we expect a number of amendments to the Bill in order to avoid the collateral damage I just mentioned. This is the reason why I am very happy to see that tonight, you brought to our attention the harmful effect the Bill would have on antique weapons.

You referred to weapons found in museum showcases. You also talked about non-operational replicas. You referred to living history re-enactments and events. The Canadian Museums Association also discussed with us the definition of ammunition. This is what my question will be focusing on.

There is a distinction between commonly available and commercially available ammunition. In your brief, you recommend specific amendments to the Bill. As far as ammunition is concerned, you only identify the problem without suggesting any improvement. Could you elaborate on this?

[English]

Ms Brownlee: We proposed that the definition of antique drop any reference to the ammunition used. So we're proposing that the definition for antique say that it is a single-shot weapon made before 1898 and using black-powder technology, without reference to whether it takes a specific type of ammunition or not, and of course reproductions of same so that we can avoid the problem of whether it's commercially available in Canada, commonly available in Canada, and what those terms mean.

Mr. McAvity: There's another answer. That would simply be to accept our first recommendation, to declare that the collections of firearms held in all museums would simply be exempt from this legislation. That's the easier answer for you, I think.

Mr. Ellis: Over and above that, in my view as a heritage professional, one of the omissions under the current FAC regulations is that to purchase ammunition one does not require an FAC. I know it's a bit of an ipso facto, but one generally assumes, when one goes to a Canadian Tire store and buys a box of 12-gauge shotgun shells, there's a high probability the purchaser either has or knows someone who has a 12-gauge shotgun.

By regulating ammunition, as I understand it, under the Criminal Code aspects of the new legislation, we take a great step forward in public safety.

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About period ammunition - that is to say, those kinds relevant to the heritage community - we come in a fairly broad sphere. There are quite legitimate, very studious, ammunition collectors of various types of early military and commercial ammunition. This dates back from the foundation of the cartridge industry in Canada by Captain Howard.

But about how this impacts on the heritage community with ammunition and other devices, there's a term in American technology under the ATF - alcohol, tobacco and firearms - tax called ``destructive devices''. This means exactly what it says: items that are not firearms but are basically terribly unpleasant to be around at the improper time. However, both in the United Kingdom and in the U.S., institutions are given permission to acquire, within strict parameters, destructive devices. Two examples of this would be artillery projectiles and hand grenades.

As ominous as this may sound, in my own institution when these come in, usually they're fused and alive and have been brought home in someone's foot-locker. Unfortunately, it then falls upon me to transport these to the ordinance disposal yard, gingerly, which I do with great trepidation and, unfortunately, no increase in salary.

So it's a concern to us as well. But by and large, ammunition within the historical community is, again, extremely self-regulated and the requirements just for the insurance of our buildings are quite stringent.

[Translation]

Mr. de Savoye: Mr. McAvity and Mrs. Brownlee, you offered me two solutions, but I see a problem with both of them. Let me share my concern with you.

If all the black powder firearms are exempt, does this mean that they are automatically exempt, whoever they belong to, whether it is a museum or an individual? Moreover, if you exempt only the museums, what happens in the case of historical re-enactements? This is a problem. Could you try to clarify this point for me?

[English]

Ms Brownlee: Either of our answers will work for museums. So it depends on what you wish to do with the legislation. If you went back to the previous definition for antique, which was in the 1977 legislation, and said it does not take centre- or rim-fire ammunition commercially available in Canada, then we have a clearer definition.

Right now we're having many weapons that were made from approximately 1860 on, in spite of an 1898 date in the definition - they are in fact being classified as firearms rather than antiques because the ammunition could possibly be found in an antique show, or there are collectors, as Mr. Ellis said. But this is not readily available either to a member of the public or a museum. It would take a great deal of effort to try to find ammunition to use in this weapon to go out and do some damage with that weapon.

It then falls into the problem of the period guards, because the period guards at institutions such as Fort Henry and the Halifax Citadel use those 1860s weapons, and whether they're originals or reproductions, because they take centre- or rim-fire ammunition commonly available in Canada, under this vague definition they in fact become firearms and pose problems.

I guess the question is, is a black-powder weapon made in the latter half of the 19th century, single-shot, although it is a breach-loader, a danger to the public to the extent that you feel it must be registered in the system?

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This is not something we can answer for you. We didn't feel this type of weapon was for the intent of the legislation. This is not the first choice of the criminal classes for doing danger, but all weapons pose some danger from accident or anything else. That would apply to those that are truly antiques as well.

Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): I thank you for your presentations.

I would like to ask whether or not - and this is a question directed to the museum community - you've ever had a firearm stolen from your museum, or other museums if you know of any, and whether or not anyone has ever been injured through the discharge of a firearm in your museum or other museums.

Ms Brownlee: Yes, firearms have been stolen on rare occasions for their antique value. Some very rare weapons disappeared from the Royal Military College museum, and I believe they are still on the INTERPOL list of missing weapons. We are not aware of the misuse of a firearm stolen from a museum for criminal purposes or accidental shooting. I would hesitate to state categorically that this has never happened in Canada; it's not something we have been able to research easily. Thefts from museums do happen on rare occasions, and they happen to oil paintings and gold collections as well as to firearms.

