EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, April 27, 1995

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[English]

The Chair: I would like to call the meeting to order.

[Translation]

We are resuming our consideration of Bill C-68, an Act respecting firearms and other weapons. Appearing before us this morning are Mr. Florian Saint-Onge, from the Conférence des Régies régionales de la Santé et des Services sociaux. We also have the Canadian Public Health Association. I don't have the names of the people representing that association, but perhaps we will get them in a minute. I have the Canada National Safety Council, represented by Emile Therien.

[English]

These are all witnesses who share a certain perspective on these matters. That's why we've had them together this morning. It's also due to the fact that we've had a large number of witnesses who want to appear.

We have the written briefs of the three groups. I would ask them to address the main points in their brief rather than reading the entire thing, if that's possible. We will go through the three briefs one after another, and then we will have the usual rounds of questioning. The meeting has been scheduled to last until 12:30 p.m.

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[Translation]

Our first witness is Mr. Saint-Onge from the Conférence des Régies régionales de la Santé et des Services sociaux. I would ask him to make his presentation and introduce the people who are with him.

[English]

Dr. Stephen Corber (Executive Board Designated Spokesperson on Gun Control for the Canadian Public Health Association): I'm with the Canadian Public Health Association.

The Chair: I know Mr. Therien's with the Canada Safety Council. Then there's Ms Archard and Mr. Maguire, who are also from the Canada Safety Council.

We'll start with Mr. Saint-Onge.

[Translation]

Mr. Florian Saint-Onge (President, Conférence des Régies régionales de la Santé et des Services sociaux): Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, first of all let me thank you for inviting us to appear before you this morning.

I would also like to take the time to introduce properly to you the experts who are with me today: Mr. Robert Maguire is the public health director for the Lower St. Lawrence Region and president of the Trauma Prevention committee for Quebec's public health network. Dr. Antoine Chadelaine is a consultant and trauma specialist with the Quebec Public Health Centre and member of the Canadian Advisory Council on Firearms.

Let me also point out that the statistics quoted in our brief are to be found in the 40 references attached at the end of it.

Under section 1 of the Health Services Act, the Quebec Minister of Health is responsible for reducing mortality rates due to illness and injury, as well as disease, deficiencies and disabilities. Through this legislation, the minister confers responsibility for running health programs including the public health program, upon Quebec's 18 regional health and social service boards.

The minister appoints a public health director to each regional board who, under section 373, is responsible for providing information about the general state of public health, priority health problems, the most vulnerable groups, the main risk factors and the most effective means of intervention, as well as following new developments and if necessary conducting the proper studies and research.

Furthermore, the regional director must be aware of potential threats to public health and ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect it.

Finally, he or she is responsible for developing expertise in prevention and health promotion through the range of programs delivered by their regional board.

In light of their mandate and the serious problems associated with firearms, Quebec public health directors have become actively involved in trying to find better efficiencies and cost effective ways of reducing the number of deaths and injuries caused by firearms.

It is for this reason that the Conférence, which represents Quebec's 18 regional health and social service boards and the public health director's council, would like to would like to put on record their firm support for firearms control and in particular for firearms registration.

Consider the problem: in Quebec, someone is shot to death every day. More specifically, 420 people are shot to death every year; 7 out of 10 are suicides and 2 out of 10 are murders. We do not know about the rest of them, but there are a dozen or so accidents every year. Every year in Quebec 400 people die of AIDS, 400 by accidental falls, 900 in road accidents, 100 are drowned, 80 die of accidental intoxication and 15 from meningococal meningitis. The number of deaths caused by firearms therefore is just as high as the number of deaths caused by health problems that are of interest to the public, the media and government.

In Quebec it is estimated that the direct cost in hospitalization and public services stands at about $15 million.

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However, the annual economic cost of firearm misuse is thought to be in the $7 billion range in 1993 Canadian dollars, according to a study by Ted Miller.

The majority of fatal shootings occur at home with legal firearms and more often in rural areas as opposed to cities. .22 calibre rifles and .12 and .410 calibre shotguns, which are particularly dangerous, are the weapons most commonly found in the homes of Quebecers. It is estimated that 25% of Quebec households have a firearm and that over 30% of them are not properly stored. In other words, in one in ten Quebec households there is a firearm that has not been properly stored. This is a threat both to the safety of family members and to their neighbours and friends.

But the problem is not unique to Quebec. Between 1989 and 1992, the average number of gunshot fatalities was 5.8 for every one million people in Quebec which is comparable to the rates in Manitoba, which is 5.7, Saskatchewan for 6.1 and Alberta for 6.8. It is however much lower than the rate in the Yukon, which is 13.1 and in the North West Territories, where it is 21.5.

This situation is disturbing for native peoples. In Cree communities and especially among the Inuits of Northern Quebec, the number of guns owned, guns that are not properly stored, and firearm deaths are much higher than in the South.

Armed robberies have all sorts of consequences on the victims' health. According to some studies, 25% of victims of armed robbery in banks are still undergoing treatment, 30 months after the fact and almost 50% of them still suffer from anxiety, have difficulty sleeping or psychosomatic problems.

This is known as post-traumatic stress disorder, a public health problem that we can no longer afford to ignore. In 1992, there were 12,850 thefts in Quebec, and 4,329 of these were committed with a firearm. Other crime statistics show that between 1978 and 1993, the total number of missing, lost or stolen firearms in Canada stood at 65,926, that's an average of 3,000 reported stolen every year. By definition, these firearms end up in the hands of criminals.

According to the results of epidemialogical research, there is a link between access to firearms and risk of death. Just as smoking or inhaling second-hand smoke has been shown to present a risk, the mere presence of a firearm in a home means that the risk of suicide is increased five-fold, and the risk of murder and accident three-fold, compared with households where there are no firearms. A firearm in a home is a much greater danger for the people living there than it is a form of protection against attack.

With a 92% lethality rate, a firearm is the most deadly way to commit suicide, compared with prescription drugs, which have a 30% lethality rate. It is important to note that in the United States where women are encouraged to carry firearms so as to protect themselves, larger numbers of women are attempting suicide and are succeeding more often than they would by using another means.

In Canada however, women tend to chose less violent means which increases their chance of survival and of receiving treatment, if necessary. Most fatal shootings are the result of a violent crisis, or domestic violence between people who know one another. In incidents of domestic violence, the use of a firearm is 12 times more deadly than the use of a knife, a blunt instrument or feet and fists, etc.

In accordance with their mandate under the law, public health directors in Quebec are trying to bring down the incidents of mortality and injury caused by firearms in cases of suicide, domestic violence, murder, accidents and armed assaults, by promoting effective new programs.

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We know that factors such as a social and legislative environment that allow access to firearms can have a significant impact on the frequency, distribution and development of deaths and injury caused by firearms.

In order to prevent illness, injury or trauma, preventive steps can be taken with respect to the agent, which is the force used to fire a gun, the vehicle, which is the firearm or its ammunition, and the host, the victim of the injury. These agent, vehicles and hosts interact in a given physical or socio-cultural environment.

The nature of this environment can, in a separate way, affect the probability of a traumatic event occurring or its seriousness and change an attempted suicide, an assault or an accident into a treatable wound or a deadly injury. It is our experience that the most effective prevention strategies will break the chain of causes that lead to an illness at its weakest link.

Whether it is an impulsive or premeditated suicide, premeditated murder or murder committed in a fit of anger, an accidental shooting due to negligence, unsafe use or design defects, whether a gun is used by someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs, all these events have in common access to a firearm and inappropriate use of it.

It is the access to the firearm that is the most universal link in the chain and about which something can be done when it comes to firearms. This link in the chain is also the weakest from a public health point of view since it is the easiest to break if the appropriate measures are taken.

That is why representatives from the public health sector support effective and cost-effective controls over access to firearms so as to prevent death and injury without preventing the use of firearms for professional or legitimate recreational activities such as hunting.

We, in the public health sector, are very much in favour of various concurrent approaches being taken as part of a firearm control strategy. These approaches are educational, with a view to changing human behaviour; they aim at strengthening the social and legislative environment; and they are environmental, technological and physical.

It is generally acknowledged that the effectiveness of control measures is inversely proportional to the individual effort required. We therefore do not feel that it would be appropriate or cost effective to focus all our efforts on education, handling or safe storage or on attempts to change behaviour through screening or home visits, etc.

Such an approach is often costly and not always effective in reducing injuries or bringing about any permanent change in people's habits. Some educational programs can even increase the probability of injury. An example of this are drivers education courses given in high schools, which increase the number of young drivers and therefore the number of road deaths among young people.

With respect to courses given in the United States to teach people how to handle firearms, it seems that this is not enough to ensure that people do store their firearms properly, since in many cases people keep them loaded so as to protect themselves.

Furthermore, attempts to change people's habits through legislation and regulation, such as reducing speed limits and better surveillance through license registration or safe storage of hazardous products, have proven more effective than educational programs on their own.

Technological changes and changes to the physical environment in which injuries occur, through higher safety standards in cars and highways, have been more effective in reducing the number of deaths and injuries on the roads than have compulsory driving courses.

Environmental and technological approaches to ensuring public security such as removing firearms from homes where there is a risk of suicide or violence, or dismantling automatic weapons once they are no longer in use, and legislative and regulatory strategies are more effective than attempts to change habits through educational campaigns.

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This is why we support the development of strategies based on various approaches where more emphasis is laid on controlling access to firearms than on educational activities. This is particularly appropriate since suicide, violence and accidental shootings often occur in cases of physical or psychological health problems or impaired faculties due to alcohol or drug abuse, which cannot be effective through educational campaigns alone.

Among the various provisions of Bill C-68, information about gun owners and their firearms is essential to the success of a whole variety of environmental, legislative and educational measures which complement one another and must be implemented. That is why we support compulsory registration of all firearms and of gun owners in Canada.

Such a registration system, beginning with a gun's import into Canada through to the last owner, will more effectively control access to firearms in four ways.

First, by making gun owners responsible for how their guns are used in Canada. Such accountability is not possible without proper tracking of a gun from the time it is imported to its last owner. The new registration system which will keep track of all firearms in Canada and the names of their users is the cornerstone of effective firearm control in this country.

At present, there is no way of knowing which or how many hunting rifles an individual may own, or what he is doing with them, where they are kept and still less whether they are properly stored. The absence of firearm control makes penal provisions unapplicable. The best way of controlling the use of firearms is to make gun owners accountable for their firearms and how they use them. This means that each firearm must be registered in the name of its owner and that the proper legal sanctions should apply to ensure accountability. Furthermore, this approach establishes a legal link between firearms and all intermediaries throughout the life of a gun, from the date of its import to its last user. This comprehensive registration system in Canada will make gun owners explicitly responsible before the law: by providing a framework for sales between third parties, by encouraging vendors to ensure legal transfer of property, by encouraging purchasers to understand their responsibilities that go along with acquiring a firearm and finally, by encouraging owners to store their firearms properly.

The second way of controlling firearms is based on the concept that no protection is possible without information. A greater amount of information will also make for a safer society since police officers will easily be able to trace the owners of stolen guns, protect themselves before entering a home in a crisis situation and, above all, it will enable them to confiscate any firearms in cases of domestic violence or attempted suicide.

Suicide with a firearm and domestic violence occur more often than not among otherwise law-abiding citizens, with legally purchased firearms, which the owners would have had no reason not to register. In fact, it is estimated that there are 13,000 prohibition orders issued every year in Canada to remove firearms from the hands of individuals who are a danger of society or to themselves. In the past, because there was not registration, police officers have been forced to search the premises or just hope that these individuals would give up their firearms voluntarily. The new system will help police officers to take preventive action, such as temporarily removing firearms from a crisis situation.

A third way of controlling firearms concerns the import and sale of certain weapons. You cannot have any control without having information. The registration system will make it possible to effectively control the circulation of weapons in Canada.

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The police cannot fight smuggling if they can't tell the difference between legal, registered firearms and illegal ones. Right now, weapons are not registered when they are imported into the country. Legitimate merchants can import firearms legally and then sell them illegally. Some guns are very popular among young people in the United States because they are within their price range and yet they are designed solely to kill and should be banned. For instance, short-barreled .25 and .32 calibre pistols known as ``Saturday night specials'' are used in 62% of shootings in the United States. .32 calibre pistols are the guns that are the most often used to kill police officers in the United States. Since there is no effective registration system, it is impossible to keep track of these guns. By bringing in registration in Canada, we are trying to maintain our quality of life and avoiding the violence we see in the United States. In some American schools they have no choice but to use metal detectors to keep track of guns and keep the schools safe.

The Chairman: Mr. Saint-Onge, you have been speaking for over 25 minutes. As I said at the outset, all the members have a copy of your brief and we do have to hear from two other groups this morning. If you could would you give us your conclusions right now.

Mr. Saint-Onge: Very well.

