[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, January 30, 1997
.0908 
[English]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to resume the hearings. This is the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. We're considering the regulations of the Firearms Act.
The committee is here. I'd like to introduce Antoine Chapdelaine from the Conférence des Régies régionales de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec and Robert Maguire from Santé publique du Bas St-Laurent. And from the Canadian Paediatric Society we have Danielle Grenier and Catherine Leonard.
Good morning and welcome. I understand you have a presentation. Would you like to proceed with that at this time?
[Translation]
Dr. Danielle Grenier (Vice President and Associate Director, Canadian Paediatric Society): Good day. My name is Danielle Grenier. I am a paediatrician and the Vice President and Associate Director of the Canadian Paediatric Society.
Our society, which represents 2,000 members in Canada, supports the Firearms Act. We feel that the Act represents a significant advance in protection for Canadian children and adolescents and their families. On behalf of them all, we thank you.
[English]
I would like to present Dr. Catherine Leonard. Dr. Leonard is a pediatrician. She is a member of the adolescent section of the Canadian Paediatric Society and she also represents the Canadian Association for Adolescent Health. She is the principal author of the Canadian Paediatric Society's statement on the prevention of firearm deaths in Canadian children and adolescents. She will do the main presentation.
Dr. Leonard.
.0910
Dr. Catherine A. Leonard (Canadian Association for Adolescent Health; Canadian Paediatric Society): Hello and thank you for asking us to speak today.
I'd like to open my talk with a brief description of the magnitude of the problem of firearm injuries in Canadian children and adolescents and then a discussion of some of the developmental issues of childhood and adolescence that create a special vulnerability for young people. Then I'll discuss the regulations and how they will have an impact on the lives of children and teenagers.
This first slide shows firearm deaths in 1994 of teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19. That year 95 teens died from gunshot wounds. As you can see from the slide, the majority of these deaths are suicides, followed by homicides and then a smaller number of unintentional deaths. The last block you see is deaths of undetermined motive.
The problem of firearm deaths in teenagers is overwhelmingly a male problem. In 1994 96% of firearm deaths in this age group were male. Because of this male preponderance, firearm deaths are a significant cause of death in males of this age. In fact in 1994 11% of all deaths in 15- to 19-year-old males were caused by firearms.
The next slide shows a breakdown of the firearm deaths in younger children, children under the age of 15. In 1994 there were 25 such deaths. As you can see, there are still some suicides in the younger teenagers, but there is much more of a predominance of homicides and unintentional, or what we might call accidental, deaths in the younger children.
These statistics indicate to you the numbers of young people who die from firearm injuries. But in addition to those who are direct victims themselves of firearms, many more children and teenagers are affected by the loss or injury of a friend, sibling, or parent.
Next I'd like to go on and talk a little bit about the developmental characteristics of children and adolescents.
Young children lack the developmental ability to understand the permanence and severity of firearm injury. They often display magical thinking; they mistakenly believe they can handle a firearm despite the lack of motor coordination or knowledge of firearm handling and safety. Typical of this type of thinking would be the belief that one could duck to avoid a bullet or the belief that once dead, one could come back to life.
Children have a natural curiosity about objects in their environment, particularly forbidden ones. Regardless of the rules or education about firearm safety, young children do not have the internalized self-control required to avoid playing with a forbidden object. Children are impulsive and act with no regard to the consequences of their actions.
This little girl here, who's wearing a gun around her waist, is the general of an army in her neighbourhood. She typifies a child lost in fantasy play. All of you who know small children know how strongly the children believe in the fantasies they weave in their play.
When children are immersed in this type of fantasy play, they're unlikely to remember learned safety messages or to exercise good judgment if a firearm is accessible to them.
The picture on this slide was drawn by a five-year-old boy. The story he told me about this picture he drew illustrates and summarizes the developmental characteristics I've been talking about. He said, ``I have a rifle''. So he's the boy with the longer gun. He said, ``I have a rifle. My brother Marshall has a pistol. I shooted him in the leg and the brain. I'm smiling because I hate him. He shooted at me but I ducked.''
.0915
This picture belongs in a medical textbook on child development. It illustrates many of these characteristics perfectly. First of all, he has a total lack of understanding of the permanence and severity of firearm injury. He thinks his brother could be shot twice and still be standing up and shooting back. Secondly, it displays the impulsiveness of children. He hates and wants to kill his brother with whom he was playing happily just a few minutes before. Last is the magical thinking involved in his thinking that when his brother shoots at him he can duck and avoid being injured.
Next I'd like to talk about adolescent developmental stages - independence issues. Taking risks is a common way for teenagers to assert their independence. There are many different types of risk-taking behaviour in adolescents, but the chance of harm from firearms is clearly greater than many other forms of risk-taking.
Second is identity issues and peer pressure. As teens try to discover who they are, they often try out behaviours they perceive to be adult. In addition to wanting to see themselves as more adult they want their peers to respect and admire them as well, and using a gun may be a way to impress their peers.
On impulsiveness and immaturity, younger teens, like children, may have an inadequate understanding of the consequences of their risky behaviour. The older teenagers are likely to understand the possibility of harm resulting from reckless behaviour, but often have feelings of invulnerability and feel it won't happen to them.
Lastly, as teens get older they find it easier to bypass parental efforts to restrict access to dangerous household objects.
Another thing I'd like to mention is substance abuse and experimentation with substances. Many firearm deaths are associated with significant levels of alcohol and other substances. Alcohol and drugs may cause teens to be less inhibited in their behaviour and to display more dangerous behaviour than if they were sober.
I'd like to take this minute to just briefly mention the problem of adolescent suicide. If you recall from our very first slide, that was the predominant cause of firearm death in teenagers. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in Canadian teenagers, and firearms are a leading method in completed suicides in this age group. Most adolescent suicides are not the result of chronic or severe mental illness. Many are committed impulsively and under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
I'd like to comment on the following regulations. The Canadian Paediatric Society and the Canadian Association for Adolescent Health are on record as strongly supporting the licence and registration requirements of Bill C-68. The proposal to require notification of all current or recent spouses of the applicants will give these present or former spouses the opportunity to raise concerns about their own safety or the safety of others, such as the children in the families.
This is an article I cut out of The Toronto Star just a few months ago. This little nine-year-old girl was hailed as a hero. She was home alone with her mother when the mother's estranged husband came over with a gun. The little girl ran upstairs and hid and the mother was shot twice in the neck and the chest while the little girl was hiding upstairs. After the husband left, the little girl ran downstairs, ran across the street, and got the grandmother to call 911 to get help for the woman, who fortunately survived.
The experience of this little girl will not appear in any Statistics Canada booklets. There's really no way for us to quantify the cost of the kinds of problems that may occur to this little girl as a result of her experience of being in fear for not only her own life, but for the life of the person she held most dear. I think it's important when we talk about domestic violence to recall the impact of not only direct violence on children and teenagers in the households, but also the indirect effect of witnessing violence.
.0920
The various fees range from $10 to $80 for licences to own, acquire, or register new firearms. It's helpful to put these fees into perspective. If we compare guns to other consumer products, these fees seem small in comparison to licence and registration fees for automobiles, for example. A bicycle helmet costs at least $25 and a child's car seat may cost between $40 and $100. Fencing to enclose a swimming pool can cost up to one thousand or more dollars.
While the firearms may be a more ubiquitous and accepted feature of life in aboriginal rural communities, it's important to remember that firearms are implicated in suicides, homicides, and unintentional deaths in aboriginal communities as well, and homicide and suicide rates in these communities are higher than for the general Canadian population.
Lastly, I'd like to talk about the storage provisions. The proposed regulations leave our current storage requirements unchanged from the previous law. I'm sure Dr. Chapdelaine will talk in some detail about a recent coroner's inquest in Quebec that was ordered to look into the issue of safe storage of firearms. I won't go into much detail on that myself except to say that this inquest made several recommendations. These included a single requirement for storage for all weapons and not different requirements for restricted and unrestricted weapons, more specific requirements for locking the firearms, and fewer exemptions for those claiming the need for easy access to firearms for the purpose of controlling animals or predators.
Again, I think Dr. Chapdelaine will probably address in detail one particularly effective and cost-effective method for locking a gun - the trigger lock. This device renders the firearm unable to discharge and is moderate in cost.
So what does all of this have to do with children and teenagers? A doctor named Webster studied firearm owners in 1991 in Maryland. Gun-owning parents he studied had overly optimistic beliefs in the effectiveness of measures such as education or close supervision to safeguard their children in the presence of firearms. Public health research and the knowledge of the developmental stages that we've been talking about today have shown us that education and active measures such as supervision are the least effective preventative strategies. Strategies that can be put in place and remain effective without constant attention and effort, like a trigger lock or a fence around a swimming pool, are more likely to consistently prevent injury.
Some may argue that these measures will cause inconvenience. However, if the purpose of ownership of a weapon is for target shooting or hunting, a few moments to unlock the firearm and ammunition will not appreciably effect these pastimes.
The use of a firearm for self-protection - and that's a use for which one could imagine a need for instant access to the firearm - is generally not accepted, except in rare circumstances, as a legitimate reason for ownership of a firearm in Canada. Therefore, the inconvenience of safe storage of weapons must be seen as minor compared to the benefits of reducing unauthorized or impulsive use of the firearm in the home.
In summary, our first recommendation is that the Canadian Paediatric Society and the Canadian Association for Adolescent Health strongly support the regulations. We feel that those relating to licensure, registration, spousal notification, aboriginal communities, and further controls on buying ammunition will be particularly likely to result in improved safety for children and adolescents.
.0925
Second, we would recommend a universal, well-defined requirement for safe storage that applies to all firearms. We particularly recommend the trigger lock. The key or combination to this lock should be accessible only to the owner, not to other family members or acquaintances. The ammunition should be stored in a separate location, also locked. Lastly and most importantly, the safe storage requirements should be vigorously enforced.
Thank you very much.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Dr. Leonard.
Dr. Chapdelaine, do you wish to...?
[Translation]
Dr. Robert Maguire (Director, Santé publique du Bas Saint-Laurent): Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I shall continue.