Mr. Ellis: We lost a flare pistol three years ago. However, before we put firearms of any type on exhibition they are internally disassembled. This particular flare pistol was brass, very shiny, very attractive. The case was pried open and while there were far more effective, and I might add far more ominous, firearms in the same room, they weren't taken. Someone was just enthralled by this brass flare pistol. However, by disassembling it internally, what they had was a very nice brass paperweight.

It showed up in the Halifax police property room two years later. By its serial number and markings it was established to be ours. It was clean and had not been reassembled for any criminal use. We put it down as an impulse theft, if you will, but no place is immune from theft if the thief wants to get in.

Mr. Ramsay: Do you have all your firearms and other artifacts listed, registered and identified within your own organizations?

Some voices: Yes.

Mr. Ramsay: Then what purpose can Bill C-68 play, inasmuch as it applies to museums, other than to attempt to fix something that doesn't need fixing?

Mr. McAvity: Mr. Ramsay, we're actually at a loss to answer that question. For that very reason we're looking for an exemption. As we have said, our collections are fully catalogued; in fact, they are catalogued with far more exhaustive information than will be required in the proposed registry.

Secondly, most, but not all, of the collections are on either a national database, which is called the Canadian Heritage Information Network and is supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage, or provincial databases. In addition, artifacts that are not on either of these databases are fully catalogued and photographed; information is recorded about the history of the particular firearm, who owned it and so on.

When an object is stolen - and fortunately this is extremely rare - out of any of the 2,000 museums in the country, we do have a procedure by which stolen material is reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and INTERPOL. They maintain, particularly because of the lucrative trade in stolen works of art where the particular paintings can fetch a fair amount of money, an international database in which the police authorities from all countries monitor what has been stolen, and look for it at auctions or other spots. So we already have a vehicle by which stolen material can be reported.

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Mr. Ramsay: Can you tell the committee why you think you were not involved in the consultation process that occurred last summer by the justice department? Why was the museum community not involved in designing this consultation process?

Mr. McAvity: I don't think there was anything really sinister. I think it was simply that we were overlooked. The big guns, as it were, were seen to be many of the other witnesses you've heard from and called before you. We were simply overlooked, as we were almost overlooked in Bill C-17, the 1992 legislation.

We were able to effect some of the regulatory changes to that legislation at the very last minute, with the support of the Department of Justice. It recognized museums at that point and exempted us from having to pay the $200 business permit. The museums still had to be inspected and approved, but they were exempt from the actual fee.

So I submit that we were simply overlooked. I suppose we should take a little bit of responsibility there, because we read newspapers and heard about this legislation coming down the tube. By the time we got our act together and consulted with our community, we had missed the boat.

Mr. Ramsay: I want to move to another area. Mr. Ellis, in your brief on the first page in the first paragraph you have a quite long sentence that says:

I presume to speak today not only for my own institution, the Army Museum in the historic Halifax Citadel, but museums across our country which reflect the common experiences of this nation, be it the settlement of the land, aspects of technology, or the specific concerns of institutions that honour the service and sacrifice of the men and women who protected this nation and the ideals of freedom.

Do you consider that all aspects of this bill honour the service and sacrifice of the men and women who protected this nation and the ideals of freedom?

Mr. Ellis: I must step aside from my place before the committee when I give you that answer, sir. I'm here initially to reflect those of the heritage community.

As a soldier who has had the misfortune to serve in four conflicts and wear several uniforms, and as a proud immigrant to Canada and a Canadian citizen, I am disturbed not only by this bill but also by the divisions this bill seems to have engendered within our country. My apologies to the chairman and to the members for this personal remark.

If I may allude.... When the chairman brought forward legislation a number of years ago relative to the security of our nation in terms of firearms control, I don't recall this degree of debate or the vehemence of the debate. I do not purport to have any particular expertise in the law. I do feel that aspects of this legislation ignore English common law as it relates to the privilege of members of the empire - i.e., the United Kingdom - to possess firearms.

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Laws change as society changes, and society can effect or react to the changes therein. From my understanding of the reaction to this bill, I feel that the original purpose, perhaps, of the Minister of Justice - I don't propose to second-guess him - to increase the peace and security of this country is somehow not being effectively addressed.

Again, my apologies to the committee for stepping out of character on this.

Mr. Ramsay: I don't think any apologies are required.

I will ask you this. In this bill, there is the means to confiscate property without compensation. In fact, that's ongoing now under Kim Campbell's Bill C-17.

There seems to be the abrogation of the fundamental right to remain silent in the face of a criminal accusation.

In addition, the power of the state, as granted in this bill, to search, without a warrant and anywhere in Canada, any building or place other than a dwelling-house, any receptacle or any container, seems to be a violation of the very things we fought for and in the re-enactments we've been told about. Those are the principles and the freedoms we fought for, and this bill is an abrogation, or at least an encroachment, upon those very fundamental rights and freedoms our forefathers died for.