In that case, here are the two recommendations we wanted to make.

First: register all gun owners and their guns in Canada.

Second: we recommend that Bill C-68 be amended so as to prevent any postponement of such a registration system. Subsections (2) and (3) of section 98 should be amended, by...

[English]

Mrs. Barnes (London West): Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. Normally I would agree with rushing through this, but this is a situation where we've just been handed these briefs. I can't listen, read the brief and question on the brief all at the same time.

This is important information. I am prepared, if other members agree, to get this on the record in this manner. It's not a situation where we've had this brief and we've been able to sift through it and analyze it.

The Chair: We have had it, actually.

Mrs. Barnes: I got it just now, as we walked into the room.

The Chair: I got mine two days ago.

Mrs. Barnes: You're very lucky, Mr. Chair, because I got mine as I walked in the door.

The Chair: Then we will have to run the possibility of going to 1 p.m. or 1:30 p.m. and having a steering committee meeting tonight. I don't mind, but.... The brief was distributed well in advance.

Mrs. Barnes: My office did not. I got it as I walked in.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne (Saint-Hubert): In any event, Mr. Chairman, we will be asking for the entire brief to be tabled and included in the record so that everyone can take a look at it.

The Chairman: We intend to include your entire brief as well as the others in the record. I think that two of the briefs were made available to us beforehand. It's just the long brief from the Canadian Public Health... We only received this one this morning. The other two we received in advance. I think we will have an opportunity to bring out in the questioning, since the people have the briefs, any points that were overlooked in the initial presentation.

[English]

Mr. Saint-Onge, if you want to make your conclusions we will move to the other brief. As I say, your brief will be completely printed in the record and we will then have a chance to ask the questions. There will be an opportunity to read these as we go through them.

Have you finished?

[Translation]

Mr. Saint-Onge: Give me a minute and a half.

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Mr. Chairman, concerning subsections 98(2) and 98(3) that I mentioned earlier, I would like to stress that the words ``or such other earlier date as is prescribed'' should be deleted.

To conclude, universal registration of firearms and of their owners is all the more justified that surveys made since 1990 show that the public, especially in Quebec, is in favour of better arms control.

As an example, in the Quebec region in December 1994, 93.9 percent of the population was in favour of a new registration system of all firearms in Canada and of their owners; 79.9 percent of those who keep firearms at home and 96.9 percent of those who do not, agree that all firearms should be registered.

Also 91 percent of the population is in favour of a better control of handguns such as pistols and revolvers. Quebeckers, in particular, are in favour of firearms control, a percentage that is justified by the fact that 68 percent of them fear that a member of their family or themselves might be threatened or traumatised, intentionally or accidentally, by a firearm. They represent the highest percentage in Canada; Ontario comes in second place with 55 percent.

Mr. Chairman, I would however like to add that we're supported by a significant part of the Quebec population. Thank you.

The Chairman: Very well. We'll have questions later on this morning.

[English]

I will now call on the Canadian Public Health Association, Mr. Corber and his colleagues. Although the brief looks imposing, it's not as large as it first was, so you can choose to read parts of it or address parts of it, whatever you think best. We will print the brief as such.

Dr. Corber: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We wrote this with a view to having it completed in 15 minutes, and I will speak to it and around it.

The Chair: All right.

Dr. Corber: We have arranged to have some transparencies on the side that highlight the points. You recommended that we highlight some points and that may assist people rather than reading through the entire brief.

First, I would like to thank you for inviting the Canadian Public Health Association to make a presentation. I'll introduce myself. My name is Steve Corber. I'm a physician. I graduated from McGill University. I did work overseas in family practice. I received my diploma of public health at the University of Liverpool in England and a fellowship in community medicine. I've been working at the Ottawa-Carleton Health Department since 1975 and have been medical officer of health for the Ottawa-Carleton region since 1980. I am also a clinical associate professor at the University of Ottawa Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine in the Health Science Centre, and I'm the scientific editor of the Canadian Journal of Public Health. I'm also on the examining committee of preventive medicine for the Medical Council of Canada and corresponding member for the specialty of community medicine in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Ms Kathryn Tregunna (Canadian Public Health Association): My name is Kathryn Tregunna. I'm a staff person with the Canadian Public Health Association in the national office. I'm responsible for policy development and program development within the national sphere. Public health, as you will see in our brief, encompasses a number of different issues related to violence and public security.

Dr. Corber will present our brief for us and we will both be available for questions afterward.

Dr. Corber: This brief provides an overview of the Canadian Public Health Association's perspective on Bill C-68 as it relates to public health, specifically as it relates to injuries, accidental deaths, suicide, violent crime and domestic homicide. You can see that this is a health-focused presentation.

While representing the Canadian Public Health Association, the chair previously informed the committee that there were numerous groups who wished to make presentations to this committee.

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I would like to indicate that support for this bill has been received by a wide range of health-related organizations and institutions across Canada. As this is the health day before this standing committee, perhaps I could acknowledge the Ministry of Health in Nova Scotia, provincial public health associations throughout Canada, local boards of health - not only Ottawa-Carleton, but Niagara, Calgary, Winnipeg, Surrey, B.C. - the Ontario Council of Suicide Prevention, the B.C. and Alberta Injury Prevention and Control Associations, etc.

Speaking for the Canadian Public Health Association, CPHA is a national, independent, not-for-profit voluntary organization representing public health in Canada, with links to international public health communities. CPHA membership has a wide variety of health disciplines as well as the general public. There are 25 health disciplines, including physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, health educators, health administrators, etc. CPHA's members believe in universal and equitable access to the basic conditions necessary to achieve health for all Canadians. CPHA's mission is to constitute a special national resource in Canada that advocates for the improvement and maintenance of personal and community health according to the public health principles of disease prevention, health promotion and protection, and healthy public policy.

Health determinants are understood to include physical, social, mental, emotional, spiritual and environmental factors. CPHA's role in gun control really relates to issues around personal security, and CPHA has passed numerous motions related to violence. There was a paper prepared in 1994, ``Violence in Society, a Public Health Perspective'', which was forwarded to the Department of Justice and the Solicitor General's office. It recognized that violence is a pervasive and destructive force in society and pledged to advocate for its elimination.

With regard to health policy, in 1992 CPHA issued a paper entitled ``Caring About Health'', which recognized that health care policy is not sufficient. Governments must coordinate overall strategies to protect health in their populations and not just concentrate on health services. In the 1993 annual general meeting the CPHA members approved two resolutions relating to a national injury surveillance system and preventing injuries among the Canadian aboriginal people.

Specifically with relation to gun control, this has been considered by CPHA and debated since 1991. In 1992 CPHA wrote to the Minister of Justice requesting that gun control legislation be reopened for consideration, and this past November, that is November 1994, CPHA's executive board and board of directors made a decision to endorse the Coalition for Gun Control. These activities have shaped CPHA's understanding of violence as a public health issue. Firearms control is an important element in addressing violence and therefore the health and safety of Canadians.

Gun control is a public health issue. CPHA supports the legitimate use of firearms in law enforcement, in military, hunting for food and sporting activities. However, we must recognize that the misuse of firearms outside these legitimate spheres poses a significant social and economic burden on society today. Public health, as the previous speaker mentioned, is concerned about the health of populations and about looking out for what's best for groups of people. Most people in the health care system treat individuals who come to them with a specific health problem. Public health has the opportunity to look after issues that involve our society and to make plans to intervene to prevent health problems. The focus is on populations, proactivity and prevention. The aim is to reduce preventable morbidity, that is injuries or illness, and premature mortality, to have people live as long and healthy lives as is possible.

From the beginning public health has had a partnership with the public. Public health associations and medical officers of health were first hired by town councils to help improve situations in their communities. There's always been a partnership between the professional public health community, politicians and the public in a sense searching for social justice in order to improve health conditions in the community. That continues today.

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Public health has been a leader in improving health conditions ranging from sanitation, immunization, regulations about food, water standards, health standards in occupations, health promotion activities involving attempts to reduce motor vehicle accidents, safety issues, child safety-proof toys and medicine bottles, etc. So public health has been in the forefront of many of the improvements to our health that we see in our community today.

Protecting the general public health has always been a cornerstone of public health, and we must have preventive strategies. In terms of gun control, these strategies are related to injuries and accidental deaths, suicides, violent crime, and domestic homicides.

We have recognized that in order to achieve better health through public health measures education is not enough. This has already been stated by the Quebec delegation. You need a combination of education and legislation. With regard to seatbelts and the reduction of motor vehicle accidents, injuries, and deaths, it's not only about education about safer driving and having better programs to educate people about such conditions. We have designed safer cars, we institute speed limits, and we require people to take driving tests and to renew their licences. It's a combination of the education and the legislation that leads to better outcomes. That's the same approach that's being taken with regard to tobacco use prevention and similarly in numerous other areas, even immunization.

CPHA believes that the majority of gun owners are responsible, but it is a public health issue because irresponsible use and accidental use of firearms do constitute a public health problem. On average, every year in Canada there are over 1,400 firearm-related deaths and over 1,000 firearm-related injuries. Of these 1,400 deaths, approximately 1,100 are suicides, over 200 are homicides, and 50 to 60 each year are what we could term accidents in the sense that they were completely unintentional. All of these are tragic. Many of them could have been and should have been prevented. All of them were unnecessary. CPHA believes that measures are required to prevent these unnecessary human tragedies.

Every year in Canada more than 1,000 people are treated in hospitals for injuries related to firearms. The most severe, of course, require a lifetime of care. Many of them deeply affect the families and individuals. Anyone who knows a family that has experienced a loss due to firearms knows that they have suffered often and greatly and often for a period of many years after the event. Sometimes it's the signal event of the entire life of the family.

The direct medical cost of firearm injuries has been estimated at $60 million per year in Canada, plus another $10 million of public costs due to things such as police investigations. In addition to that, the cost to society of productivity work loss and the quality of life of those who survive firearm injuries and the families of those who lose family members as a result of firearm injuries is considerably greater. People have calculated that to be in the billions of dollars.

The pro-gun lobby has argued that firearm-related injuries and deaths are a problem of urban crime, not an issue for rural communities. Studies in northern Ontario have clearly shown that the rates of firearm injuries and deaths are greater, in fact, in the rural areas than they are in the urban areas.

This is an urban and rural issue, and it has the popular support of the Canadian people. A 1993 Angus Reid national survey found that the majority of Canadians across the country, including gun owners, were in favour of increased control of firearms. Of Canadian adults surveyed, 86% supported a requirement that ensured that rifles and shotguns be registered. So this is an idea whose time has certainly come.

The health toll is very, very high. It's a problem of urban and rural communities. The public wants it. In this day and age we are faced more and more often with news reports of intolerance and impulsive, violent responses to those intolerances. The public needs safety measures to prevent them in this day and age from accidental, inadvertent, impulsive, and intolerant acts.

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So CPHA believes that Bill C-68's contribution to reducing injuries and accidental deaths is great. By requiring registration of all rifles and shotguns, it will allow firearms to be traced back to their owners and ensure that gun owners are held accountable for their weapons. This in turn will encourage safe storage and discourage illegal sales and trading of guns. It will also assist unauthorized access to guns by other family members, friends, and neighbours, and reduced access will decrease the improper use of guns, which can lead to accidental deaths and injuries.

Requiring that purchasers of ammunition provide evidence that they are legal firearm owners before they can make a purchase will reduce access to ammunition by those who do not legally own a gun.

Reducing the number of handguns owned in Canada that are not used in target shooting will reduce inappropriate access and thus misuse.

By the implementation of measures for training programs, the incidence of firearm-related injuries and accidental deaths will also be reduced.

Firearm-related suicides are also a problem. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in youths. That's another tragedy of the public health situation with regard to firearms use, that deaths occur disproportionately among our youth. In 1990, of the 578 suicides in this age category, 15 to 24 years, 38% were committed with firearms.

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found a significant correlation between firearms possession and suicide rates. As has already been indicated, the presence of firearms in the home leads to a five-times greater risk that somebody will die from suicide in that home. Similarly, the presence of firearms in the home doubles the risk of a homicide occurring in that home.

The pro-gun lobby has argued that someone who wants to end their life will find a way to do so. Firearms do not cause people to want to commit suicide or homicide, but they make it easier for them to do that. Often, suicide is the result of a depressive episode that is transitory, resulting in an impulsive act. Guns are more accessible and obviously the lethality of firearms is far greater than other possible methods of suicide. People who use guns to try to commit suicide are much more frequently successful than people who try other methods. Scientific research has shown that suicide is more likely to occur in such a home.

So it's very important to try to reduce suicides by making firearms inaccessible for illegitimate uses. Of course this legislation will do so by encouraging safe storage and registration, as I indicated before, and reducing the number of handguns, because only those that are licensed and registered for legitimate reasons will be available for these impulsive acts.