I would like to begin by apologizing on behalf of Mr. Florian Saint-Onge, the President of the Conférence des régies régionales. Mr. Saint-Onge has been with us on a number of occasions, and he is very much aware of the work you are doing. He asked me to tell you that he supports the draft regulations currently under consideration.
I am a doctor and the Director of the Public Health Branch with the Regional Board. In Quebec, there are 17 regional boards responsible for delivering health services to specified populations.
There is the Department of Health and Social Services as well as 17 health units and a council for the Cree. Together, they are responsible for providing the full range of health and social services to people within their areas.
Control over firearms is a significant problem that has led the Regional Board and Public Health directors to meet with you to encourage you to continue in your efforts to introduce firearms control regulations. The Director of Public Health requests, pursuant to the authority vested in him under section 373 of the Act respecting health services and social services - personally as a doctor and not on behalf of the organization - , recommends that doctors be able to inform people of any problems they may have or that they might have, as well as about measures that could prevent these problems. Thus it is partly as a head of an organization, but also from the standpoint of personal responsibility that I am representing all my colleagues who are Public Health directors.
As you can see on the introductory page, I am the chairman of the Injuries Prevention Committee. Several members of this Quebec- wide committee are health professionals who have been involved in attempting to reduce the number of problems related to intentional and unintentional injuries.
That then explains the background to our submission. Dr. Chapdelaine will present the brief, which contains the ideas and interests of the people we are representing. Dr. Chapdelaine is a doctor at the Public Health Centre of the Quebec City University Medical Centre, and he has a great deal of experience in injury prevention. Dr. Chapdelaine.
Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine (M.D., Centre de santé publique, Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec): I shall attempt to be reasonably brief to give us more time for questions. To make things easier to understand, I will switch from French to English.
As Dr. Maguire was saying, this is not the first time we have appeared before this committee in connection with firearms. It is at least the third time since 1990. Our research, and the research that we have commissioned, under the public safety mandate in our Quebec Act, has yielded results which have led us to examine very carefully all proposals made with respect to the Act. We are now at the regulatory phase, namely the enforcement of the Act. We are very pleased that there is now an act in Canada, because we feel that it will be the pillar that regulations can be based on.
.0930
As we told the Clerk, we shall speak today only about two regulations: the regulation on safe storage, which is very important to us from the public health standpoint, and the regulation covering the screening process when a person wishes to obtain a firearms licence. Lastly, we shall make a number of recommendations about some aspects of research, which we would like you to pass on to the appropriate departments, in particular to the Department of Justice, to make it possible to track and assess the progress of this Act.
As for the set of regulations in question, the Conférence des régies régionales du Québec supports the regulations you have before you as they stand. Our main concern is that the system requiring permits for possession and registration be implemented, because everything else depends on it.
As for the storage regulations, our research... I note that it was the Conférence des régies régionales that asked the Quebec Coroner in Chief two years ago to conduct a major investigation into a series of deaths related to storage problems. The report of this investigate days, but it generated a great deal of interest in the province. Press coverage has been phenomenal. This may go some way towards explaining the position of Quebeckers with respect to firearms control issues. As you know, Quebec has been supporting these laws more than any other Canadian province, and this has enabled the public to familiarize itself with weapons-related risks.
The investigation was conducted by lawyer Anne-Marie David, who made a number of recommendations that we supported. The regulations, which were tabled on May 2, 1996 and then withdrawn, were a close reflection of the concerns that had been imparted to Ms David, and she included them in her final report.
To summarize our view of the storage regulations, which we would like to share with you,
[English]
safe storage has four objectives: it should prevent unauthorized use, it should prevent impulsive use, it should prevent theft, and it should be enforceable and enforced. These are the four principles that guided the coroner's inquest in Quebec and that guided the recommendations that Coroner David made and that we support.
I will try to explain the reasons why we got to this through the slides that Dr. Leonard will advance.
In 1989 we did a study that looked at suicides in general. We weren't interested in firearms at that time yet. We looked at suicides in the area of Quebec City, the region of Quebec, and Chaudières-Appalaches, which is a rural area to the south, so we had a good comparison of an urban setting and a rural setting.
.0935
We looked at 600 coroner investigations of deaths by suicide. We realized that firearms were almost the same as hanging as a cause of suicide, but were used more in the rural part of our study than in the urban part.
We examined those firearm suicides with more attention and we realized there were a certain number of calibres being used for suicides in that area. We think it's probably the same in the rest of Canada. Remember that 96% of suicides were with long guns, not with handguns, even if handguns are much easier to use. Handguns are the small part of the graph. There are three calibres that do more than 50% of all long-gun suicides: .22-calibre rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and .410-gauge shotguns.
It was only three years after, for the coroner's inquest, that we also did an extensive survey in Quebec of how people store their firearms. That's when we realized that the majority of homes that had firearms had .22s, 12-gauges and .410s. So the accessibility to those guns was probably linked to their use for suicides.
This slide is a bit hard to read, but it's extremely important. This is a typical sort of study that we do in epidemiology. After we have described the problem, we go into seeing the causes. We call them the etiologies of the problem. One device is to do case control studies. This is a case control study that was done in the United States and published in The New England Journal of Medicine. It is about the risk of suicide in the home in relation to various patterns of gun ownership.
What is extremely important is that the baseline is one. If there are no guns in the home, the risk is equal to one. Then you calculate what we call the odds ratio, which is a form of relative risk compared to one. You can see how much the risk augments depending on the characteristics of the way the guns are stored. We're talking about storage here.
Any gun kept loaded has an odds ratio that is ninefold more than a home that doesn't have a gun. Just the fact of loading it increases enormously the risk of somebody committing suicide with the gun.
Any gun kept unlocked in the home has an increased risk of five and a half times over the home that doesn't have a gun. Even when it's locked there is an increased risk, which is much lower than if it's unlocked. That's why we encourage people, if they have guns, to lock them safely, and that's why we're going to talk about safe storage.
Obviously in certain situations, especially with adolescents' impulsive use.... We know that adolescents have a tendency to commit suicide impulsively. It's less linked with mental disease and more often on an impulse, like losing a girlfriend. Cases of that type are very numerous. In certain cases, like with adolescents, it's better to take the gun out of the home, at least during a crisis if a crisis can be predicted. The safest home has no guns in it.
.0940
The homicide problem has always been seen as a crime problem. We see it also as a public health problem, because most homicide murders involve people who know each other very well. Yet when a gun is fired in a homicide, it is linked to a criminal intent only 20% of the time. Most of the time it happens between people who live together in normal situations. That's why in a home the presence of a gun that is not safely stored can be an enormous risk.
A study was done in the United States a few years ago looking at.... In the United States there's a tendency to have guns for self-protection. There's a culture to that. It's not a Canadian culture, I hope.
But here you can see the relative risk - or the odd ratio - of a gun used for self-protection in the home. Compare this to suicides. There is a 37-fold greater chance that a gun kept in a home, probably loaded, for self-protection will kill a member of the household instead of an intruder. So the risk is much more for those inside than for intruders from the outside.
Let me turn to accidents. We looked at accidents. Thankfully we don't only look at deadly accidents, because there are about 60 a year, and they're increasing in Canada. There are about 10 or 12 in Quebec alone, and those are 10 or 12 out of 400 deaths per year by firearms in Quebec. Usually the best way to control accidents, intentional injuries, and injuries in general is to look at the effort people must make to be protected, compared to the probability that protection will work.
Safe storage, of course, is weakest, as Dr. Leonard expressed. Education alone is not enough. But if you add to education mandatory standards that are clear, understandable, easy to comply with and easy to enforce, you get the results we have today with seat belts: 95%. You can increase the storage rate enormously.
Obviously the best formula would be an automatic, built-in, combination trigger lock on every gun sold in this country. The protection would be immediate when the gun is not used.
It's the same reasoning we apply to safety caps on drugs. In the 1950s we tried to educate parents to keep them always locked, and then to increase the level of protection they put on safety caps, and finally they added fewer pills to the bottle.
Let me talk about trigger locks. Let me show you a trigger lock. This is for those who don't know about guns and don't know about trigger locks. It's a very easy device that costs about $10 and it is extremely solid. You'd probably break your firearm if you tried to demolish it.
I learned about trigger locks through a gunsmith who has 38 guns in his home. He has them all trigger-locked with the same key, and he keeps his key in his pocket. So he's safe with his two girls and his son at home. He's sure they won't touch any of his 38. It also is very adaptable on handguns. This was a handgun.
This is a typical scene in rural Alberta or Quebec. It's the same thing. You have this gun in the shed. Now, before I took the bullets out of this gun - they're down on the bottom - and I took le verrou, la glissière.... How do you call it?
.0945
A voice: The bolt.
Dr. Chapdelaine: Before I took off the bolt, which is on the ground, we see here it was loaded in that shed. It was supposed to be ready for shooting at what they call predators, animals, like racoons and things like that.
That's one option in your regulations that can reduce the use, but as long as the bolt is not just next to the gun.
If this is a drugstore in.... Do you have an idea where this could be, a drugstore that sells guns? It's something that makes me not want to be American. This is in Colorado. In the same shop you can buy guns and aspirin.
I'll summarize, so we can have some questions. As for our recommendations, we were very happy with the May 2 regulations. We understand that these are a compromise. We accept this compromise to make the law and its regulations more effective, but we'll answer any question you have on that.
The second recommendation we have is on the licensing procedures. We encourage you to adopt them as they are. We think they're reasonable, well balanced, and we see no problem.
Finally, we have some recommendations on research. We think all of Canada should benefit from the types of studies we did in Quebec. There should be a study that gives you the baseline of how storage is practised all over Canada.
We realize with our study that one-third of gun owners in Quebec store their guns very poorly. They're accessible to their kids, accessible to anybody who might use it impulsively, or misuse it.
If you put forth these regulations and don't have a baseline, in the year 2000, let's say, you won't be able to see if they have worked.
We also encourage you to ask that especially safe storage be re-examined by the year 2001 so that on review we can make it better.
Thank you. I'm sorry I was so long.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Dr. Chapdelaine.