Mr. Ellis: In a personal view only, as I wear the officer uniform of a member of the armed forces in Canada, this is not the Canadian way.

The Chair: Before I move to Mr. Lee, I want to respond. In 1976-77, gun control was part of an omnibus bill that dealt with a wide range of measures concerning crime prevention and control, such as amendments to the Parole Act and other amendments to the Criminal Code. So the bill didn't have just one focus; it approached crime prevention and control on many fronts. Therefore, maybe it didn't get the same attack.

Mr. Lee (Scarborough - Rouge River): This is to Mr. Ellis. I understand that military museums, or those approved by the armed forces, are exempted from the current legislation. Is that the case with the Citadel museum in Halifax?

Mr. Ellis: No, sir, it is not. The Army Museum Halifax Citadel, despite its name, is not part of the Department of National Defence. We were established in 1953 on literally the closing day of the decommissioning of the Halifax Citadel fortress, when it was a DND institution, in conjunction with the premier of Nova Scotia at that time, as a non-regimental military museum to preserve and promote the military heritage of Atlantic Canada.

That exempted us from - I say this with kindness, in retrospect - the incredible petty bickering that regiments - particularly those other than my own, I might add - engage in from time to time. In fact, we are free agents with respect to addressing our mandate, without focusing on the West Nova Scotia Regiment or the Princess Louise Fusiliers.

Mr. Lee: So there are no representatives from military museums here with us tonight? We do have one? No?

A voice: My apologies.

Mr. Lee: We may have one, but that's being declined at this point.

Mr. Ellis: Excuse me, sir. I am a member of the Organization of Military Museums of Canada.

Mr. Lee: This I understand.

There are two phases in this legislation. One is the registration of the firearms and the other the licensing of those who would possess firearms.

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Why not, once and for all, simply register all the firearms in the possession of all the museums? Why not do that and get it out of the way? Would anyone care to answer that? You have the records inside out up to yin-yang here, so why not just finally register...?

Mr. McAvity: We've got the records. Our chief concern about the registration is the cost and the human burden that will pose in the actual transfer of that.

It's not a life-or-death question. We could easily make those records available and ask the Department of Justice to input them into their own system, but we are very concerned about the costs. If that is to be the case, then we would ask for the costs to be nil in the case of museums.

My second point is that since the collections are fully catalogued, would it not be far more efficient for us simply to register any firearms that leave our collections, which are those that are stolen and go into circulation?

When the firearms are in our collections, they're not in public circulation; they have been withdrawn. They're not like library books, which you can check out and go around with; they're locked up and kept by the highest professional standards we can apply.

Mr. Lee: You people write books about these things, pages and pages. Why not just turn over the disk and make the Department of Justice an offer they can't refuse by saying, ``Here are the 378 firearms that are in our collection?'' Make them an offer they can't refuse in terms of the cost.

To me, that would get rid of the registration issue for the firearms.

Then we get into the users or those who come close to or breathe near firearms or those who view them or touch them or clean up around them. That's a problem. You've indicated that.

You've estimated that the cost of registering or licensing the cleaners, sweepers, viewers, holders and the people with the keys would be, you think, about $3 million across the country. That's a very wild guess on your part, I gather.

Ms Brownlee: No, that was a total possible impact of the entire legislation, which would include business licences for most of the museums and so on.

Right now, with personal experience, we're estimating it to be close to $600 per employee. The course varies a little bit in cost from province to province, but that's three days of paid staff time plus $200 for the course, the exam and the FAC.

Mr. Lee: Do any of the museums you're familiar with keep ammunition with the guns?

Mr. McAvity: A few museums do, but it's not too common. The ammunition is always kept separate and at a distance from the actual firearm. Firearms are not fired in the museums we're referring to.

Mr. Lee: Is it fair to say that a museum-piece firearm is never fired?

Mr. McAvity: That's right.

Mr. Lee: Although, in some cases, there may be ammunition nearby.

Mr. McAvity: The ammunition would be kept for historical purposes only because it would be a record of the type of ammunition that would be there. So it's there purely for historical or scientific purposes. No, the firearms are definitely not fired.

Mr. Lee: Could I ask those who have given us some information about re-enactment: don't you think it's right for everyone who fires one of these muskets to have some training? If the answer is going to be yes, then why not the FAC training or FAC type of training?

Mr. Feltoe: As an individual, Richard Feltoe...the one problem we currently have is that the FAC training system we have now is totally inapplicable to the black-powder system. The instructors don't know about it. They ask others to teach them.

On top of that, you do have a recommendation from us that, yes, we absolutely demand that anybody in the re-enacting field should be trained. That's where our codes come in. We are looking for a police-related or police-coordinated system. But let the sites do it. Mr. Webb trains people in Parks Canada for this purpose.

