Speeches 2004

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Saint John, New Brunswick

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in your Annual General Meeting and would like to take a few moments to give you an update on the Canadian Firearms Program.

As members of the policing community, you are our Program's most important public safety partners. Together, we share a commitment to make Canada a safer place to live, work and raise a family. And much of what we do at the Canada Firearms Centre supports your vital role on the frontlines of policing. Your on-going feedback helps us strengthen and streamline our program delivery and support to police services across Canada, and to work together to serve Canadians in the best way we can.

There have been a lot of changes in the Firearms Program since the Firearms Act and its regulations came into force in 1998. I would like to take a moment to review our current responsibilities.

The Canada Firearms Centre, working with federal and provincial partners, administers and monitors the following functions:

• Licensing of all firearm owners and businesses, to provide reasonable assurance that only those persons who do not pose a public safety risk can own or deal firearms or ammunition,

• Continuous screening of firearm licence holders to address any possible public safety risks,

• Delivery of the national Canadian Firearms Safety Courses, required for all new licence applicants,

• Public education regarding safe storage, use and transport of firearms,

• Registration of all firearms, to reinforce owner accountability and responsibility, and provide police with information to help prevent injuries and investigate firearm-related crimes,

• Regular inspections of firearm businesses and shooting ranges, to ensure inventory controls and safety, and

• Import and export controls, to help track and manage the cross-border movement of firearms.

The Firearms Act introduced a new system of firearms control. Many of these changes were specifically directed at reducing your paperwork and workload, and to enhance officer safety.

For example, under the old system police from many provinces were responsible for processing applications for Firearms Acquisition Certificates, applications for minors' licences, permits to transport and firearms registration certificates. Chief Firearms Officers and the Registrar are now responsible for this work. The Program's data system helps speed up many of your investigations, as previously hours and days were spent searching paper documents to trace firearms found at crimes scenes to the last legal owner. Now, it can take seconds or minutes.

Screening of all licence applicants and continuous eligibility checks at the national level help to identify public safety risks and allow police to share information among different jurisdictions, enhancing public and police officer safety. For example, we know that when you respond to a call, you are always cautious with the expectation that there may be firearms present. However, we have heard from many of you that it is more helpful to do an on-line check ahead of time to verify if any firearms have been registered at the address.

The following numbers speak loudly and confirm the system is working. To date almost two million Canadians have licenses and close to 7 million firearms are registered. This is a compliance rate approaching 90 per cent based on estimates made three years ago.

Since the Firearms Act came into effect in1998, Chief Firearms Officers across the country have revoked or refused 12,000 licences on public safety grounds. And your policing colleagues across Canada have queried the Canadian Firearms Information System database more than 3.1 million times. So far this year, the numbers are increasing, as we have almost reached 500,000 queries.

Although these numbers are impressive, I will talk about how we need to explore ways we can make this information more accessible and useful to you in your front-line work later.

As we are all aware, the Firearms Program has been at the centre of much public debate. Detractors have raised some serious questions about investments made and costs versus contributions to public safety.

I am here to say that we have turned the corner. Our costs are coming down and our public safety benefits are starting to pay off.

Costs for the Canada Firearms Centre for 2003/04 were about $100 million compared to $200 million in 2000/01. And there is a public commitment to reduce costs further.

In May, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Anne McLellan, announced a funding cap of $25 million per year on the costs of firearms registration, starting next fiscal year. The Government has further proposed to establish a separate appropriation in law starting in fiscal year 2005/06 to allow Parliament to monitor and enforce this cap.

Measures taken recently to bring costs down, while improving service to Canadians, have included:

• Enhanced telephone answering services to reduce wait times;

• Simplified registration forms; and

• Internet registration, including new forms, application status enquiries, and on-line firearm transfers for businesses.

We have also undergone a significant reorganization. Last year, the Canada Firearms Centre became an independent agency and part of a larger portfolio focusing on safety reporting to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. During that year, I was appointed as the first Commissioner of Firearms to serve you and the public.

I am responsible to ensure effective and fair administration of the Firearms Program, integrity in our operations, accountability to the Minister and Canadians, and for supporting the Minister in reporting to Parliament.

Equally important is my responsibility to work closely with Chief Firearms Officers across Canada to ensure the effective implementation of the Firearms Act. Most recently we have been cooperating to establish national services standards for the Program to better serve the public and stakeholders such as you.

You may be interested to know that we have a number of active and retired police officers working in the Program. This helps us understand your needs, your operating environments, and the circumstances you face day in and day out.

Our participation at this meeting underlines the importance of a continuing and effective partnership with police, governments and public safety groups. You will be hearing shortly from the Ontario Chief Firearms Officer, and the Director of the RCMP's National Weapons Enforcement Support Team, a National Police Service. Many other federal agencies play a role in the Firearms Program, such as the Canada Border Service Agency, the Department of Justice, and International Trade Canada, along with provincial agencies.

Our discussions here provide an opportunity to explore further cooperation, in areas such as community policing for example, to promote firearm safety and a better understanding of how front-line police can use the Canadian Firearms Information System database.

As I mentioned earlier, you are our most important public safety partners and we want to meet your needs. Discussions such as this offer us a valuable opportunity to talk about some of the services we have set up especially for police.

One of the most important of these is Canadian Firearms Registry On-Line (CFRO). Many of you are already familiar with CFRO and have provided encouraging feedback on how it has helped you to deal with potentially dangerous situations or solve firearm-related crimes.

