JURI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND LEGAL AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES QUESTIONS JURIDIQUES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 20, 1997

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[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney, (Erie—Lincoln, Lib)): I'd like to call the meeting to order.

I'd like to welcome Dr. Chapdelaine. Welcome back. Would you like to proceed with your presentation and then we'll go to questions and answers. Thank you.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine (Conférence des régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux du Québec): I want to thank you for the opportunity to present to you on these regulations. Hopefully it's the last instalment of regulations. We think they are important—and I'll tell you why in a moment—not because they are the last ones but because they go into the technical details of the implementation of something we have been advocating since 1989.

Here, I represent

[Translation]

the Conférence des régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux du Québec and the Conseil des directeurs régionaux de la santé publique du Québec.

In Quebec, the Conférence and the Conseil are responsible for public health and safety in 18 health and social services regions. Therefore, the Conférence has responsibility for the entire Quebec population, pursuant to the Quebec Health and Social Services Act.

Since 1989, the Conférence and the public health officers have, aside from unintentional injuries such as accidents, focussed on intentional traumas such as suicide, since the suicide rate in Quebec has reached and even surpassed the mortality rate due to highway accidents and violence. This subject has generated much interest.

In 1989, we began to carry out studies to ascertain the causes of and circumstances surrounding suicides and violent incidents. As you know, we are coming up on the anniversary of the massacre at École polytechnique. Immediately following this tragedy, we began to focus our attention on instruments of violence and on the methods people employ to commit suicide.

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One of the most frequently used methods of committing suicides and homicides is firearms. The potential of this instrument to inflict mortal injury is higher than for all other methods combined and this explains our interest in the subject. It is also one method that can be controlled. We can reduce the accessibility of firearms and their ability to inflict injury upon the human body.

That is why the Conférence and the Conseil have been very interested from the outset in the whole issue of gun control, which comes under federal jurisdiction, and why they have been making representations since 1989 or 1990. This is not the first time that the chairman, Quebec's public health director and I have addressed you and the Senate.

Specifically, we would like to discuss the technical aspects of the regulations and we have some questions about two of them for you. However, I would like to start by talking to you about the epidemiological reasons that prompted us to make the following recommendations.

This time around, the primary purpose of the regulations is to enforce two measures which we have been calling for since 1990. Firstly, we want all firearm owners in Canada to be required to have a licence to possess a firearm, not merely an acquisition certificate, as was the case under the old system and secondly, we want all firearms to be registered in the owner's name.

We are in favour of these measures because of the circumstances surrounding firearms-related deaths. Normally, theses deaths occur in the home as a result of long firearms, rural rather than urban areas and involve people who for the most part have never before committed a violent act. This is far different from the criminal epidemiology of the problem which is of greater concern to opponents of the legislation.

In particular, studies which are now beginning to emerge in scientific journals show that

[English]

the mere presence of a firearm in a home increases fivefold the risk of a suicide, threefold the risk of a murder, and manyfold the risk of an accident occurring in that home compared to a home where there's no gun.

Essentially, the reason why we favour the licensing and registration system, which we understand very well is not part of the discussion here because they are embedded in the law... By the year 2001 every Canadian firearm possessor/owner will have to have a licence and by the year 2003 every gun will have to be registered to his name. The reason why we are in favour of that is for reasons of...

[Translation]

making firearm owners more responsible.

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[English]

By making sure they have proved that they are fit to possess a firearm through the licensing process, by making sure they keep that firearm through regular checks, and by making sure the firearm almost has their name on it in terms of it being registered to the possessor's name, it will force, it will encourage, it will enhance several things, in our view.

First, it will enhance safe storage practices. It will enhance safe storage practices in the home, from the home to the shooting range, from the home to the hunting place, from the hunting place back home, but especially at home, where most of the tragedies that interest public health occur.

Secondly, it will make sure people who shouldn't have firearms will not get them, or will not keep them, which was impossible in the former system. In terms of whether they have committed an act of violence, even in the United States a person who has been violent against a spouse cannot have a firearm. This has even caused problems for the police, because apparently some policemen will be losing their jobs in the United States. That's one good thing in Canada; the licensing and registration system will enhance getting guns out of the wrong hands.