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Mr. David Webb (Historic Sites Representative, British North America Living History Association): I would just suggest that the firearms course you can take today would not qualify somebody to walk into a historic site, and we certainly wouldn't hand them a flintlock musket, because they're not trained in the potential risks with noise, which is the biggest concern.

Our concern is that we have a visitor season, but our visitors are not in season. In essence, we're trying to fire blanks in terms of what we're doing; we're not firing live ammunition. The focus of the training, or for those who are hunting, or what have you.... Generally, hunters don't bring an audience along into the forest with them. We have an audience with us. So they're very different worlds.

Mr. Lee: You're getting the message across that you're exceedingly careful about how you train and how you put on the re-enactments, but the men and women who do the re-enactments have to be trained in what a firearm is, what it does, and things like that. That has to happen anyway, and you're suggesting they need an extra chapter or two on the musket or the black powder or the nature of these old firearms that they're using. Is that right?

Mr. Webb: Or an alternative type of program or a graduated system for those who are interested solely in heritage or in antique firearms and these types of activities. There may be a different type of licence, like a driver's licence. I can't drive a transport truck at home, and, likewise, perhaps somebody who's blank firing muskets in wool clothes in July doesn't need the bulk of the rest of it.

Mr. Lee: Last, would any of you care to suggest that there should be a distinction made between a museum that is a public sector museum - I'm not even sure what I mean by that - a not-for-profit public museum with some public sector ownership or sanction and other museums that are purely private, pay-as-you-go businesses that call themselves museums? Do you think that distinction should be made when we talk about this field?

Mr. McAvity: Absolutely. There are two types of museums. There are the ones that I call the not-for-profit institutions, which are also registered charities - it's another very important control - and are operated in the public interest. They are public institutions. They receive government funds - severely dwindling funds, we might add. But, furthermore, they're operated in the public interest. They're holding their collections in stewardship for the future of the institution.

The second group are ones that I referred to at the very beginning that are calling themselves museums. I have started noticing that a number of groups have been applying to the Canadian Museums Association for membership. When we've looked into it more, we see that in fact these are private collections in somebody's basement and they've decided to call themselves a museum in order to benefit from some of the exemptions, whether it's getting around paying the business permit or perhaps some of the recommendations that we're making to you today. For that reason, we would continue to support that the provincial attorneys general would inspect everything that calls itself a museum and approve those that are bona fide and that meet the required standards. We think that is the best form of control that can exist.

Mr. de Savoye: I see that you are an expert examiner of military objects for the Cultural Property Export Review Board of Canada. Right?

Mr. Ellis: That is correct, sir.

Mr. de Savoye: In your brief, you state that the number of person hours required to recatalogue and assign control numbers to inventories held by such institutions as the Canadian War Museum, Parks Canada, the Ontario Parks Commission, etc., will cost, in dollars paid for hours worked, millions from already strained budgets. Millions of dollars divided, let's say, by $10 an hour means hundreds of thousands of hours of work, if I'm right.

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Tell me - you're the expert - is it so difficult to correctly identify a firearm - that it would take that much time across all the museums?

Mr. Ellis: I refer you to Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms and Their Value, volume 6, F-127.

Now, if you're into period-firearm-speak, as it were, do you know what that code number is? By referring to this internationally recognized reference by that code number, you can look up your copy in Great Britain. I can look at mine here or in a conference call to the Smithsonian Institution. He looks at his and we all say, ``Ah, yes, it's a - '' - whatever it is. So it can be done very succinctly.

However, if in the best of all possible worlds - and I emphasize that it would be - we turn our disks over to the justice department - Many of us already have turned disks over to our local police departments and to our insurance companies, I might add.

Although we're speaking about firearms, my institution takes in over 1,000 artifacts a year, of which firearms are perhaps 2% or 3%, so we're dealing with a great deal of material, all of which has to be identified. Specific to firearms, depending on the requirements of the justice committee, it may be possible already, through computerization, to extract this information from our disks in a very short order.

If the justice department wishes information that we may not have or any format that we may not have, we would have to re-enter that. It is my understanding that each firearm will be given a bar code number for inventory control, and I base this upon my discussions with my local provincial firearms officer and other members of the justice department. That bar code is affixed to the firearm. Upon periodic inspection, the provincial firearms officer or his agent will come into my institution and say that he wishes to see this firearm. He will then take his bar code reader to wherever that firearm is and read the bar code, and if it matches, then the world is a sunnier place for the curator. If it does not match -

Mr. de Savoye: I understand that identifying a firearm correctly is not something that anyone can do just like that. You have to refer to characteristics in a book of some kind, or disks.

In your opinion again - you're the expert - how reliable would registration done by individuals be? Let's say the ordinary citizen wants to register his or her firearm through the mail. Could any individual do that? If not, how many person hours from a government special task force would be required to register firearms of all owners across Canada?

