April 24, 2001
Mr. Grant Obst, President
Canadian Police Association
100 – 141 Catherine Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K2P 1C3
Dear Mr. Obst:
Re: CPA Executive Board Vote to
Continue to Support the Gun Registry
Thank
you for your three-page letter explaining the decision made by the Executive
Board of the Canadian Police Association to continue to support the gun
registry. While I respect the right
of your Board to take this position, I find this position hard to reconcile with
the known views held by the majority of front-line police officers who finance
your organization.
On
the basis of the extensive information available to me, it is clear that every
survey of front-line police officers, conducted by police associations, has
concluded that the vast majority
oppose C-68 in general and the firearms registry in particular. I am confident that if the Canadian Police Association were
to conduct an independent survey on this issue your membership would come to a
similar conclusion.
I
was pleased to have the opportunity to share the stage with you during the
Western Canadian Firearms Summit in Saskatoon on March 10th.
I was particularly impressed with your candor when you told the assembly
how the gun registry had affected your job as a police officer by admitting,
“It bothers me that the public would not support me in my line of duty.
We’ve never been at odds with the public before.
This issue has done this.” You
have come face to face with a violation of one of Sir Robert Peel’s nine
principles of policing. Principle
number three states that the police need to secure “the willing cooperation
of the public in the task of securing observance of the laws.”
In 1995, I warned Parliament that treating responsible citizens like criminal suspects would lead to this breakdown in trust between the people and police. In my opinion, your Board’s decision to continue to support the gun registry will compound this problem with the result that in the future, police officers on the street will experience a further deterioration of the trust relationship with the public they serve.
You may also remember that I attended the General Meeting of the CPA in Regina in August of 1999. The motion put forward by the Saskatoon Federation of Police Officers for the CPA to withdraw their support for the gun registry was voted down and replaced with another motion that made the CPA’s support for the registry “conditional.” To this date, not one of those conditions has been met and yet the CPA Executive voted to support the registry anyway.
I
am disappointed that you took exception to my comments to the media.
Although the coverage on my comments on your Board’s decision appears
to have been limited to the Edmonton Sun, I think it is important to address the
concerns that you raised in the arguments that you made in defence of the gun
registry. In my opinion, the
arguments you made are the same discredited arguments advanced by the federal
government. However, in view of the
respect I hold for your Executive and your general membership, I thought it
important to reiterate the CPA’s conditions that the federal government has
failed to meet and why I believe its arguments in favor of the gun registry have
been discredited.
CPA’s
1999 DEMANDS HAVE NOT BEEN MET
A.
In 1999, the CPA resolved, “that the Auditor General of Canada
conduct a thorough review of the firearms registration system.”
Contrary to the CPA’s demand, the Auditor General has not
conducted the review as demanded by the CPA!
B.
In 1999, the CPA resolved to have “the accuracy of the
information that is collected in the firearms registration database”
verified. The Registrar of
Firearms has indicated that there is a 90% error rate in the applications to
register firearms. RCMP and Surete
du Quebec sources verify that there is a 50% error rate in the Firearms Interest
Police (FIP) database. RCMP sources
also verify that there is a 40% error rate in the Firearms Reference Table (FRT)
database. Treasury Board documents
verify that there is 50% error rate in firearms licence applications. According to Department of Justice research documents, the
67-year-old handgun registry has an error rate of more than 50%.
Rather than confirming the accuracy of the information in the gun
registry, the RCMP’s Registrar of Firearms has simply verified its inaccuracy.
C.
In 1999, the CPA resolved to have “confirmation that the
registration system has the capacity to meet the legislative timeframes
established for firearms registration.” The Department of Justice failed to meet the deadline to
licence the three million gun owners it estimated resided in Canada.
This failure left more than one million responsible firearm owners and
about three million firearms out of the system forever.
Furthermore, the Department has not provided any credible evidence that
they will have any more success meeting the registration deadline.