It will have a similar effect on domestic homicide and violent crime. I should mention that homicide is also usually the result of an impulsive act. It's usually not a result of a criminal activity. Eighty-seven percent of the time it is a sudden burst of anger. In most cases the victim knows the assailant, who is often a spouse. If firearms are more safety stored with less easy access and more responsible gun owner usage, then the use of firearms to settle domestic quarrels, debates and arguments will be much less, and the death rate will be lower.

As I mentioned before, the opponents to Bill C-68 have argued that firearm-related deaths are a problem of urban crime and not a problem for rural areas. I already have mentioned that 50% of homicides in Ontario occur in rural areas, and across Canada the population is relatively urban.

The gun lobby has also argued in favour of gun ownership as an effective means for self-defence. Gun ownership is not an effective means for self-defence. With the presence of a gun in a home, it's 43 times more likely that someone is going to die from an accidental death, from a homicide in the home, or from a suicide than they are likely to use this successfully against a criminal while defending themselves. This is not an effective way to prevent crime. Again, by requiring the registration and encouraging tough measures against criminality, we'll be able to reduce that use.

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Therefore, while the existence of firearms is not the root cause for acts of violence, firearms clearly play a role in carrying out these acts. When firearms are involved in a violent act, the end results are more likely to be fatal. A firearm is the most effective tool for killing, and by reducing careless and inappropriate access to guns, the risk of death and injury will also be reduced. More stringent regulations regarding the purchase, storage, and use of firearms will certainly reduce deaths from firearms in Canada.

CPHA supports Bill C-68 as an important piece of legislation that will increase public health and safety.

With regard to specific elements of the proposed legislation, CPHA recommends that the Government of Canada maintain a firm stand on the issue of universal registration of all firearms, including criminal penalties for willful disregard of registration requirements, and second, that the implementation of the licensing and registration system proposed in the legislation be undertaken without delay.

CPHA hopes these recommendations will assist the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs in its review of Bill C-68, and we commend the Government of Canada for proposing strong legislation that takes a firm stand on gun control.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Corber.

I'll now call on Mr. Therien of the Canada Safety Council to make his presentation. You might introduce the people with you, Mr. Therien.

Mr. Émile Therien (President, Canada Safety Council): Thank you very much,Mr. Chairman. I'm assisted here by Ethel Archard, the manager of marketing and promotion.

I want to thank you for having us appear before your committee here today. I did submit our brief to the clerk previously. I assume that everybody or most people have that, so I'll be very brief.

The Canada Safety Council commends the Hon. Allan Rock for his proposals for greater gun control announced in the House of Commons last November. We wholeheartedly agree that Canadians do not want to live in a society where they feel they need a gun for protection. Most Canadians agree that liberty is maximized through order, not through the right to possess firearms.

Firearms by nature are inherently dangerous consumer products. As such, they must be strongly regulated. The proposed changes will not penalize hunters, farmers, and aboriginal peoples, but they will protect the public.

In the strong opinion of the Canada Safety Council, stricter gun control legislation is a public health concern that impacts safety and mental health as well as crime. The reason we are here is because the Canada Safety Council considers gun control a safety issue that must be addressed by effective legislation. The question must be asked: can legislation really help reduce deaths and injuries?

I would like to give you some other concrete examples from the safety field. First, let's look at fire safety in this country. In the early 1970s over 1,000 Canadians a year died because of fires. The number of deaths fell to 402 in 1992, the latest year for which statistics are available. Legislation was a key factor in this drop, in particular building codes, smoke alarms, and the Hazardous Products Act.

Traffic safety also provides some excellent examples of the effectiveness of legislation, enforcement, and public awareness. Motor vehicle collisions remain the leading cause of accidental death and injury in this country, but since a high of 6,700 in 1973 they have declined to just over 3,000 last year; that is, for 1994. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including driver education, public awareness, seatbelt use, and engineering improvements such as safety features in automobiles and other vehicles.

The use of seatbelts is a case in point. When government mandated seatbelt use, there was an outcry by some that this violated their personal freedom. Indeed, there are still some who feel this way. Yet studies show that a person not wearing a seatbelt is 27 times more likely to die in a crash than a person who is wearing their seatbelt. This is reflected in the drop in fatalities since compulsory seatbelt use came into effect. The alleged infringement on personal freedom was more than compensated for by the large number of lives saved by this very effective legislation, which, I should also note, is also very well enforced by the police.

There has also been a major drop in fatalities involving impaired driving, although impaired driving is still a factor in about 48% of traffic fatalities. However, the problem has changed drastically over the last 20 years. Drinking and driving is no longer socially acceptable. Public education as well as the Criminal Code legislation enforcement have driven home the message. The problem is now focused on the chronic offender.

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We believe there is an analogy with the firearms problem. We know that the most difficult problem is the highly motivated criminal. However, we also know that the problems created by so-called responsible gun owners can be reduced through a combination of legislation enforcement and public education. Firearm death rates are almost as high as motor vehicle deaths. We cannot turn a blind eye to this tremendous problem.

The Canada Safety Council has called for stricter gun control for several years. We have in fact called for a complete ban on handguns. Bill C-68 seems to be a reasonable compromise, but we're asking the committee to ensure that it is not watered down.

The licensing and registration provisions are essential to make sure gun owners are screened and held accountable for guns. We also believe it is critical to ensure that guns are safely stored and that gun owners are compelled to report lost and stolen guns to the authorities. Controls on the sale of ammunition are also critical to serve as barriers to unauthorized and compulsive use of firearms.

We see Bill C-68 as necessary safety legislation comparable to seatbelt laws, laws against drinking and driving, the Hazardous Products Act, building codes and other legislation. It will certainly save lives and prevent injuries, and that is why we support it.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Before we proceed to questioning, because these witnesses have spent considerable time in preparing their briefs - we are hearing the three of them this morning - would the committee not agree that the briefs they have prepared be printed in their entirety in the record of the meeting?

This goes contrary to the general rule. That is why I want the agreement of the committee.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Let us now proceed with the question period. We will start with Mrs. Venne who will have 10 minutes. We'll start with three 10 minute rounds, one for each political party, then, 5 minute exchanges with the Opposition and the government, one after the other.

Mrs. Venne you have 10 minutes.

Mrs. Venne: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.

The Chairman: Since we have six or eight people with us, you may want to address your questions to the person who will be able to answer you.

Mrs. Venne: That's what I was about to do, Mr. Chairman.

My first comment is for Mr. Saint-Onge who submitted the brief he presented at the Regional Health and Social Services Organizations Conference. In recommendation number 2, you suggest to delete in section 98 of the current bill the words ``or at such other ulterior date as is prescribed''. I must point out to you that ``such other earlier date as is prescribed'' is the exact wording used in subsections 98 (1), (2) and (3).

By assuming that it would be an ulterior date, you indicate that you may not have much confidence in the government's eagerness to enforce it. What I simply wanted to point out was that the precise wording is: ``or such earlier date as is prescribed''. I understand that such an amendment could be adopted during the study of the legislation section by section, although I find you are rather patient to wait until 2001 in one case, and 2003 in the other, for the registration of firearms' owners. As far as I'm concerned, I would prefer it to take place a lot earlier.

That being said, my question is aimed at the Canadian Public Health Association as well as to the ``Conférence des Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux''. As you know, there is a rumour about not treating the first infringement of the firearms registration as a criminal offence; in other words, the minister indicated that a more lenient approach could be considered.

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This means actually that if you are caught having failed to register your firearm for the first time, then you might only receive a warning. That is what is being proposed. The second time around, however you could face up to five years in prison, as provided in the legislation as it stands.

I would like to ask you, and in particular the representatives from the Canadian Public Health Association because it is their first recommendation, what you think of the department's proposal because, after all, this is what is on the table. I would also like to know what the representatives from ``la Conférence des Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux'' think about this.

Mr. Saint-Onge: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would first like to respond to Mrs. Venne's comment and say that these issues are well worth the time and effort we are putting into them. We need to prepare the population and that is why we have given them some time to do so.

With respect to the second point she made, I am here this morning with several experts. I would like my colleagues to join me and Mr. Chapdelaine in particular could give a more specific answer to Mrs. Venne.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine (Member of the Canadian Advisory Counsel on Firearms from 1990 to 1993, Centre de Santé publique de Québec, Conférence des Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux du Québec): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me answer Mrs. Venne's first question. I will leave the matter of criminalization to the others.

Our main concern in making this recommendation was to get on with things. In the interest of public health, the faster we act, the better.

Regarding the issues of public security, policing or smuggling, etc, these matters do not fall within our field of expertise. In the interest of public health, we feel it is important that we have the same system from Vancouver to Newfoundland. And the sooner the better, though we should not lose sight of the fact that a uniform system is also in Quebec's best interest.

As far as decriminalization is concerned, the only comment I would make before we hear from my colleagues from the Canadian Public Health Association and the Canadian Safety Council is that this is an issue similar to drinking and driving or wearing a seatbelt. It's important to send a clear message to the public that they have no choice in the matter, that they are not allowed to drink and drive and that they must register their firearms. We need consistency in this respect.

However, when it comes to issues of crime or legal matters, we are not lawyers or economists. We are physicians concerned with public health. We want the message to be clear that registration is not optional.

Mrs. Venne: What you are getting at then is that you do not want any changes to this legislation because you are afraid that people would not take these provisions seriously.

What if we acted - and I think public health officials have made this suggestion - as we would regarding a first offence by a driver to whom a 48 hour notice is now given for a burned out headlight. We ask him to repair the headlight and return to the police station to prove it.

When it comes to firearms, people could be required to register their firearm within 48 hours and present proof of such registration. Do you think that would fit in with what exists in the Code right now, which is after all quite stringent, don't you think?

[English]

Dr. Chapdelaine: Very briefly - but Dr. Corber could answer that - it's important to distinguish a misdemeanour of a light bulb that's out, which is a mistake, from not having registered your firearm.

Dr. Corber: With regard to the question of decriminalizing the first offence, we would not support that. As I've mentioned in our brief, we believe this is a serious public health problem. We have to make sure the message is clear about responsible use of firearms. There are a number of people who say that they will not obey the law, who are reluctant to do that, and we feel that would put the onus on tracking people to make sure they have it registered in the first place.

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The present legislation allows for interpretation. It is possible, if someone is charged, for getting a different sentence, or for police officers investigating and seeing clearly that it's an accident and not laying a charge. This is similar in numerous other areas where police investigate.

But it's possible that someone will have bought 15 guns, had them in their house - and this will be the first offence - and will willfully not be registering. It would be absolutely contrary to the objectives of this legislation to give the impression that this is not serious - to get a licence and to get the firearms registered. It would encourage people to think that for the first offence they don't have to register and it would have the potential of undermining the legislation.

[Translation]

The Chairman: One last question, please.

Mrs. Venne: I will pass for now. My colleagues can ask their questions.

Mr. Crête (Kamouraska - Rivière-du-Loup): I have a question both for la Conférence des Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux and the Canadian Safety Council. The brief presented by la Conférence des Régies régionales is based on the same principles as the Health and Occupational Safety Act. The idea is to nip, as much as possible, the problems in the bud or otherwise, to solve them at other stages.

Taking the example of cigarette smuggling, don't you think that by focusing on one aspect of the problem, you end up defeating the purpose? For several years now there have been ad campaigns to get people to stop smoking and yet the opposite was achieved when taxes on cigarettes went up the roof.

Don't you think that in this case it will cost people so much to register their firearms that they will turn around and refuse to do so and that there will be a public outcry? Take the example of a 63 year old widow who is unaware of the fact that her husband who did a year ago had a firearm in the house. Like many other people she isn't aware of the new regulations and may be liable to a prison term.

Don't you think that could be one of the effects of this legislation? I'm concerned about the statement by the Canada Safety Council that the proposed changes will not penalize hunters, farmers or native peoples, but rather that they will protect the public. That has yet to be demonstrated because the very people who say they feel penalized by these changes are the hunters, farmers and native peoples.

Since Monday it seems that native peoples will be getting special treatment so they're not so badly off, but the others feel penalized by this. Don't you think that we're throwing the baby out with the bath water by bringing in such stringent requirements? That's my question.

Mr. Saint-Onge: Mr. Chairman, the idea was to achieve a happy medium. We are fully aware of the concerns that are raised. Maybe I should let my colleagues answer this because they have done some comparative work in arriving at their numbers. You've raised a very good point but what we need is to find a happy medium.

Dr. Robert Maguire (President, Comité de prévention des traumatismes du Réseau de la santé publique du Québec, Public Health Director, Lower Saint Lawrence, Conférence des Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux): If I may answer this question. Over the years, I think we've seen a number of examples that speak for themselves.

First of all, in Quebec it wasn't compulsory at first to wear a seatbelt. A certain percentage of the population did obey the law, but whenever there is a change like this there are those we call the early adopters and then others who prefer to wait and see.