Mr. Ellis: In the latter aspects, sir, as the number of firearms varies by several million on either side of the median, particularly given the salary of the federal task force and the expenses involved, I couldn't begin to note that. When you have a firearm come in - and I will use my own institution as an example - it takes two of us, one to access the tentative information and the other to type it into the system. If all goes well, we can do it within 15 minutes. This produces a disk copy, a physical hard copy, and a receipt to the owner. So that's two people and 15 minutes. That's assuming that I open the box and say, ``Oh yes, that's a - '' - whatever it is.

In a number of the firearms that we deal with within the heritage community, the knowledge is extremely specialized, and it's not quite as easy as looking up in the Winchester or the Colt catalogue of currently available arms. There are intricacies of design and serial number ranges giving different time periods.

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I don't wish to cloak the whole process in mysticism, but it is a process that requires a bit of study.

Mr. Wood (Nipissing): With your indulgence, I would like to share my five minutes with my colleague Mr. Galloway, who I think also has a couple of questions.

Mr. McAvity, you've asked that a special category of firearm possession certificates be created, specifically, I guess, to meet the needs of museums and heritage re-enactments.

While I think we probably all would agree that making summer students obtain a certificate to use a weapon that will never be loaded is probably ridiculous, I am concerned about creating exemptions to this regulation. I guess I'm afraid that if an exemption is made for museums, then another might be made for native people, and then another for remote tourist operators, who were before us this afternoon, and so on.

Can you think of or maybe recommend any other way to solve this problem without creating sub-categories of compliance?

Mr. McAvity: I can really speak only on behalf of the interests of our own community, and that is museums. So I really cannot comment on the other areas.

One possibility would be the continued registration of museums to have all of their materials registered in the central Department of Justice data bank; however, then to exempt the museums from payment of any necessary licence fees and also to have a specialized training program available for museum professionals, for museum staff, so they will be receiving the type of training that they are presently not able to obtain.

That sort of goes along with the second part of what we've recommended if you're not prepared to consider an overall blanket exemption for museums. That certainly is our preferred position. It is recognizing that museums - unlike, for example, the outfitters and other organizations - are operating in the public interest. We have a stewardship responsibility to hold those objects in trust for the future. Virtually all of these objects are donated to the museums or given freely by people. Museums do not have funds to go and purchase these collections. So the museum itself is operating in the public interest.

I think the example of a museum and its role can be used beneficially to complement this legislation, because in many ways we are a model for the public, for collectors, about safety, care and handling of artifacts. I think that aspect could be developed much more.

Mr. Feltoe: Again, we are looking at exemptions for specific groups. I would hesitate to say that the museums and re-enactors are looking, as we stated, at a totally different type of technology. The weapons that are dealt with by these other groups are modern weapons technologies. The museums and the re-enactors, by the very nature of what they're doing, are dealing with obsolete, antique, to anybody else, useless technologies. Therefore, I cannot see, quite honestly, that making an exemption for one must mean exemptions for others. One can be specific that the use of the museums gives them a special place necessary to recognize the place.

As has been mentioned by Mr. Webb in our discussions, people are excused and given recognition by this. Including whom? Museums are not given any recognition in the needs of the regulations, but other groups are. We're ignored because we're forgotten about. The legislation wasn't for us. Nobody thought about us. Now all of a sudden we've got to be in there.

Mr. Thompson (Wild Rose): I'd like to follow up on a comment I heard here a while ago regarding the registration for museums.

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I find it strange. You've got a system that has these things perfectly labelled. We know exactly what they are. If one goes missing, you can report it in a flash to the police. To say, ``Ah, come on, you guys, register them anyway. Be nice guys and comply with this. Let's do it anyway. Let's have a little duplication, let's spend a little more money, let's cause a little more burden,'' doesn't make any sense.

I know our group would, without a doubt, say you have convinced us that you should be exempt. So we want you to know that. I've heard other groups who have given us very good reasons why they should be exempt. I think we're going to run into this more and more as we progress.

When you look at this legislation, this 124-page document that is supposed to be a crime-fighting bill, although 117 out of the 124 pages apply to the law-abiding citizen and 6 apply to the criminal - and I assume you've read the entire document - I would like to know if you were able to form an opinion, either in your own minds or as a group, as to whether this is a good effective bill to fight crime? Did you consider that at all? Would anybody like to comment?

Ms Brownlee: I can only speak personally as someone who did sit down and read, mark, learn and inwardly digest this to the best of my ability. I wasn't looking at it from the point of view of the individual. As we stated in the presentation, we are not, as a group of museums, opposed to the legislation en masse.

Yes, there are means of assisting with registration and so on. It's more that we've got some smaller areas that would make life with museums a lot easier. We certainly support legislation that, for instance, has banned classes of weapons this year from the public use.

As far as museums are concerned - and that's where we're speaking from - the legislation is not out of line. I can only speak for myself as one individual who read it. I can't speak for the four other people here.

Mr. Thompson: Does anyone else want to comment?

Mr. Feltoe: I would say that 99.99% of those involved in the re-enacting field deal with time periods before 1900. The entire body of our concern was related to our activities. The criminal element was recognized outright - that it must be addressed and attacked by legislation. Whether this legislation attacks it properly was not within the discussions that we put together on this bill. Therefore, I must respectfully say that we cannot speak to it.