[Translation]
Mr. de Savoye (Portneuf): Ms Grenier, Ms Leonard, Mr. Maguire, Mr. Chapdelaine, it is refreshing to hear you remind us of the objectives of the Act, to which of course the regulations need to be adjusted.
You mentioned, Dr. Chapdelaine, that deaths attributable to firearms represent an issue that is more relevant to public health than to crime. For a brief moment, I was thinking that perhaps the Act had not been submitted to the right committee. It should perhaps have been submitted to the Standing Committee on Health, which addressed Bills C-7 and C-8 on drugs.
I mention these things because you have very clearly pointed out that the purpose of the Act is above all to protect health and to save lives. There is a tendency sometimes to forget this.
.0950
I welcome the recommendations you both made about tightening up, in the positive sense of the term, a number of regulations about the storage of weapons. You are not the first to make these observations.
On another front, you made recommendations to us that have to do with research, which is probably peripheral to the terms of reference of this subcommittee and which, generally speaking, are aimed at recommendations on adjusting the regulations. I have no objections at this time. However, it will be up to the subcommittee to decide in its proceedings whether it ought to include your recommendations concerning research in its report.
As you know, I am already a believer. However, this committee has heard - and my questions will have to do with this, because I need your input here - from people in industry and from the entertainment industry, film and theatre industry as well. We have heard from people who run museums or who re-enact historical events. We have heard from representatives of the security transportation industry, for example SECOR, Brinks, Loomis and others, and of course from Aboriginal groups. In my first question, I would like to concentrate on groups other than the Aboriginals.
On the one hand, the purpose of the Bill is not to prevent industries from being able to function; however, we would not want these industries to constitute a public health risk. On the other hand, it seems to me that these industries and businesses have acquired expertise and have acted as good corporate citizens in terms of safety. But you have experience and expertise that goes well beyond my own, and I would like your opinion.
As for museums and historical re-enactments, the film industry, the world of theatre and the security transportation industry, do you have concerns about public health that we should take into account to be in a better position to judge the representations made to us?
Dr. Chapdelaine: Thank you Mr. de Savoye, for this question.
First of all, I believe that you are the right committee. At the moment, health problems frequently arise, but it is other departments or areas of society that have the solution. If they did not help us, we would be helpless. This is a very good example. The Department of Justice probably has many more solutions than the Department of Health, whether at the federal or Quebec level.
This leads me to your question. We had not planned to make any comments about any regulations other than those that we have already made. However, I wish to remind you briefly of the four storage rules that led us to our comments, and which legislators should always keep in mind. Whether in a museum, a gun shop or factory, or a house, and particularly in a house, these four rules remain the same.
First, unauthorized use must be prevented.
Second, impulsive use must be prevented.
Third, theft must be prevented, whether in a museum or elsewhere. Thefts from shops or factories have occurred. There was a theft in Lethbridge, Alberta, only a few months ago. There were thefts at Latulippe in Quebec, where I live, a few years ago.
.0955
Lastly, the regulations must be enforceable and enforced. They must be simple enough so that police officers arriving at the scene of a break and enter who find a .22 calibre rifle on a sofa - I am not making this up, what I am telling you really happened - can say "Your weapon is not stored properly." The police ought not to have to look at the Act and wonder, "Ah yes, was the front door locked?" If it had been locked and there was a break-in, then the weapon would be considered to have been stored safely.
These are ambiguous situations. We are not legislators. We therefore asked lawyers to examine the regulations carefully. We know that legislative drafters have to use very complex language. I do not understand storage language, but I know that it is necessary for legal reasons, for reasons of evidence in Court, etc. This was all explained to us.
It is therefore essential that the message, and you are someone, Mr. de Savoye, who knows something about communications, be kept simple. KIS, keep it simple, so that the public can understand it, so that firearms owners understand it, so that their families understand it, and so that the community in which they live understands it, because the risk is there for everyone. That is my answer.
Mr. de Savoye: In Quebec, we have Aboriginal societies. You said earlier that Quebec had a council for the Cree. We heard representations from Aboriginals and we will be hearing more. In their presentation, they repeatedly spoke about their lifestyle and about the fact that firearms are a part of their everyday life as tools for hunting and for their livelihood.
They also emphasized that the problems with violence that they experienced were not primarily related to firearms and that help in many other areas would be far more useful than doing anything to their firearms.
What is Quebec's experience with its Aboriginal peoples? What do the statistics say? How ought their use of firearms to be interpreted as part of their everyday lives?
Dr. Chapdelaine: We have not examined this issue carefully, but a number of studies were carried out in areas that we serve in the North, in Nunavik, near Povungnituk, formerly called Fort Chimo, and now called Kuujjuaq, as well as around James Bay.
What is striking, and the same is true elsewhere in Canada, is that when you look at the mortality rates,
[English]
if you look at mortality rates in the south and in aboriginal communities, the death rates for suicides are higher, the death rates for homicides with firearms are higher, and accidents are much higher compared to the south. Perhaps that is linked to the availability and accessibility of guns.
For example, if you look at the death rates in Ontario, which are the lowest in this country, the percentage of households that have firearms in Ontario is 15%. They have the lowest. If you look at the highest province or territory in this country...you could probably guess which ones they are. Could anybody volunteer a guess?
Mr. de Savoye: You're the witness.
Dr. Chapdelaine: I heard the Northwest Territories, and that is correct. I heard Yukon, and that's correct also. The percentage of households that have firearms in those two territories is 67%.
[Translation]
Dr. Maguire: There is something to add. We saw it in relation to other health problems, including in connection with the use of four-wheeler and three-wheeler vehicles, provided that the people using such vehicles or other tools were not drinking.
.1000
Alcohol, whether for Quebeckers and Canadians or Aboriginals, is nevertheless a problem. I do not know of any studies carried out on the subject, but I do know the Public Health representative there very well. We could perhaps look at the data. We know full well that drinking and driving do not go well together. Since beginning to work on the problem, there have nevertheless been rather significant changes.
I have the impression that people will be able to take the decisions they need to. The problem of injuries has always been viewed as a problem of fatality. As soon as the viewpoint changes, as soon as the problem of injuries no longer is seen as tied to fatalities, and we begin to analyze it and understand it - studies of suicides in Quebec provide this type of data - then it will no doubt become possible to develop ways of dealing with the people involved in these areas.
The short answer I think is that there is no danger in having to store a firearm safely. I do not think that this is dangerous. To me this is very clear. However, as to how people want to store them, then there is research to be done and things need to be made clear to them.
Mr. de Savoye: Doctor Leonard, do you have anything to add?
[English]
Dr. Leonard: I have a couple of thoughts about your question.
First of all, I agree with you that the causes of suicide, particularly in communities with high levels of poverty, are...we use the word ``multifactorial''. There are many factors.
However, if we are going to look for preventative strategies, we need to try to find strategies that are effective and cost-effective. I don't think you'll find any of us arguing that the measures we're proposing today are the only measures needed to deal with some of the problems in rural and aboriginal communities. We are arguing that this is one effective and cost-effective preventative strategy. It certainly should not be seen as a cure-all or a reason to ignore other really pressing concerns in those communities.
Second, you mentioned the issue of inconvenience in communities where firearms are commonly used as everyday tools. I tried to touch on that in my talk.
We accept a fair bit of inconvenience in our lives when it comes to safeguarding our family members. My children are no longer at the stage where they're in those awful baby seats. Every time I took my kids in the car, I used to spend about 20 minutes strapping them in while they were screaming and kicking, and they'd get out and I'd put them back in again. It was incredibly inconvenient but I did it, and I did it two or three times a day until they no longer needed that intervention.
I think about my mother. When she comes to visit us she's always very careful that her medications have childproof caps. She has a little arthritis and has a terrible time getting the tops off, but she doesn't want my kids to get into her medications.
I think one needs to look at it as an equation. There is certainly some inconvenience, but the inconvenience must be looked at in the context of the benefits gained from the inconvenience. In our opinion, the inconvenience of the storage provisions, the licensure, and the regulations regarding spousal notification and registration is far outweighed by the benefits to be accrued.
[Translation]
Dr. Grenier: I would like to emphasize a point. We as doctors care for these children and come face to face with suicides and family violence. We definitely need the help of your committee in obtaining regulations to help us protect these children.
.1005
Children cannot come to speak to you. They are not able to come and testify before this committee, but you are in charge and we rely on you to pass the best possible legislation, an act that will be best suited to saving children, particularly our adolescents.
I am speaking in particular of adolescents who are depressive. As Dr. Leonard was saying in his presentation, it is primarily boys who are affected. We are usually able to save girls from committing suicide because they take pills and end up in emergency. We have the time to save them and to give them help. We do not have this opportunity with boys. We therefore need someone to help us. We think that you are the best people to do so. Thank you.
[English]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you Mr. de Savoye.
Mr. Ramsay.
Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses this morning for their presentations.
I'd like to begin by focusing on the scope of the problem you describe in the brief.
In 1994 95 teens between the ages of 15 and 19 died from gunshot wounds, so we'll look at that year. If there are three million to six million gun owners in Canada - and for the sake of this discussion we use the average of four million - that means in 1994 some 3,999,915 gun owners didn't have problems at all. So when we look at the scope of the problem in relation to the number of families and households that have firearms, what is that percentage? Of course, whatever we can do to reduce that further should be done.
If you had $100 million to spend, would you spend it on the registration of rifles and shotguns, or would you spend it on suicide prevention programs and programs to attack the causes of domestic dispute? Eighty percent of the deaths caused by firearms are a result of suicide. So we're spending $100 million, according to the justice minister's estimation - $85 million and about $18 million for advertising and education.
Where would you spend your money? Would you spend it on breast cancer? Would you spend it to reduce impaired driving, which kills one person every six hours in this country? Would you spend it on child poverty, which reportedly affects one child in every five? Or would you spend it on the registration of rifles and shotguns?
The futility of this is best expressed by the example that was used where the estranged husband shot his wife in Mississauga. Would it have made any difference if that firearm had been registered? Of course it wouldn't have, and that's the futility I see in this bill.