Then there are those who will obey the law though they don't agree with it.

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Among hunters and the general population, the acceptance level of such measures appears to me to be very high, and I think we must take that into consideration. In that sense, I trust our legislators and those who will be in charge of enforcement. At Nouvelle, in the Gaspé, where I live, and in Rimouski, I don't feel that when my father... That's it, we are neighbours.

My father used to hunt, and, if my mother had left his gun in the corner, I don't think that the Quebec provincial police or the town constables would have thrown him in jail. I trust the police in my area.

Mr. Crête: But no one has ever paid for a seatbelt, for example.

[English]

Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): I want to thank the three groups for their presentation. It's very clear that you have a very deep concern for public health and safety. From the names of your groups we drew that assumption.

A number of groups, or at least two of you, have mentioned other organizations that support Bill C-68. I'd like to ask Mr. Saint-Onge this question. Inasmuch as the Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments oppose the bill and the two territorial governments oppose the bill, and we've had the justice minister of the Northwest Territories appear.... I hope everyone concerned with this bill, particularly those of you who are appearing as witnesses, have watched and followed the witnesses, because there are persuasive arguments on both sides of this question.

Anyway, I would like to ask Mr. Saint-Onge if the Premier of Quebec has taken a public stand on Bill C-68.

Mr. Saint-Onge: What was the end of your question?

Mr. Ramsay: Has the Premier of Quebec taken a stand? Has he publicly stated his support or opposition to the bill or has he remained silent?

[Translation]

The Chairman: If you are aware of that, very well, but you are not the representative of the Quebec Government.

[English]

Mr. Ramsay: I'm asking a question, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Yes, I know, but -

Mr. Ramsay: My question is if they're aware of whether or not the Premier of Quebec has taken a stand. I'm not aware of it.

The Chair: Since they are here representing their safety associations.... They could say whether they are aware. I must say I've followed this very closely and have clipped everything, and I'm not aware of the Government of Quebec officially making a statement.

Mr. Ramsay: No, neither am I.

The Chair: They are not the best witnesses to answer for the Government of Quebec.

Mr. Ramsay: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, they can answer the question according to the knowledge they have on the issue I'm raising. That's all I'm asking.

The Chair: All right.

[Translation]

Mr. Saint-Onge: Mr. Chairman, I am the president of the Conférence des régies régionales, which represents all of the 18 regions of Quebec in matters concerning health and social services management, which means that we are completely independent from government, even though we've been mandated to manage health and social services.

I'm not in touch with the Premier of Quebec so as to know whether the government has taken a stand or not. I think that they are aware of our position and of our recommendations to you this morning, but, beyond that, I don't know. Maybe Mr. Chapdelaine could elaborate on that.

[English]

Mr. Ramsay: That's fine. You mention in your brief a number of causes of deaths. You mention that 400 deaths in Quebec are caused from AIDS. Do you believe there should be mandatory testing for AIDS to reduce the public health and safety risk in Canada for those people who seek immigration to our country? Would you support mandatory testing for that same disease for inmates in our correctional centres?

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[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: On a point of Order, Mr. Chairman. We're talking about firearms, and this isn't a meeting of the health committee on AIDS.

[English]

The Chair: The witnesses were invited here this morning to answer questions on gun control. I'm not going to prevent the witnesses from answering if they wish. It's not completely relevant to the bill, but I see the point Mr. Ramsay's trying to draw an analogy with. But maybe you're not prepared to answer; if that's the case, you don't have to answer.

[Translation]

Mr. Saint-Onge: We deal with the whole issue of public health and we have collected comparative data. Thus, I will let our experts answer the question. Mr. Chapdelaine.

Dr. Chapdelaine: The only reason those comparisons were made was to show that there were health problems such as AIDS and falls among the elderly and children which are just as important public health problems, in terms of numbers of deaths and numbers of days in hospital, as are injuries involving guns.

The major reason we made those comparisons was naturally by far to state our position on deaths and injuries involving firearms, since we could have made them in a much more relevant forum for blood contamination or for the best ways to prevent the flesh eating bacteria; otherwise, I don't see any other reason for such comparisons.

[English]

Mr. Ramsay: I would like to ask Mr. Corber my next question. From your studies, would you tell the committee what you have found to be the reduction in the incidence of suicides and domestic incidents involving firearms since the introduction of Bill C-17?

Dr. Corber: In Canada there has been a noted reduction in firearm-related deaths due to previous legislation. Certainly compared with the United States, that holds true. I'd have to look up the particular reference, but we've certainly had that information, that the first bill has been effective in helping reduce firearm deaths.

In other jurisdictions, particularly Washington, D.C., where they introduced rather strict legislation against improper use of handguns, homicides and suicides were each reduced by 23% to 25% in that area, whereas the surrounding areas of Virginia and Maryland had no reduction.

So there is evidence in Canada with regard to gun control measures and regulation and legislation in general with regard to other health issues that these can make a difference. It won't solve all the problems. It won't make people get along better with each other necessarily, but it will reduce the fatal outcomes.

Mr. Ramsay: I wanted you to address the question I asked you, and that was whether you have any knowledge to share with the committee as to the reduction of these incidents following Bill C-17. The Auditor General in his 1993 report showed clearly that the reduction of these incidents occurred early in 1970 before the first gun control bill was introduced. So what I'm seeking from you is any information you might have that these incidents have been reduced as a direct result of legislation not unlike what we're contemplating now.

Dr. Corber: In Canada Bill C-51 was implemented in 1977 to restrict the use of firearms, which allowed us to study the effects somewhat of the gun control laws on the use of firearms for suicide. There was a study published in Psychological Reports in 1993 by David Lester and Antoon Leenars, suicide experts acknowledged throughout Canada, entitled ``Suicide Rates in Canada Before and After Tightening Firearm Control Laws''. It examined the use of guns for suicide during the period prior to the bill and during the period after the passing of Bill C-51. An analysis showed a significant decreasing trend after the passage of Bill C-51 on the firearms suicide rate in Canada and on the percentage of suicides using firearms.

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So there's one study. It's the one I'm aware of in Canada that was related, and it's the one I was referring to at the beginning of my remarks.

Mr. Ramsay: I thank you for that.

However, Bill C-17 brought in the safe storage law whereby everyone has to have their firearms stored safely. I'm asking you if you know of the impact that has had in the area of suicide reduction or in the reduction of incidents involving domestic disputes where firearms are involved. That's my direct question.

Dr. Corber: My specific answer is that I'm not aware of studies that have looked at that particular issue. I believe that safe storage is extremely important in the reduction of adverse health effects due to firearms, and I think that legislation was incomplete. It pointed out that requiring safe storage in and of itself was not sufficient. That's part of the reason, I believe, for the requirement now for registration and licensing, because it's very difficult to enforce safe storage or to be serious about safe storage if you don't even have to have licences or registration or if the law enforcement agencies don't know how many guns there are, where they are, and what kinds of guns they are. So I think it has been demonstrated to us that to be effective it needs more than solely safe storage.

Mr. Ramsay: We've had the registration of handguns for 60 years in this country.

How much time is there left?

The Chair: This will be your last question this round. As you know -

Mr. Ramsay: That sounds ominous to me, Mr. Chairman. I'll pass, and I'll come back.

The Chair: Before I go to Mrs. Barnes, I should point out - maybe many of you know this - that Bill C-17 dealt not only with safe storage but also with improvements in the firearms acquisition certificate and the 30-day delay in acquiring the certificate. That bill was the third bill on gun control that I've dealt with since coming to Parliament, and this is the fourth, each one making the law more stringent than previously. So there has been a continuum of gun control bills. As I say, this is the fourth one since 1960.

Did you have some information in answer to Mr. Ramsay's question?

Dr. Chapdelaine: Yes. I find your question to be important, but the answer is very long because you are addressing an important factor in how science is done.

Obviously there are studies that will show the contrary. In science we call what you're referring to as a time series: you look at a certain time before, you look at the introduction of something at a point in time, and then you look at a certain time after. It is extremely misleading to infer any conclusions on anything on the basis of one or two or three years. Usually, science and time series statistics have to have a good load of years before, and you must also control for other factors. That's how we study, for example, the efficacy of drugs.

Now, I don't want to get into the technicalities of the question, but there is no doubt -

The Chair: We're listening to the witness.

Continue, please. Carry on and finish your answer. Then we'll go to the next questioner. There was too much talking going on around the room.

Dr. Chapdelaine: That's essentially my answer.

What is very important also is that a law creates an atmosphere that is favourable to education. If those who have the most contact with the owners of firearms in this country had picked up on these important elements of safe storage, as you were referring to, and had informed their members of that aspect, underscoring the importance for the safety of their families and the reputation of the general firearms owners to do such a thing, it would have been extremely useful.

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Mr. Ramsay: Can I use that last question that you said I had?

The Chair: No. You usually have two or three chances -

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, it's not fair when he has made a comment that.... I would like just one question -

The Chair: I know, but you know that the custom in the committee is that we give up to your time limit to ask the questions, and we allow the witness to go over the time in answering. But you will have other questions, Mr. Ramsay. You always get -

Mr. Ramsay: I will have that one, for sure. Thank you.

The Chair: Okay. I have to be fair to all the members, and there are 15 members.

Mrs. Barnes.

Mrs. Barnes: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome. I want to thank you for excellent reports and the fact that you also brought excellent bibliographies and references to your reports so that we could do further work. I certainly appreciate that.

I want to start off with a question that is fairly general and that I hear all the time. What do you say to the mantra that guns don't kill, people do?

Mr. Therien: I haven't seen any replays of All in the Family for a long time, so....

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Therien: People kill. I could give you an example. I was in New York City last week, and I attended a world traffic safety symposium with some of the top people in the world. We made presentations on some of our traffic safety legislation in this country. We were applauded. Some of our traffic safety legislation is foremost in the western world. Look at our seatbelt usage in this country. We're up to 90%, 92%, and 95% in some areas.

Getting back to Mr. Ramsay's question, I guess your question was does legislation work. You talked about Bill C-17. Six or seven years ago there was a challenge to the seatbelt legislation in Alberta. The law was really thrown out for a year. Eventually there was a challenge to that or whatever - I'm not a lawyer - and all of a sudden the law was back in place, and usage went up to 87%. Now it's almost over 90%. So legislation works. People comply.

The Chair: What about Mrs. Barnes's question?

Mr. Therien: I think people kill, and guns are the means they use to kill.

Dr. Corber: People without guns injure people. People with guns kill people. I think the risk of a fatal outcome when you're using a gun to resolve a dispute or an argument is many, many times higher than if you don't have a gun to resolve that dispute.

[Translation]

Dr. Maguire: We could also compare the success rate for suicide attempts by men or by women. Women more often use pills which can also kill. Still, the real issue is that, of all those means that can be used, the final and tragic nature of using a gun forces us to give special attention to firearms.

The last time we met you - Mr. MacLellan was present - we were accompanied by a young man, Eric Sirois, who told us what had happened to him. He had survived a suicide attempt. If he'd used a 12-gauge shotgun instead of a .22 rifle, he wouldn't have been there. When we met him, he was blind.

This goes to show that we must exercise caution when we use that sort of argument. These means exist, and they are lethal. We see the kind of problems that they can cause in emergency rooms.

You were saying earlier that we've been working on ways to improve the situation since 1971. I'm sometimes tempted to ask members of Parliament to conduct a coroner's inquest, for example, in order to witness first hand the kind of problems caused by firearms. Public health officials are appearing with that perspective in mind.

We are unable to solve this problem. You have the wherewithal to do it. When I can prescribe an antibiotic, I have an answer. But I cannot prescribe an antibiotic to solve the problem of suicides, homicides and violence involving firearms. It's there that I think it's important that you take whatever measures are necessary and that you agree to assume such responsibilities as you've been invested with. As far as I'm concerned, I cannot legislate.

Public health officials have been coming to you for a long time to ask you to do something about this issue. If we could do it, if we had a handle on the solution, we wouldn't be here: we would have solved the problem ourselves.

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[English]

If we were able to do something, if we had the solution we wouldn't be here, we would have solved it ourselves.

Mrs. Barnes: Money is tight in government these days, as it is in health care costs.

Many opponents of the gun control legislation, as well as a lot of thinking Canadians out there who are concerned about debts and deficits and unemployment, say that this is an area in which we don't have to spend money; in fact, this is a very expensive use of government funds. What's your reaction to those people?

Dr. Corber: We are spending money in these areas. We're spending $70 million a year intervening and treating people who are injured or who require medical care or police investigation following an injury or death due to firearms. So we are spending the money. That does not include work productivity lost through injury recovery or someone who dies having to be replaced, or family pain and dysfunction following that. So we're spending lots more than the $85 million over five years that it has been estimated this program would spend. I think this is an extremely good investment.