Mr. Thompson: Are you aware that we have, for the first time ever, legislation that says that you're guilty and you have to prove you're innocent? It talks about searches without warrants. It talks about compensation, where there will be none. It talks about Orders in Council where, once this is adopted, there can be a small group of a few who will run further regarding regulations.

Were you aware of the Orders in Council in this, and did you have any concerns regarding that?

Mr. McAvity: I think we've all read the legislation. Quite honestly, I'm here to represent the museums. Most of our concerns are really financial and administrative. There are many little aspects of the bill that concern us, but I think it's beyond our scope really to comment on them. I'm paid to represent the museum community and so I must limit my comments to that.

I would like to pick up on one of the points you made, Mr. Thompson, and that was the cost involved. The museums in Canada are under tremendous financial pressure. We've lost about 1,000 full-time employees in our institutions due to enormous cutbacks that have been happening at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels. Also, corporations and private donors have also been cutting back their support of museums. Museums are struggling to survive in this climate.

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For example, the main federal government program for support, which was called the Museum Assistance Program, has just been cut back further. There was supposed to be $18 million this year for that fund; it is now $10.17 million. That's how much of a decline we've seen in the funds that are available.

We simply cannot bear the additional administrative burden and financial burden to comply with new regulations.

It seems as if everywhere we turn more and more regulations are being applied to communities such as ours. This is one example. There is new legislation with respect to copyright and many other areas I could go into, such as charitable reporting and not-for-profit reporting.

Mr. Bryden is up this week with his Bill C-224 to have all our salaries disclosed. Well, we're a very transparent community and have nothing to hide.

These regulations chip away at what we're there to do. We're there to provide exhibits for the education and enjoyment of the public, not to push paper around.

Mr. Gallaway (Sarnia - Lambton): I won't ask these gentlemen how they feel this will affect moose hunting on Baffin Island, or some other non sequitur type of question. But I would like to ask Mr. McAvity or Ms Brownlee.... I'll draw the analogy, for example, of hospitals and public health units and the accreditation processes they might go through. Is there an accreditation process? I ask this because you've indicated there's a continuum of sizes and types of museums whereby each museum, notwithstanding its size, might receive a seal of approval that would indicate it operates in a certain manner that might be acceptable to this committee.

Mr. McAvity: I really wish I could answer that question with an affirmative. Unfortunately, there is not an accreditation scheme in place at this time, apart from the provincial attorneys general inspecting the institutions. Also, for some donations of cultural property, institutions are accredited, but that's for a different purpose.

Mr. Gallaway: In terms of the provincial inspections, I don't know what they inspect for. Perhaps you could tell us.

Mr. McAvity: Well, Brenda, you've been inspected, so perhaps you can speak firsthand as to the process.

Ms Brownlee: The museum receives, unless it has changed, from the Ministry of the Solicitor General.... It simply indicates that my museum is an approved museum under provisions of the Criminal Code. This goes back to the 1970s, prior to the 1977 legislation, which allowed my museum to collect restricted and prohibited weapons. So it had some validity at that point. It decided that I was not a personal, private collection, that I was a museum for the purposes of acquiring restricted and prohibited weapons.

The business/museum licensing system permit is supposed to have inspections attached to it. Under the legislation that is in effect right now, this applies only to businesses/museums that collect prohibited or restricted weapons, and the police are supposed to provide an inspection. They did send me my certificate or licence last year, with apologies that there wasn't time or staff to do the inspection. That will spread, of course, to all museums that have any type of firearm under the new legislation.

Mr. Gallaway: Is a fee charged by the province for this certificate or whatever it is you received? Is that what you're telling me?

Ms Brownlee: There is no fee charged by the Ministry of Justice and the Solicitor General. It was something we applied for, and we received status to be exempt from the Criminal Code for the purpose of collecting certain types of weapons.

For the firearms business/museum permit that came in with the 1992 legislation, Mr. McAvity's presentation to a similar committee resulted in museums being exempted from the $200 annual fee that is charged currently to businesses for that licence, so we are exempt from that.

There are provisions in this legislation to again provide fees for that annual licence.

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Mr. Gallaway: To equate your museum with the Elvis museum in Niagara Falls or something -

Ms Brownlee: I hope they don't have firearms. They're more into electric guitars and they won't have to have one.

Mr. Gallaway: I must say I'm disappointed. I have never visited that place.

Thank you. I think that clarifies my concerns.

The Chair: I bring to the attention of the committee that it's almost 9:20 p.m. We were scheduled to end at 9:30. I still have two members on the list who haven't asked questions. If I go back and forth to the opposition that means four, and I have two non-members who have asked to ask questions. We just can't do it. We've been here since early morning and we've been going all day, even through Question Period. So I want to suggest that the two who haven't asked any questions be allowed to ask questions and we end it there, unless there's some burning point that nobody else has asked about. But it seems to me we've covered the territory pretty well.

