[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Monday, May 8, 1995
.1403 
[English]
The Chair: We have a quorum for receiving evidence so I want to call the meeting to order. We have a pretty full day. We are continuing our examination on Bill C-68, An Act respecting Firearms and Other Weapons. We're pleased to have with us this afternoon the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of British Columbia, represented by Joanne Easdown, the director of administration, and Jack McCollum, the treasurer. We also have the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of Yukon, represented by Paul Rogan, the president, and Al Albers, the chairman of the information committee.
We usually go in the order in which the groups are on the notice so we'll hear from B.C. first and then from Yukon. We have the briefs from both of your organizations, which were distributed to all members. We ask our witnesses to limit themselves to 15 minutes each, but your briefs don't look that long. You could read them if you wish and if you don't wish to read them you can speak to them.
Ms Easdown.
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Ms Joanne Easdown (Director of Administration, Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of B.C.): Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am here today representing the membership of the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of British Columbia.
The 16,000 individual members of RFOCBC say no to Bill C-68 and they ask you, the members of the committee, to say no to a piece of legislation that they see as Draconian legislation that is targeting the wrong segment of our society, legislation that will not reduce violence in our communities nor enhance public safety. They see Bill C-68 as an enormous financial burden to our country at a time when we are already in serious economic difficulty, and they see it as an intrusion by the government into their private lives.
The members of RFOCBC are concerned that Bill C-68 is just a glimpse into the future of what the government may propose to do to control our lives in many other areas, not just recreational use of firearms. Firearms are only the vehicle here. Some opponents to firearms use say we do not need firearms, but then again we do not need to golf or need to ski.
Among all the issues of the bill, universal registration is causing the most conversation and controversy. Members of the RFOCBC have said to me we already have strict gun control laws in Canada; if Allan Rock has $85 million to spend on our universal registration system, why not scrap the idea of registration and pay the $85 million directly against the national debt, where it will do far more good for all Canadians? It is not a bad idea. It is like paying a lump sum down against your credit card to reduce the interest that is accruing.
But why spend $85 million of federal money to set up a universal registration system when the federal justice minister himself is quoted as saying ``I accept the premise that criminals will not register their guns''? If Allan Rock accepts that criminals will not register their guns, then why do he and the Liberal government and possibly this committee expect that legitimate firearm owners must register theirs?
What provisions will there be for first nations groups and our aboriginal people? They are not about to endorse or comply with such a system of registration.
Will universal registration then establish three or more levels of Canadians with firearms in a multi-tiered system: the criminal element, the first nations groups and then the rest of us? Is that what Canada is about?
Administration and enforcement of a universal registration system will fall on the shoulders of the provinces. Public safety will be further endangered if police officers are pulled off the streets to do administrative functions in regard to the registration system. Our law enforcement agencies are spread too thinly now to cope effectively with the rising tide of crime and violence in our communities. It will become only worse if fewer officers are available on the streets.
We have often heard the comment, we register cars, why not register guns? Registering cars does not stop traffic accidents, automobile-related deaths or theft of motor vehicles. Education of the vehicle owners, drivers and the general public are the key to reducing vehicle-related incidents.
However, registration of motor vehicles is a provincial jurisdiction and each province has a different system of registration, licensing and insurance and differing regulations pursuant to motor vehicles. Although the universal registration scheme for firearms is legislated federally, it would be administered and enforced provincially and thus open for inconsistencies and in some cases non-compliance by certain provinces or territories. As it stands today, Bill C-17 is not enforced consistently. Why would the government expect Bill C-68 to be any different?
Smuggling of firearms across the border is an issue the legislation is meant to address. RFOCBC members ask what provisions there would be to stop the Indian reservations on the border from being an open gateway to Canada for firearms.
Members of the RFOCBC are concerned about the financial cost of Bill C-68. There is one example that I feel illustrates the waste of our federal resources intended to be spent on universal registration, especially given that it will not be a registration system of all firearms in Canada. Remember, Allan Rock accepts that criminals will not register their guns.
The example is the government is seriously considering spending $85 million over five years on implementation of the universal registration system, yet it has allocated only $25 million over five years for breast cancer research. Government statistics say one woman is killed every six days by a firearm, approximately 60 women per year across Canada. It is estimated that in 1995, 5,400 - 640 of them in British Columbia - will die as a result of breast cancer and another 17,000 will be diagnosed. The members of RFOCBC ask the government, where are your priorities?
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Mr. Jack McCollum (Treasurer, Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of B.C.):Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, over the past year or so I've been asked by many people why firearm owners are opposed to anti-firearms legislation. The answers to this are several. After I explained the situation to these people, almost without exception they agreed that more anti-firearms legislation is completely unnecessary. The following are some of the points we discussed.
First, there are more than enough laws already to protect the public from the misuse of firearms if they were properly enforced. The general public has very little idea of the stringent firearms laws we already have. It is absolutely impossible for anyone to endanger themselves or anyone else with a firearm without breaking several of the existing laws.
Unfortunately, the charter of rights has created so many legal loopholes that the courts seem to be more interested in whether or not the accused's rights have been violated than they are in finding out whether or not the accused is guilty.
In addition, the Young Offenders Act, which could more properly be referred to as the crime apprenticeship program, is nothing but a joke. Recently a retired minister and his wife were brutally murdered in their home in Prince George by three teenagers. These punks were laughing when they were arrested. A month or two ago an elderly woman was murdered in her home in Langley by an intruder.
Countless women have been attacked in the so-called safety of their homes, but the justice minister says the preservation of life is not a legitimate use of a firearm in Canada. What kind of a man would value the lives of rapists and murderers over the lives of their innocent victims?
I have never been, and am still not, an advocate of having a firearm for protection. However, when I look at the number of people who have been attacked, stabbed or beaten to death in their homes by intruders, I begin to wonder if my pacifist attitude is wrong. The only answer is a justice minister who is prepared to do something to protect the innocent and punish the guilty.
The maximum penalty for breaking and entering a private dwelling with intent to commit an indictable offence is life imprisonment. Why then is the typical sentence a mere slap on the wrist?
We need a justice minister who is prepared to enact legislation to plug the loopholes in the legal system, ban plea bargaining in any cases involving violence, and throw the idiotic Young Offenders Act in the garbage.
More anti-firearms legislation will do nothing to reduce violent crime. In fact, it may very well increase crime.
Many years ago the United States brought in prohibition in an effort to reduce alcohol abuse. The net result was a whole new rash of criminal activities, such as rum-runners, speakeasies, illicit stills, etc., and probably even more alcohol abuse than there was before. After a few years it was realized that prohibition wasn't working and it was finally repealed.
More recently, the Canadian government raised the taxes on tobacco products in an effort to reduce smoking. Once again, criminal activity in the form of smuggling increased to the point where the government was forced to roll back the tax increase.
Does it not follow that more restrictions on firearms will once again lead to even more criminal activity?
Washington, D.C., and New York City have about the strictest gun laws in the United States, but they have among the highest per capita homicide rates. Some of the mid-western states which have virtually no firearms restrictions have an even lower per capita homicide rate than Canada. I have been told that this is probably because of the free movement of firearms between states. Criminals will obtain their guns where they can do so easily, and then take them to the states where they know the citizens are not likely to be armed and they can commit their evil deeds in relative safety.
Will the same not hold true for Canada? Criminals will smuggle guns in from the United States and then use them against innocent Canadians. If Bill C-68 passes, there will no doubt be a tremendous increase in smuggled guns coming into Canada, not only from the United States but from offshore as well.
The justice minister has assured us that he is going to take steps to combat smuggling. However, the combined efforts of the RCMP and Canada Customs are able to stop only a very small percentage of the illicit narcotics coming into Canada. What makes the justice minister think they will be able to do any better with firearms?
The United Kingdom has very severe firearms restrictions, but this has not been able to stop the IRA from getting guns.
Even today, with the current firearms laws, it is easier and quicker to obtain a restricted weapon illegally than it is to purchase one legally. I have been told this may be true for hardened criminals but not for the average citizen. This is not the case. I've spoken to dozens of students from various high schools, and most of them assured me that if I want a handgun with no questions asked, they could get me one within 24 hours.
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The only people who will be affected by more anti-firearms legislation are the honest, law-abiding firearms owners. If a criminal is prepared to break several of the existing laws, there is no reason to expect that he's not prepared to break a few new ones, particularly in view of the fact that most sentences are run concurrently.
Next, it will cost a horrendous amount of money. The justice minister's estimate of $85 million to cover the cost of registration is absolutely ludicrous. Professor Gary Mauser, of Simon Fraser University, has done a study on the cost of registering all guns in Canada, and his figure was about $400 million to $600 million. Bear in mind that this is simply the bare cost of registration.
If Bill C-68 is passed, when an applicant applies for a licence, a chief firearms officer may conduct an investigation of the applicant that may consist of interviews with neighbours, community workers, social workers, co-workers, spouse, former spouse, dependents, and so on. In addition, a police officer may at any reasonable time enter and inspect any place in which he believes there may be a firearm or ammunition or records of such, and so on. I personally have no problem with this, since I have nothing to hide, but tell me, who in blazes is going to be fighting crime while the police are all busy doing these investigations and inspections?