In public health in prevention, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Here we're dealing with prevention, and this is an excellent investment.

Mrs. Barnes: I hear all the time about certain western provinces and certainly our Northwest Territories are saying that this legislation shouldn't apply to them because they are different. What's different about the west and the north? The things I see that are different are the different levels of firearm deaths, suicides and accidents. But what else is different?

Dr. Corber: I think that's rather unfortunate. As you've mentioned, the rate of deaths related to firearms in Alberta is 50% higher than it is in Ontario, and in Saskatchewan it's 40% higher.

We're not talking about irresponsible people or about criminals. These are the areas where we need the gun control legislation. These are the areas in which, if it is responsibly applied, it will help reduce their public health problems and allow them to continue to hunt, target shoot and collect their firearms.

So I think this legislation is helpful. As Dr. Maguire has stated, it's our role to bring this information to you. I think it's the role of legislators to support it and to show leadership in those areas - not because you or we are trying to harm people, not because we're trying to take away people's rights, but we're trying to help them live longer and have more productive and enjoyable times...so that those people with guns won't suffer as a result of having them.

I think these areas need the legislation at least as much as other areas do.

Dr. Chapdelaine: I understand that your question is also due to the fact that you will be meeting with some high officials of those provinces that have high death levels. Also, an interesting thing to look at is whether in what they will be telling you they really represent the public opinion of their province.

If you look at the polls that were done in certain provinces where apparently there is a lot of noise that they don't want it, the polls are extremely favourable, including gun owners. I have in mind Alberta, which was 83% in favour of registration of hunting guns. So I think it's a question you will be glad to ask the representatives of those provinces.

Mrs. Barnes: That's true.

Dr. Chapdelaine: In the health milieu, our colleagues in Calgary and Edmonton are extremely favourable for public health reasons that we're trying to explain to you.

Mrs. Barnes: I am an MP from Ontario and yesterday we had - and you will probably see shortly - the results of a poll done in Ontario on attitudes toward gun control. I think some people will be surprised by those results.

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Please just elaborate for me on that. This is an area where I know MPs from those areas have problems, because some of the arguments given in different areas of the country are similar to those that concern members from areas of northern Ontario.

Mr. Therien: In my presentation I have an appendix A, and it refers to that study that was done in the north. The figures in there are very valid.

Mrs. Barnes: Could you just put some of them on record for me, please?

Mr. Therien: They are on record. Let me get to it.

This is northeastern Ontario, classification of homicides and suicides, in total, per 100,000 of population - northeastern Ontario, Ontario overall and the United States. The figure for accidents caused by guns per 100,000 population in northeastern Ontario was 42 per 100,000; overall in Ontario it was 22 per 100,000; in the United States it was 39.5 per 100,000.

The figure for suicides in northeastern Ontario is 15.1 per 100,000; overall in Ontario, 8.2; and in the United States, 12.8, almost 13%. Homicides: 2.7 per 100,000 population in northeastern Ontario; Ontario overall, 1.9; United States, 9.

Mrs. Barnes: I guess we're getting the flavour of it. You're right: it is on record.

Mr. Therien: Yes, you're right and it is on record.

Mrs. Barnes: We always compare with the United States. I am wondering whether you, as health officials, have any international comparisons for us, say with countries that have stricter gun control legislation than we have. England is a good example.

Mr. Therien: I don't know if we have exact records. I think it's well known in countries with stricter gun control legislation, such as Australia, Japan, England and some western European countries. I don't know about previous eastern Europe. But certainly the instances of death and injuries caused by firearms are many fewer than in the United States and Canada on a per capita basis. I think that's a well-accepted international fact.

Dr. Chapdelaine: Before Steve Corber finds the answer to your question, I just wanted to say that it's not only in Ontario that there was a study of the difference between rural and urban areas.

One of the things that got me interested in the subject in 1989, far before Polytechnique occurred, was a study we did comparing the Quebec region with Chaudières-Appalaches, which is a very rural area of Quebec. There was really a great difference. What really surprised me was that we weren't even looking for firearms; we were looking at the means, the instruments that were used in suicides. So we had to put all those that existed, including strangulation, carbon monoxide, medication and firearms. What we realized was that in rural Chaudières-Appalaches the rates were far higher than the rates in the Quebec region, which is more urban.

The suicidology association of Canada will be presenting evidence here. They did the same sorts of studies in the Chicoutimi area. So you have confirmation at least in two provinces, but I'm sure in others as well.

Dr. Corber: I have found the reference to that. In a typical year in the United States the gun-related accidental rates are approximately four times higher and gun-related suicide twice as high and robberies three times higher.

To answer your specific question, in 1990 handguns were used to murder 13 people in Sweden, 87 in Japan, 22 in Great Britain, 91 in Switzerland, 10 in Australia, 68 in Canada and 10,567 in the United States. Those are embassy and foreign crime report statistics.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: I would now like to talk about the economic costs that you mention here, as representatives of the Conférence des Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux you refer to the annual economic costs that are related to the improper use of firearms. According to you, they are estimated in Canada at 6.695 billion canadian dollars in 1993.

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Could you elaborate on those figures?

Mr. Saint-Onge: I'll leave that to our experts. Of course it's relative. It's a good idea to have a complete explanation.

Dr. Maguire: This is a study by professor Ted Miller from the University of Baltimore. Of course what is important in these studies is the cost attributed to a human life. I think professor Miller's calculations were based on a life being worth $4 million. That's one of the only such studies we are aware of and that is why we referred to it.

Now, if you decide that a human life is worth about $1 million, you nonetheless end up with quite significant figures, in the $1.4 billion range.

As Dr. Corber has pointed out repeatedly, there are direct costs but also very high indirect costs associated with injuries and deaths by shooting. It's important to remember that whether a person dies in a road accident or is shot to death, once he or she is dead... Take for instance the very high cost associated with a 25 year old who has gone to university and all that, I don't think that these are the true costs.

What we feel is very important but have as yet been unable to calculate precisely - though some have done it for road injuries - are the social costs of a death. Consider the social costs of the death of a mother of three children. Members of the family will be incurring life long costs as a result of that death. That is how we arrive at this sort of figure.

I don't think there's much point in arguing over figures. I would agree on $200,000 or $300,000. Name any figure you like. But it is important that as a society we evaluate the cost of a human life. Obviously, as physicians, we see how much these costs are when we deal with people at the hospital. You can arrive, in this context, at the figure you like, but the cost is very high. Fourteen hundred persons are shot to death every year and these 1,400 individuals were not cut off from society, they have families, they have children. Perhaps one day we'll be able to put a figure on that. People are dogged by problems throughout their lives.

Mrs. Venne: Before I get to my second question, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to continue along the same line as Ms. Barnes, who was saying that it isn't the person who kills, but the firearm. To be consistent with this reasoning, I would add that it isn't the firearm but rather the ammunition that kills.

Now, with respect to my other question, the Minister raised several issues, including owners of prohibited handguns passing them on to their children. As you know, some handguns are banned, but may remain in circulation among people who already have them, people of the same type, if I may say so. I don't know what you would call these people, but they will be able to exchange what are in fact prohibited handguns. They will be able to sell them or exchange them but that is all. That is what is stated in the bill. This is allowed as long as the person is alive, but once he or she dies, the prohibited firearm must be handed in to the authorities.

We have to consider whether these prohibited handguns should be passed on to the children. Do you agree with that or do you think that they should all be withdrawn right now? That of course is what I think.

Mr. Saint-Onge: Do you put an age limit on that?

Mrs. Venne: No. You would be allowed to keep that weapon until you die. Are you talking about those who would inherit it?

Mr. Saint-Onge: Yes.

Mrs. Venne: Well for the children... I should think that... Well, in any case in order to own a firearm you have to be 18 years old, otherwise I would think a ward would be responsible for it.

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Dr. Chapdelaine: Thank you for your comments on ammunitions. The terms you used are the same as in public health. When you work on a problem, it is not enough to focus on the victim only. You also have to focus on the cause, that is the force produced by the bullet; on the means, that is the firearm and the bullet, and also on the circumstances surrounding those events, whether the action was deliberate or non intentional. It is a very good point as far as public health is concerned.

Mrs. Venne: Yes, but we want you as experts to give us your opinion.

Dr. Chapdelaine: In terms of points 25 and 32 concerning hand guns, those very small firearms can be held in the palm of your hand. It is important to look at the literature with as much attention as possible and to distinguish studies that were poorly done from ones that are better done. That was the purpose of my comment to Mr. Ramsay. But also, to look at the new things that have come up, there was a report done by a violence and research prevention centre in California recently that looked at the problem of Saturday night specials. That is what they call them in that report. It was done by a colleague physician who was trained at Johns Hopkins with me. He came out with results on those firearms.

[English]

I must distinguish between calibres that can be used in certain Olympic or top competitions and the cheap - and I mean cheap, I don't mean inexpensive - and inexpensive firearms that circulate very much in the United States. I think that report should be read by people who will have to take the decision that remains in your hands, because 62% of all crimes in the United States where the gun was traced back to the type of gun were of that calibre.

One of my colleagues in Johns Hopkins calls these small, cheap, inexpensive and ineffective and inaccurate guns the starter sets for school kids. They are so inexpensive that you can put them in your pocket in New York or elsewhere and if the student notices a metal detector before entering the school - since the situation calls for metal detectors in United States schools - the gun can be dumped into a nearby trash can. If the gun is no longer in the trash can when the person leaves, they can simply buy another one.

We wanted to bring before you the facts that exist with certain problems, for you to decide because of your situation. The art of living for you is to make adequate guesses, sometimes with inadequate evidence, but here you have better and better evidence.

The Chair: We would like to get a copy of that report you referred to, the one you said all of us should read - not that you might have it today, but if you could give us a citation or give it to us at the end of the meeting the clerk will take steps to get it.

Dr. Chapdelaine: It refers to citation 30 of the brief. It's called ``The Handgun-makers of Southern California''. It was published in Sacramento, California, by the violence prevention research program there. I think it is available for a cost of $10 or so.

[Translation]

Ms Torsney (Burlington): Thank you very much. I'm very glad I read your brief since it is very interesting, especially when it deals with the real costs to our society. I guess there has been lots of exploration by my colleagues, and certainly that was something I was going to explore in greater detail. I am pleased that you have justified the cost of $85 million over and over and over again this morning, and spending it over and over again.

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[English]

Some of the information you presented this morning shows that there's an increased likelihood of suicide if there are guns in people's homes. One of the particularly interesting things mentioned was the fact that in the United States, where women are arming themselves for self-protection, they are increasingly committing suicide with guns, or trying to do so. What is the connection? Is this part of a society that is becoming more violent where people can't cope? What are the real reasons this is occurring?

Before you answer, because I will probably end up running out of time, I have to say to you,Mr. Therien, that the second paragraph of your submission was particularly important to me, because I think this legislation comes at a time when Canadians are increasingly adopting the mentality, at least in some parts of the country, about needing a gun for self-protection. I was pleased to see that your group believes, as I do, that liberty is maximized through order and not through the right to possess firearms.

Can all three groups elaborate a little bit more on that, particularly Dr. Maguire, who had some comments on suicides and why they are occurring?

Dr. Therien: The Canada Safety Council is...[Inaudible - Editor]...by experts, so they know.

Dr. Chapdelaine: The whole perspective of public health is on accessibility. When you have access to a very lethal means of suicide or homicide, you have more deaths. That's coming into perspective when you know that there are firearms called ladysmiths being marketed in the United States. They are marketed towards women. They are light, small and pretty so women can put them in their sac du soir. The access to that showed us several things in studies. One is that more suicides are done with firearms, which is not the preferred means of most women on the planet, for reasons I won't get into.

The question is, is it really a good defence? Saturday night specials are not a good defence. There is no doubt about that. I am not the one who is saying this. It is an independent journal called Gun Test that tests guns and doesn't take publicity. They have repeatedly called that type of firearm inaccurate and dangerous. Just to give you an idea, the metal is so poor that they don't even squash the metal, because it deteriorates the metal of other parts.

In terms of protection, one of the studies showed that when a woman uses a gun there are more chances that she will be killed or that the gun will be turned against her. One of the things we did not quote is that policemen are often killed by their own guns. If a policeman weighing 80 kilograms is unable to keep control of his gun, then I wonder what's going on with women.

That's the basis of our preoccupation with this whole question of this un-Canadian way of seeing guns as being a means of self-protection.

Ms Torsney: But why if I have a gun in my house am I more likely to want to commit suicide?

Dr. Corber: You are not necessarily more likely to want to commit suicide. It is more likely that suicide is going to be completed, traditionally.

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Historically, women attempt suicides far more frequently than men do. But men complete suicide much more frequently than women do. That's because historically women take pills when they try to commit suicide and men shoot themselves. The availability of guns in the house.... As I was trying to point out in the CPHA brief, it's the easy access. When a person gets into a transient state of depression and feels a compulsion to do something about it and there is a gun in the house, you are more likely to have a suicide. It's not that the gun encourages you to be depressed. The gun is not the root cause of the problem, but the gun is responsible for the fatal outcome.