We should be directing the resources at the cause of problems. Safe storage is very important, but that's already in the law. We're here to discuss the regulations on Bill C-68 and perhaps to some extent the bill itself.
You've talked about the need for safe storage. The law is there now. We're talking about a bill that will license three million to six million gun owners and register anywhere from six million to twenty million firearms at enormous cost.
So where would you spend $100 million if you had it and you were the government? Would your priority be to register guns and license the owners when 95 out of four million homes have problems with it? Would that be your priority? Or would you place your money in a different area, particularly the prevention of suicide, if 80% of the firearm deaths are a result of suicide? Your presentation didn't indicate the number of suicides that may have occurred had a firearm not been present in spite of that fact, so we're not sure.
.1010
If we're concerned about people dying as a result of suicides, we should be looking at the cause of suicides and the cause of domestic disputes. Why did the man come across the street and shoot his wife? Do we want to register the firearm so the police can come and say ``Well, he used his registered firearm to kill his wife''? Is that what we want to spend $100 million on and is that the result we want? I can see no other result, unless we move the firearms from civilian possession. If that's the argument, let's put that forward and debate it. But that's not the argument and that's not what the justice department is saying.
So we're going to register the firearms and license the owners. If the owner of that firearm becomes estranged and irresponsible he can still take that firearm, registered as it is and locked up as it was, go forward and injure himself, his family members or members of society. Where would you place your priority? We're going to spend a minimum of $100 million. Would it not be better spent in the areas of prevention of suicide and domestic violence?
Dr. Maguire: Mr. Ramsay, you know I'm certainly not in your position. I think a few years ago you were here when we appeared with a guy named Eric Sirois. He was 18 years old when he shot himself with a .22 rifle and lost his eyesight. There are quite a few people in Canada like Eric Sirois who are not here any more because they killed themselves. Dr. Leonard told us there were 90 persons.
Mr. Ramsay: 95.
Dr. Maguire: 95. I'm not a figure person; I'm the person who works with people, who sees the pain and sorrow.
I don't want to play the violin about these things, but very often we see people in emergency and usually they are dead because they have used very drastic means to end their lives. I think you used the word ``futility'' or something like that, and I don't think spending $100 million to try to have quite a good intervention in that matter is money badly spent.
If we want to have safe storage we have to know where the guns are. The first time I came to this commission I talked about a man from London by the name of John Snow. He didn't know bacteria was causing cholera, but he took out the handle of the pump where the people were getting sick. We have about the same kind of problem here.
There is a big problem. More young people have died from suicide with firearms than from motor vehicle accidents. We are telling you that the best way to try to deal with this problem is to know where the guns are and to safely put them away where they cannot use them. I would say you're spending money in the right direction for once. I just have the feeling we are heading toward something that will probably help us reduce this very important problem for society.
Mr. Ramsay: Let me ask you this. If the gun in the example presented here on the screen this morning had been registered, what difference would it have made in saving that poor mother from being shot?
.1015
Dr. Maguire: There are two things when I look at the problem. We can talk about the individual cost. I talked with you about Eric Sirois and you gave me your example. I'm trying to say we have to look at the broader picture. It's probably why we have laws in society. If we look at the broader picture I think it makes a lot of sense to register arms and to secure them in safe storage. MaybeDr. Leonard....
Dr. Leonard: Since we're here to talk about the regulations today, the spousal notification regulations are precisely intended for this type of situation, for someone who gets angry with his wife and wants to get a gun to do something about it. That's why we are in support of the spousal notification regulations.
I'd like to just go back to some of your early comments. Dr. Grenier and I...basically, our career is to safeguard children and teenagers. I really have to vehemently disagree with you if I understand your implication that these 95 deaths in 1994 were not a big enough problem to justify a major effort -
Mr. Ramsay: I didn't say that; I didn't say that.
Dr. Leonard: It is a leading cause of death in teenagers. We no longer live in an era when children are dying from polio and infectious diseases.
I have a slide, which I didn't show you, which compares firearm deaths in children and in teenagers with other causes of death. You mentioned breast cancer. Well more teenagers die from firearms than die from cancer. I don't mean to say let's put all our money into firearms and not cancer, but it's an interesting way of looking at it, so that we can kind of change our way of thinking and realize that in this day and age traumatic injuries are the biggest threat to children and teenagers.
You also mentioned we should put the money into a suicide prevention program. Well, we view this as a suicide prevention program, and as I said earlier, it's not the only -
Mr. Ramsay: I referred to the cause of suicide.
Dr. Leonard: It's more useful to talk about contributing factors. There can be numerous factors, but particularly in young people, with suicide, oftentimes it's an impulsive act, done under the influence of alcohol or drugs. And one of the most effective preventative strategies, if not the most effective preventative strategy, is to reduce access to lethal methods.
I think we view this differently. We view the registration, the licencing, the spousal notification, and the safe-storage regulations as a suicide prevention program.
Mr. Ramsay: But it's not addressing the cause of suicides.
Dr. Leonard: It's addressing one of the factors that, as Dr. Chapdelaine showed in his slides -
Mr. Ramsay: It's a method of suicide.
Dr. Leonard: - greatly increases risk for a completed suicide.
Mr. Ramsay: If we were able to address the cause of suicide, not only would we be addressing those children who are using firearms to commit suicide, we'd be addressing the causes of all suicides - whether they hang themselves, or sit on the railway tracks like they do out in my constituency or in my neighbouring constituency. We would be addressing all causes and helping all by addressing the cause. All you're doing here is addressing the method by which suicide is completed.
Dr. Grenier: Mr. Ramsay, I'd like to reinforce that this is a first step; it's a step in prevention. We don't pretend, sitting here at this table, that this is the only step. We would welcome any money that we can put toward prevention of violence, prevention of drug abuse, and prevention of everything. But this is an important step. And it's not only 95. Don't forget they're younger than 13 years of age. Is 25 -
Mr. Ramsay: I appreciate that.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): We're running out of time, Mr. Ramsay.
Dr. Grenier: Let me finish, please.
Don't forget, the ones who don't die cost $70 million to Canadians, too, and that's important. I'm ready to invest $100 million if I can prevent more than 100 deaths and even much more morbidity, and even much more psychiatric help for those who have seen violence. We have to think of that, and we rely on you to help us with that.
Mr. Ramsay: My original question has not been addressed, and that was where would you recommend $100 million be spent in the days of scarcity of funds? Would you spend it here? Would you spend it on suicide prevention programs that would deal with all youngsters who have lost the will to live, or would you put it into child poverty? Would you put it into some of these other areas where people are dying, or would you put it into the registration of rifles and shotguns and licensing their owners? That's the question.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Dr. Chapdelaine, would you like to respond to that, and then we'll move on?
Dr. Chapdelaine: I realize that time is running out, and I'd like to welcome the opportunity of hearing questions from the other side of the table also.
.1020
I don't want to get into the discussion on the law. I thought we were coming here to talk about the regulations. There is no doubt that if we went into the discussion of the law I'd have some interesting things to answer to Mr. Ramsay. But perhaps we should go on.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Dr. Chapdelaine.
Mr. Kirkby.
Mr. Kirkby (Prince Albert - Churchill River): It has been suggested that we could put money into suicide prevention, but you've indicated that most of the suicides dealing with teenagers are impulsive acts because of an event in their lives such as the loss of a girlfriend. A person can be a completely well-adjusted young person, have one traumatic event in their life, and bang. The issue is, to my way of thinking, simply the easy access to firearms. If the firearms are locked and put away, perhaps it would give that individual that few minutes to think about what they're doing, and maybe save some lives.
I also reject the categorization of Mr. Ramsay that the government is putting $100 million into this. Not so. This is a contribution that is being asked of each firearms owner across the country. They are asking me to put in $10 once in my lifetime, spend half an hour of my time to write down the firearms I own, and mail it off to Ottawa, and I'm done. For that contribution and because of a registration system that enables us to enforce safe storage - safe storage I would submit is not enforceable without a registration system - somewhere, because of my act of sending in that $10, and the registration as part of a whole, a young person will not lose their life. For $10 and half an hour of my time, I think that's worth it, and I think arguments to the contrary do not hold water.
Could you tell me what you think of the worthwhile nature of registration? I noticed one of the witnesses indicated that an important part of safe storage is enforceability. I want to know about the link between registration and enforceability.
Dr. Chapdelaine: In a publication, which I could deposit with the committee if you wish, that was published in the Canadian Medical Association journal last November, we summarized exactly the answer to your question. Perhaps to say it in one word, by having your name linked to such a deadly object as a firearm by registration and by licensing, you create imputabilité - you create responsibility. You create a responsibility that induces you not only to declare very quickly when your gun is lost or when your gun has been stolen, because if somebody uses it improperly it will come back to you.... Right now there is no obligation to declare theft, and theft, almost by definition, makes guns fall into criminal hands - that's another aspect.
The other obligation or responsibility that it gives is to know how to store it, to know the rules, which I hope you'll make as simple and as understandable as possible. If the rules are simple and understandable, it also permits the enforcement.
.1025
A few years ago in Aylmer, a kid whose father was in Bosnia presented himself at school with two handguns. Some other child told his parents, and finally the police had to go to the home. The guns were very improperly stored, and that was after the rules of the other law had been enacted. Those rules were very similar to the rules you have here, but they're a bit better this time.
No charges were pressed against the father, even though the child had found the guns behind a stack of clothes in a closet. I'm not talking of little guns. There were a couple of handguns, there was an AK-47, and there were shotguns.
So it's really impossible to enforce if there's not a direct link between the owner and the firearm.
Dr. Leonard: We'd like to see as many barriers as possible set up to unauthorized or impulsive use of the firearms. One barrier would be a physical barrier, if the gun is locked, it has a trigger lock, and it's out of sight. That's very important, and we've made an argument for that.
Secondly, the very fact of registration, licensure, and the fees increases in the mind of the gun-owner the sense of personal responsibility for not allowing unauthorized use of the firearm.
Lastly, in a more global sense, the very fact of passage of the bill and good regulations such as these increases the sense of public awareness of the dangers of improperly stored firearms and the dangers of having a firearm in the home of someone who's suicidal or depressed. In many different ways these things will be effective and help in reducing mortality.