Virtually every community I know of are complaining that their police force is under-staffed. Is it the intention to hire more people to do all this proposed extra work? As a taxpayer, if I have to pay more taxes to fund additional police, I want them out on the street fighting crime, not wasting their time doing useless investigations and inspections of honest, law-abiding people.
Bear in mind, it's only law-abiding people who will be investigated. Criminals never have and never will apply for firearms licences or register their already illegally owned firearms.
Canada is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. A few weeks ago, our international credit rating was downgraded because of our phenomenal debt and continued deficit budgets, and still the justice minister wants to waste hundreds of million of dollars on a useless piece of legislation that would do virtually nothing to reduce violent crime.
Registration does mean confiscation. The justice minister has tried to assure us that registration does not mean confiscation; however, this is not true. Many firearms that were previously registered as restricted have now been declared prohibited and will be confiscated without compensation upon the death of the current owner or if the current owner ceases to use them for the purpose for which they were originally registered.
Registration will not serve any useful purpose. Handguns have been registered in Canada for about 60 years. In spite of this, if we look at the homicide figures in Canada over the period of 1961 to 1990, we find there were over 13 times as many homicides with illegal handguns as there were with legal ones.
The justice minister is trying to tell us that registration will provide protection to police responding to domestic disputes in that they will know whether or not there is a firearm in the home. This idea is ridiculous. Any police officer who believes he is safe because a computer tells him there are no guns registered in that home would be very foolish.
I have responded to many family disputes, and I've never been concerned about a responsible firearms owner, who is the only one who would register his firearm anyway. I was always concerned about the threat of knives, baseball bats, frying pans, and once even a toilet plunger, but never of an unloaded, safely stored firearm.
Bill C-68 violates the very principles of democracy. Canadian law is based on English Common Law, which includes basic principles such as that a person is presumed innocent until proved guilty; a man's home is his castle; a person is not required to incriminate himself; and so on. The law also prohibits illegal search and seizure. However, if Bill C-68 is passed, many of these rights will be violated.
I have been involved in obtaining a search warrant on many occasions. A justice considers the issuing of a search warrant a very serious matter, and it is necessary for the police to swear that they have good, solid evidence of illegal activity before the justice will even consider issuing a warrant.
Under Bill C-68, a police officer may obtain a warrant to search and seize anything in a private dwelling simply by giving information under oath that he or she believes on reasonable grounds that a firearm or ammunition or records in relation to such are in the dwelling; that entry to the dwelling is necessary for any purpose relating to the enforcement of this bill or the regulations, or Part III of the Criminal Code; and that entry to the dwelling has been refused or there are reasonable grounds to believe that entry may be refused.
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Mr. Chairman, just think about the tremendous possibilities for abuse. For example, the term ``police officer'' as it is used in this clause does not even have to mean a member of a recognized police force but can be a member of any class of individuals designated by the provincial minister. The ``police officer'' does not even have to believe there's anything illegal in the dwelling but it can be simply that he or she believes there may be a firearm or ammunition, etc., and whether or not he or she believes the firearm, or ammunition, etc., is legal or illegal, registered or unregistered, has no bearing on his or her ability to obtain a warrant.
In addition, the ``police officer'' may examine any firearm and examine any other thing the officer finds, and take samples of it. He or she may dispose of any samples taken in any way he or she considers appropriate. This indicates that they can seize anything they want and destroy it even though the seized article is perfectly legal.
Several years ago, some very responsible members of the RCMP and perhaps other police forces were given a writ of assistance. This writ allowed them to enter and search a private dwelling without a warrant in cases where there was insufficient time or some other valid reason where applying for a warrant was not practical or possible. About 10 years ago, all of these writs were withdrawn because of the remote possibility that their powers might be be abused. Today the justice minister wants to give far greater powers to all police officers and even to persons who are not police officers.
Mr. Chairman, do Canadians really want Canada to become a police state, similar to Nazi Germany or the former U.S.S.R.? I have never heard of such an abuse of governmental authority in a democratic country since Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector in England, in the 1600s; and we all know what a mess he made of things.
Yesterday, all of Canada celebrated the 50th anniversary of VE-Day and paid tribute to the thousands of brave Canadians who sacrificed their lives for their country. I can't help but wonder what these brave men and women would think if they could see what this current government is threatening to do to the very democracy they gave their lives to protect.
If Bill C-68 is a good bill, why does the Prime Minister have to threaten members of his own party in order to force them into voting in accordance with his wishes? Is this democracy or dictatorship?
I would be most remiss if I did not mention three other brave Canadians who, although they did not risk their lives for democracy, certainly risked their careers. These three, Mr. Benoît Serré, Mr. Paul Steckle, and Mr. Rex Crawford, had the courage of their convictions and voted ``no'' to Bill C-68. These three brave men were punished by their own party for voting in accordance with the wishes of the people who elected them. The names of these three men should be enshrined forever in the hearts of all true Canadians.
We need a government that's prepared to fight crime. Every legitimate firearms owner in Canada fully supports stiff penalties, rigidly enforced, for anyone using a firearm or any other weapon, including knives, baseball bats, or even fists or boots, in the commission of an offence. We must insist that our government do whatever is necessary to reduce violent crime and make our homes and streets safe once again.
It takes money to accomplish this. Let's use the money we save by throwing out the justice minister's useless, ill-conceived Bill C-68.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for your time.
The Chair: Thank you.
Now I call on Mr. Rogan to present the brief from Yukon.
Mr. Paul F. Rogan (President, Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of Yukon): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We had a bit of a problem doing our brief, since we had over 60 very tightly typed pages of concerns from all members and we tried to reduce it to about 10 pages. I don't think I can reduce it to 15 minutes, however, so I'll have to read some at the bottom and roll over some of the others.
The Chair: What we've been doing is...we would print your entire brief in the record. So if you wish, we could print the brief and you could read the parts you think are most important to bring to our attention.
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Mr. Rogan: That's what I plan on doing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before we start, there are a couple of points I would like to make. First, we were advised that we were to come before this committee less than a month ago. You can appreciate that with the kind of resources we have it was quite difficult for us to come up with something that looks half-decently professional and to check all the numbers and statistics we've been using. So you will have to bear with us on that.
Another point that comes to mind and that our membership is worried about is that when we checked the list of people invited to appear before the committee, we couldn't see any of the names of the people who have been most helpful in giving us hard data on the problem, such as Professor Mauser, Professor Buckner, Terence Wade or others who have been working on the problem in a more or less scientific manner.
Anyway, as we've been listening to the proceedings on TV, even this morning, the feeling we had is that it looked like a convention of blind men discussing Rembrandt. It looked like nobody in the room on either side of the question really has scientific evidence of what they are talking about. We were a little concerned about that.
Crime control or people control? As I said, having no formal training in law, we've approached the study of Bill C-68 with a global and candid approach. Being not fully aware of the trees made it easier for us fully to appreciate the extent of the forest.
We studied the government rationale behind the bill. We agreed with the principle of the tightening of the illegal trafficking of firearms and applauded the raising of penalties for offences committed with a firearm, even though, according to a document written by Mr. Bartlett for the Library of Parliament Research Branch, the raising of penalties and trafficking of firearms didn't need any further legislation to be taken care of.
Another point that bothered us a little about this bill is that, obviously, the mere idea of an omnibus bill is repugnant to us. It's a political ploy, not only for gun legislation but for any other legislation. That ploy should not be used.
We have been going through all the rationale that Mr. Rock proposed to us to get our approval, such as homicide, violent crime, suicide, family violence, illegally obtained firearms, accidents in Canada, and so on. Obviously we don't have the talent or research powers of the government, but after having read dozens of books and publications, as the bibliography at the end of our brief shows, we could not find in all that time there was any consistency in what Mr. Rock was claiming this bill would achieve and the actual studies and statistics we could get hold of and read. It gave us a feeling there was something behind gun control that had nothing to do with crime.
If I have time at the end, I will come back to those points.
Obviously, the things that are highly unacceptable to us are clauses 110 to 112, referring to Orders in Council. We're not lawyers and this is as grass-roots a movement as you can get. I still believe to this day that we were chosen to come here because we're the only two guys in Yukon who own a tie. When we look at the Order in Council, as my lawyer explained it to me, my understanding is that there is a certain series of steps to be taken in order that an Order in Council be achieved. That's the way it's been done in the past. We understand that this legislation would make it easy for the minister to by-pass all those legal safeguards in order to use the Order in Council as a tool instead of legislation on a regular basis.
Registration is confiscation. While Mr. Rock insists that it is not so and implies that anyone who believes it is is subject to paranoia, firearms are being confiscated and destroyed without compensation as we speak. Some of our members have had handguns confiscated in the last few weeks.
In Yukon we believe these confiscations come under a series of Orders in Council previously struck down as unconstitutional by the Alberta courts. The only reason these firearms can be so confiscated is that the people have had their handguns registered. Many of our members wonder whether or not it would be a good move to register their guns only to have them confiscated five or six years down the road.
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In fact, Allan Rock has publicly stated that only the police and the military are issued guns. He's then stated that it is not the intention of the Liberal government to use a proposed universal firearms registration system to confiscate that property later.
Since the election, however, by Order in Council the Liberal government has declared over 215,000 legally owned handguns and over 13,000 registered rifles for a total value of $124 million to be prohibited. Those guns, which are confiscated now or later, will be confiscated. Compensation will be paid for only a tiny portion of this number. Prohibition of firearms can be declared by Order in Council. The owner or registrant of a firearm may have no choice but to surrender it to the government without compensation when that time comes.