A third point that is also very important in our view—and I'm basing this not only on studies done in Quebec, but studies done elsewhere in Canada, all over Canada—is the question of Canadians who have a firearm but half of whom, as we know by repeated polls conducted since 1989, have not used it in the past 12 months. Therefore, there is a possibility that there are several Canadians who haven't used their firearm and it will only be used 15 years after its acquisition by the son when he decides to commit suicide with the firearm of his parent.

If by having a licensing system and a registration system it will encourage people to say, yes, I have this old gun in the basement, perhaps I had better sell it to somebody who has several of them, who will store them properly, and we will be out of the problem... We hope this will decrease the number of homes that will have firearms when they don't need them, for hunting or for other legitimate purposes, and therefore reduce the risk.

There's another basis for our encouragement to get these regulations before us quickly through so that the licensing and registration can go on as it should to reach its goal of 2001 and 2003. It might seem to you a bit technical because of my position in public health, but it will help us very much to do safety education programs. By knowing how the firearms are distributed in our communities, it's easier to have priorities. We don't have enough money to go everywhere, so we can prioritize our education programs and use education as a form of reducing injuries.

I think that covers the main reasons, which we have brought to you at least on five or six occasions and which are on the record through the various briefs we deposited at those times.

Coming to the present regulations, the main message is that we've been in this dossier long enough to realize we can ask for more, but we have to make compromises for reasons of practicality. So we are satisfied generally.

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[Translation]

The Conférence des régies régionales and the Conseil des directeurs

[English]

are generally satisfied with this perhaps last instalment of regulations. We have been invited to be part of some of the realistic compromises that are done to maximize or optimize the level of safety for all Canadians on one hand, but to minimize or “dis-optimize” the inconvenience to the possessors of firearms in this country on the other.

All in all, we are in agreement with most of what is in here. We only urge you very strongly to pass them as quickly as possible so that we can get on with the main purpose of the legislation as it was passed in the House of Commons in, if I'm correct, 1995. That said, there are two things I would like to ask you about, because we're not sure what they mean.

The regulations refer to “verification” on page 48 of the French version and page 46 of the English version.

[Translation]

Speaking on behalf of the Conférence, I have a question for you. We understand that the verification of firearms, that is the process of checking to see if they bear the proper number and have been properly registered, must be done at the police station or by an approved officer who should be someone in the community who is a firearms' expert, either a weapons' instructor or a prominent member

[English]

of the firearms community. The verification will only start effective January 1, 2003. We're okay with that; we understand the reasons why—the cost reasons, the convenience reasons—it's only done at that time. But my question is whether or not this includes restricted firearms.

Perhaps I could ask the other question afterwards.

I thank you for your attention.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Dr. Chapdelaine, in answer to your question, it is our understanding that it does include restricted firearms, yes.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Restricted handguns?

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Yes.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: If that's the case, I think we're a bit worried. We would be quite worried about that as a compromise for various reasons. For those who have heard us before, who have seen our statistics and the results of our studies—I'm thinking of Mr. Ramsay, Madame Barnes, and Mr. Lee, who were here before; I don't recognize any others, unless I'm mistaken—you are quite aware that long firearms, such as hunting guns, shotguns, and rifles, are the favoured types of firearms used in suicides, in homicides, and even in accidents.

If we look at a study that we did in the area of Quebec and Chaudière-Les Appalaches... Quebec is slightly more urban and Chaudière-Les Appalaches is more rural. We looked at the favourite instruments used in suicides in these two areas and we looked at 600 coroner charts or dossiers. We realized that firearms were a very important means of suicide, but when we looked at the calibres and types of firearms, we realized that 94% of all 600 suicide dossiers from these two areas in Quebec showed a use of long firearms. The rest, only about 6%, was with handguns.

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We didn't have the means to verify these hypotheses. The study was done in 1990 and 1991, even before Bill C-17, the Conservative government's first bill. It could be explained by the fact that already there were far more rules restricting handguns and there were fewer handguns then there were long guns.