Dr. Chapdelaine: May I add something about the costs you mentioned also? A study published in The Canadian Medical Association Journal, which can't be accused of not being serious, is on the costs of injuries in Canada. It's quite a unique study, and the numbers are quite staggering.
Recently the economist who did the study, Dr. Leonard, and I were at a press conference here in Ottawa to talk about the cost benefit of this law. If you look at the costs of firearm injuries in one year and divide it by the number of guns out there in Canada, you arrive at a staggering figure of $950 per year per gun that rests on a shelf, that is hidden under a bed and gathers dust, that is used for hunting, that is used for target shooting, etc. - all the guns. That's the global figure for society.
If you look at what it costs our government, it's $80 per gun - not only the guns that kill or injure, but all the guns in the country. So you don't have any problems with cost benefit of what you're doing
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Ms Whelan.
Ms Whelan (Essex - Windsor): Thank you.
I want to ask one quick question. It has to do with presentations we've heard throughout the week. I recognize the importance of safe storage and I recognize the importance of a number of things for prevention.
I come from a border community, and not just any border community. I live across from the city of Detroit. They have the highest rate of crime and one of the highest uses of guns in the United States. So I'm well aware of the problems other countries have and the difficulties.
I'm also well aware of how good, I guess you could say, our laws have been up until now - not that they can't be improved, but we do have some of the safest storage laws in the world.
.1030
I'm concerned about a couple of things. The last legislation hasn't had time to fully take effect, and I'm not sure if that's because there wasn't enough public campaigning for the safe storage regulations that were there to ensure those things happened. But you relate it to different instances. You just related the case of a young child who brought two guns to school and his father wasn't charged.
The last legislation put an even more onerous burden that if you didn't store your gun properly and it was used in the commission of a crime, you could be charged. There was a very tragic death in the province of Ontario under those very circumstances, and the person who had the gun was not charged, for a variety of reasons, I'm sure.
We have to be careful, when we talk about regulations, that they do apply, that they make sense where they apply, and that we don't put an onerous burden on certain places, such as museums. The regulations must meet their needs. I'm a bit concerned that when we set regulations, as much as we want them to be simple and across-the-board, we have to be careful.
Dr. Leonard said very clearly early in her presentation that there are developmental issues of young children: their magical thinking, their curiosity, their poor self-control, their impulsiveness. But it's what they learn too.
History teaches something; the reality of history teaches things. It's important that we allow museums to be able to depict history as it was and to show the tragedy of what war has caused. We need to be able to teach that to the children of today so it doesn't happen again tomorrow. When you start to put those things in a closet and you don't want children to see the danger involved, people can sometimes forget. For museums, special regulations are required to allow them to depict those things and to allow those war scenes to be seen by our children so it doesn't happen again.
I relate this to one of the movies that is out for children right now, which is Pocahontas. A lot of people may not realize this, but firearms are used in that movie. But the reality is they show quite clearly that firearms injure. So there are pros and cons to different things you see. As much as I'm opposed to violence in movies for children, I've watched that over and over and I think there's a lesson to be learned there. There are a number of obviously magical things, but at the same time there are hidden messages there.
I'm just asking that when we talk about the regulations for safe storage, we also recognize that history has a part in teaching. History plays a big role in the development of our children and our adolescents of the future. When we talk about the regulations, we should all recognize that museums have a very big role to play in educating our future.
Maybe you could reply to that with regard to where you think safe storage should be.
Dr. Leonard: I absolutely agree with you about the importance of history and culture. We were talking before about the multi-factoral nature of firearm deaths. We were talking about suicide, but it's true of other types of impulsive uses of firearms that there is a whole area in the media and in our society for attitudes about firearms that really do contribute. The kind of thing you're talking about can go a long way.
When my kids saw Pocahontas, they were really taken aback when one of the leading characters was shot and killed. It was very sad. While it's upsetting, it's useful for them to see that, as opposed to the James Bond movies, where these faceless people get blown away and you never see them again or care about them.
I also agree with you about the storage regulations. It's a problem if as they stand they're not enforceable. That is why we're arguing for them to be simple and enforceable.
I'm not an expert on the provisions about museums, but I would like to stress what I said before about the equation. There's the inconvenience of strict storage regulations, and that has to be balanced against benefits. Everyone benefits if public safety is furthered, and one needs to look at any inconvenience that comes from proper storage or safe storage in light of the benefits of increased public safety.
.1035
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Dr. Chapdelaine.
Dr. Chapdelaine: Listening to you, I think you make a very good case for using museums and reconstitutions as an example. They teach a lot, and they shouldn't teach only about history and what happened in the past, but also about what should be done in the future. If they set the example by trigger-locking their guns or making sure this is the new Canadian standard, that's the way it's done.
I think you've also answered your preoccupation that it's necessary to do a lot of publicity and explaining, etc. Museums are in a perfect position to educate the public on the Canadian standard of safety.
Just think of the years when we used to see car crashes in films, and the driver, Clint Eastwood or whoever, never wore a belt. Now we're starting to see them wear belts. That sort of gives an example. It changes the environment. People from communications understand that the first way to change society is to create an environment in which change can be done. When all film actors start wearing their belts or helmets, it sends a message.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Dr. Chapdelaine.
I appreciate the input of the witnesses this morning. It's been informative and very interesting. Thank you for taking the time.
Perhaps we could take a five-minute break and then resume.
.1036
.1043
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Order, please.
I'd like to welcome Mr. Robert Paddon from the B.C. Wildlife Federation. Good morning, Mr. Paddon.
Mr. Robert Paddon (Chair, B.C. Wildlife Federation): Good morning, sir.
I've asked the clerk to pass out three documents to you: the response to the firearms regulations with our 31 recommendations for changes, my oral presentation notes, and our pamphlet on gun safety for children, which I recently developed.
I'd like to preface my remarks by saying that the Historical Arms Collectors Society of B.C. and the Vancouver Island Arms Collectors Association have reviewed the BCWF's response to the firearms regulations and have endorsed this presentation as well.
.1045
The B.C. Wildlife Federation is the largest and oldest province-wide conservation organization representing British Columbians. Founded in 1956, the BCWF currently has 32,000 members and 147 associated fish and wildlife clubs. We're also a member of the National Coalition of Provincial and Territorial Wildlife Federations. This federation represents over 500,000 members across Canada.
The BCWF and the national federation have made known their opposition to Bill C-68 via presentations to the justice minister, House of Commons and Senate committees, policy statements, and elsewhere. Our presentation today is not to be construed as support for Bill C-68. We are providing this presentation so that you can better understand our perspective of the impact these draft firearms regulations will have on firearms users and owners, police, bureaucracy, and the general public.
We have made 31 recommendations for changes to 8 of the 11 draft firearms regulations. These recommendations are not to be construed as support for the regulations, but rather as alternatives to offset the cost of the regulations' impact on the firearms community, reduce the unnecessary red tape for the police, bureaucracy, and the firearms community, and reduce the expense for the Canadian taxpayers to implement Bill C-68.
These regulations are poorly written and vague. They do not pass our basic test of being fair, effective, enforceable, and affordable for all Canadians. Major changes are needed. Partisan politics should not enter into the discussion and recommendations for changes to these draft regulations. It is our hope that the Parliament of Canada will take the time to seriously look at major amendments to these draft regulations and even consider a total rewrite.
The difficulty in the whole process is the Minister of Justice. Allan Rock must be persuaded by the standing committees, members of Parliament, and Senators to make major amendments to these draft regulations.
There is no emergency requirement to pass these regulations in 1997. Full debate, effective research, and testing must be done before these regulations are passed. We need regulations attuned to public needs, not public policy for political purposes.
When we read these draft regulations more questions were raised than were answered, such as what benefit will be achieved for Canadian society, public safety, crime control, health issues, gun control, etc. What is the intent and the application of the regulations? In many cases it's quite unclear. Where are the definitions for key words and vague statements? What is the cost and who is going to pay for all these regulations? How will these regulations contribute to the erosion of support for the police from the firearms community?
Our concern is that these regulations were designed to make firearms ownership too complicated and that they will drive ordinary Canadians away from hunting, target shooting, and firearms collecting. After reading these draft firearms regulations we believe our concerns are well founded.
Some may say let's get rid of firearms and hunting, but what will be the impact of this near-sighted benefit? First will be the loss of jobs, closure of business - we've already seen it happen - decline in tourism, loss of Canadian heritage and culture, etc.
An impact seldom talked about in this debate is the effect these regulations will have on the firearms community and the law enforcement agencies of Canada.
The firearms community is part of the law enforcement infrastructure in Canada. We provide the facilities for the safe use of firearms for our members, public, and the law enforcement community. Your local police, provincial police, conservation officers, customs, military, etc. use our ranges. We teach the hunter safety and Canadian firearms safety course to the community. We instruct on safe handling of firearms, firearms owner ethics, and legal requirements. Many potential law enforcement applicants have taken our courses and are members of the BCWF.
With the continued regulation the firearms community will come fewer members and the closure of clubs. Where will the police do their training and qualification shoots if our facilities are not available? Are the various levels of government prepared to buy land and develop ranges, build training facilities, etc.?
No hunters means the destruction of our effective wildlife management programs. Through hunting licences and club projects, hunters contribute to habitat conservation programs. Wilderness watch, a BCWF initiative to stop poaching and assist conservation officers, would be seriously affected if our members were not in the field.
.1050
The firearms community is part of the public. Without public support, the police cannot do their job. The gun control legislation these past years has put up a wall between the firearms community and the police. Seeds of suspicion and mistrust have been planted and are growing now. We have witnessed the start of erosion of support for the police by the firearms community.
Front-line clerks and police officers see it every day when they deal with the firearms owners and the present registration system. Club members are reluctant to and in some cases do not want to rent the club facilities to law enforcement agencies, because the RCMP, the chiefs of police, and the police association supported Bill C-68.
The gun control initiatives of Bills C-17 and C-68 do not have the support of the firearms community. Court cases are in progress for both laws. How do we ever expect to get these initiatives to work if the provinces and the firearms community have not agreed to participate?