Our Constitution, I believe - and again I'm not a constitutional lawyer, by a long shot - guarantees this can't happen without due process and compensation must be paid. Is the federal government going to break that law? If so, why?
The other clause - and we'll just browse over - is a reverse onus one, where a fellow actually has to prove that he hasn't committed any offence. I believe that's proposed section 117.11.
Search without warrant, euphemistically called ``inspection''. If this legislation is passed as written, and if that procedure is used for search and warrant in the matter of firearms, we have some problems with the fact that this could be applied as well to other segments of the legislation and actually be used widely.
Confiscation of legally acquired property without compensation.
Guilt by association. We believe that to be proposed paragraph 111.1.(b). I want to comment on that. I never thought that a country would consider such legislation.
Forced cooperation with the police, paragraphs 100(a) and (b). The same thing. I never thought I would live in a country that would propose that kind of thing.
Removal of the right to remain silent: ditto.
Now I come to the cost of the registration. Other groups have spoken about this quite extensively so we don't want to go too far. We tried to find out from people such as VISA or MasterCard or some institutions such as credit card people what it costs them to issue cards and generally on such a system, but we haven't received any answers yet.
Our last information is that the health system in Ontario spends roughly $23 for the cost of actually issuing a card. If it is so and if we take the government figure of 7 million firearm owners, we're still looking at $100 million just to issue cards; or more. It would be disingenuous to think for one minute that anybody in this room thinks this would cost $85 million.
Associated costs. We're talking about only registration there. We're not talking about all kinds of costs. In Yukon, obviously, we have a special case because the firearm is a way of life and everybody has firearms in Yukon; at least everybody I know. However, we didn't want to tackle the problem as a Yukon problem, because it's not a Yukon problem. It's this bill that is the problem.
I have been fighting that firearm legislation forever and I know all kinds of people and others who have. Nobody has ever evaluated the cost of all us people spending time coming here, talking, having meetings and so on. If I had been paid $1 an hour for every hour I put in this for the last twenty years, I could retire. Nobody has ever evaluated that lack of income. When we do that, we're not working. When we're not working, we're not paying taxes. When we're not paying taxes, you don't have any revenue and you can kiss goodbye to your pension.
Firearm-related business. Gunsmith shop. I've been in the gun business all my life. I'm a gunsmith by profession. This is putting me out of business entirely. I just sold my store because I thought it was a good point to sell it as long as it showed a profit. For the last two years my business in handguns has practically disappeared - 100% gone, practically - and long guns have gone down by 40% to 45%. So that cost is not being considered as well.
We heard about some organizations, such as campers and sportsmen, speaking about boycotting Canadian hunting and fishing. I don't know how it's going to affect Ottawa, but in the Yukon it's going to be pretty drastic. A big part of our economy is the outfitting business, and those people are very marginally making a living. On the first $5,000 of that, there goes your profit, and then after that they can work for nothing for years on end. Those costs have never been computed or taken into consideration in anything we have heard from the government.
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As well, lots of people will comply or not comply. Of those who won't comply, some will be caught, and they will have to be taken care of through due process, through the court systems, put in jail, or whatever you have to do with them. This is a cost, a cost that has never been computed as well.
We didn't have time to dig very deeply into that aspect of the cost of the bill, but I'm sure that $85 million is not right. It's a fairy tale figure.
As to the expansion of police power, we have a lot of problems with that as well. In the Yukon, most RCMP officers do shoot and hunt, and being a gunsmith, I know most RCMP officers personally and we do socialize. They are very good people; I have no problem with them. But a policeman is a policeman, and if some function is open to abuse, it will be abused. Everybody knows that.
That clause - I think it's clause 99 - permits the provincial minister to designate practically anyone as a police officer. Then that police officer has the right to do all those things those people have been talking about, such as search and seizure, and everything else. We are quite concerned about that.
Before I go back to the facts and statistics we had at the beginning, I'll go on with what we really want to see come out of this committee or out of that legislation. For one thing, we'd really like to see the bill killed at this point and some serious study being made. That's really what we're talking about; and we want to combat violence and crime.
As pointed out in the Auditor General's report, there is not enough data to evaluate how the last set of firearm legislation performed, nor the one before. Mr. Rock himself agreed in a truly mind-boggling statement that he could not warranty the result of this legislation.
Russell MacLellan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, stated in Parliament that the firearm legislation of 1978 and 1992 and the current legislative proposal have all introduced several different firearm control measures concurrently. So it is not possible for researchers and statisticians to determine precisely the extent to which specific control measures are or will be responsible for reduction in violent crime and an increase in public safety in Canada.
There is a new important body of documents arguing both sides of the issue, many of them bogus and without merit. Would the rational thing not have been to sort this mess out and find out beforehand really what we were talking about and what the problem was?
The excuse for more legislation always seems to be that the last one didn't work. The government cut it three times and it's still too short. I hate to say it, but we told you so. This evidently is a lame excuse, and the last law was not meant to work any more than this one is. We fully expect to hear this refrain again a few years down the road. Politicians are not in the business of solving problems, but of getting re-elected. Do we have to be totally submerged into the problem before we actually start to do the right thing?
The cost of an independent royal commission need not be outrageous, certainly nowhere near the cost of Bill C-68, especially if the government decides at last to study and act upon the abundant material already available - and we were amazed to see that a lot of paperwork published by the government we actually could use for our position; I don't know if anybody reads them out there - instead of creating more confusion, as Bill C-68 most certainly will. It would bring a level of knowledge and understanding that would permit us at last to bring in the right legislation that would tackle the real problem, at a cost we all can afford.
Again, I want to browse fast over that. We are concerned that the problem to be tackled is not the problem of gun ownership but the problem of violence, and violence has so many different reasons that we feel the goal of an independent royal commission should be to tackle the problem of violence and not of gun ownership.
Anyway, as I said, they cut it three times and it's still too short.
I want to make a note about statistics just in passing. We're not very familiar with all the studies taken. We apologize; we're not statisticians either. We have found some documents that seem to be honestly put together, and we have found documents that said the opposite. It was pretty difficult to find any sort of consistency in the data. We looked into that a little and we found some strange results.
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For example, we found that the New England Journal of Medicine, that did the famous research on family violence, declared that you had many more chances to get killed in a house where there was a gun. Apparently, they polled only those families in which there had been a murder, a homicide. If this is so, as we understand it, wouldn't it be a little like polling all of the houses where diabetics live and then concluding that your chance of getting diabetes is a lot better when you have insulin in your house or that hospitals are extremely dangerous places because a lot of people die there? Those studies...[Inaudible - Transeditor]. We obviously didn't have the time to dig into all of the material we had.
The statistic brought out by the chiefs of police that about 50% of the guns stolen are used in crime come to my mind. Aren't we look lucky that only 50% of our criminals commit crime. By definition, if a person steals, he's a criminal and if he's a criminal he's not going to respect the law and is going to commit other crimes. So we find that those studies are quite strange and we have a little problem with them. We'd like to see the reform of the justice system that our other colleagues have asked for.
I think there is a perception in Canada - in Yukon anyway - that there is no such thing as justice and that nobody really understands how the darned thing works. We had a fellow who was caught with a sawed-off shotgun in a bar a few weeks ago and he got one day and probation. So nobody really understands that. In Yukon, we're going to revitalize those new fashionable things, such as sentencing circles and so on. It is a joke. The only people who take that seriously are in the justice system. The population at large, and the people who are processed through the sentencing circles, don't take it very seriously.
The truth is that in Canada, crime pays. We have no police system. We put a lot of people into jail, apparently, but what sort of jail? What kind of punishment is that?
I'm afraid I have gone past my time by a long way. As I said, I knew I couldn't do that in 15 minutes, Mr. Chairman. I'll just read the conclusion for you.
To summarize, we have vainly tried to connect the laudable advertised intentions of the government with the dreadful results this legislation will certainly bring. We have found no reasonable or logical ties among the many studies we have laboriously compiled and the different statements from the minister as to the intent and effect of Bill C-68.
We have all been waiting for legislation that would deal with crime and criminals. Such legislation would have raised unanimous support and enthusiasm. We are still waiting.
We have concluded that C-68 has nothing to do with crime or violence and everything to do with an all-out attack on the legitimate firearm owners of this country. The whole context of this legislation points in that direction. In fact, should C-68 become law, the penalty for breaking mere paper regulations in regard to firearms would attract a much more severe penalty than for stealing the same firearm or committing an offence with it. The calculation by the government that most Canadians could be fooled into believing otherwise is condescending and despicable. If this legislation has nothing to do with crime, what is it and why now?
Mr. Chrétien alone doesn't seem to realize to what a dismal depth our economy has plunged. The panel of an international symposium I attended in June, in Taiwan, concluded unanimously that Canada has no way out of its economic problem but to suffer ``10 to 15 years of hard labour'', as they put it, and that our government had no other choice but to appropriate our personal wealth in order to pay for the criminal mismanagement of our resources for the last few decades. The majority of financial analysts seem to feel the same.