While
the RCMP Registrar of Firearms indicated to his staff that it would take until
2010 to register all the guns in the country, he is now proceeding with layoffs
in his Firearms Verification Network, he has ordered registry staff to stop
verifying firearms, including checking firearms against FRT tables.
The Registrar has ordered registry staff to accept the information that
is on the registration applications (despite a 90% error rate), and he has
ordered registry staff to increase production from 30 registrations per day to
110 per day. Contrary to the
CPA’s demand, it’s clear the Department of Justice will only be able to meet
the registration deadline of January 1, 2003 by compromising the accuracy of the
information in the registry! Your
membership is astute enough to recognize this error-riddled registry will not be
of any benefit to police officers working on the street.
D.
In 1999, the CPA resolved to have government assurance that “the
cost recovery plan for the registration can be achieved.”
In 1995, Justice Minister Allan Rock tabled the Financial Framework
for the gun registry and promised Parliament and the public that the registry
would run a deficit of ONLY $2.2 million over the first five years.
The actual documented deficit for the first five years exceed $310
million! On July 19,
1999, The Toronto Star published a letter from Justice Minister Anne
McLellan that stated: "user fees will cover the entire cost of the [gun
registry] program." Responses
to Access to Information requests from the Department of Justice show that as of
August 11, 2000, they had collected only $17 million in user fees and owed
refunds of approximately $1.2 million. Furthermore,
the Minister of Justice has refused two of my Access to Information requests to
provide copies of her detailed cost-recovery plan to show how she will keep her
promise. The Minister’s
insistence that there are now only 2.46 million gun owners in the country
further erodes any hope that the government will meet the CPA’s demand for
cost recovery. Contrary to the
CPA’s demand, taxpayers will be on the hook for this soon-to-be billion-dollar
expenditure with recent estimates of expenditures anticipated to be a further
one billion over the next ten years. At
a time when public resources for front-line police officers and necessary
technology are scarce I know your membership would want to ensure that these
resources go to proven crime fighting priorities and effective crime prevention
programs. By any objective measure,
the gun registry demonstrates its failure to either of those criteria.
E.
In 1999, the CPA resolved that “meaningful consultations with the
User Group to ensure that the concerns of stakeholders are addressed in the
review process.” The
recommendations of the Minister’s User Group on Firearms have, for the most
part, been ignored since the User Group was formed. For example, in June of 1999 the User Group warned the
Minister that it was impossible for her to meet the licencing deadline of
January 1, 2001. They recommended
that the licencing deadline be extended to coincide with the registration
deadline of January 1, 2003. The
Minister rejected this most sensible recommendation, and more than one million
gun owners failed to apply for a firearms licence. Accordingly, the Department
of Justice was forced to issue more than 600,000 temporary licences without the
mandatory background checks required by section 5 of the Firearms Act.
Not only did this course of action ignore the CPA membership’s
demand for meaningful consultations, but it also demonstrated that the registry
can not be relied on as a method of keeping firearms out of the hands of those
who should not have them.
F.
In 1999, the CPA resolved that they need “confirmation that the
implementation and operation of the system is not taking officers off the
street.” As of the summer
of 2000, there were about 1800 employees working on the gun registry, not
including the hundreds of designated Firearms Officers in every province.
Although, the Minister of Justice has refused to release any of the
information to the Library of Parliament in respect of these numbers, it is well
known that many of the designated Firearms Officers are police officers that
have been taken off of regular police duties.
Secondly, it’s obvious that hiring more than 1,800 employees and
spending more than $600 million dollars to date has a direct impact on the
resources and finances available for real crime fighting initiatives.
In the Toronto Star on April 3rd you were quoted as saying, “Organized
crime has got too much money. And
our biggest problem is we don’t have enough.”
However, contrary to the CPA’s demand, hundreds of person-years and
hundreds of millions of dollars have been diverted from real law enforcement
priorities!
G.
In 1999, the CPA resolved to have “The Auditor General of Canada
release a public report on their findings to the people of Canada.”