With these thoughts in mind, we would ask you to look at the regulatory impact analysis statements provided by the Department of Justice. We do not agree that some of these regulations will have limited impact on individuals and businesses. It is our position that the Department of Justice has again underestimated Bill C-68 and these regulations.
This is the time to stop and reflect on the real benefits and costs of Bill C-68 and these regulations. Will we save just one life? Yes. Could we save more lives by reducing the administrative workload on the police and the bureaucracy? Yes. But not the way these regulations are drafted.
With me is Linda Thom. She is the president of the Association of Women Shooters of Canada. She is a friend of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, and I've asked her to join me today.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide these opening remarks. I look forward to questions on my brief.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Mr. Paddon.
Ms Thom, do you have a presentation you'd like to make as well?
Ms Linda Thom (President, Association of Women Shooters of Canada): Thank you very much for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to say to the committee that despite promises of the Minister of Justice that the shooting sports and hunting would not be affected, they have already been affected quite a lot throughout the country, not just in British Columbia. The membership in clubs has dropped and people who are connected with hunting - such as resort employees, firearms dealers, that is, people who sell firearms to the public, and so forth - have lost their jobs. It has really been very badly done, because we anticipated these people would be affected and they have been affected.
For example, in the Olympic shooting sports, we have lost our ``A'' accreditation as an Olympic sport in this country. Although our shooting events continue to be Olympic events - in fact we have 13 or 14 of them - government funding has been cut back for those shooting sports, despite our very fine performance overseas. This of course has affected membership and support throughout the country. So it really is an all-fronts attack on responsible firearms owners.
We'd like to underline many times that registration does not save lives. In fact, as a person who was involved on an advisory committee to Minister of Justice Kim Campbell, I can tell you we had representations from the RCMP to that effect. The then head of the RCMP registration department came to the justice department and testified, as he had testified before, that registration does not work in saving lives in Canada. This gentleman is now retired, but it was a consistent message to the Department of Justice.
They have not brought this forward. They continue to tell us that the police support their views, and we have a lot of evidence that they do not.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you.
Mr. de Savoye.
[Translation]
Mr. de Savoye: Thank you for your submission. I have noted all of your recommendations in the other brief that was given to us.
.1055
I would like to give you the opportunity to explain a number of these recommendations, but first like to respond to the things you told us in your introduction.
[English]
You say ``We need regulations tuned to public needs, not public policy for political purposes.''
[Translation]
I would like to tell you that I am very happy that an agency like yours said these words. My party, and I, have always seen our actions as serving the public good. I have never been influenced by those who told me that if I were against Bill C-68, they would vote for me, and that if I were in favour of Bill C-68, they would vote against me. My only guide for action is the public good, and I can see that we share the same point of view.
I wish now to discuss your recommendations 13, 14 and 15, which have to do with the transportation of firearms. I would like to discuss several more of your recommendations, but will leave that to my colleagues. Could you tell me why you formulated each of these recommendations? What are the reasons that led you to believe that these amendments to the regulations would be beneficial?
[English]
Mr. Paddon: Thank you for your question.
The procedure now is this. You go through your procedure to acquire an FAC, you take your course, you pass the exams, you get the two references and the $50 together, you go to the police and submit an application, and they issue an FAC. You then go buy your handgun, leave it where you bought it, go through the registration process, and they do another police background check on you.
You then get the handgun to your residence, after another permit's been issued. Then you go to your gun club and apply for a permit to carry, take the form back to the police department and they do a third investigation on you. So within one year, they have seen you three times to deal with the same issue.
We're saying if you're going to go in and apply for an FAC, or a possession and acquisition licence, as we're now going to call it - a PAL - then automatically they should look at you for a permit to transport or a permit to carry at that time. They shouldn't wait and do subsequent investigations. It should be one-stop shopping, with one investigation.
Do it all, do it completely, and do it thoroughly. The local police detachments do not have the time and resource manpower to get in there and deal with people again and again.
Mr. de Savoye: So basically you want to streamline the process.
Mr. Paddon: I want to streamline the process.
Right now, when I ask an average Canadian how long it takes to buy a handgun and get to the range, they say, ``Oh, you can just go buy it and go down the street''. When we show them the flow chart we've made up that shows the 16 steps of getting a handgun and getting to the range, the timeframe of six to 12 months, and the expenditure of $400 excluding the price of the gun, they say, ``My god! What do we need all this paperwork for? Why do we need three police background checks in the same year?''
Do it all at once.
[Translation]
Mr. de Savoye: In recommendation 15, you say that no condition should be placed on a licence when firearms are being transported on a direct route. I presume by this that you mean without any intermediate stops. Can you explain further?
[English]
Mr. Paddon: Yes. We had Corporal Mike Lynn, the E Division permits coordinator, come to the B.C. Wildlife Federation firearms committee, and we raised concerns with him.
I live in Vancouver and I have to go up to Williams Lake to do a competition this weekend. That means I have to drive. That means I have to stay overnight, because it's more than an eight-hour drive. Do I need to go get another permit to transport, or will my permit to carry work? He said, ``Your permit to carry will cover it. We understand and appreciate the fact that you have to stop for gas. Bodily functions have to be dealt with. You have to feed yourself. You have to go to the bathroom. We understand you may want to deke down one road to pick up a friend and take him to the range as well, to the competition, to save money and so forth.''
.1100
They understood that. Saying you have to go by a direct route might work for the prairies where everything is flat and square and in grids, but in B.C. we have mountains and rivers we have to cross. I can go from Abbotsford to Vernon and have a choice of three routes. One may be the direct route by means of the shortest distance, but requires me to pay a toll. My vehicle may not be capable of doing it. The snow and weather conditions on that road are very treacherous this time of year.
I might choose instead to go route one or route three, but by saying I have to go by the direct route two, you're putting me in danger because of the weather conditions. So I'll go on route one because that highway is in better condition and violate my permit to carry the gun. That's why we feel it's unnecessary.
It's also important when I'm going to a gun show. I live in Abbotsford, so I could make a beeline straight up the highway to Burnaby, but I always zip by Aldergrove, which is 20 kilometres off my track, to pick up a friend of mine and all his stuff and we go together. So it's one trip and economical for everybody. Applying a direct route is just a control issue. It's hard to enforce and will end up putting the firearms user in violation of a condition of his permit so it can be yanked. It's strictly for administrative purposes.
Mr. de Savoye: You want common sense to be applied.
Mr. Paddon: We would like common sense in law to be applied, but unfortunately we don't see that too often. We're asking for it in this case.
[Translation]
Mr. de Savoye: Your recommendation 21 suggests that any references to Aboriginal peoples be removed from the regulations. I would like to know why you are making this recommendation and why specifically it is being made by your organization.
[English]
Mr. Paddon: In discussion with Bill Wimpney, who is our native affairs officer for the B.C. Wildlife Federation, he has indicated to me there was a court case and we believe it to be the Crown versus Jack, John, and John. It dealt with the issue of fishing licences. The natives were arguing that fishing licences infringe on their right to fish in the traditional manner. The Supreme Court, as far as our understanding goes, ruled it does not. It throws a restriction, but it does not impede or stop that.
The procedures for natives - in our brief we said if you take the word ``aboriginal'' out it would apply to all Canadians. There is no sense that one person living in northern B.C. who happens to be aboriginal gets one set of rules, but his next-door neighbour, who happens to be non-aboriginal, has to follow a completely different set of procedures. They are both substance hunters and they should both be treated the same.
I understand there are concerns about the transfer of ammunition due to the constitutional requirements that some aboriginal groups get so many balls of lead and so many pounds of powder each year as part of the treaty requirement, but that could be put into the non-prohibitive transfer ammunition regulation. It could quite simply say it does not apply to these charter provisions or these treaty rights.
[Translation]
Mr. de Savoye: You mention in point #23 that if among Aboriginals, the opinion of a Chief or an Elder is adequate for a recommendation, then the same procedure should be applicable to non-Aboriginals. Why do you not see any difference between Aboriginal communities and non-Aboriginal communities? Are you perhaps not familiar with such communities? I would like to know more about your framework. At first sight, it appears to me that living in an urban setting or even in a Quebec rural setting is very different from an Aboriginal community. Is it different where you come from? No doubt you can give me further details.
.1105
[English]
Mr. Paddon: From my perspective of living in the lower mainland, we have several aboriginal families or tribes - I'm not sure of the proper word for them - living there. They would have one set of rules. They're not subsistence hunters when they live in West Vancouver. The whole issue comes to the crux of subsistence use, whether it be aboriginal or non-aboriginal. If you're living in a community that requires you to hunt for subsistence purposes, the rules should be applied equally to both.
What we're saying here is that we support what the regulations are saying; we support the traditional rights of aboriginals to hunt, but the non-aboriginals have the same traditional right of hunting. It came with our European settlers to this country, and it continues to this day.
I know of people in the interior of B.C. who have not gone to Safeway to buy meat for 14 years. They still get it off their back porch today. By saying that an elder can say we think this man meets the requisite knowledge but the next door neighbour has to go down and go through all the course requirements and the certification you're creating a double standard, and it's not required. We should take the word ``aboriginal'' out of it and say ``subsistence hunters''.
The difficulty is that in our non-aboriginal communities we don't have elders. We have leaders, but one thing we've alluded to in our brief is what it is that gives that leader or elder the knowledge or the expertise to say we think this person meets the requisite knowledge. Where is the certification for them? Is it just because of their standing in the community? Could not yourself or the clerk of the committee say ``Well, I'm a member of Parliament and I think you meet the requisite knowledge''? I'm sorry, but that doesn't work because you're not an aboriginal leader. The rules should be applied equally to both communities.
[Translation]
Mr. de Savoye: Thank you.
[English]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Mr. Ramsay.
Mr. Ramsay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for appearing, and I'd like to say hello to Linda. It's nice to see you here again.
Ms Thom: Thank you, Jack.
Mr. Ramsay: This process is very frustrating for me because we have sincere people coming before this committee, like the last group of witnesses, who support the bill. They give their reasons for supporting the bill and the expenditure of money to initiate this licensing and registration process, but no one wants to address the question of how the registration of a rifle or a shotgun will reduce the criminal use of that firearm.