Is the reason to avoid the anger of the populace that it wishes so desperately to shift the focus of attention to law-abiding owners? Is it trying to escape the consequences of its irresponsible management of our wealth? Or is it rather because all the values the ``glass-tower people'', as Derek Wilson called the liberal élite, have proven to be so much wishful thinking, a tragic and monumental misunderstanding of human nature that tackling the violence problem, as it should be, would entail sacrificing some sacred cows, admission of ignorance, or worse, stupidity by a condescending élite whose only achievement has been to ditch social tools that worked in favour of Peter Pan whims that looked good, throwing away in the process the wealth of three generations in three short decades?
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Are we looking at the classical stage in every civilization's life where an entrenched and unworthy élite legislates its own isolation in a doomed attempt to freeze the power structure and avoid paying the price of its mismanagement? Or is the name of the game, as Mr. William Gairdner wrote, ``to avoid performing such basic functions as stopping real crime and to think of purely fictitious functions that will raise revenue, enhance the power of the police or bureaucrats, and foster the illusion that the state is doing its job''?
This legislation has nothing to do with controlling crime or violence and is entirely conceived as a large social engineering exercise, not dissimilar to what the government of Canada has done to the first nations since the turn of the century. One lifestyle is targeted and legislated out of existence with the blessing of the élite of the time and the indifference of the preoccupied masses. One has only to examine the government assumptions, as we tried to do briefly, to be fully convinced of the deviousness of its goal.
This is not to say that we condescend to or otherwise ignore the many concerns of those mostly urban people who support this bill. We do not. With no experience of anything related to firearms save their TV set, with little or no knowledge of the legislation - both the one in effect and the one proposed - exposed daily to a biased and uninformed press, assaulted by tax-paid propaganda, seeing crime rising and violence creeping into all aspects of their social life, it seems natural that they would tend to want something done - anything. Theirs is not a problem of intelligence or honesty; theirs is a problem of knowledge. Dr. Mauser showed unmistakably that, provided with a working knowledge of the government's plan, the majority will reject it.
All of us, pro-gun as well as anti-gun, want the same thing: a safe society, a society free of violence, a free society. We disagree only on the tools needed to achieve this goal. The government has been using this lack of communication and understanding to its best advantage in order to make political points, regardless of cost in emotional, societal and financial terms. By driving this wedge between two groups of equally concerned, equally law-abiding, equally honest Canadians, it can collect the double bonus of (a) keeping us from forcing the government actually to solve the problem and (b) keeping our gaze averted from the absolute mess they have made from just about every other aspect of our society they have attempted to regulate.
What separates the pros from the antis is a philosophical gap that is not likely to be breached during this generation's lifetime. Rousseau will never love Voltaire. This legislation hits deep at the very core of their respective beliefs. Mr. Rock's approach will widen that gap and raise the rage and disrespect to a level that will cause great damage to our Canadian society. The proper way, the civilized way, the only way would be to propose legislation that shows respect to both sides of the issues and deals strongly with those issues where we have a consensus.
All Canadians are begging for a bill that will deal with the criminal element. I hope the government will hear us from both sides and behave accordingly before there is no civility left worth saving.
Our membership's consensus is that Bill C-68 is unworkable, unacceptable and should be killed. There are few certainties in life. One of them is that no matter what turn of event - no matter what happens in this committee - firearm legislation will be a major issue in the next election, as it was in the last one.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry for going so long.
The Chair: Does that complete your presentation?
Mr. Rogan: Yes.
The Chair: Will the committee agree that the full brief prepared by the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of Yukon be appended to the report for today's meeting?
Motion agreed to
The Chair: We will now proceed with the usual questioning. I call on Mrs. Venne for ten minutes.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne (Saint-Hubert): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. When you were completing your presentation, Mr. Rogan, you said that in the next election the gun control bill will have a large role as in the last election campaign. I would point out that in Quebec in the last election campaign it wasn't the very key issue. So if it is as important next time as it was last time, it won't be a very important one. That's not a great threat.
I would also like to say that I personnally own a firearm. I also consider myself a responsible firearm owner. I say that to give you the proper context, so that you would not think that I am speaking of things I know nothing about.
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I would like to speak to you first of all about your brochure, in which you mention that the minister, Mr. Allan Rock, intends to prohibit all firearms.
I am talking now to the people from British Columbia. In your brochure, you say that the New Democratic government of B.C. wants to make hunting firearms illegal. In your view, the government wants to outlaw hunting. I wonder where you got that information from. Can you explain it to us? Do you have some contact with the New Democratic government that would lead you to believe they intend to make hunting illegal?
[English]
Mr. Rogan: Those were two questions.
Ms Easdown: Yes, I'm confused. She was addressing Mr. Rogan, and all of sudden in mid-stream changed to B.C. However, I believe the question was that you were wondering about -
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: You say you didn't understand. My question was indeed in two parts. The second part, as I said, was addressed to the British Columbia delegation. I am referring to your brochure, in which you say that minister Allan Rock wants to ban all firearms and that the New Democratic government of B.C. wants to outlaw hunting. On what information do you base such assertions?
Afterwards, Mr. Rogan can answer the first part of my question.
[English]
Ms Easdown: On the issue about the flyer and the hunting-free province, that was an article that was produced in a magazine in British Columbia of which the provincial government is denying...or suggesting that the information that was provided is inaccurate. However, there are certain pieces of information that were provided to the coalition to indicate the article in the newspaper was in fact a correct interpretation.
The studies in the province are continuing as to what hunting regulations will be changed. I believe the concern among the hunting group has to do with the regulations relating to trophy hunting, what legislation will be brought in as far as what meat is considered to be edible meat, and so on.
The article referred to in that flyer is a published article in a magazine. We will have the information available for you later if you request that we provide it to you.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: We will have to ask the question of the British Columbia government when its representatives appear before us.
The second part of my question was for Mr. Rogan.
[English]
Mr. Rogan: The question was on -
The Chair: Excuse me. Mrs. Venne also said that in this brochure it said that the federal government was going to ban all guns.
Mrs. Venne: Yes.
The Chair: She asked where you got that information.
Ms Easdown: That was the impression that was given at the beginning. You must remember that the brochure was one of the original brochures that was published. At the beginning, prior to Bill C-68 being tabled in legislation, many pieces of information were provided to us that would certainly indicate it was the intention.
If you consider the number of changes to the list of firearms that are now newly prohibited, it certainly appears that down the road...we're not saying immediately today, but certainly there is a fear among firearm owners that it is the intention of the government that at some point they will prohibit all firearms. The clause about Orders in Council and the sweeping powers that the minister will have is a clear indication, at least from our point of view, that the ability to do so is there for the government. It is a conclusion that is drawn from the information that is provided to us.
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The Chairman: Mr. Rogan.
Mr. Rogan: I understand your question was about the fact that firearms were going to be an issue in the next election, as they were in the last.
I'm very pleased you asked that question.
It is quite ironic, coming from a Bloc Québécois MP, whose mandate I understand is that you have been elected exclusively to separate Quebec from Canada, that you would be so conscious about what laws the rest of Canada going to have to live with after you people are gone. I find that quite ironic and quite enjoyable.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: As long as we're here, Mr. Rogan, these laws also apply to us. If we have to comply with this legislation, we might as well make sure that it's the best legislation we can get.
[English]
Mr. Rogan: Yes, I know you're here, and it never was an issue in Quebec in any case. But some of the later elections, such as the the rout of the Conservatives with Kim Campbell, as the latest election shows...although we're not exactly sure what impact the gun owner had on the result of the election, certainly it hasn't been negligible.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: This next question is for both groups. Are you aware of the fact that some groups or individuals are promoting non-compliance? Were you aware of that? Do you think that they are in so doing acting in a reasonable fashion?
[English]
Mr. McCollum: Certainly I don't condone non-compliance with any law which is passed. It has been said that a bad law is unenforceable, and I can certainly agree with that, but we at the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of British Columbia have never promoted non-compliance. Our intention is hopefully to have this bill defeated before the bill is passed, but if the bill is passed, then we would certainly never urge any of our members to refuse to comply with a lawful order in Canada.
Ms Easdown: I'd like to ask a question. When you say some groups are promoting non-compliance, what particular groups are you referring to? Many groups have approached the committee.
The Chair: It's in the record. We've had groups here who have said it's difficult for them to comply and they don't think they can get compliance, and then we've read articles from certain groups who have actually said they will not comply.
Ms Easdown: Are you referring to the Responsible Firearms groups or groups other than the firearms groups?
The Chair: Certainly I don't think she's referring to your testimony today. You haven't said that.
Ms Easdown: No, but the point is, in order to answer the question, are you asking about the firearms groups?
The Chair: I think she was only asking you whether you supported that. We've heard from other groups from time and time, and read about them, but she asked you and you said no.Mr. McCollum gave a very straightforward answer. That's all that's required.
Ms Easdown: That's right. If anything, we would tell our group that they must vote their conscience, which is the same thing. They must do what they feel is right. We don't endorse or condone non-compliance with any law.
The Chair: Good. You've answered the question.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: This next question is for Yukon representatives. You say in paragraph J, under Public Safety, that people should be allowed to keep firearms for their protection against the menace from a government. Could you tell me what you mean by that?
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[English]
Mr. Rogan: Yes, I'd love to answer that. I'd love to answer the previous question too. I wasn't given an opportunity to do so.
