What Goodale's 'Guns and Gangs Summit' Missed All Together

By Dennis R. Young —— Bio and Archives March 20, 2018

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The Justin Trudeau government is once again proceeding to pass new gun control laws without knowing whether the previous gun laws have hit the right target or not. In his 1993 report to Parliament, Auditor General Denis Desautels' main point 27.3 stated: As well, our review of the new regulations indicated that important data, needed to assess the potential benefits and future effectiveness of the regulations, were not available at the time the regulations were drafted. Because of this, we believe it is important that the measures chosen by the government be evaluated at the earliest opportunity. The sad fact is that this evaluation recommended 25 years ago has never been completed by any government:

• Not by the Mulroney Government that the Auditor's recommendation was directed to in response to Kim Campbell's Bill C-17;
• Not by Chretien Government in 1995 with the introduction and passage of Bill C-68;
• Not by the Harper Government in 2012 when Bill C-19 scrapped the long-gun registry;
• Not the Harper Government in 2015 with the introduction and passage of Bill C-42; and
• Not yet by the Trudeau Government before the introduction on Bill C-71 today.

The main deficiencies noted in Desautels' 1993 report have still not been properly addressed. For example, Desautels identified this key weakness: "A comprehensive review of the extent of smuggling of firearms into Canada has not been undertaken, as recommended by parliamentary committees." Last week, at Minister Goodale's Guns and Crime Summit Lynn Barr-Telford, Director General, Health, Justice, and Special Surveys, Statistics Canada pointed out: "We don't know the origin of firearms involved in gun crime."

RCMP TRACKS EVIDENCE OF ACTIVITY--NOT EFFECTIVENESS

The problem with successive government approaches to reporting to Parliament on gun control programs is that they have taken a bean-counting approach, documenting activity related to firearms programs but avoiding the statistical analysis required to identify real indicators of effectiveness. The bean-counting approach to reporting on gun control programs, taken up by the RCMP and successive governments over the last 25 years, was accurately pointed out to Parliament on May 31, 2006, by Auditor General Sheila Fraser when she testified before the Standing Committee on Public Safety. Fraser was asked about claims that police were accessing the Canadian Firearms Information System (CFIS) 5,000 times a day. She responded: "I believe that the indicator of the 5,000 hits a day is moreof what we call an activity indicator than an indicator of effectiveness."

RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GUN CONTROL LAWS - INDIVIDUALS DOING WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WON'T

It's been left to private citizens to do the proper evaluation of Canada's gun laws. Here are just a few examples:

1. CANADIAN FIREARMS LEGISLATION AND EFFECTS ON HOMICIDE 1974 TO 2008. This study failed to demonstrate a beneficial association between legislation and firearm homicide rates between 1974 and 2008. Dr. Caillin Langmann - 2011 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 27(12) 2303– 2321
2. MAINTAINING INFORMATION ON LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS ON CPIC SERVES NO LEGITIMATE PURPOSE. Canadians who have a firearms licence are less than one-third as likely to commit murder as other Canadians. Statistics Canada data show that licensed gun owners have a homicide rate of 0.60 per 100,000 licensed gun owners between 1997 and 2010. Over the same period, the national homicide rate averaged 1.85 per 100,000. By Gary Mauser - Canada Free Press - February 25, 2014
3. GUESS WHO CPIC TRACKS AND WHO CPIC DOES NOT TRACK DAILY? The ONLY people the RCMP track continuously through CPIC are law-abiding, licensed Canadian firearm owners. by Christopher di Armani - January 6, 2017
4. BULK OF CRIME GUNS DOMESTICALLY SOURCED? TRY 33% AT MOST According to the 2014 Annual Report, Western Region, produced by the RCMP Firearms Investigative & Enforcement Services Directorate and Firearms Operations and Support Unit, nowhere near 60% of all crime guns can be traced back to domestic sources. by Daniel Fritter, Calibre Magazine - November 29, 2017
5. DO TRIGGERS PULL FINGERS? A LOOK AT THE CRIMINAL MISUSE OF GUNS IN CANADA "There is no convincing empirical research supporting the proposition that restricting general civilian access to firearms acts to reduce homicide rates." by Dr. Gary Mauser - The MacKenzie Institute, Briefing Note 58 - July 16, 2015

NO VALUE-FOR-MONEY AUDITS OR COST/EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATIONS OF GUN CONTROL LAWS DONE IN THE LAST 25 YEARS!

I have attached my exchange of letters and e-mails with the Auditor General's office to support my assertion than a proper value-for-money audit has never been undertaken despite more than a couple of billion dollars being wasted on politically motivated, feel-good firearms programs by successive Liberal and Conservative Governments. Another recommendation ignored by Liberal and Conservative governments was made by Auditor General Sheila Fraser to provide the full cost of gun control programs including what she described as 'major additional costs' of including enforcement and compliance costs estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars by the Library of Parliament. Copies of the Auditor General's and the Privacy Commissioner's reports to Parliament are available at this link. Nor has the RCMP or the Department of Public Safety conducted proper evaluations that would determine the total cost and effectiveness of the various elements of the current gun control regime compared to the cost and effectiveness of the previous gun control programs that were in effect prior to 1995 when the cost to the federal government was just $15 million a year – not $52 million a year.

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