Contrary to the CPA’s demand, the Auditor General has not prepared a
public report on the gun registry!
From information available to front-line police officers, the public and the media, the government has met not one of the CPA’s 1999 demands. It is for that reason alone that I find it difficult to understand the recent decision of your Board.
You
cited a number of “benefits” in support of gun registration.
I would like to present for your consideration the evidence that
demonstrates why gun registration has and always will fail to be of any benefit
to public safety or to law enforcement.
1. Registration
of Handguns has Failed to Curtail the Criminal Use of Handguns
The strongest evidence that gun registration doesn’t
work is the complete and utter failure of the handgun registration system that
has been in effect since 1934. The
difference is that the restricted firearm registration system only wasted $6
million a year, not $60-$100 million. Statistics
Canada reported that of the 151 murders committed in 1998, 46% used handguns
(that were supposed to be registered) and 17% used firearms that are banned.
Furthermore, in the six years I have been asking, neither the Justice
Minister, the Solicitor General, nor the RCMP have been able to produce a shred
of evidence that the 67-year-old handgun registration system has helped them
prevent or solve even one crime. If
you can present such evidence, I would appreciate the opportunity to consider
it.
2. Responsible
Firearm Owners are the Wrong Target
(a)
Insurance companies don’t charge gun owners higher premiums: Ninety-nine
percent (99.9%) of gun owners have never been a public safety
risk and likely never will be. How
do we know gun owners aren’t a risk to themselves or to others?
Because insurance companies don’t ask on any insurance form if the
applicant owns a gun. This is
because gun owners are not an “identifiable risk group.”
Even if a firearms owner does happen to list his or her recreational
firearms sport as a “hazardous
activity”, the insurance company would not charge him a higher premium for
his policy. If actuarial experts in
insurance companies (whose success as a business depends on assessing risk) know
that responsible gun owners are not a risk to themselves, their families, their
neighbours or their community, what basis is there for the government and the
CPA Executive Board to conclude the opposite? In fact, the actuarial evidence demonstrates that responsible
firearm owners are clearly the wrong target!
(b)
“Use
of a Firearm in Violent Incidents” only 1.4% in 1999:
What purpose does it serve to waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and
divert police resources into a federal gun registration scheme?
Less than 5 percent of violent crimes involve firearms and a very small
fraction of those involve rifles and shotguns.
Last summer, Statistics Canada released
their Crime Statistics for 1999.
Page 2 stated: "Police reported just over 291,000 incidents of violent crime in
1999." The last paragraph
on the same page stated: "In 1999,
4.1% of violent crimes involved a firearm." In 1998, half these firearms offences were committed with
handguns that the government has been trying to register since 1934.
Unfortunately, this 4.1% statistic is also overstated because Statistics
Canada defines “involved” not as “used”
in the commission of the offence but only as “present” at the scene of the
crime. That’s why the RCMP
statistics on firearms involved in crime are dramatically lower. In July 1997, the Commissioner of the RCMP wrote the Justice
Department stating: “Furthermore, the
RCMP investigated 88,162 actual violent crimes during 1993, where only 73 of
these offences, or 0.08%, involved the use
of firearms.” The Library of
Parliament Research Branch examined two different Statistics Canada 1999 violent
crime reports. They determined that
the “Presence of a Firearm in
Violent Incidents” was 4.1%, but the “Use
of a Firearm in Violent Incidents” was only 1.4% - three times lower than
the figure normally reported by Statistics Canada and accepted and repeated by
the media without any explanation. Responsible
firearm owners are clearly the wrong targets!
(c) The government can’t stop anyone from acquiring firearms illegally,
they can only punish them for doing so: The fact is that the vast majority of violent crimes
involving firearms are committed by known criminals, street gangs and repeat
offenders. Violent crime is the
problem that needs to be addressed - not keeping track of the firearms owned by
responsible gun owners. As one
law-abiding, responsible gun owner explained it to me:
“I am not a problem!