Before I answer those two questions, you use the word ``non-compliance'' as if it were some kind of swear-word. I would like to know exactly what you feel about that. Do you feel non-compliance is always wrong; in other words, that no matter what the law says and no matter what sort of circumstances, people should comply?
The Chair: Mr. Rogan, we've come here today to listen to you and to clarify your position. Mrs. Venne will have to make her position known in the House of Commons when she speaks and votes. She's not a witness today.
Mr. Rogan: I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. I just want to know how she understands ``non-compliance'' so I can respond to her question. But if it's a problem, that's okay.
About non-compliance, non-compliance is already happening in Canada, whether you like it or not. I know police officers in the Yukon who are not yet complying with the last legislation, but I'm sure they're doing that knowingly. I'm sure it is because it is so confusing and such a change in legislation. Non-compliance is happening right now. When that legislation is passed, non-compliance is going to happen no matter whether anybody recognizes that or not. I myself feel I will be totally unable to comply with some parts of the law.
If I may give you an example, I'm not really a hunter, I'm more of a meat eater. I'll go from time to time to kill a beast and devour it. But I'm not really a hunter. The last grizzly bear I shot, about four years ago, was to protect my wife. We were at our cabin and were picking berries - and I was relieving myself in the bush, if you must know - when I saw a grizzly bear coming into the bush and showing some signs of aggressiveness. I just sneaked back to our cabin and grabbed my rifle, which was loaded and with no trigger lock, thank God. I pulled that rifle out just in time to shoot that bear, which was about 20 yards from my wife. The bear was in full gallop in her direction. It is true that it could have been bluffing and it might have stopped in the last 10 yards, but we didn't know that and I didn't want to check.
Obviously, I will never put a trigger lock on my gun when I'm in the bush and I'll never go without a loaded rifle. So there are portions of the law with which I will never be able to comply, even if I wanted to, and that's a fact of life.
As to public safety, it seems to me that after having heard all of those hearings on the television, which have been going around and around on the same question of this clause of the bill and that clause of the bill, everybody here must know what the problems are, search and seizure, and so on. The fact is that firearms ownership is the acid test of democracy. If you travel a lot you find out that the best countries in which to live usually have no firearms problems, or no problem with firearms.
When I was coming to this meeting, I was reading somewhere in the paper somebody who was writing about the exact same kind of committee happening in Great Britain in the 16th century. So this has been going on forever.
I'm not getting away from the subject. All I am saying is that for democracy to work, there has to be some sort of balance between the power that government can exert on people and the way people have to resist it. If that balance doesn't exist, freedom will disappear, one way or the other.
I know you look as if you don't understand what I'm talking about, and I appreciate that. So I have no further comment.
The Chair: Before I go to the next party, I should point out that there is an exception in the present law in respect of storage of a gun when you're out hunting, or on the land, or in danger, which does not require you, according to that exception which I have read into the record several times already, to keep the gun locked and the ammunition apart, and this is for exactly the reasons you give, such as that you could be confronted by a grizzly, a polar bear, wolves attacking your dogs, or whatever. So there is now an exception in the law.
Mr. Rogan: I might have misunderstood it, but our understanding and the explanation from my friend, a police officer in Yukon, is that that exception will apply only for native people or people with a just cause, and that means people who are prospectors or trappers.
The Chair: I'll read it to you later. It does not mention -
Mr. Rogan: Okay, I would appreciate that.
The Chair: The other thing I think I have to say to Ms Easdown, because this is nationally televised and a lot of people watch it, is that Mr. Rock was here before the committee and was questioned quite aggressively. He has no intention, nor does the government, of banning all weapons or banning hunting or competitive shooting. As a matter of fact, the minister said over and over again that he supports legitimate hunting with a firearm and he supports competitive shooting.
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So to suggest the minister has some hidden agenda when he has said before this committee and in the House over and over again I think is.... It's quite acceptable to attack those provisions in a bill you don't like, but to attack things that aren't in the bill...which you can still do, but I think I have a responsibility to tell you the minister has completely denied that. I don't know of anybody on the government side who is thinking of doing what you suggest.
Ms Easdown: As far as the target shooting goes, as late as October we were receiving correspondence from the minister and there was not one mention of target shooting involved in that. Target shooters on the whole were very concerned about that. Correspondence from the minister at that point in time did not indicate target shooters in the group of people he felt would be allowed to maintain a firearm. Hunters and farmers were listed specifically. Target shooters were not listed.
The Chair: Well, he'd said it during -
Ms Easdown: It has been changed now and I've had meetings with him myself and we're not feeling that any more.
The Chair: You had said in your opening remarks that you felt this was the first step in banning all guns. While you can say that, I feel I have to respond and put on the record what the minister said, because he has said the exact opposite.
Ms Easdown: Yes, but as I said in my opening remarks, I'm representing the membership. That is what the membership is telling me they feel.
The Chair: They should be talking about proper information. They should be properly informed. There is nothing in the bill to do that and the minister has said he does not intend to do it.
Mr. Thompson to Ms Easdown.
Mr. Thompson (Wild Rose): Thank you both for your presentations.
Ms Easdown, in your group, do you have a large contingency of women who belong to your organization? I hear an awful lot about how women are highly in favour of this bill and I'd like your response to that.
Ms Easdown: We have a number of women who are members of our coalition, both firearm owners and non-firearm owners, because women are very concerned about the issue in British Columbia.
Mr. Thompson: You mentioned something about the hunting. You were having a little debate a minute ago. Alberta was here this morning and they indicated that they had lost 9,000 hunters because of the previous bill, C-17. Do you have any statistics or any statements on that particular thing in British Columbia?
Ms Easdown: I don't have the statistics with me on hunting in British Columbia. However, I have been told there are a number of people who are no longer going to be coming to British Columbia to hunt for a financial reason and, quite honestly, the proposed universal registration system. I'm referring to foreign hunters who will be bringing their firearms in because of the registration that's going to be required at the border for these people. It's going to affect financially the hunters, the guide-outfitters, etc., who rely on foreign hunters in our communities to infuse their dollars into that part of the economy.
Mr. Thompson: Mr. McCollum, are you a retired policeman?
Mr. McCollum: I was an auxiliary counsellor with the RCMP for many years.
Mr. Thompson: Do you belong to a retired organization of police officers?
Mr. McCollum: No, I don't.
Mr. Thompson: About the police, it's my understanding that there is a group of retired policemen who belong to an organization and this organization was never contacted on this bill, to our knowledge. We've tried to find that out and I haven't found any of that out.
I noticed in the Yukon presentation you referred to the police. I think your statement was something to the effect that chiefs of police are not police officers but politicians in uniform.
The two presentations from the RCMP commissioner and the officers who were present and the chiefs of police representatives who were here, one hundred and some, I believe - there was quite a contingency of chiefs of police...and when the vote came I believe it was 80:20 who favoured this bill. Yet I am hearing different things. We heard from three provinces this morning that all believe the grass-roots policemen in their province do not support this bill.
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I get the same feeling as I travel about, because although I am sure there are some who do, I haven't been able to find any to talk to about that. Even the day the chiefs of police voted, the eight who came to visit my office were adamantly opposed. So I had some of the 20%, I assume.
In your province, does your organization have a feeling for how the police feel about this bill? I'm talking about your police forces in general, not the chiefs and bosses but in general.
Mr. McCollum: Are you referring -
Mr. Thompson: I need them both. I'd like the response from both.
Mr. McCollum: Definitely in my case, after all the years I spent working as a volunteer, I have a large number of police officer friends. I've discussed it with them. Many police officers have joined our organization, including RCMP and municipal police from such places as Delta and Vancouver.
Almost universally, older members on the force are opposed to the bill. A few of the younger ones who are fresh out of Regina haven't really seen the cruel streets yet. When they get their ears a bit wet, they'll be more interesting to talk to. I think a few of them are in favour of the idea of getting rid of all the guns and then there won't be any more problems. In my opinion, that's a very naïve approach.
My next-door neighbour is a corporal in the RCMP. He is attached to the coordinated law enforcement unit and is working narcotics. I was talking to him last week. I had to check some information on this writ of assistance.
He was flabbergasted at the bill - absolutely flabbergasted. He was not familiar with the bill. He's tied up enough with narcotics legislation. When I told him a few of the things in the bill, he almost called me a liar until I got a copy of it and showed it to him in black and white.
He said that he couldn't understand it. They abolished the writ because of the possibility that there could conceivably be misuse. Now they are giving far greater powers to every police officer and everyone the provincial minister decides he will appoint as a police officer.
My neighbour was just completely shocked. Needless to say, he is opposed to the bill.
Mr. Rogan: Yes, we are quite baffled when we see all those studies, because it sure doesn't match what we see in the Yukon.
The Yukon is a very small community. Everyone knows everyone else. We all socialize together, so we socialize quite a bit with local policemen. Many of them belong to our gun club.
Not one RCMP member has told me they're for the bill. We had the same experience as B.C. When the bill was first introduced, there were mixed feelings about it, but as they read it, actually got into it, and learned more about it...all our friends in the police are against it. Some of the municipal police are members of our organization and they seem to feel the same way.
I don't socialize with all the RCMP in the Yukon. I can't speak for all of them, but in my social circle, I haven't met a policeman in the Yukon yet who wasn't against that bill.