If you were here you'd have seen the example that was given on the screen where an estranged husband came across town and shot and wounded his wife in the presence of their little daughter. My question to them was what difference would it have made if that firearm had been registered? I didn't get an answer.
They didn't answer that question, and that's the thrust of the bill. The thrust of the regulations is to provide a process by which long gun owners are licensed. Handgun owners are registered now, and the purpose of this bill is to provide a process by which the long guns are registered for the purpose of public safety.
If that would reduce the criminal use of firearms, I would support it, but no one would answer that question, including Ms Cukier, who appeared here on Monday along with Superintendent Don McLean from the Winnipeg City Police. If the main thrust is to provide public safety by those two measures, surely we should be told, or it should be explained to us who don't understand, how that public safety will be achieved. We have a right to have that understanding put forward to us so that we can grasp it. No one has done that from the beginning of this exercise, and I find that quite frustrating.
.1110
In addition, in spite of the fact that there are groups who have appeared before us, including your own, who through their use of firearms.... Whether it's museums, re-enactment organizations, gun clubs, hunting groups, the armoured vehicle industry, firearms manufacturers, guides and outfitters, the movie industry, or the performing arts, they all use firearms in a very disciplined way, to the point where none of them have created a threat to the safety of society. And yet this bill is going to severely regulate them to the point where some of them - not all, but at least some of them - have said that the economic consequences may put them out of business.
Yet those who support the bill ignore the economic ramifications for these groups while at the same time refusing to provide a reasonable rationale that would arrive at the goal of greater public safety.
So what are we doing? Now we're into a situation where we're discussing the regulations.Mr. Paddon, you've been drawn into that discussion where you're now discussing what we should do about the regulations. But the overall goal of public safety has not been met, the rationale that shows that licensing the owners, registering their firearms, will increase or reduce the criminal use of those firearms, and therefore and thereby enhance public safety.
So what are we doing? What are we doing? We're building a bureaucracy that's going to cost someone, whether it's the government - -it's all the taxpayers' money - whether it's the taxpayer in general, or the gun owner specifically. It's going to be an enormous cost to mobilize three million to six million Canadians to register between six million and twenty million firearms.
That's an enormous objective, and it's going to cost an awful lot of money to someone. At the same time, we're told that one in five children in this country is living in poverty. So we're going to create a bureaucracy.
In 1994, 95 youngsters died as a result of gunshot wounds. If someone could show me the rationale behind this bill, where we could reduce those deaths, it would be worth the sacrifice. But no one has done it. And every time they bring forward these examples, like the one on the screen this morning, they will not explain how the bill would have saved the estranged wife from being shot. When we ask, as I have asked, the other proponents who come forward, please explain how this bill, which demands the registration of firearms and the licensing of the owners, will stop these things from happening, they don't even address the question. That's what I find so frustrating.
I don't know if you share that frustration, but I do know this: the economic consequences of this bill, passed with these regulations, are going to be enormous, not only to Canadians at large, but also to these nine organizations I mentioned earlier. They include the museums and the re-enactment groups, who pose no threat whatever to society.
Yet it seems we're going ahead with it hell-bent, with no consideration to those who are asking why are we going in this direction - why are we spending this money to do this when it won't achieve this, when it wouldn't stop...?
If that firearm was registered, what difference would it make? If it had been locked up before he became irrational, what difference would it make? He had the key to open the closet, and out it comes. Over he goes and shoots his wife. What difference does it make?
We're not getting at the cause of domestic violence, we're not getting at the cause of suicide. We're spending millions of dollars on an exercise that seems futile to me.
.1115
My honourable friend over here suggested that we need the registration system in order to enforce the safe storage, and I don't think anyone disagrees with safe storage. I think it's common sense that you put your gun away. But the fact of the matter is, for over 60 years we've had a handgun registration system that identifies the firearm and where it's kept. Have there been inspections? Well, I don't know; I haven't heard of any inspections. Not only that, the provincial governments, responsible for the administration of the justice system including the safe storage regulations, have access to the name and address of every hunter in this country. Have they been approached to see whether or not the safe storage requirements are being abided by?
As to the suggestion that we need the registration system so that we know where the guns are so that we can enforce the safe storage regulations, I say if that's the case, why aren't we using it here? We have that knowledge with regard to the gun registration system. We have that knowledge with regard to thousands of gun owners - the most prominent users of firearms, who are the hunters - and yet we're not inspecting them. So we have to put forward this expensive registration system so that we can enforce the safe storage system.
Maybe I was a policeman for too long. When I had to take an argument into court, if I didn't get rid of the inconsistencies, I was torn apart on the witness stand by even the most mediocre defence counsel. I see inconsistencies here that frustrate me, because I'm here to support good legislation and not just obstruct legislation for the sake of doing so.
If this was good legislation it would be supported, it would be supported by myself, it would be supported by my caucus, and it would be supported, I'm sure, by you folks. It's not. If it has the potential to enhance public safety, then surely, after all this time, someone could have brought that rationale forward and let us examine it. It hasn't been done.
This is simply a harangue, I guess, and my time is up.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Perhaps the witnesses would like to respond.
Ms Thom: Thank you, Mr. Chairman; I would like to comment.
I agree with Mr. Ramsay, as I stated in my brief remarks, that there is no evidence that registration increases public safety - none whatsoever. In fact I do recall, because I'm old enough - although I was young at the time - that the commissioner himself, the commissioner of the RCMP, went across this land and gave talks, telling people that the registration system for handguns did not work. In fact he even went as far as to warn the population, and say if the government ever requires you to register your long guns, to resist it. He actually was encouraging the passive resistance of the public. That was back in the 1950s.
I'd like to make one comment about registration. If registration saved lives, then our highways throughout the country would be the safest places that could possibly exist, because all vehicles are registered. I think we all know that the contrary is in fact the case.
Hunters and handgun owners, of course, have a registration of one type or other, and of course there are FAC owners - that is, firearms acquisition certificate owners - throughout the country, so Mr. Ramsay's point is a very valid one. It's one that I thought of right from the very beginning when Mr. Rock, in one of the meetings I had with him, stated that he wanted to get rid of a lot of the handguns, the .32s and the .25s, because he believed they were incorrectly stored. And yet he already had the legislation on the books, the legislation was already there, which enabled police officers to contact the owners and to make sure in fact that they were correctly stored. That was already in place.
We in the firearms community, the police, and the conservation officers know how to save lives; that is, to prevent firearms deaths, and there are two ways of doing it. You do it by education of people, safety education, handling and storage of guns, and through enforcement of good laws. Of course no one from the firearms community who is appearing before you does not support gun control - that is, logical, responsible, reasonable gun control. The firearms community has always supported this throughout. In fact, in numerous hearings and various legislation proposals that have been made from the 1970s to now, the responsible firearm owners in this country have always made responsible presentations and suggestions to the government.
.1120
I would just like to say that before this bill came about, we had plenty of legislation on the books, were it enforced and carried out, to in fact make inroads on suicides, we hoped, and on accidental deaths, and of course in the domestic dispute area as well. In terms of criminal activity, there has always been in this country a tonne of laws on the books, some pertaining directly to firearms and some not, to try to prevent violence of any kind in this country being perpetrated on citizens.
It's so frustrating to see the government spending such an enormous amount of money in this time of restraint and necessity when we need to support the saving of lives and so many other areas.
For example, I'm sure some people came before you and argued on health issues, and yet it seems so ironic that people do not regard the suffering of people with cancer. You can specify women's cancer, breast cancer, if you wish, because it's so prominent, but I don't mean to limit it to women alone because men also suffer from cancer. It's terrible the suffering people go through, yet somehow it has not captured the imagination of the Canadian people, and Parliament especially, that these people suffer just as much as the very few people who in fact suffer from firearms atrocities.
I'm not trying to condone such atrocities at all, but it's amazing that so much money, $1 billion and more, will be spent on this legislation and its enforcement upon a law-abiding public, yet people die by the thousands every year from heart disease and cancer. Perhaps because they seem to die singly and at home and out of the public eye, their suffering is not taken to be meritorious of the action of Parliament in supporting research to get rid of or minimize these deaths by these horrible diseases.
Mr. Paddon: I'd like to make a comment.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Just briefly, please, Mr. Paddon.
Mr. Paddon: The point was raised that we have storage laws and the police should be enforcing those. I know from my own local firearms registrar that he is up to his ying yang in paper work. He doesn't have time for it. He's processing FAC applications. The Attorney General just dumped on him all the requirements to process all the permits to carry, so instead of doing maybe 50 a year for all the new guns he now has to do 300 or 400 a year. He doesn't have the time.
I've asked him to come over to inspect my house and tell me if I'm meeting standards. He says he doesn't have the time. I asked him to send his corporal. He doesn't have the time. They have too much paperwork to do. The police do not have the means to enforce this law.
The second point that was raised was education. Education has been proven to reduce accidents and increase awareness of the laws. When the permits to carry came out in 1993 - mine was issued on January 9 - I phoned up the division and said thank you very much; I now do not have to abide by these storage, transportation, and handling regulations. Corporal Lynn said oh yes you do, Robert. I said no I don't, Mike; it doesn't say so on my permit. He said you know it exists. I said I know it exists and you know it exists, but the gun owners don't know it exists.
From that day on they put a condition on the permit that you must obey storage, transportation, and handling regulations. Then all of a sudden I had guys coming into the club asking what that meant. What are these laws? We said here's the law, guys, here's how it applies, and this is how you must use your permits. That was the education process we put forward.
.1125
Today I've given you a pamphlet on gun safety for children with a basic message: don't touch the gun, kids. This is the same message we give them when they find needles: stop; don't touch; leave the area, go tell the adults. The back is the message for the parents: there are storage laws in effect.
Just last week I did a safety expo at my daughter's elementary school. I had several adults saying they weren't aware there are storage laws in existence. Yes, I said, they've been around since 1993. Oh, what are they? What do you own? And we go through the whole process.