I'm going to ask for somebody to replace me in the chair at 9:30. You can carry on as late as you want.

[Translation]

Mr. de Savoye: I want to ask a question to Mr. McAvity. Is it possible that more recent weapons be found in a museum? I'm thinking, for example, about an old ``Colt'' or an old ``Winchester''? Is it possible?

[English]

Mr. McAvity: Yes, it is. Museums are able to collect even restricted items, as proposed in this legislation. In fact, I ran a museum called Carleton Martello Tower, which was initially built as an 1812 defence structure and operated continuously until 1945, the end of World War II. It later became a museum and showed and collected material for the whole duration of its period.

Ms Torsney: I just wanted to clarify something, Mr. McAvity. You could supply the disks and information, but it's the cost. You would oppose a $200 licence fee or something like that, or some kind of registration fee associated with all those guns.

Mr. McAvity: Yes.

Ms Torsney: I have actually been to West Point and seen the fantastic museum there, and I've been to the Tower of London in England, and what have you. Some of those countries and states would have very strict gun registration requirements. How do the United States, England and Australia, where they are licensing, deal with these very issues related to museums? How do other nations cope with them?

Mr. McAvity: I have to be honest. I cannot answer that. I'm not familiar with that. If you asked me about the IRS and its tax policies or copyright law, I could talk about those things, but I'm afraid I'm not familiar with what the legislation is.

I understand that a number of countries, particularly European countries, define antique exemptions with respect to the technology of the firearms, as opposed to a date or a chronological approach.

Mr. Feltoe: That exact version is used by most of the Scandinavian countries. They basically work exclusively off the technology. So if you wish to apply for licensing, you go for it on a graded system, whereby muzzle loaders are in the AB grade and breech loaders are in the BC grade. Then you go up to the magazine versions, the semi-automatics and automatics, and apply, licence by licence, for particular grades and you go on. That applies to both the museum community and individuals.

Ms Torsney: Does anybody else have anything to add about international systems? It would perhaps be helpful if some of the parts of the world that have been successful in gun registration and have successful museums, like West Point and certainly the Tower of London, were able to provide it.

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Mr. Ellis: There has been recent legislation in England based on the type of cartridge the firearm uses. This is over and above the match-lock, flintlock, percussion lock technology. There are certain classes or types of firearms that do not use cartridges commonly available, to turn the Canadian phrase, so that basically the cartridges cost more than the firearm. I don't mean that in a facetious way. I recently bid on five cartridges used experimentally by the British army, and when the bidding hit $400 U.S., I realized that I was out of my league.

The British government has recognized this and has a list of some 70 cartridges and the arms so chambered as being basically non-commercially viable and not effective in terms of their original purpose, both sporting and military.

Ms Torsney: Just to clarify, if you have information specifically about what they've done in terms of the museums and exemptions for the registration systems that affect the rest of the population, I think that's when the information would be helpful to us to see if there are some learnings there. Otherwise, I would support that we shouldn't charge for the individual items, as you have suggested, but that we should probably get the list so that our records will be complete.

The Chair: As you have raised this, I think we will ask our research staff to approach the embassies of certain key countries to find out how they handle museums and living re-enactments. We won't put the burden on these witnesses. We'll get that.

By the way, there's a new document put in your hands today, which will be in your offices tonight, which is a comparative study of selected countries. It covers everything but museums. They were overlooked internationally too. So we'll try to get that information, and I think we can get it.

Mr. Webb: I want to make a comment about the international flavour of many of our events. Although this is a slightly tangential comment, living history events take place in Canada and in the United States and sometimes in both countries on the same day. I've coordinated events that literally took busloads of re-enactors from Canada to the United States, fought a tactical, and went back again and fought another show for the public.

Unfortunately, the border issue and the current situation with the requirements that are being added will kill that type of event. It makes it really impossible for us to do these things.

Again, a good example is the fortress of Louisbourg. For the last three years or more they've been planning a large-scale international event involving Parks Canada, the Canadian War Museum and many community partners as well. As of Friday, there are in the order of 1,500 re-enactors registered for this event. Of that group, between 1,200 and 1,300 are Americans. They'll be hitting one very unfortunate customs border between Maine and New Brunswick within perhaps a four-hour period with all of their muskets and cannons and everything else. It creates a big problem if they all have to register their weapons, and indeed if they have to pay a $50 fee, or whatever it's going to be, to in essence act as a volunteer at our historic site. So I think this is a real issue given the nature of the technology.

It happens. On the Niagara frontier, where I work, they replace six War of 1812 forts with only four bridges. If you've ever spent a Saturday in July or August on one of those bridges, if you know that you are going to be pulled over into secondary to have your musket inspected, this will be a big problem.

Our present situation is that, armed with a letter of introduction, American re-enactors will simply explain who they are. We've informed the customs officers in advance as to what's happening, and they will be waved through, almost universally. So we would ask that something be done to not destroy this type of event in this country.