Mr. Thompson: Throughout the document we see the call for being guilty unless proven innocent, the right to remain silent, which has been removed, confiscation with no compensation presently happening; and the one you touched on, which is the strongest, I believe, the establishment of the Orders in Council. Suddenly a select few following this legislation will be able to set rules that will govern, rather than legislation by all the people. I believe you described it as a violation of democracy.
In your visits throughout your province and in the talks with all your people, is it indeed true that the basic problem with the 124-page document you see is a real concern about the civil liberties of the people of this country? Is that the major concern?
Mr. Rogan: It is for our membership, I can tell you that.
You can't really blame the people for being mistrustful of the government. Certainly we can all offer reasons to feel that our lifestyle is going to be changed drastically, especially in Yukon.
Members of my Rotary Club were all for Bill C-68. We had some kind of an informal discussion and everybody was for the bill. I proposed myself as the next speaker to come to explain to them what the bill was actually about. As others have, I found out that when you got the bill on the table and looked at it, all of a sudden everybody was totally horrified by what the bill was.
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To come back to your question, I started my meeting by asking - and I'm talking about the Rotary Club, I'm not talking about a bunch of yahoos in a local tavern - ``Is there anyone in this room who doesn't think that Mr. Rock is lying?'' There was a silence and then a giggle, and everybody laughed. That's the mood of the country. So you cannot blame people who have some reservations about such an all-encompassing bill with 200 and some new regulations in it.
Ms Easdown: Certainly, the people in British Columbia we represent are concerned about the civil liberties aspect of this bill. I'm amazed at the number of people who come and say, ``Do you know what's going on?'', and I'm also amazed at the number of people who don't know what's going on because they haven't been able to get a copy of this and when we show them it, they are absolutely astounded.
The civil liberties aspect of this bill is frightening to the average person in British Columbia. The reverse onus as far as having to prove your innocence, as opposed to the Crown proving your guilt, is a problem. The aspect of searching your home is a problem to British Columbians. They are concerned with whether or not there will be abuses to this aspect of it. ``If we don't cooperate with the police, what will happen to us?'' That's what people say to me. They come and say they can't believe that the government is doing this. We encourage them to contact the government to get more information about it.
But people are very concerned about it because there is a fear of what is going to happen in the future. It is fine for the government in power today but what about in the future? The Orders-in-Council portion of this bill will already be in effect. You say that Mr. Rock has no intention of doing certain things that our people are concerned about, but what about the governments of the future? They will still have that power. Mr. Rock can't speak for them at that point. This is what people in British Columbia are concerned about.
Mr. Thompson: In the final analysis then, I am assuming that both provinces represented by your groups believe that this bill should be totally abolished and that there'd be no reasonable way to amend it. Is that correct?
Mr. McCollum: On behalf of B.C., I would say that is correct.
Ms Easdown: Yes.
Mr. Rogan: This is so, yes.
The Chair: Before we move on to Ms Torsney, I have to raise this point again: this is not a court of law so we have no strict rules about listening to what we call hearsay evidence.
To all members, it's quite legitimate to ask the witnesses before us what they think about this or what they think about that and where they stand on this or that. But continually to ask them not what they think but what policemen in their provinces think, when we've already had before us the Canadian Police Association, the Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Association of Police Boards, who say that they don't represent 100% of their members but that by majority they support the bill, to have that against anonymous policemen, the names of whom we do not have...saying, ``I've heard from a policeman somewhere, who said this and that...''. We can continue to do that, but I must say it doesn't have too much credibility; it's what, in a court, would be called hearsay evidence.
So I think it's quite legitimate for you people to say what you think and for us to ask you what you think. But a lot of members, not just Mr. Thompson, ask different witnesses not what they think but what do the policemen next door think and what do the policemen down the street think, and so on. As I say, I can't control that, but I think it would be better for us to stick to the witnesses before us and ask what they think, and then when the police come, ask them what they think, and so on.
I move to Ms Torsney for 10 minutes.
Ms Torsney (Burlington): Ms Easdown, is The Firearms Sentinel your publication?
Ms Easdown: The Firearms Central?
Ms Torsney: The Firearms Sentinel. It's a magazine.
Ms Easdown: No, that's not our publication.
Ms Torsney: Is Sheldon Clare a representative of your organization?
Ms Easdown: Sheldon Clare is a director of the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition; he is also a representative of many organizations that have to do with firearms. I believe he is involved with the National Firearms Association, and he is probably also involved with the B.C. Interior Firearms Coalition. He is a general member of the RFOC, and there is another organization that he is also involved in. He is very involved in the complete issue of firearms.
.1520
Ms Torsney: So he speaks for the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of British Columbia.
Ms Easdown: He is not an official spokesperson of the RFOC, but he is certainly involved with our group.
Ms Torsney: Have you as a responsible organization educated all your directors as to what this legislation is?
Ms Easdown: My understanding is that all the directors have a copy of the bill, that they have read it, and that they have an understanding of what is included in this bill.
Ms Torsney: Between the time you issued this brochure, which you identified for Madame Venne as being issued before Bill C-68 was issued.... That's the brochure that says:
- This is aimed at hunters. It is not just about guns; it's about control. It's not just about
registration; it's confiscation without compensation. Join us today.
- Since that brochure was issued and this legislation was introduced, have you issued an
amendment to this brochure that you can table with us?
Ms Torsney: Since you already identified with Madame Venne that this brochure is factually incorrect, I assume that you sent out copies of information to your members and the general public that corrected the information that was in this brochure - because you are responsible, law-abiding citizens, are you not?
Ms Easdown: Are you referring to the hunting-free section or to confiscation without compensation? You've mentioned both.
Ms Torsney: Both items. I'm not from the British Columbia government, so I don't need to address that issue. But I certainly need to address a view that we are going to ban guns and what have you.
Ms Easdown: Certainly regarding the confiscation without compensation, I think that is a very big concern in regard to the prohibited firearms.
As an example, I do not have an FAC that would allow me.... I don't own a prohibited handgun at this point in time; however, my husband has owned firearms for many years longer than I. In the event that he should die, the firearms that have now become prohibited cannot be transferred to me as part of his estate. They would have to be confiscated.
The Chair: Or sold.
Ms Torsney: They don't have to be. They could be sold.
Ms Easdown: Yes, but they cannot be sold to me. I cannot maintain -
Ms Torsney: If you were in the same class of membership, you would be able to.
Ms Easdown: But I am not in the same class of membership, so I would not be able to retain those firearms as part of my estate upon his death.
Ms Torsney: Right. My point, Ms Easdown, is that your brochure is factually incorrect.
I am a legislator who represents my riding. I am not a federal gun-grabber as portrayed in your brochure.
Could you please table with this committee your brochures that responsibly depict what this legislation is about?
Would you also please table with this committee your notice to Sheldon Clare, who is recommending civil disobedience, who is recommending tying up the federal government by submitting many applications for firearms that may or may not exist, that will screw up the registration system on purpose, which I find ironic for a law-abiding citizen? Would you please send us a copy of your caution to a director of your organization who clearly suggests disobeying the laws of this country, no matter what they are?
Ms Easdown: If you could also provide us with a copy of this information that you have, because Sheldon Clare was not speaking on behalf of the RFOC in that regard.
Ms Torsney: Well, Ms Easdown, Sheldon Clare has clearly identified himself as an NFA member and a RFOC of B.C. member, and he clearly represents, again, on the Internet, which is going across this country and abroad, that he represented the NFA and the RFOC of B.C. at the March 17 to 19 annual dinner meeting of the British Columbia Trappers Association.
I wonder why you would have somebody who factually represents this legislation represent your organization when you are in fact a responsible firearms organization.
Ms Easdown: So you're asking me why he would have said that at the British Columbia Trappers Association?
Ms Torsney: No, I understand why he said it. I'm asking for a copy of your caution to him or some correspondence from your organization that clearly says to us that you are here as a responsible individual and as a responsible organization and that you say to your directors who go out and misrepresent this, you say to your directors who issue messages across the Internet that specifically suggest tying up the registration system when it is introduced, screwing up and causing all kinds of costs to the average taxpayer when this is brought into force, that they miss -
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Ms Easdown: Certainly we would be able to provide you with something like that, because I, as one of the directors on the board.... We do not condone that. If you're asking for us to censure him in writing, I don't have great difficulty in providing you with copies of what we do, because that is not what the intention of the RFOCBC is and we had certainly not directed him or given him permission to do such a thing.
Ms Torsney: That will be very good, and I will certainly give you a copy of these Internet messages if you would like them.
Ms Easdown: I'd appreciate it.
Ms Torsney: Secondly, I was in Kamloops at a Reform Party meeting where we discussed the issue of gun control. Out of the 450 people who were there, approximately 150 would like to have UZIs. Is that something that your organization would endorse?
Ms Easdown: I certainly don't believe that we would endorse such a thing.
Ms Torsney: So there are some guns you would like to have some limits on.
Ms Easdown: There are already guns in Canada that are limited.
Ms Torsney: So those ones are acceptable to you, but any further ones aren't.
Ms Easdown: That's a rather leading question, I would think. I'm not sure exactly how I should answer this.
Ms Torsney: So it's acceptable to you that UZIs are not allowed in Canada, but you don't want any other additional gun classified under that.