I will never be a problem. I
already have a provincial hunting licence, so the police know that I own guns. If I don’t store my guns properly, I could go to jail for
up to two years. If I did happen to
decide to take up a life of crime, or if I became violent or mentally unstable,
the police have all the power they need in the Criminal Code to enter my house
(without a warrant) and take my guns away from me. They can then go to court to seek a court order to prohibit
me from owning firearms for a set period of time or forever.
What further protection would a federal firearms licence and a few gun
registrations provide? What’s to stop anyone from defying a firearm prohibition
order and buying another gun illegally?
That’s where the twenty-year-old FAC program was a reasonable
safeguard. Anyone who wanted to
acquire a firearm legally had to prove they were trained and licenced by
the government to acquire a firearm. Of
course, nothing the government can do will ever stop criminals or mentally
deranged people from acquiring a firearm illegally.”
These comments illustrate why the police feel “at odds” with the
public and why your membership will continue to feel the unfortunate effects of
this law as long as it is in place.
3. Criminals
are the Real Problem. Let’s Go
After Them
(a) Statistics Canada identifies
the right target:
Statistics Canada’s 1991 Homicide in Canada report stated, “Sixty-seven percent of accused
[murderers] had criminal records previous to the homicide incident as opposed to
45% of victims." (p.2)
“When the criminal history of the accused was known (95% of accused)
over two-thirds have a previous criminal record; 249 for violent offences, 103
for property offences and 10 for drug offences. A further 45 accused had a criminal record for other Criminal
Code or Federal Statute offences. Seventy
percent of male accused and 40% of female accused had a previous criminal
record." (p.15) "In
1991, police reported that approximately one-half of all accused had consumed
some alcohol, drugs or both at the time of the offence." (p.15) On October 18, 2000,
Statistics Canada provided their first update of these 1991 numbers, “Sixty-four
percent of people accused of homicide in 1999 had a previous criminal record. The majority of these individuals had been convicted of a
violent crime. 41% of homicide
victims had a criminal record.” Source:
Statistics Canada. Homicide Statistics 1999, The Daily, Wednesday, October 18,
2000.
(b) CPIC already has the most important information
about firearms ownership in it: The RCMP 1999 report to the
Solicitor General on the Administration of the Firearms Act stated, “..between December 1, 1998 and December 31, 1999 there were a total
of 18,874 persons prohibited from possessing a firearm. Firearm prohibition orders are entered onto CPIC [Canadian
Police Information Centre] based on the outcome of court hearings, probation
decisions or pending a hearing.” (p.41) The
report also provides statistics for each year since 1989.
There has been an average of more than 14,000 firearm prohibition orders
for each of the last 11 years. Source:
RCMP Report on the Administration of the Firearms Act to the Solicitor General
1999. When the Firearms Interest
Police (FIP) database is functioning properly CPIC will tell police which houses
are likely to present problems.
(c)
Hiring more police is the real solution - not a gun registry: Statistics Canada reported that the
number of Criminal Code incidents per police officer rose 135% between 1962 and
1997 (excluding traffic related offences).
In 1962, there were 20 Criminal Code incidents per police officer.
In 1997, there were 46 Criminal Code incidents per police officer.
The real problem is that crime has been going up but the number of police
officers hasn’t. Source: Statistics Canada. Criminal
Code Incidents per Police officer, Canada, 1962-97.
On September 21, 1995,
Ontario Solicitor General, Bob Runciman appeared before the Senate Standing
Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs.
He told the Senators: “In
national terms, 85 million dollars would put another 1,000 customs agents on the
border; 500 million dollars would put an extra 5,900 police officers on the
street. The federal alternative is
to use the money to register every shotgun and bolt-action .22 in Canada.
No great brilliance is required to figure out which would have a greater
impact on crime."