We won't get into the reasons why we encouraged registration and licensing of all guns, including long guns. It's quite obvious, because of the epidemiology of the problem. But we were relieved in the 1990s to realize that because there were more rules on possessing and on storing and on using handguns, it seemed to have an effect on their availability for suicides, and also for homicides, and also for accidents.

Canada has a long tradition... I think it's since 1931 or 1949 that we have registered handguns. The logic behind the laws on handguns was that they are uniquely dangerous objects because they can be hidden; concealed. If the verification comes back to this rule of the more or less one million handguns when they are transferred from one person to another not being done, we think you are losing on the safety objectives inherent in the law.

I must admit this point wasn't clarified with a lot of depth, because we were so sure when I was back at the conference that when we read this we said, well, probably they can't do this to short guns, to handguns; they probably thought of doing it just for long guns, for convenience, cost purposes, etc.; so we should be okay with that. They asked me specifically to ask this question, but we were sure the answer would be contrary to the one the chair just gave us.

Please note this. Perhaps you have a problem here.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Thank you, Dr. Chapdelaine.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): First of all, Mr. Chairman, I don't understand and I didn't understand what our witness's problem was in his last statement. I just didn't follow it. I'm sorry. I didn't understand that.

Anyway, I wish to thank our witness for being here.

We recognize that the statistics indicate over 75% of deaths that occur as a result of firearms are suicides, but other than to discourage the ownership of firearms, as you have indicated here... You have said you want to optimize the inconvenience of firearm ownership. Am I right? Did I understand you?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: No, you didn't.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: I'm sorry. What was it?

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): To minimize the inconvenience.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear that right.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I should have said it in French.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Yes. Then we could blame it on the translator if I didn't understand; or just on my bad hearing.

If the use of firearms makes up three-quarters of the deaths that occur on a yearly basis, I still am in a quandary to understand how the registration of firearms will change that.

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I will give you an example, particularly dealing with suicides, the largest number.

If a person owns a firearm and maintains their rationality, they will not use it against themselves or anyone else. But if they own a firearm and have it registered and locked up and lose their rationality, how is the registration of that firearm going to stop them from using it against themselves?

I have difficulty in following your strong support of the bill from the viewpoint that you expressed, which is to reduce the number of suicides through the use of firearms.

I'd like you to address that.

As well, would you advise the committee if your group focuses upon the causative factors that lead to one losing their rationality and giving up the will to live and using some instrument, in this case a firearm, to take their own life. Are you looking at the cause of suicide, and if you have, what impact do you think these new regulations are going to have in lowering the statistics?

Those two points, if you will.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Thank you for your question, Mr. Ramsay.

I'll do it in English, if I can, and if it's not clear, please interrupt me.

First, I think you mentioned several times the word “rationality” and if the person keeps his rationality. Science has been studying suicides since Durkheim, in the nineteenth century, when it started being studied in a serious manner. We came up with a multitude of risk factors. Now, we work in public health with risk factors, with risks. Mostly we try to work with risk factors on which we can have a handle, that we can change.

In the public health method, there are two rigorous rules. First, you have to prove that the risk factor is linked to the problem you want to prevent. The second thing is that you have to be able to modify or influence or change the risk factor that it is linked to.

So it's not because we are looking at firearms that we are not addressing the root causes of suicide in society, but those are sort of more mushy. They are less solid. You have a multitude of factors and you don't know which one is really doing the job.

So even if we are working in public health on the deep causes of suicide, it's not a reason not to work also on the manifestations, the symptoms, the instruments of suicide. So that's why we are working on firearms.

To come back to the rationality, if the person doesn't lose his rationality: what we do have as a given, as a risk factor, is that maybe between 50% and 60% of suicides occur with a firearm, or with another means, with very high blood alcohol levels. That's even one of the reasons why those who mix certain drugs that alone would probably not kill them, like Valium... You can eat loads of Valium without any success, but if you mix it with alcohol, you have a suicide case. There's a lot of alcohol in suicides.

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Then there are two types of suicide, grosso modo. It's more complicated than this, but to simplify, one is rational and the other one is impulsive. It's not the same people who would do both.