Ms Easdown: I think I would have to say that it is not acceptable for misuse of any sort of a firearm in Canada, but I cannot say that we accept that other firearms should be prohibited or restricted.
Ms Torsney: But an UZI should be prohibited.
Ms Easdown: I could perhaps defer to you, Jack, in that regard. Personally?
Ms Torsney: Personally, professionally, whatever way you want.
Ms Easdown: Well, I want to know if you want me to answer on behalf of the RFOC or on my own?
Ms Torsney: You're here representing the RFOC.
Ms Easdown: I don't believe that the RFOC would like to see any further firearms banned if they're being used in a responsible manner.
Ms Torsney: So can you use an UZI in a responsible manner, or would you agree that an UZI should be banned?
Ms Easdown: I understand that UZIs are not legal firearms in Canada.
Ms Torsney: I'm asking you if you agree with that?
Ms Easdown: That they not be legal?
Ms Torsney: Yes.
Ms Easdown: They haven't been legal for years.
Ms Torsney: Do you agree with that or disagree with UZIs being illegal in Canada? It's simple.
Ms Easdown: No, it's not simple.
Ms Torsney: You either disagree or agree.
Ms Easdown: It's already illegal. How can I disagree with something that is already a law?
Ms Torsney: Every day you have an opportunity to say that the law should be changed and UZIs should be made legal.
Ms Easdown: Okay, be legal.
Ms Torsney: UZIs should be legal.
Ms Easdown: No, they should be illegal.
Ms Torsney: Mr. Rogan, you identify in your brief that the scientific evidence is not there, that all these polls are incorrect and that Dr. Mauser is a great statistician. Do you have experience in scientific methods of polling?
Mr. Rogan: Would you show me where I said that Mr. Mauser was a great statistician?
Ms Torsney: You're right. You didn't actually say that, but many times you refer to his briefs as if they are correct.
Mr. Rogan: Yes, but I have a little note on statistics, explaining very clearly how baffled we were by all the information we got and how little respect we had for those numbers when we got to this point. If you had read the whole brief, you would find out that we don't print that they are right, and we have been explaining why.
However, having only months to prepare a brief on such a big piece of legislation by laymen who have to get it ready so that discovery can keep on going, I think you will just pardon us if we have been basing our finding on those statistics that were of value to us. We knew others that had been done and methods that had been used and so on and so forth.
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Ms Torsney: My question was, do you agree with Dr. Mauser's methods?
The Chair: Ms Torsney, your time is up. We can let the witness answer the question, but you'd have to go to another round.
Mr. Rogan: What was the question?
Ms Torsney: Do you agree with Dr. Mauser's methods?
Mr. Rogan: Well, I don't know much about statistics. Though I had a year of statistics when I was at the Sorbonne in Paris, I wouldn't call myself an expert on statistics by any means.
However, regarding the way the questions were put together and his way of leading the whole poll, it seems to me that it was a lot clearer and a lot more reasonable way to put it than some other statistics I've seen.
If tomorrow you rounded up a hundred people and told them certain women in Montreal have been dying from overeating bananas, I'm sure you would find a bunch of them who would think we should regulate bananas. I have no doubt about it.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: I have a question for the representative of the British Columbia association. You seem to suggest that we should not ask any information to those who want to acquire a firearm. This is what we can conclude from your statement, on page 7 of your brief.
If your neighbour had a history of dangerous psychosis, and he had asked for a permit and that no questions were asked, as was the situation before Bill C-17, which wasn't very elaborate, and that he got his permit, would you feel safe?
[English]
Mr. McCollum: Again that's a rather difficult question to answer, because safety is of prime concern to every one of us here in this room. We just come at it from a different standpoint.
It's rather difficult for me to look at invasion of privacy, bearing in mind that I did spend many years as a police officer and there were many times when I was handicapped because of various things such as this.
I don't really know what the answer is to that one. However, I can state this: right now, if a person goes for a driver's licence, there are no questions like this asked, yet you allow that person to take a two-ton vehicle, which is a highly efficient killing machine - it kills far more people in Canada than firearms do - and we don't question them.
To get back to your original statement, perhaps we should have questions about insanity or mental stability for a person who wants to get a firearm, but, by the same token, perhaps then we should have the same questions for everyone who goes to get a driver's licence.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: This is another trite remark since you know as well as I do that a car is not meant for killing, but for transportation. A firearm, though, is designed to kill. Once again, there is a difference.
[English]
The Chair: Mr. St. Denis, for five minutes.
Mr. St. Denis (Algoma): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for appearing here today.
I represent a rural northern Ontario riding. As I'm sure you can imagine, many of my constituents are quite concerned about Bill C-68, and I consider it my primary duty to deal with as many of those concerns as is possible.
One of the areas Minister Rock has asked us to deal with - I don't believe it has come up yet today, and maybe both of you could deal with it - is the whole issue of succession. We have antique firearms, and we have firearms that members of families feel are important to them.
I want to make it clear that the issue Mr. Rock is talking about is not the issue of passing on long guns, because it is not proposed to be a problem to pass on long guns, nor is it proposed to be a problem to pass on, shall we say, the non-prohibited restricted handgun. We're talking about the handguns that are the .25 calibre, .32 calibre, or under 105 millimetres - that subset of handguns.
Have either of your organizations thought about the challenge the Attorney General has put to this committee to find an appropriate way for family relics, heirlooms, call them what you want, to be passed on from one generation to the next?
I know I'd like to see a good solution to that problem, as I'm sure my colleagues on the committee would as well.
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Do you have any advice to the committee on the passing on of... if we could avoid the debate on whether it should happen or not? I'm just asking you, given that there is a challenge there by the Attorney General, can you provide us with some advice on how this can be done? Mr. Rogan first, if you like.
Mr. Rogan: I'm a little bit baffled, because your side of the committee has been insisting that registration need not mean confiscation. In fact, if it doesn't mean confiscation, then what is wrong with passing them on to your heir, like any other private property? Why would they have to be destroyed or sold only to a proper classification of people when you die?
I have a collection of submachine-guns myself and, as it stands right now, I will not be able to give them as a gift to my wife or pass them on to my children. If it happens that I live long enough so there are no more collectors of firearms - and right now we have only about 4,000 in Canada - those guns would be destroyed without my family having a say in the matter. So please help me. If it's not confiscation, what is the problem with passing them on just like any other property?
Mr. St. Denis: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the witness's expression of concern, but I'm wondering if he has thought specifically of the Attorney General's challenge to this committee, given the general context of Bill C-68, and my desire and the desire of all of us to find a solution to that -
Mr. Rogan: I understand, sir, and I wasn't trying to be difficult. It is simply that the grandfathering clause in the bill is just not acceptable to us.
Mr. St. Denis: So you haven't thought about the next step, as to how to deal with that?
Mr. Rogan: Obviously, we want that bill to be defeated and, if not, then we'll use all the power we can to have an effect on the next election and to try to defeat that bill in one way or the other.
Mr. St. Denis: I wonder if the B.C. witnesses could comment on it.
Mr. McCollum: You've thrown me a real bombshell here and I understand Mr. Rock has thrown you one, so congratulations on flipping the hot potato over.
Mr. St. Denis: Well, we're trying to catch it, like an egg, carefully.
Mr. McCollum: That is a question. I'm quite sure that Mr. Rock's original concept, on banning the .25 to .32 calibre handguns and the ones of less than 105 millimetres, was because these are the types of guns that are easily concealed. He did concede afterwards - I believe after talking to the head coach of Canada's shooting team - that some of the guns that were being used in the Olympics were caught within that group and, if I read Bill C-68 correctly, I think he has now exempted them from that group.
Unfortunately, a lot of very fine firearms are made that are caught in that way. I have four handguns - and he has three of mine in that category - and I would like to pass them down to my children and grandchildren.
Of course, you asked me to come up with a solution as to what can be done. I don't believe that this committee should specifically target individual guns. Once again, I'm a firm believer in targeting the person, not the tools. I can come back and say only that I want to see stricter laws for people who misuse firearms. Stop trying to accuse the firearms of causing the problem.
I realize that I've hedged around your question quite successfully, but it was about the best I could come up with.
Mr. St. Denis: Possibly if, following this, there's a chance for either -
The Chair: You have just a couple of seconds left to put a final question.
Mr. St. Denis: He did put the challenge out to us. If, following this meeting, you have any particular suggestions that would help us with that problem, I'm sure we'll appreciate hearing them.
Mr. McCollum: I'd be delighted to send them to you.
Mr. Ramsay: I'm sorry; I missed most of your presentation because I had to leave.
It's interesting that some of the members on this committee are taking shots at Professor Mauser. I asked that he appear before the committee and he asked to appear before the committee, as an individual, but he was turned down. I don't know whether or not this man is credible, but he's certainly challenged some of the things that have come out of the justice committee. I think he should be here so that we can take a shot at him directly, not indirectly. That's just a comment in passing.
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If we look at all the intrusive measures this bill represents in terms of what many would consider to be an encroachment upon the civil liberties of Canadians, we also find that this bill moves the federal government into areas that traditionally have been controlled by the local governments - provincial and territorial governments.