4. Bill
C-68 has already Caused one Death
Once
the CPA Executive Board defends the gun registry then you must also accept
responsibility for its failures. In a
news release issued on March 26, 1998, Justice Minister Anne McLellan promised: “Firearms
safety is everyone’s concern. These
regulations will help foster a culture of safety across Canada.”
On March 3, 2000, the Moncton
Times and Transcript published the following report from Nain, Nfld:
“A
Labrador man prohibited from owning firearms retrieved one of his rifles from
the local RCMP detachment the same day he is accused of fatally shooting a
15-year-old boy, police said Wednesday. Under
a year-old federal law, anyone banned from owning a gun can apply for an
exemption if they need a firearm to hunt for food.
It’s called a ‘sustenance variance’ under Sect 113 of the Criminal
Code. Abraham Zarpa, 30 was charged
with second-degree murder after the body of Martin Angnatok, 15, was found
inside a home in Nain. Zarpa was
granted an exemption for sustenance variance last December.
‘His guns were held at the RCMP detachment in Nain and if he was going
hunting he would sign them out,’ said RCMP Const. Scott Morrison.
‘When he returned from hunting, he had to return them to the
detachment…He did sign out one of his rifles that day.’”
So much for the Minister’s ‘culture
of safety’! While this court
case is unfolding, it appears the Minister’s regulations actually created the
situation where the RCMP was forced to store a murderer’s rifles and hand him
a rifle when he wanted to use it. Remember
when supporters of the gun registry used to say, “If it saves just one
life, it will be worth it.” What
will concerned Canadians say when they find out that Bill C-68 actually cost one
life?
Your letter listed a number of areas of improvement
for the government’s gun control program and you welcomed our support.
Please be advised that the Canadian Alliance supports effective gun
control measures that reduce criminal activity.
The tinkering amendments proposed by the government will never fix the
problems with Bill C-68 nor will they reduce the criminal use of firearms.
For the information of your membership, I would like to take this
opportunity to set out the position of the Canadian Alliance with respect to the
gun registry.
1. Canadian
Alliance is opposed to Bill C-68. We
will Repeal it and Replace It
During debate in the House of Commons on June 13,
1995, Preston Manning, Leader of the Reform Party (founder of the Canadian
Alliance Party) said, “I
therefore submit in conclusion that Bill C-68, if passed into law, will not be a
good law. It will be a bad law, a blight on the legislative record of
the government, a law that fails the three great tests of constitutionality, of
effectiveness and of democratic consent of the governed.
What should be the fate of a bad law?
It should be repealed, which is precisely what a Reform government
will do when it eventually replaces this government.” Hansard page, 13,739.
On
May 2, 2000, Stockwell Day reiterated this promise in the Fredericton Daily
Gleaner: “One of the first things I would do is scrap Bill C-68, Day said.
Calling the gun registry "irresponsible" and an
"administrative nightmare", Day said as leader, he would put the
emphasis on tougher sentences for crimes committed with the use of firearms.”
Our party has never
wavered from this position in the last six years and have fought two elections
with this position in our platform. We
have maintained this position because the facts demonstrate that this law is an
unnecessary burden on Canadian taxpayers without a corresponding benefit to law
enforcement efforts.
2. The Canadian Alliance firearms platform in the Election 2000
“We want to protect our
communities from criminals, not punish law-abiding citizens.
We will repeal the current firearms law (C-68) and replace it with a
practical firearms control system that is cost effective and respects the right
of Canadians to own and use firearms responsibly.
To ensure success, the practical firearms control system will be designed
and implemented with the complete cooperation of the provinces and territories,
and responsible firearm owners.
We believe the hundreds of millions of dollars being
wasted registering and keeping track of legally owned firearms would be far
better spent putting more police patrols on our streets and highways, and
providing law enforcement with the resources they need to put real criminals
behind bars, and put biker gangs and organized crime out of business.”