There is a lack of information, education, and knowledge there for the public. When I do the FAC exam I still run across gun owners who do not know the storage rules, and they've studied for the test. I've seen it from police who have come to break-and-enters and said ``I'm going to charge you with improper storage, because you only had a trigger lock on it. You didn't have it in a locked container.'' And the guy says that it's a non-restricted firearm and it doesn't require it. Oh yes, it does. And then the firearm owner says ``You better go speak to the crown counsel, because you're wrong; you don't know the gun laws.''
So the police don't know it, the public doesn't know it, and the majority of firearm owners don't know the storage laws.
Thank you.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Mr. Paddon.
Mr. Kirkby.
Mr. Kirkby: Your brief suggests the safe storage regulations are incomprehensible - is that correct?
Mr. Paddon: They're difficult to understand; people get confused about the requirements for non-restricted and restricted. When you ask certain gun owners, well, is it a restricted or non-restricted gun, they look at you and ask, what does that mean? They aren't aware of Orders in Council that have been issued and say it's a rifle, so it's non-restricted. Ah, but do you know about the Order in Council that made that a restricted one? Oh, really, there's a different rule? I thought the rule applied to rifles and handguns. No, it doesn't; it refers to classes of firearms.
So there's a great confusion out there in the firearm community of how it applies. As I said in my preface earlier, there is confusion even by the police.
Mr. Kirkby: So if you are aware, though, where your firearm fits in, the regulations are not confusing, in and of themselves?
Mr. Paddon: Many members of the firearm community do not have a copy of the regulations to understand them. They are difficult to read. They offer options, and they provide methods to do things. In fact, you can store a gun safely by other methods, but that's against the regulations.
I have guys saying to me, ``I can take the barrel out of my handgun, because on the non-restricted, I can take out the bolt. Well, I'll just take the barrel out of my handgun, and that will be safe storage.'' And I went, no, no, read the rules. ``Well, where do I get the rules?'' Contact the local police.
The message is not there. It is not clear and precise. It is very convoluted.
Mr. Kirkby: You indicate that you want to save the police from administering this piece of legislation. Yet the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Police Association, the RCMP, the OPP, the Sûreté, all support this legislation, and without reservation. Why would you be concerned for them when they are supporting the legislation?
Mr. Paddon: I would suggest to you that the political arms of their associations and the senior officials support this legislation. It's not the grassroots members on the front line. They don't support the legislation, and they have the problem. They have to deal with the person at the front desk.
Mr. Kirkby: I believe that, at least for the Canadian Police Association, there was a vote and a strong majority of members supported gun control. So why would you suggest that...? I mean, that's not brass, that's not the political wing, those are real police officers. So what's the problem?
Mr. Paddon: The Canadian Police Association is the political wing of the police.
Mr. Kirby: And -
Mr. Paddon: The Saskatchewan Police Association has come out strongly against it. This resolution they had did not pass the floor quickly, unopposed. It's strongly opposed.
We've talked to the members of the police forces, who are our club members in many cases. We asked, do you believe this, do you support this? Well, no. But your association passed it. And they said yes. Well, we'll guess you have some work to do within your own association; you'd better start getting your views represented within your association; you've been silent for too long, and you've allowed certain people to hijack the agenda.
.1130
Mr. Kirkby: Now, you indicate in your brief that you have a problem with spousal notification within your brief. Would you support spousal notification if the applicant were assured, as you say in the brief, of receiving natural justice?
Mr. Paddon: Could you state your question again?
Mr. Kirkby: You have a problem with the notification of a spouse or ex-spouse when somebody applies for a FAC, a firearms acquisition certificate. If you were assured that the individual would receive a process that could be construed to be in compliance with natural justice, would you support spousal notification?
Mr. Paddon: The unfortunate thing regarding that principle of natural justice is that the appeal mechanism is not here. The difficulty with the process right now is that one section, paragraph 3(1)(c), says the spouse can't be a reference, but subclause 4(2) says the spouse doesn't need to be notified if she was the reference.
With respect to the spouse, in many cases you're trying to aim at the 1% of spouses who are being abused, whereas 99% of them -
Mr. Kirkby: No, no -
Mr. Paddon: Let me finish, please. The 99% of them are not the problem.
When I applied for my last FAC, my wife didn't want to sign the form. The constable asked me why, and her answer was quite clear: she hates government. She hates bureaucracy even worse, and doesn't want to be involved with it. So he phoned her back, and she laid it right on the line. I have found a lot of spouses who have been insulted by the questions that have come from the police - for example, does your husband beat you?
Mr. Kirkby: That's not my question. My question is would you support spousal notification if you could be assured that the provisions of natural justice would apply to their circumstances? Would you support spousal notification if natural justice applied?
Mr. Paddon: The perspective we've seen to date is that natural justice is not there. The appeal mechanism you have at present in the system, supposedly for natural justice, is not effective. We are concerned -
Mr. Kirkby: But it goes before a court, sir. Do you mean to say the courts of this land are not dispensing natural justice? Is that what you expect me to believe?
Mr. Paddon: In our opinion, they are not dispensing it. The onus is put on the appellant, not on the police, in a process of this nature. It's up to you to prove why you shouldn't be denied. The onus should be the other way around.
The concern - and we raise it in our brief - is that if a wife at a trial says she doesn't think you should have it, and you're living in Vancouver, what relevance should be given to that? Are you going to be able to bring that person who said that statement to you across the country, question them, and cross-examine them? No, it's not going to happen. The process will not allow it. They'll just simply say you're denied; the onus is on you to prove why you shouldn't be denied. And somehow, through the mechanism, you have to get that person to appear before the courts so you can cross-examine them, which is one of the principles of natural justice. That does not happen in the present appeal system.
Mr. Kirkby: Your brief says that you support people having the ability to carry handguns just if they want one. Is that right?
Mr. Paddon: No, that's not what we're saying. If they meet the legal requirements.... As the Government of Canada has indicated, there are certain legal requirements to carry a handgun, such as for prospectors, people working in the bush, people who need it for protection of life, and so forth. The government has already recognized that fact in their regulations and in the current law.
Mr. Kirkby: But you say here that right now they have to establish a need.
Mr. Paddon: Right now they have to establish what they wish, not a need.
Mr. Kirkby: No. Right now the legislation requires that the person demonstrate a need for the handgun. That's what the legislation says.
.1135
You're saying if these people wish it for protection of life - just ``I want a handgun because I want to protect my life'' - that's enough, and they can go and get a handgun. That's what your brief says.
Mr. Paddon: I would disagree. You've misread our concept.
Our concept there is for the person who wants to use it for field use. There are people who need it for protection of life, and those are rare occasions. I think Ontario had 15 people who were authorized. We are not advocating -
Mr. Kirkby: It says ``wish''. It says if I wish to have a handgun to protect my life, I can have a handgun. Is that right? That's what your brief says.
Mr. Paddon: What we have found is that people have said ``I wish to have my handgun with me in the bush when I am being the miner, when I am prospecting, when I am panning for gold'', and the provincial government has come back and said ``Justify your need''.
Mr. Kirkby: On page 9 of your brief it says: ``This regulation allows an individual to carry a firearm for protection of life or lawful profession/occupation''. That's ``or''.
That means if you're a geologist out in the bush and the bears are after you, you can have a handgun, if you can demonstrate a need. But also in your brief it says ``protection of life''. That means instead of me having to establish that somebody is out to get me, so I need this handgun under these restricted circumstances to protect my life, you're saying that simply if somebody is out to get me and I wish to have a handgun, I can have one. Is that it?
Mr. Paddon: Let me take a second and refer to the brief.
If you refer to the authorizations to carry restricted firearms and certain handguns regulations, you can get a permit to carry for the protection of life and you can get a permit to carry for lawful profession or occupation. Our concern here is the lawful profession and occupation.
Mr. Kirkby: But it says ``protection of life'' as well.
Mr. Paddon: Because that's the way it's worded in here.
Mr. Kirkby: But you're saying you want the word ``need'' replaced by ``wish''.
Mr. Paddon: Yes.
Mr. Kirkby: So if I wish to have a handgun because somebody is going to get me, I can just go down to the police station and say ``I wish to have a permit to have a handgun'' and I can get one. That's what you're saying in here. Do you agree with what you say in here or not?
Mr. Paddon: What we're saying is the way it's worded now, the word ``need'' has a different requirement from ``wish''. What we have found in the past is when somebody says ``I wish to have a handgun to use for lawful profession purposes'', it's been denied.
Mr. Kirkby: So you are removing ``protection of life'' then. You're saying this is only for lawful.... Your brief is in error, then. Is that what you're saying?
Mr. Paddon: I believe you've misread our intent here.
Mr. Kirkby: I'm not looking at the intent; I'm looking at the words. The words say that if an individual wishes to carry a firearm for protection of life or lawful profession or occupation, right now a need is required, and you're saying it should be a wish.
Mr. Paddon: Yes.
Mr. Kirkby: So it applies in an urban setting? If somebody fears for their life, they can go and get a gun?
Mr. Paddon: From what we have witnessed of the police -
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Mr. Kirkby, we're going to wind up. Your time is up.
Mr. Kirkby: Okay.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Is there a final comment from the witness?
Mr. Paddon: One point I'd like to make known to the committee is that presently the FAC is one licence that costs you $50, and it's good for any type of firearm you can legally obtain. If you're grandfathered for full autos or if you're grandfathered for semi-autos, or as it says in the new law, for the politically incorrect pistols that are coming out, 58% of all guns....
Under the new system I would need to apply for three different licences for a PAL. That would cost me $220. If I go in three months in a row and apply for each PAL separately, that means three police investigations on me. If I'm authorized to have prohibiteds, I should automatically be authorized for restricteds and non-restricteds. The sub-levels of licences will cause an extreme amount of paperwork.
.1140
We have a present FAC system that works fine. Don't play with it. Save the time and effort for the police.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Maloney): Thank you, Mr. Paddon.
I'd like to thank both witnesses for appearing before us today. We appreciate your comments and we appreciate your taking the time to come.
This hearing is adjourned. We will reconvene on Monday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then again at 3:30 p.m.