December 10, 2001

The Editor

The Ottawa Citizen

Dear Editor:

RE:  UNINFORMED POLL RESULTS NEXT TO USELESS

Don’t you think it’s time Canadians get better information from their newspapers?  I’m referring of course to the misleading story you ran today titled: “Majority of Alliance voters support gun registry, poll finds” – Ottawa Citizen, Page A8, December 10, 2001 by Tim Naumetz.  Poll results depend on the wording of the questions and how well informed the respondents are on the issue.  Unfortunately, the Environics poll on the gun registry did a poor job on both counts.

The question Environics asked was this: “The government of Canada has passed a law concerning the ownership of firearms.  This law requires that Canadians register each firearm that they own, prohibits certain kinds of firearms, requires that owners pass a safety test and a safety check, and that firearms are stored unloaded in a secure place.  In general do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose this law.?”

The Environics poll question is misleading because it confuses the issue of registering each firearm (passed in 1995) with measures that had been part of previous Criminal Code provisions requiring safe storage and safety tests to acquire firearms.

The results obtained by Environics are uninformed because they failed to ask respondents if they would still support the gun registry if they ever found out that:

• Government reports show the gun registry has already cost taxpayers $684.6 million;
• The cost to fully implement the gun registry will exceed $1 billion and that the government estimates it will cost $60 million a year to operate the system;
• The government has broken their promise that registry would cost only $85 million to implement the registry and that user fees would cover the entire cost of the program;
• In April 2001, the gun registry employed 1,800 staff and the government has diverted these person-years and hundreds of millions from real law enforcement priorities;
• Despite 67 years of registering handguns, Statistics Canada reports the use of handguns in firearm homicides has been steadily increasing from 26.9% in 1974 to 58.5% in 2000;

• Statistics Canada recently reported that firearm homicides with rifles and shotguns (the main target of the new gun registry) have dropped from 63.6% to 30.6% over the last 27 years – without being registered;
• Statistics Canada reports that of the 110 handgun homicides committed between 1997 and 2000, 69% of the handguns were not registered. This despite the fact that it has been mandatory to register handguns since 1934.
• Statistics Canada reports that 67% of the persons accused of homicides had a Canadian criminal record, and 69% of these had been previously convicted of violent crimes, and that the government has stated publicly that the gun registry only targets law abiding firearms owners - not criminals;
• More than 70,000 persons are prohibited from owning firearms by the courts but the new registry requires that only law abiding firearms owners have to report their change of address to the police within 30 days or face a penalty of up to 2 years in jail; and
• Police on the street do not support the gun registry.

I could go on but I think your readers, your reporter and Environics will get the point.  Putting a piece of paper beside a gun does nothing to stop the criminal use of the firearms.  If Canadians were asked whether they would like half a billion spent on tracking duck hunters or terrorists, I know what the answer would be.

Sincerely,

Garry Breitkreuz, MP

Yorkton-Melville

Attachment: Members Statement made to the House of Commons on November 8, 2001

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 112

Thursday, November 8, 2001

STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

[S. O. 31]

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Gun Control

[Hansard Page – 7158]

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, every chance the justice minister gets she boasts to parliament about how many Canadians support her government's failed gun registration scheme.

She is loath to tell anyone that the strong support dropped from 75% to 32% when the cost of the firearms registry reached half a billion dollars. Last week the cost topped $685 million and is still climbing.

The most recent Environics poll the minister refers to contains some important facts she conveniently fails to report to her colleagues. When more than 2,000 respondents were asked what specific type of crime troubled them the most, they listed 23 different types of crime, but guns were never mentioned once.

When respondents were asked which of the 12 criminal justice priorities they would like to see government spending directed to, gun control measures were at the very bottom of the list. Programs for young people, cracking down on organized crime and more police on the street were numbers one, two and three.

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