Getting Tough on the Criminal
Use of Firearms
·
Mandatory
laying of weapons offences in all cases where a weapon is used in a crime
·
No
plea bargaining for weapons offences
·
Consecutive
sentences for using a weapon in the commission of a crime
·
Strict
application of the mandatory minimum sentences for weapons offences in the
Criminal Code
·
Mandatory
minimum sentence and increased maximum sentence for stealing a firearm
·
Mandatory
minimum sentence for smuggling and trafficking firearms
·
Lifetime
ban on owning firearms if convicted of using a weapon in an indictable criminal
offence
·
Carrying
a firearm in public without a valid licence will be a criminal offence
·
Breaking
a restraining order will be a new criminal offence and will carry an automatic
jail term.
3.
Replacing Bill C-68 will be based on Fundamental Principles
·
It will crackdown on criminals who use weapons - not
responsible firearm owners
·
It will be easy to understand, administer and enforce
·
It will be cost-effective at reducing the criminal use
of firearms
·
It will curtail smuggling and black-market gun sales
– not increase it like C-68 has
·
It will convince the vast majority of gun owners to
help the government and police to implement it
·
It will convince all taxpayers to share the cost
because everyone benefits from improved public safety
·
It will be able to pass a public safety test
administered by the Auditor General of Canada
·
It will respect the exclusive constitutional
jurisdiction of the provinces
·
It will respect the fundamental rights of all
individuals – especially property rights
4. Comments
on the CPA Executive Board’s Areas of Improvement
You and your Executive Board are correct to point out
that the government’s gun control program cannot “achieve the stated
public safety objectives” without “a high level of compliance.”
More than a million gun owners failed to obtain a firearms licence and
there was almost a total boycott by Aboriginals of the licencing component.
As I explained in my recent news releases, without an amnesty these
million or more gun owners and the millions of guns they own will never be in
the system. Without 100%
cooperation by responsible gun owners and 100% cooperation by the provinces,
this resulting non-compliance was inevitable.
The government had a chance to implement the CPA proposals in Bill C-15
and chose not to. The Canadian
Alliance would support all three measures proposed because they are consistent
with the aforementioned policy, platform and principles.
1(a) Would require the Minister
to implement an amnesty for all firearms owners who have not applied for a
licence.
(b)
Would require legislative amendment removing all Criminal Code penalties
for the administrative requirements of the government’s gun control program.
(c)
Would require strengthening of the property rights protection in the Canadian
Bill of Rights as I have put forward in a Private Members’ Bill on a number of
occasions.
(d)
Would require an Order-in-Council eliminating the fees.
If it really is a public safety program then the public should pay the
entire costs.
2.
In 1995, our party supported then Ontario Solicitor General, Bob Runciman,
when he proposed to Parliament better policing of our borders by hiring between
1,000 and 5,900 police officers as an alternative to the useless gun registry.
3(a) Would require the
government to work cooperatively with the provinces to ensure zero-tolerance
adherence to the mandatory minimum sentencing provisions.
It would be easy for the government to initiate a program to constantly
monitor the use and abuse of these sentencing provisions and to make cases
public when prosecutors and judges deviate from them.
(b)
We believe that if we get tough on the criminal use of firearms that criminals
will get the message. “Project
Exile” has worked to reduce the criminal use of firearms and take illegal
guns off the streets in the toughest cities in the United States.
This approach can work here.
In
closing, I would like to thank you for taking the time to try and explain the
decision of the CPA Executive Board to continue to support the Liberal
government’s gun registration scheme. However,
for the reasons set out herein, I continue to disagree with your decision.
I
am encouraged by your Board’s recommendations for improvements to the
country’s gun laws. They suggest
to me that you understand the issue better than the government. In addition, your recommendations give us some common ground
on which to address this very troubling issue.
We will not stop fighting Bill C-68 and its waste and inefficiency.
I believe, along with your membership, that putting more police on the
street would do much more good in our fight against crime.
We need to work towards putting in place measures that make the lives of
Canadians and our communities safer.
Sincerely,
Garry Breitkreuz, MP
Yorkton-Melville
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Members of Parliament