I refer to paragraph 110(e), where it states that the Governor in Council may make regulations
- (e) respecting
- (i) the establishment and operation of shooting clubs and shooting ranges,
- (ii) the activities that may be carried on at shooting clubs and shooting ranges,
- (iii) the possession and use of firearms at shooting clubs and shooting ranges, and
- (iv) the keeping and destruction of records in relation to shooting clubs and shooting
ranges and members of those clubs and ranges;
- - and further down -
- (g) respecting the operation of gun shows, the activities that may be carried on at gun shows and
the possession and use of firearms at gun shows....
Why does the government wish to encroach upon this area of formerly provincial and territorial jurisdiction? I have no idea. It's encroaching into an area where there is no substantial statistical justification for doing so.
It's the same with the banning of 58% of the handguns. There's no statistical justification for doing so.
It's the same thing with the banning of the hand-held crossbow and the registering of the larger crossbow. There's no statistical justification for doing so.
In his 1993 report, the Auditor General asked the government, before it went forward with further legislation, to do a complete review of existing legislation to determine whether or not it's meeting these goals. That has never been done. If it has been done, we have asked repeatedly, both in the House and in other areas, for the justice minister to table the results of those reviews. That has not been done.
I wonder if you have any comments, particularly on paragraphs 110(e) and (g), where they are sticking their nose into areas that have been traditionally well-handled by the lower levels of government.
Mr. McCollum: As a matter of fact, I'd like to comment on that.
I agree with the comments you've made. What they're doing is trying to correct something that's not broken.
One of the other points I'm concerned with, right along that same idea, is until Bill C-68 shotguns have never had to be registered. Being reasonably familiar with shotguns, a sawed-off shotgun is the most terrible type of firearm to face that I could ever think of. A sawed-off shotgun is just as easy to conceal as a handgun, yet there is no statistical evidence that shows an excessive use of sawed-off shotguns in crimes. People are still using the handguns, which have been registered for 60 years. If that's the case, why are they now saying that you have to register shotguns, which have never caused any problem, when the registering of handguns, which do cause a problem, hasn't solved the problem?
In addition, in touching on the UZI, I'd never buy an UZI. I have no use for it. Again, however, where is the statistical justification for banning the UZI?
That's what we're asking the government to do. Before it legislates a law-abiding activity to be illegal, please show us the common sense and rationale behind it.
I wonder if the gentleman from the Yukon would like to make a comment on paragraphs 110(e) and (g), where the bill moves into this area that was formerly handled quite well by the provincial and territorial governments.
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Mr. Al Albers (Chairman, Information Committee, Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of Yukon): Personally I don't have a use for an UZI and I don't own one. However, I do a lot of shooting in our club. I'm the president of it. With the stuff that's in clause 110, I really don't know what's intended other than probably to harass us and eventually to shut us down.
By the looks of it, it can go from what kind of guns can be used to what kind of targets we can shoot. Eventually it will be lead contamination or some other dreamed-up thing to bother us.
Mr. Rogan: A problem our membership have with most of this legislation is that as you read it you get more and more a terrible after-taste that the law is not after solving any problem, but that the law is after cutting off those people who do like firearms, who have that kind of lifestyle, and eliminating them from the next generation.
Somebody said that if you made a hockey stick illegal except for the professional hockey player, obviously hockey would disappear in a few years. That's a very nasty after-taste.
Again and again, our members, who are not lawyers, who just read that superficially, tell us that the problems they have with it is that the legislation doesn't seem to be put together to fix any problem that we see.
In the case of the gun club, it's exactly right. We buy $1 million of insurance in the gun club for $4.50 a year per individual. The insurers certainly know about statistics and they certainly know what it costs them to insure us, but they still give us full coverage for $4.50 a year.
A gun run is one of the safest places on earth. There is no crime on a gun run. There is no raping. There is no mugging. If you consider that in opposition to a place where there is a lot of mugging, where people are being raped all the time and where there are no guns, such as a jail, you can understand that we are tackling the problem from the wrong end. That's all I'm going to say.
Mr. Gallaway (Sarnia - Lambton): Mr. Rogan, if I understood what you said - I made some notes - your group and you made several references to the fact that a number of the aspects of this bill, which you have considered within your organization - that you have not had lawyers or experts examine it, but you've read it and you've formed conclusions. I think that's a fair statement.
At some point in your presentation you said you had at no time studied the costs of the bill, but you had heard Mr. Rock's estimate and you were sure that it's more.
Is that rather an incredible statement to make - to say that you haven't studied it, but whatever Mr. Rock is saying you don't agree with?
Mr. Rogan: I think you're misquoting me. I didn't say we hadn't studied it. I said we hadn't studied it in depth and we had not as much information on it as we would have liked, or something to that effect.
Mr. Gallaway: We've had a number of health professionals here because we've heard, and it was raised, about Gary Mauser. We've had a number of health professionals and organizations appear before this committee and they talked about the cost. They talked about the cost to society in terms of health care and other ancillary costs of injuries and deaths associated with firearms. Have you consulted with any of these groups; for example, the public health officials?
Mr. Rogan: Yes. That creates an interesting question. First, I'm no expert. We know what experts did with counting the salmon in B.C. or the cod in Newfoundland. I was quite interested in the position of the medical association, although I'm not an expert in this field either. But the thing I've kept on wondering about is that nobody ever brings the saving or the cost that could be associated with the opposite direction; in other words, not having guns around.
Obviously, when the medical association tells us it costs you $9 billion a year to have guns in Canada, they take it for granted that when the decision passes, that $9 billion is going to reappear, which obviously might or might not be. Nobody knows. They do not take into consideration the saving we can get by having firearms around. It's impossible to quantify negative evidence.
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In other words, you cannot quantify how many times lives have been saved or actions kept from happening, or whatever, due to the presence of a firearms.
So it's a one-way thing, and again that's why we're proposing a royal commission, because there's a level of knowledge going in that's going in either direction for officials. It seems that we need a really serious scientific approach to the problem. It cannot be done, I feel, within the format of this committee. I might be wrong.
Mr. Gallaway: In terms of examining the problem, then, we've had these experts appear here, and they have stated that in their opinion this is a good bill and that we should follow it. That's based on their expertise.
Are you telling us that they don't have the right level of expertise?
Mr. Rogan: I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we've been surprised before by what the experts have said.
I mean, look at our economy. The economy of this country has been run by experts for all those years - right? Where are we now? I'll tell you: I have all my savings in American dollars and deutschmarks right now.
I'm not saying that the experts are wrong. I'm telling you that I don't know, and I'm telling you that you don't know either. That's what I'm saying.
Mr. Gallaway: So you're suggesting that we ignore the experts, based on -
Mr. Rogan: I'm suggesting that we approach the problem with a clean approach, start from scratch, and put some scientific process into it and stop beating around the bush.
I remember Mr. Allmand in 1976 on the steps of this very building, holding an AR-15 in his hand and telling a newspaperman, ``Look, that thing looks evil. Shouldn't we register that?'' It was something to that effect; I don't remember the exact wording.
The Chair: I was standing on the step, but I don't think I was holding a gun.
Mr. Rogan: When you start that, it's a very poor way to -
The Chair: I doubt that.
Mr. Rogan: - start a rational discourse.
Mr. Gallaway: I want to ask Mr. McCollum - and I hope I have the right person from my notes - if he can tell me how gun registration is punishment of law-abiding citizens in this country.
Mr. McCollum: Yes, very quickly.
First of all, what it's going to cost us is one thing.
Secondly, I belong to organizations such as the Pacific Amateur Trap Association and the International Trap and Skeet League. Joanne belongs to other organizations. A large number of our people who come to our registered competitions come up from the United States. They have already indicated to us that they are not going to waste their time going through the hassle of temporary registration for their firearms coming up here and the hassle of taking their firearms back down to the States again, and if we want to shoot against them, then we might as well come down to the States and shoot there, because if this bill goes through, they just have no point in coming up.
Without those good Yankee dollars coming up to support our competitions, I can see that certainly the International Trap and Skeet League will collapse very shortly. We simply do not have enough members to carry it on without the fellows from the States with their American money coming in. So there's how it's going to cause problems for us.
[Translation]
Mrs. Venne: Mr. Chairman, since there is very little time left, I will pass.
[English]
The Chair: The only name I have left on the list is that of Mrs. Stewart.
Mrs. Stewart (Brant): I want one point of clarification, Mr. Rogan. I may have misheard you, and I'll have to check the transcripts when they come out. When you were responding to Madame Venne, at the end of your phrase I think I understood you to say - and this is my interpretation of what you said - that if we didn't have our guns and we disagreed with the government's position, then what would we do.
Do you recall saying that?
Mr. Rogan: Yes, something like that. I might have.
Mrs. Stewart: It took me by surprise, and when I looked at my colleague, she was quite taken by the comment as well.
Mr. Rogan: Yes, I might have said something like that. I don't exactly remember the wording. But again, I can only answer that by asking you another question.
If you're telling me that in every case, in all times, it is wrong for a citizen to fight his government, then you have a point. If you cannot tell me that, then obviously there has to be a balance between the power the government has over its citizens and the ways, the tools the citizens have to resist the power of the government. I mean, it's basic, and everybody in this room knows that. It's disingenuous to pretend that there is a problem with my statement.
Mrs. Stewart: I think I'm not going to respond.
The Chair: I want to thank the B.C. and Yukon Responsible Firearms Owners Associations.
This meeting stands adjourned.