For those of you who are less familiar with CFRO, it is a database designed to provide police with certain licence and registration information contained in the Canadian Firearms Information System, or "CFIS" as we call it.

Information that is added to or changed in CFIS is transferred daily to CFRO so it is always current. Police can query CFRO though any CPIC or CRPQ terminal, including Mobile Data Terminals that are programmed for CFRO.

Police officers in some provinces clearly are using CFRO more than others. There is room for enhanced use, to support your work. I encourage you and your colleagues to make full use of the system. We are available to give you information on how to do so. We also have a laminate with instructions that we can give you - I believe copies are available here today.

The CPPA is a key partner for us and plays an important role in our policy development. Last fall, we held national consultations on the Program to help us have a fresh look at the Program and fine-tune regulations and processes. As part of this consultation process, we spent a day in Ottawa with CPPA representatives from across the country.

We have also established a new Program Advisory Committee made up of representatives from the firearms and public safety communities, as well as people with public policy and program management expertise. The CPPA is there on the Committee.

Your input has proved to be invaluable. This process is not just window dressing. It guides us in making the Program more effective in contributing to public safety and the police, with a minimum of burden on firearm owners and the best possible services to Canadians.

Now that the initial licensing and registration phases are behind us, we can concentrate on refining the Program. For example, we are making concerted efforts to review and update licensing and registration information to ensure it is accurate and accessible to you on the front lines.

We are working with Aboriginal communities to find ways to adapt Program activities to meet their cultural needs and enhance firearms safety by involving communities in the delivery of the Program.

We are working with police, the Canada Border Service Agency, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada and others to address cross-border trafficking issues, and trying to find ways to help reduce the flow of guns onto our streets by making the best use of Firearms Program resources.

We know that the Firearms Program makes a contribution on a number of levels. It helps to prevent and reduce personal injury. It helps prevents crime, and assists police and others to intervene proactively to prevent tragedy, for example, by removing firearms from a residence where there may be a public safety concern.

The Firearms Program also contributes to addressing other priorities on the public safety agenda - to combating smuggling, organized crime and gangs, for example.

The CAFC is also participating in important government-wide exercises, such as the drive to make agencies and their IT systems better connected and interoperable, so that the right information gets where it needs to be, in the most efficient and effective way possible.

For the Firearms Program to make the contribution it does and is intended to, people need to meet their legal obligations.

Improving compliance is therefore a primary focus for us. Not just through enforcement activity, either. We are helping people comply by making the system work better and more efficiently. We are helping people use the system and getting the message out to individual owners and firearms groups about how meeting their legal obligations contributes to community safety.

We know from our discussions with you and other police representatives that police are, as we would expect, using their discretion when it comes to applying the law.

Often when an unregistered firearm is seized, charges are not laid, and the owner is given an opportunity to meet his or her legal obligations. And the federal government has acknowledged and supported this. That is why we are still accepting licence applications from people who didn't act before the initial deadline.

At the same time, we have heard in our consultations that the police need the legal tools in place now, for appropriate circumstances.

We at the CAFC will be working with you to discuss how compliance can be further enhanced and what strategies, at the community level or otherwise, are most appropriate.

We want people in the system. We want to reach beyond that 90 percent compliance number. That is why the Government took steps in May to eliminate firearm registration fees and committed to streamlining processes for licence renewals. We want to make it as easy to comply as possible.

Greater compliance, and willing compliance based on a clear understanding of Program requirements and their importance, means a greater contribution to safe communities.

Let's continue to work together, and make the investments to date work for us, and work for Canadians.

Minister McLellan arrives tomorrow to speak to you. She is very committed to our issues and I look forward to continuing to work with her in the name of better safety and security for our front-line officers and our citizens.

We recognize that there is an on-going debate on the Program - that is healthy. However, we don't think it is productive to try to turn back the clock and go back to the old firearms control system. Times have changed from the age of paper-based documents to that of instantaneous data access systems.

We are using the new system and Program to help the policing and law enforcement community by providing important firearms licensing and registration information for investigations and other public safety purposes.

We have turned the corner, and addressed legitimate public concerns about the Program's management, costs and service delivery.

We are on the right track. For years, firearm owners have expressed fears regarding the confiscation of firearms. This is a concern I heard loud and clear when we held consultations with firearms organizations last fall. But, in fact, those fears have not materialized.

There is nothing in current initiatives about confiscation. It is time for us to move on, and focus on effective Program delivery.

And I'd also like to leave with you a message about our commitment to transparency. As I mentioned earlier, the Canada Firearms Centre is now an independent agency. Minister McLellan reports directly to Parliament on the funding and activities of the Firearms Program.

There is clear and full accounting specifically for Program funding and administration. As Commissioner, I also submit an annual report on the administration of the Firearms Act to the Minister, which is tabled Parliament. The first report will be tabled this fall. Canadians want and will have accountability on the costs and administration of the Program.

We know that there are successes in the Firearms Program in helping prevent crime, assisting in removing firearms from a residence, shortening the time invested in investigations, and in helping agencies work across the border more effectively.

And there are more and more of those kinds of successes, and others, as the use of Firearms Program information increases. As it becomes better known on how the Program can provide to support your day-to-day work, and the work of others.

We have not been as good as we should have in documenting our successes. You can help us here - let us know. Make the Firearms Program part of communications within your organizations, and in your interactions with the public.

We don't have access to local police case information.  Let us know when the system helps crack a case.  We need to find new ways to assist each other to serve communities across the country.

I am very interested in hearing your views, and any suggestions you may have. Thank you.