The Chair: Members of the committee, would you agree that the two non-members who sat here all night, Mr. Finlay and Mr. Len Taylor, have the right to ask one question each?

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Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mr. Finlay (Oxford): Would the witnesses please comment on the deactivation of weapons, both antique and 20th century, and does such deactivation lower the value of the artifact insofar as the museums are concerned?

Mr. McAvity: Financial value is not a consideration for a museum. In fact, we have fought - and we just received the support of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants - that in the new accounting standards museum collections will be exempt, and they're not capitalized.

However, from the point of view that we're destroying the integrity of an object by doing what you're talking about, there is tremendous damage to the historical authenticity of the object, and that is opposed by museums. This is what some museums have contemplated, and a number of people in the public have said to us, ``If this legislation is such a big problem, why don't you simply deactivate the firearms?'' Well, we would be destroying the integrity of the object by doing that.

Curators who are extremely concerned about that have written to me, because that is an irreversible change.

It would be similar to putting some fig leaves on certain parts of 16th century paintings or sculptures that may offend by certain parts of the anatomy being exposed. It's a different analogy, but our position has been that the objects must be retained in their authenticity.

Mr. Feltoe: In the private sector, to the collectors, any deactivation in the manners described, of shoving in pins and so on, effectively destroys the weapon as a collector's piece and eliminates any value whatsoever. Even to the point of serial numbers: it's all very well to say use the serial number, but Bessie over there has absolutely no serial number on her at all. The idea of taking a 200-year-old piece and carving permanent marks, a series of numbers, into her is to me just horrifying. She is an original. I've tried to maintain her in the best possible condition for her original status. I don't want to see her destroyed any more.

Mr. Taylor (The Battlefords - Meadow Lake): There are two points that I believe have not been raised, although one was just touched on, so I'll ask my question in two parts for the committee and be quiet.

Mr. Feltoe just made a point, and I think perhaps it was misunderstood a little earlier. When we talk about the identification of these older firearms, one for museums but the other for the re-enactors, it seems to have been made simple that you can turn over these disks and the firearms are immediately identifiable. If I'm not mistaken, these are not identified by serial numbers; they're identified by scratches on the side of the gun. A whole list of things are needed to identify any one particular firearm. I imagine it is a little easier for the museums than it is for the re-enactors to use should they have to register that firearm, but for the re-enactors, in particular, I would say to mail in a card identifying the firearm that they hold would be significantly difficult.

The second point that I make has to do with the Canadian Museums Association representing a certain number of museums versus the private collections. I think there's a group in the middle there that's been forgotten, and they're present throughout Saskatchewan, where I come from. These are community museums, not members of the Canadian Museums Association, not professional in the broad sense of the word, but very professional in the way they look after their artifacts. They're community supported. Their funds come only from the community. In my area, where the 1885 rebellion was fought, every one of them has firearms as part of its historical presence.

Could you explain just a little bit how your interpretation would apply to those community museums in terms of added costs and difficulties for them?

Mr. McAvity: We have included those within our definition. They are within the 2,000 museums in Canada.

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Many of the museums in Canada depend on volunteers, whom we prefer to term ``unpaid workers''. Those workers have access to training programs. The Museums Association of Saskatchewan, in fact, offers an extensive series of training programs primarily aimed at the community museums.

We find that, in fact, many of the volunteer-run museums - they're run by unpaid staff - are as professional as the larger institutions. The fact that these may be small in no way indicates a lack of professionalism or adherence to standards.

Mr. Taylor: Could you comment on identification?

Ms Brownlee: We're mixing some of our firearms here. The very oldest weapons are exempt from the legislation. They are antiques. My understanding is that they will not have to be registered. So a 200-year-old flintlock is exempt.

What will not be exempt is a 1995 copy of that weapon, which is, in fact, not an antique or a museum piece and could have a serial number or some kind of identification mark applied to it.

Other weapons from the 19th century that traditionally may not have had serial numbers applied to them have a non-permanent number assigned to them by the museum. It's on in such a way that it certainly can be removed, but it allows us to identify the individual weapon. We'll know which Snyder-Enfield was missing from the collection, if it happened, because it has its own individual number within that system. If it is on the computer, it will be identified that way.

We have had discussions with Mr. Vanwyk and some of his colleagues on the possible need to assign serial numbers to old weapons that will be classified as firearms that don't have serial numbers. They feel there is a way for it to not be permanent - that means chiselled in - such that it will probably be a bar code or perhaps attached by a piece of plastic to the weapon in some way in a non-permanent fashion. Again, this will allow you to distinguish one weapon from another for the purposes of registration.

Reproductions are different.

Very old weapons are excluded. We won't be defacing 200-year-old weapons.

The Chair: I want to thank the three witness groups here tonight, and the representatives of some of those groups. It was indeed very helpful.

We didn't overlook you. From the very beginning, we sought to have your advice on this bill.

You've prompted us to think about possible amendments, which we will do. No doubt, you'll be watching us closely to see what will happen.

The meeting stands adjourned.