The Chair: You are saying guns are more successful than taking pills.

Dr. Corber: I don't like to use the word ``successful'' when we're talking about suicide. I use the word ``completer''.

Dr. Chapdelaine: There was something we didn't include in our brief because it came out very recently, one week ago. It is a study done by the centre for disease control and prevention of the army people in Atlanta.

People are saying that suicide rates are higher in Canada than in the United States. This is true. But they were looking at suicides for 10- to 14-year-olds and it has doubled; 65% of those suicides are done with guns. In Canada suicides with guns are closer to 30%. In the United States 65% of suicides are done with guns and in that age group it has doubled. Also, in that age group when the person is black, it has quadrupled in the last few years. So it is really a question of ready access to firearms.

There's another strange thing that we found in the difference of the epidemiology in Canada compared to that of the United States. How come in Canada suicides by means of firearms are not done with handguns? Handguns are so much easier to use than long guns. That's a fact. In the United States the majority of suicides are done with the easiest means because they are extremely available. They are not registered.

Mr. Therien: Dr. Chapdelaine made reference to the fact that about eight or nine years ago a lot of the gun companies came out with a line of guns that were for females. I should also tell you that eight or nine years ago the gun manufacturers in the United States were in serious financial trouble. That was really a marketing opportunity. It was not because they were particularly concerned about the safety of females in that country. That whole issue was driven by the NRA, who at that time opened their membership to females.

Ms Torsney: Do you mean that they didn't allow females before that?

Mr. Therien: It was a boys' club.

Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): I want to deal with the penalty aspects of this legislation. You've said that you wanted to have teeth in this legislation and that's why you feel it is important to have a criminal aspect on a first charge of non-compliance.

You yourselves have used the comparison of educational things such as seatbelt legislation and drinking and driving. Why did you, in those instances, not feel it was necessary for non-compliance to be a criminal charge? To my knowledge, driving without a seatbelt is not a criminal offence. Drinking is not a criminal offence; even though it's probably a major cause of suicide and homicide with firearms, it's not a criminal charge. Why do you feel that in this instance first-time non-compliance should be a criminal charge?

You also say that you think this legislation should have teeth. Do you feel the criminal charges, the penalties in this particular legislation, have teeth? Do you feel that for a person who chooses to use a gun instead of choking or smothering another individual and is charged with manslaughter a minimum of four years in prison is a sufficient penalty? Do you feel this gives this legislation teeth?

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Mr. Therien: Impaired driving is a Criminal Code offence. There are 600,000 Criminal Code offences in this country, and about 137,000 of them are impaired driving charges. To say it's not a criminal offence.... I don't really see where you're coming from.

Ms Meredith: Is drinking a criminal offence?

The Chair: It's not -

Ms Meredith: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: I have a point of order. I just wanted to clarify that the control of seatbelts and the sale of liquor is a provincial matter. I just wanted to say that here in Ottawa we can't legislate on the sale of liquor, nor can we legislate on seatbelts. However, you may answer the question.

Dr. Chapdelaine: Can you legislate, as you did, on drinking and driving? Under Crosbie it was done, and it was made a criminal offence.

The Chair: Criminality we can legislate on.

Dr. Chapdelaine: I appreciate Ms Meredith's question.

Am I to understand you're suggesting that as legislators you might be able to criminalize the use of a gun when under the influence of alcohol? That could be a very interesting formula, as was used for motor vehicles and alcohol use.

Ms Meredith: What I am suggesting for clarification is that when you are talking about criminal use of a vehicle or criminal use of alcohol, yes. But we're not talking about criminal use. We're talking about non-compliance with a regulation, which would be non-compliance with a regulation to use a seatbelt. Non-compliance of other regulations is not a criminal offence.

In this legislation we are talking about making non-compliance with a regulation a criminal offence, which has a large impact. These individuals would not be allowed to go outside of the country. They would not be admitted to another country. It may have job implications. I am talking about your suggestion that a criminal charge for first-time non-compliance with a regulation gives it teeth, is important. Yet you don't feel the same for seatbelts, drinking, or smoking - all the other health issues that are an enormous cost to our system and that cause enormous numbers of deaths. You're not implying that we should bring in a criminal element to those kinds of usage.

Dr. Corber: It seems to me that when you make the judgments about legislation and penalties you have to balance a number of issues. What is it that's going to get the behaviour or the effect you would like as a result of the law? You have an objective here, and our objective, of course, is to reduce unnecessary morbidity and premature mortality, as I mentioned. We have a vast majority of the population that's in favour of gun control, including the gun owners. The opposition is small, but very vocal and adamant, even proclaiming in some cases that they would ignore the legislation. I think in those situations you have to make judgments.

As I mentioned in response to a previous question, it seems to me that you run the risk of really watering down the legislation if you say that the first offence is not a criminal act. In this particular situation, with a small percentage, 15% or something like that, who have to change behaviour, my sense is that if I were looking at that balance scale, I'm comfortable with what I've said and recommended. I can't really go much further than that.

Ms Meredith: For any of the ten serious crimes that are committed with the use of a firearm, it's a minimum four-year sentence for the courts to consider. Now, unless there are aggravating circumstances, they generally look at the minimum sentence. Do you not feel that four years is watering down the penalty for the criminal use of firearms?

Dr. Corber: I think there are other studies that would deal with whether the effect of a sentence is a deterrent in particular instances. At this point, from what I've heard in this particular situation, I feel that decriminalizing the first offence would encourage or at least allow people to feel much more easy. Very many people who would otherwise register their guns and be licensed and safely store them will be tempted not to do any of those things, and it will seriously undermine the objectives of this legislation.

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Ms Meredith: But you have no problems with -

Dr. Corber: Well, I didn't talk about my -

Ms Meredith: - criminals going out and using firearms and us not having any deterrent for their criminal use.

Dr. Corber: I have lots of problems with other things. I haven't really studied that particular issue, so I wouldn't really comment on that.

In relation to this legislation, I feel that what's proposed is an appropriate balance, with the enforcement officer who investigates of course having the discretion, as they do in enforcing any legislation and regulations, as to how far to proceed with charges, etc. I think that's where the judgment would come in, not at the outset, indicating to everyone that we think that if you don't register it, it's not that serious.

Ms Phinney (Hamilton Mountain): Mr. Saint-Onge, in your report you talk about the fact that 13,000 prohibition orders are made annually in Canada to take guns out of the hands of individuals who are a danger to society or themselves. Do you feel that the access to information to make these prohibition orders is easy enough for the people doing it? Should more things be added to it, such as a person's mental health, disability, etc.? Is there enough access to this information?

Do the rest of you have any comments about that?

Dr. Chapdelaine: We don't have the expertise to tell you about the process of delivering, for example, acquisition certificates in the past and the process now, hopefully, of delivering possession licences. But there are a certain number, and in Quebec we have been extremely careful about that. I'm talking about the Sûreté du Québec, the police in Quebec. We have been very careful in trying to screen people who will be given a firearm, or the right to buy one, in the past, or the right to possess one, hopefully soon.

Those factors include more than just looking at his criminal record. They also include looking at the person's mental stability, etc. Several questions are asked that we think are appropriate. What Quebec does with more vigour is get information from the entourage, the community in which the person lives, including his wife or her husband and other people who really know the person, on top of the two signatures. That's one thing.

There are dangerous people who are convicted. Sometimes they are not convicted, but it's reported that they are violent to their spouse or other people. In those instances there's a prohibition order. But I wouldn't like to be a policeman and have to enforce those things with the lack of information we have. If we had as little information on who's sick with, let's say, the flesh-eating disease, we would really be out to lunch as far as working seriously on those things is concerned.

In the case of policemen, presently they don't have access to essential intelligence to be able to protect society by making sure that a person who is dangerous and who has a prohibition order from the court cannot buy new ones, cannot keep those that he has hidden, and so forth. That's where registration comes in.

The other thing is that those prohibition orders are not issued against hardened criminals. What I mean is that all this family violence we see in our emergency rooms and that police have to go regularly to homes to deal with does not involve an ordinary person who has always been okay and all of a sudden loses some control. Those people will not have any reason to have registered their guns, and it would just protect them.

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Ms Phinney: In this bill they have added the necessity that if you want to buy ammunition you must have what would now be your FAC but will be your firearm licence, I think. How do you feel about that?

Dr. Corber: I think that's very important. I think it's another protection against buying ammunition for a weapon that has been stolen. Stolen guns are still a major problem, so I think that's a very good and well-thought-out idea.

Mr. Therien: That was brought to light with the Battersby killing in Ottawa where young people stole a rifle and went to a large retailer to buy the ammunition. They were all of 15 or 16 years old.

Dr. Chapdelaine: There's a principle in public health that is common sense that everybody can understand, and it's an important one. When we have a problem such as firearm injuries or deaths, if we're dealing with accidents and children, for example - there are children who are very tall - it's better to child-proof guns than to try to gun-proof all children, because humans make mistakes. So that principle is important.

If the firearm is not accessible because it's well stored with a trigger lock, etc., the child won't be able to have access to it. But we've discovered in Quebec that one-third of all firearm owners don't store them at all well, and they're extremely accessible to even their children; they admit it in our study. Then if they have access to ammunition, that's our second protection. But if they can just go into a shop and say ``My dad needs a pack of cartridges'', and the guy even knows the father and says ``Okay, go ahead'', there you really have a problem.

I was talking about children. I come back to the fact that boys will always be boys, but when they grow up the only difference is the price of their toys.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Crête.

Mr. Saint-Onge: Mr. Chairman, this issue brings out two questions. The first one is about control. Licencing allows better control. Also, the person who owns a firearm has to face the whole issue of accountability. To me, it's absolutely essential.

Mr. Crête: First, I would like to say that I would prefer that my children learn how to use firearms properly later on in life, in the same way they will have to learn how to control their alcohol consumption or how to drive a car, rather than hide them away from all this and let them suddenly discover reality at 18.

My question is directed to all organizations. Does it seem acceptable to you that there would be two different categories of users, on the one hand people who would pay for the licence and on the other, people who would not have to pay the fees because they use firearms to earn a living? In your opinion, is this going to contribute to or prevent us from meeting the objective? Is this essential to reaching the goal?

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Dr. Chapdelaine: Mr. Crête, as far as your comment on children education is concerned, I think that the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive and that they even support each other. The proposed legislation gives us the possibility to better focus the curriculum and also to target the appropriate people.

I now have to tell you a rather unfortunate medical story that was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine by a physician from California.

Mr. Crête: I find that briefs usually contain a high proportion of American examples and very few examples from Quebec and Canada.

Dr. Chapdelaine: When Dr. Pouliot came to testify, he told you about the man from your own riding in Rivière-du-Loup who had shot himself in the face. I think we are surrounded by examples such as this.

Mr. Crête: But 90 percent of the negative examples we find in the reports are excerpted from American statistics.

[English]

Dr. Chapdelaine: There are quite a lot of statistics from Canada and Quebec, including your own riding.

The story goes that a surgeon comes out of the emergency room, having to announce to the parents that their child is dead from a gun. The wife breaks into tears, which is a normal reaction, and the father is extremely mad. Outright, he says, ``I'm an NRA man;'' - I want you to know this before I tell you something - ``the stupid kid, I taught him not to touch guns''. That's why I used an American example. I don't think there is anybody who can think this way in Canada. It's a question of mentality.

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: This is a very biased example. You know, doctor, that this is recorded and published.

[English]

Dr. Corber: With regard to your question about costs, the essential part of this legislation is to get everyone licensed and have all their weapons registered. If people can't afford it, then it's up to the government to make some accommodation. The accommodation is not that they wouldn't have to register or get a licence; it is that maybe they wouldn't have to pay so much. We shouldn't have disincentives to licence. We should make it easier to licence and to register rather than harder if there's any problem. The objective, all the way through this, is the incentives should be to license and register. That's the same reason we're talking about criminalization, but also costs. If it's too expensive for people, we don't want to lose the potential of the legislation because some people find it too expensive.

Mr. Therien: The point has been made that some of the negative examples we seem to draw are from the United States. I think that's a fair comment. I recall some of the marvellous things we've done in terms of safety legislation, and the results are used widely by Americans as models. So it goes both ways.

Mr. Wappel (Scarborough West): Perhaps we can talk about Canada during my five minutes and stay away from the U.S.

I'd like to address my questions to Mr. Therien. On the first page of your comments you make the statement that the use of handguns in gun-related homicides has increased from an average of 34% in the 1980s to 52% in 1992. This is despite the fact that handguns have been registered for 60 years. This is despite the fact that, as we heard from our chairman, this is the fourth bill to tighten regulations. Notwithstanding that handguns have been registered for 60 years and that the controls are tightening, you tell us that the misuse of handguns continues to rise.

Mr. Therien: It's probably a function of the fact that a lot of these handguns illegally come in from the United States. You can go to Detroit and buy what Dr. Chapdelaine referred to, $29, $39, and $49 Saturday night specials and bring them to Toronto, and they sell them for $400 or $500 on the street.

Mr. Wappel: How will registration stop that?

Mr. Therien: It's an organized crime and it's a drug problem.

Mr. Wappel: How will registration lower those statistics?

The Chair: We have to get the questions and answers on the record, so I would ask people not to interrupt.

Mr. Wappel, ask your question.

Mr. Wappel: How will registration lower those statistics?

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Mr. Therien: First, I think some of the sanctions -

Mr. Wappel: I asked about registration. How will registration lower these statistics?

Mr. Therien: I would like to make the point that they're illegal guns used by illegal people -

Mr. Wappel: Who will not register them.

Mr. Therien: You're right.

Mr. Wappel: So it has to be sanctions to deal with them. I agree with you.

Let's talk about Canadian values. You say that Canadians agree that liberty is maximized through order. Would you also say that Canadians agree that liberty is maximized by permitting the police to enter any place other than a dwelling house without a warrant, at any time, on a reasonable suspicion that a piece of paper is located there?

Mr. Therien: A piece of paper or a gun?

Mr. Wappel: A piece of paper.

Mr. Therien: A piece of paper or an illegal gun?

Mr. Wappel: Clause 99 of the proposed law says that if an officer believes on reasonable grounds that there is a record in relation to any of those things, being a firearm, then he can enter any place in Canada other than a dwelling house without a warrant. Do you think Canadians believe that's the road to liberty?

Mr. Therien: I think the majority of Canadians believe that spot checks, random police checks, aimed at the issue of impaired driving are highly acceptable.

Mr. Wappel: Do you believe that the majority of Canadians believe it is appropriate to enter any place in Canada if the police believe there's a reasonable suspicion that a record of a firearm exists in that place?

Mr. Therien: In answer to your question, I have faith in Canadian police.

Mr. Wappel: Is that your only answer?

Mr. Therien: No. At this point I would say it is my best answer. I don't think there's any abuse.

The Chair: Mr. Wappel, just so they know exactly what's right, that's with respect to businesses.

Mr. Wappel: That's any place in the country other than a dwelling house. It could be a leased premise, of course.... ``Other than a dwelling house'' - that's how I understand it.

The Chair: I thought it was in the area dealing with the commerce of weapons.

Mr. Wappel: It may be, but let's find out. If it's commerce with firearms, that's one thing. If it's anybody's place where they happen to have a record and the police can go in and examine any computer, which is what the section says, and look at anything they want without even a warrant, I ask if Canadians think that's a reasonable road to liberty.

Most Canadians agree that liberty is maximized through order. Would you agree that most Canadians agree that the road to liberty is to take away legally acquired property from people, without compensating them for it?

Mr. Therien: Who is taking away legally acquired property from people?

Mr. Wappel: If a handgun is purchased legally and is subsequently declared by Order in Council prohibited, it must be given up for destruction without any compensation. That is taking away legally acquired property by Order in Council without compensation. Do you think most Canadians agree with that?

Mr. Therien: I would say the majority of them, because there are good examples in police amnesty programs across this country that have sprung up over the last two or three years. In Ottawa alone, I think over an amnesty period of one week something like 2,000 weapons were turned in. This is very symbolic across the country.

Mr. Wappel: I'm talking about the principle of taking away legally acquired property without compensation, in view of your views of what Canadians believe is the road to liberty.

Mr. Therien: I don't have an answer for that.

Mr. Wappel: Does anybody?

The Chair: I should point out that according to the bill the Saturday night specials, for example, as well as the paramilitary guns, can be confiscated, but there are grandfathering clauses for all those categories that are already possessed.

Mr. Therien: Madame Venne referred to that earlier.

Mr. Wappel: When the grandfather becomes the grandfather, there's still no money.

The Chair: That's right.

Mr. Wappel: Thank you.

Are there any other answers to my question?

Dr. Corber: I certainly would have no problem with taking away guns that were illegal. If the question is compensation, that's an administrative issue. The principle that once something has been declared illegal and one shouldn't have it in the future.... We always have new legislation that makes different demands - newer, more stringent demands.

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Mr. Wappel: I understand that, Doctor. The question is compensation. What do you say about that -

Dr. Corber: That's an administrative issue. It's not fundamental to the objective of the legislation or in fact to which guns are legal, who should have them, or storage. It's just a question of -

Mr. Wappel: Wouldn't it help people comply?

Dr. Corber: As I've already mentioned, compliance is important.

Mr. Wappel: You're trying to get people to comply. You're trying to make it easier to comply. Wouldn't it be easier to comply, if you had a $10,000 gun collection that was suddenly rendered 50% valueless because some of the things you purchased legally are now illegal, if at least you or your estate got the money for that?

Dr. Corber: I'm not familiar with particular examples of how this works. However, as I've mentioned in answer to another question, certainly we're in favour of all incentives that make it clear that everybody who owns a firearm or wants to should be licensed and all their firearms should be registered. We're trying to get to that objective. Compensation might help do it. I'm not familiar with that issue.

Mr. Therien: I think I'm sensitive to that, because when confiscating property during and after the war, people were not.... So I....

Mr. Wappel: Would you then agree that might be helpful?

Mr. Therien: I agree that it may pose a problem. I'm not a gun owner, so they're not going to confiscate.... For somebody who does have a $10,000 collection, the impact is going to be significantly different from what it would be on me. But most Canadians don't own that.

Mr. Wappel: So if it doesn't impact you, you don't care, or do you have an opinion?

Mr. Therien: Sure, I do care very much.

Mr. Wappel: So what's your answer?

Mr. Therien: I don't know.

Mr. Wappel: All right, that's an answer.

Mr. Therien: I don't know how many guns are involved.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Saint-Onge.

Mr. Saint-Onge: Mr. Chairman, allow me to answer with an absurd example. Should we take this argumentation to the letter, we would bannish all kinds of regulations in the country, in the provinces and in the communities. I do not think that we can expect the police to visit every home the day after the legislation comes into force. But when legal provisions are put into place, people who get caught can be made aware that they are breaking the law. It's a control mechanism.

[English]

Dr. Chapdelaine: In terms of public health, the problems we have are not with the types of guns Mr. Wappel is talking about. It's really with what is called the ordinary .22 calibre rifles and shotguns. In Quebec essentially half of all suicides by firearms are done by three calibres of guns: .22 rifles, 12 gauge shotguns, and 410 gauge shotguns. Those won't be confiscated. There's no question. They can be used for hunting, and they are a pleasure for a lot of people. We even think it's good for health to go out in the woods and hunt.

It's not in the woods that there are problems; it's in the homes. It's the way they're stored. The whole purpose of this legislation, which we appreciate, is that it reinforces responsibility for those ordinary guns so that they are not considered to be like fly-swatters and they are to be stored differently from fly-swatters. So it's displacing the problem.

Several polls, including one that was done throughout Canada, in 10,000 and more homes, and one that was done more recently in Quebec, one my office worked with, said that half of the people who say they have a gun can't say they've used it in the past 12 months. So possibly there are a lot of people who remember they have a gun when they're asked the question and perhaps haven't used it for 15 years.

The coroner's inquest we had in Quebec showed several cases of suicide or deaths from a firearm that was used to kill for the first time after accumulating dust for 15 years. Those are not people who are bad or anything like that. They just forgot it. They bought a .22 to kill a raccoon 15 years earlier, and they forgot it.

.1200

So when they come to possession certificates, they'll have a choice. Do I really need it? If I do, I'll go through the process. If I don't need it, I can sell it to my buddy who has 18 and who's really a good storer. Then I get rid of the responsibility of the way to store it. If I like to go hunting once every two or three years, I'll manage things with him. He's a responsible guy.

I have a friend like that. That's why I'm talking this way. He takes me hunting, and it's a pleasure. I don't hunt, but I like walking in the woods. I know it's not dangerous to walk in the woods compared with walking into a house where there's a firearm that's poorly stored.

Mr. Abbott (Kootenay East): Dr. Chapdelaine, I have four issues, and I'll give you all four at the start.

First, I was rather pleased with your response to the question by Mr. Ramsay, in that I think you made the point that we do not have any rational or reasonable statistical base to say the components of Bill C-17 have or have not worked. We have no idea. It's too early. We are rushing into further legislation without having any concept whatsoever as to whether Bill C-17 worked, which of course is a reflection of what the Auditor General of Canada has said. So I was pleased that you confirmed that.

Secondly, on page 8 in the English version of your presentation, under item 1, you say:

At present, it is impossible to determine either how many or what kinds of hunting weapons an individual possesses, what he or she does with them and what address they are stored at, let alone how they are stored.

This seems to reflect a lack of relationship to the fact that under Bill C-17 in fact they do have a responsibility for how they are stored, that the guns are stored in one location and the ammunition is stored in another location, and that they have very tight controls. I was rather surprised that with your background that would have appeared in this brief.

Thirdly, on page 9, item 3, I came across:

There can be no control without information. The registration system makes it possible to effectively control the circulation of guns in Canada. If the police cannot distinguish firearms in a person's lawful possession...from unlawful weapons, they cannot control smuggling problems.

I suggest, with respect, that's a non sequitur. The two things do not relate one to the other. It's not apples plus apples; it's apples plus locomotives. In fact the smuggling problem and the distinguishing of the firearms in a person's lawful possession by the police are two totally unrelated issues as per the conversation we just had from Mr. Wappel. The difficulty is the smuggling problem, getting the guns across the border.

Finally, you say here:

At present, we do not register guns when they are imported into Canada.

Then you go ahead and make the statement:

For example, legitimate dealers can import guns legally and then sell them illegally.

Are you aware of that being a real situation, or was that fabricated?

The reason I'm asking the question is that being the revenue critic, I'm familiar with the fact that Canada Customs about five weeks ago took about forty people, complete with helicopter battering ram, and eight hours of overtime, to a legitimate gun dealer's location to take a look at some paperwork they didn't think was in order. I find it's a little difficult for me to buy into the concept that a legitimate dealer would buy an imported weapon and then sell it illegally. If you're aware of an actual situation, I'd be interested in following through on that.

Those are my four points. Thank you.

Dr. Chapdelaine: Permit me to answer in French, because there's a lot.

I might ask you to reiterate your first item, because it was quite a long list.

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[Translation]

The two issues of smuggling and import and the impossibility to trace a particular firearm are linked to various concerns we had in Quebec, some time ago. I'm no lawyer nor judge, but there was a case in the Joliette area where a legitimate dealer reported stolen arms that were later found in criminal hands. The case was heard in court and the dealer was convicted as far as I know, but I didn't really follow the case. This was one of the concerns as the police told us.

As far as smuggling is concerned, we were told that under the new system, it would be possible to register a firearm and to link responsibility therefor from the moment it goes through customs until it reaches its last user, his son, etc. All the time, somebody is responsible for it.

We mention this because of a small incident that happened a few months ago in Quebec, although it could have happened anywhere else. A container had disappeared and nobody was responsible for it. But this refers to something else.

As far as the storage of firearms in the home is concerned and in answer to your first question about time series... it's very epidemiological, by statistical...and that's one reason we didn't write it in our brief.

[English]

One issue that's important in public health, and I'm sure you'll see the notes, is to know denominators. Does that tell you anything at all? When you try to focus your priorities, you can't put your priorities on everything, even for this subject. You have to go to certain things. If you want to do education or target certain behaviours you want to change, you need to know where to go. You can't put as much money in the Quebec region as in the Rivière-du-Loup region or elsewhere.

Right now, we have numerators. We know the number of deaths. We know how they're killed. We know whether it's a suicide or a homicide. We know the characteristics and the types of guns. We know a lot about numerators, not everything. We don't know anything about denominators. They're needed to make priorities.

So that was the comment on knowing the profile, where things are, etc.

About the time series question, obviously it's a bit too early to say anything. It's a pity, because there are certain studies that will say that something has or has not worked on the basis of only a couple of years. Those studies encourage you to be very watchful of people who make quick comments on those subjects.

Mr. Abbott: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I did make a statement, and I would like you to either confirm or refute it. I made the statement that according to yourself, as a person who is knowledgeable about the collection of statistical data, you are saying that in fact we don't know whether the components of Bill C-17 have been effective. I'd like that confirmation, because my extrapolation from that is that we are rushing into Bill C-68 without having any clue as to whether Bill C-17 has been effective and whether we require any further legislation. So I would like your confirmation if that's correct.

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Dr. Chapdelaine: I cannot give you this confirmation, because as you know, and as my title expresses, I was part of the Canadian Advisory Council on Firearms, like Ms Thom and several other people who have become friends, including, in Alberta, Erv Heiman, who is owner of Western Gun Parts Ltd. He is an excellent man and an excellent gunsmith. He taught me a lot of things about firearms in the three years we passed together.

During that time we examined Bill C-17 before it was tabled. We also examined the laws that Mr. Allmand helped to introduce in 1978. There were some differences, but essentially not enormous differences, between the two. We know, because we have a good time series on the 1978-79 law. There is ample proof there has been a difference between - There's double proof. If you compare it with another country, such as our neighbour to the south, their death rates are here and ours are there. When you look at a time series, there is a difference.

So you're not running into Bill C-68 with your eyes totally blinded just because we don't have proof which elements in Bill C-17 will work or not work.

The other thing is there is a simple principle of public health, as Dr. Corber expressed when the question was asked by Mr. Ramsay. It is that there are a lot of things like registration such that even if we don't know, it goes a lot to common sense. There have been a lot of things in the history of public health that were done without proof but have worked nevertheless.

A typical example comes from 1854, when epidemiology was invented. It was the cholera epidemic in London. Dr. John Snow was the MOH of London at the time. He looked at who was getting sick from what water. He didn't know anything about bacteria. He didn't know anything about water-transmitted disease. But he discovered that some people who were drinking water tapped downhill from London were sick and those who were drinking water that was tapped uphill were not sick, or were much less sick. So he decided that something was going on between uphill and downhill and it's going to different taps. Not knowing why, because he didn't know anything about bacteria and he didn't know anything about water-transmitted disease, he just took away the pump handle of the bad pump. It stopped the epidemic. There are ample examples of that sort.

One example that is closer to our lives is the motor vehicle obligation to wear belts. In Quebec, as in most provinces in Canada, when we started educating people to wear seatbelts it went up to about 40% and then it stagnated. Then a law came in. It went up a bit, but again it stagnated, because there was not much enforcement. Then the police started enforcing it. Now in Ottawa I saw in the paper this morning there is going to be a program to increase that to try to attain 95%. In Quebec we are already at 95%. By the way, we know if you reduce the accessibility to an impact with your windshield by having a belt, you decrease the injury rate.

So there is no golden bullet in this. Education is needed, and I want to make that clear. Education is needed, but also legislation.

Also, there is a new avenue, and that is why I mentioned Erv Heiman of Western Gun Parts Ltd., in Edmonton, Alberta. This new avenue could be extremely interesting, but we are not ready for it right now. Perhaps in 10 years, when you are still a member of Parliament, you can work on it. It is making guns automatically safe. There are devices that can permit you to trigger locks just by flicking a combination. There are ways to ensure you are the only one who can use your gun.

.1215

This is very important with high-value guns where it's bad to dry-fire. I don't know if you have guns or know anything about guns, but to dry-fire a gun is bad for certain firearms.

So there are means to change the technology of firearms to make them automatically safer for children, because they don't have the strength to pull the trigger, but make them perfectly usable by an adult of our age. That could solve several problems.

I quote this in our brief at the mention of the Government Accounting Office study. It is USGAO, quote 29, where they studied the effectiveness of modifying the technology of firearms.

One day Canada will be able to say there are no firearms coming into this country that are not safe, as we do with cars, but we're not ready for that right away.

The Chair: I have a few questions. It's been raised several times this morning that there hasn't been time to evaluate Bill C-17. But I should point out that Bill C-17 did not deal at all with registration. Registration was started in 1934, with handguns. My information is that because we had a strict regime for handguns in Canada, our crimes with handguns were much lower than in the United States, as a matter of fact quite different from in the United States. Most of our murders were committed with long guns, as opposed to handguns.

So we have a lot of experience to bring in a wide regime of registration. We shouldn't look at Bill C-17. We should look at the regimes we've had for registration over the years.

Furthermore, the firearms acquisition certificate didn't come in with Bill C-17. It came in in 1977. We've had quite a number of years to evaluate the licensing of owners and their ability to control their emotions, and so on - the whole approach to the firearms acquisition certificate. What Bill C-17 brought in that was new was the storage. That hasn't been adequately evaluated. It brought in improvements to the FAC by adding the two signatories and by adding the 30-day delay and the photograph. But the principle of the FAC was brought in in 1977.

So I think you've already answered this question, Dr. Chapdelaine, that there are differences in these different bills in the approach to gun control. A simple evaluation of Bill C-17 wouldn't give you any information on registration, because there's nothing in Bill C-17 relating to registration, nor would it give you any information about licensing, although the FAC was improved under Bill C-17.

I don't know if you want to respond to that or not. From a reading of the three briefs, what you're saying to us is the critical issue is access. Where guns are more accessible or more available, in those jurisdictions you have more crimes with guns. If a person gets emotionally upset or gets frustrated or is depressed or whatever, and they're in a situation where there are no guns, they may cause damage, but not the same type of damage as they would cause with guns.

Is this not the nutshell? I understand from the three briefs and having looked through them that this is the core. Where you have more accessibility, you're going to have more homicides with guns, or more crimes with guns and more suicides with guns. Where you don't have the same accessibility, you may have damage, but not to the extent that you do with guns.

In other words, I may get really upset with the fellow who prangs my car at an intersection, but if I have no gun I may get out and attempt to punch him in the nose and he'll punch me even harder back, but we won't kill each other. If we both had guns in our glove compartments - I read that in Detroit, two people who met at an intersection had guns in their glove compartments, got out in the same anger that I would have had, but they shot each other. They shot each other because the guns were accessible.

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Would you mind responding to my comment, Dr. Corber, and perhaps Mr. Therien?

Mr. Therien: One of the things mentioned in our brief is that guns are not uniquely a criminal problem. Gun legislation is a public health issue that impacts on safety - our concern - mental health, and crime.

Dr. Corber: I agree with your comments. To put them in our perspective, our brief dealt with the health aspects, not the criminal aspects, although they could possibly be similar.

Our purpose here is not to reduce any access. We appreciate that there are legitimate uses for guns. But the legitimate uses for guns does not result in homicide, suicide, and injuries and accidents. The purpose we are going for is to reduce careless and inappropriate use, careless and inappropriate access. This legislation puts it in the right perspective. It will tend to make people more responsible and reduce inappropriate access, so we can carry out those legitimate activities without fear of the negative consequences.

Mr. Ramsay: Gentlemen, when you lend your support to a piece of legislation, as you have with Bill C-68, it is imperative, and the onus is upon you, to understand fully what you are supporting. I understand that your concern about Bill C-68 and your support of it is from your viewpoint of public health and safety. There's nothing wrong with that. But you must also understand what is in the rest of the bill you're lending your support to. As Mr. Wappel portrayed so ably, there are aspects of this bill that I don't think you can support.

I just make that comment. That's what we're wrestling with. We're not just wrestling with the health and safety aspect of this bill. We have to wrestle with whether or not there is a constitutional encroachment upon the freedoms and liberties of Canadians and whether there is an encroachment upon the Privacy Act where you are going to have to go into medical files of three million to six million gun owners to determine whether or not they should own a firearm. These aspects should be taken into consideration. That's a comment. You can respond to it if you wish.

These are the problems we wrestle with on the committee. In meetings all across the country I have spoken to 36,000 or 37,000 people who have concerns on both sides of this issue. Their concern in the health and safety area is equal to yours. Their concern about the welfare of their children is equal to yours, or more so. My concern about my own welfare and that of my children, health-wise and safety-wise, is uppermost and superior to your own, as far as my children are concerned. I think that's general.

So I say to the people across this country, if we can get a reduction in the criminal use of firearms I'll give up my right to own a firearm. I'll do that, and I say that to them. But no one has shown me how that will occur.

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Remember about an hour and a half ago, when we were exchanging comments? My concern is this. It's a fair and reasonable question, based upon common sense. It's reflected in the concerns expressed by the Auditor General in his 1993 report and the excellent article done on the possibility of future gun control by Mr. Bartlett. That is simply this. About the contents of Bill C-17 with regard to safe storage, why are we not waiting until we have statistics on that? Until we know whether the storage requirements in Bill C-17 are working, why are we introducing legislation? The justice minister and others have said registration will enhance storage and enforcement before we know whether or not it is required. Perhaps you could give a response to that.

Do you feel it's in order for this huge bill, and I don't blame you for not knowing everything that's in it, because it's over 120 pages - Do you believe we should be moving this rapidly on this bill before we give C-17 a chance in the area of safe storage of firearms and domestic violence and suicide, as you've so eloquently stated here today? Should we not give Bill C-17 a chance? If not, then why introduce it in the first place? Why didn't we go forward with the whole thing at the same time if the safe storage laws are not going to be adhered to or are not working?

Dr. Chapdelaine: I'd like to have the last word at the end, but I'll be very brief before I let my colleague, Dr. Corber, answer also.

We looked at the bill, and we had people who know how to read those things look at it, such as policemen who have to administer it and lawyers who know how those things are written. I do not know how Dr. Corber will react, but we're not impressed that registration is a very big deal. It doesn't appear to us to be intrusive, the way it's written. The costs seem to us to be reasonable. The exceptions for certain groups that need guns for subsistence - And they are very rare; they're not big numbers in this country. Still, it's good to respect them, etc. So we're not worried that this is a very big deal.

As to the other question, the timing and why we are recommending to go ahead without delay - we've written precisely ``as soon as possible'', aussitôt que possible - it's because I wouldn't want to have to go to a firearm-type blood inquest in 10 years and say you knew that 10 years ago and didn't do anything. We don't know everything - if every time we got out of bed we had to know everything, we'd never get out of bed - but we do know sufficiently that it's the time to go ahead.

Dr. Corber: Registration is fundamental to this legislation. I think it does complete the package. By itself it won't solve the problem. We have criminal elements, we have training elements, and we have irresponsible people anyway. But it does round out the package for safe storage, and I think that's really important.

As part of the package, it will give the police the opportunity to make more certain where the guns are. It will protect their safety. It will encourage and drive home the message about the responsible use of guns. It will require people to take that step; and that's what we're trying to do, I believe, in this legislation, to promote the responsible use of firearms. This is a logical step to it. It tells us about the kind of country we want to be and the kinds of values we want to encourage, and I think this rounds it out.

I don't think it's appropriate to go forward with legislation now, leave that piece out, and then come back in two years and debate the whole thing over again. I think the evidence is clear that this is an important piece that's lacking at the moment and that's prohibiting police from getting the job done and not convincing people to take the issue seriously, because we're still having accidents and crime and death. So I think it's an important issue and it will round out the package.

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[Translation]

Mr. Saint-Onge: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ramsay has his opinion and we have ours. This leads us to ask ourselves some questions and to give this some thought.

However, I don't think that we had any intention, when we introduced this brief, to infringe upon rights and freedoms. We are not telling you that firearms should necessarily be prohibited. What we want is to make the owners of these firearms more responsible so that their use can be controlled.

Since he put the question at the end of his intervention, we think it is urgent to go forward with this legislation.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Therien, did you want to respond?

Mr. Therien: Mr. Saint-Onge expressed concern that we're rushing this legislation through. I'm sensitive to that. But I could also say that I think the position of the Canada Safety Council is that if we look at the opinion polls, speak to Canadians, and look at the position of the seven provincial governments, they're in favour of this legislation. They may not be totally in favour, but I think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

To go back to my seatbelt legislation issue, we get tremendous compliance with seatbelt legislation in this country. We weren't there until the last couple of years, because there were exemptions. The provinces allowed firefighters to be exempt. They allowed police to be exempt. The police wanted this. All of a sudden there are no more exemptions, and our rate is 95% in some provinces and over 90% across the country.

I just don't see the registration component of this legislation not being included at this time. I think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and I'd like it to reflect what the majority of Canadians want.

Ms Meredith: This applies not only to this issue but to many issues. Because I don't normally have a chance to question health-type people in the justice committee, I want to ask you whether the improvements in the early response units that respond to accidents or even the advances in the trauma units affect the number of people who don't die now from a variety of incidents they might have before. When you use statistics from one period to another, might that skew the results?

Dr. Corber: My impression is that with firearms accidents it's probably not significant.

Ms Meredith: Broaden it out.

Dr. Corber: Particularly in the suicide area, the numbers are still very high. I don't see those numbers going down.

Ms Meredith: But what about on other issues? I want to broaden it -

The Chair: We're going to have other witnesses, Ms Meredith. We're going to have suicide people and other witnesses in this area, so you'll have a chance -

Ms Meredith: This is a general question, because we use statistics a lot, and I'm just asking these health officials -

The Chair: Well, he has given you an answer.

I presume if Ms Meredith or any of us have questions we want to ask, we could call you, write you, or phone you before we deal with the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, which is a month away.

Dr. Corber: Please do.

The Chair: I want to thank you all very much.

I adjourn this meeting.