In older people we're seeing an increase in suicide. Those are very rational suicides. We don't think we will prevent those, in any way. They won't only use a gun; they might use a rope, plus medication, plus alcohol. Sometimes the number of ways are quite horrendous. Those are very rational ones. I don't think we can do anything with those for the moment, I'm very sorry.

There's another group of the population, our youngsters, a group categorized as being between 15 and 24. They seem more frequently to commit what is called “impulsive suicide”. They don't have psychiatric illness linked to their suicide, as in older groups, where there is schizophrenia or a paranoid psychosis, things like that. They have much less psychiatric disease.

There was an inquest in Quebec a few years past. I think we talked about it in previous sessions like this one. They looked at safe storage of firearms. We looked at a variety of cases. The cases were so typical.

I must tell you, we read about 600 dossiers, so I'm not talking from the top of my head. We read, deeply, 600 dossiers from the coroner du Québec to look at how these things happen. The circumstances would make you shiver.

You have a son who's 18—and this is a typical story—who's bright, good at school, plays sports, is clean, and is perfectly non-drugged, non-anything. He goes out on a binge.

Now, I wasn't there, but one of these people came to be a witness here with my colleagues, Dr. Maguire and Mr. Saint-Onge and Dr. Maurice. This young man follows this description—17, bright, clean, the son we would all like to have. He goes out on a binge with friends. He's stopped by the police. He gets scared and panics. He runs home, finds dad's .22-calibre rifle, finds the bullets in the drawer, puts them where they have to go, and shoots.

The guy came here because he's one of the rare survivors. He's blind. Do you remember that chap?

That's a typical story. I could tell you loads of them, ad nauseam.

So it's not rational, not always. Sometimes it is, but with those, I don't think we can do much.

In Quebec, the percentage is more like 75%. In Canada, if you look at all the provinces, including yours, it's closer to 80%. I can't tell you what percentage of those 80% of firearms suicides are impulsive, but I can tell you that the group of young people who are killing themselves with guns—and they don't miss very often; the one who came here and survived to be a witness is a rare case—commit, more often than not, impulsive suicide.

Those can be stopped by barriers, physical and temporary barriers, to their impulsive act. That also works for the owner of the gun.

Obviously, the young chap I described picked up his dad's gun or his uncle's gun or somebody else's gun, which should have been stored very safely. He shouldn't have gotten the key.

When he came here I think he said—he told us, at least—that if there had been a trigger lock he probably would still see.

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But it's also the owner of the gun. If he's loaded with alcohol and he does it more or less on an impulse, he might take a while to find the key, and to fumble with the key another while. If you add up all those times, we have what is called une distance temporelle. You give him more chances of catching up with his rationality. So in both cases...

With violence, I think we could follow the same logic. There is a certain proportion of acts of violence that are extremely impulsive, whether linked to alcohol or not. He who hasn't gone berserk once in his life can still throw the first stone. If a firearm is available and it's immediately usable, what might have turned into a lot of dishes being broken might turn into a tombstone having to be erected.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Thank you, Dr. Chapdelaine.

Mr. Marceau.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg, BQ): Mr. Chairman, since my colleague Peter MacKay must leave shortly, I will let him speak now and continue later.

[English]

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC): I want to thank my colleague very much for the opportunity—I have another appointment to attend. I also want to thank the doctor for appearing before the committee today.

Doctor, I think this is a very interesting debate we are embarking on. I think the issue of drug use and alcohol on a person's rationale and mindset, which might lead them to the point of doing an impulsive act that was going to harm themselves or another, is as much at the root cause of these high suicide rates and violence rates as the availability of weapons.

My experience in the criminal justice system has been that the use of knives and bats has become increasingly frequent. If a person has it in their mind that they are going to commit an act of violence... I agree with the principle that you espouse, that the availability of a weapon, whether it's a handgun or a long gun, is going to be a factor in whether that violence will occur. And you would agree, I'm sure, that C-17 put in place physical barriers to carrying out such an act, be it a locked gun or the separation of ammunition from a weapon. You referred to that in the scenario of the witness who came here and told of going home and getting a gun and loading it. One would certainly hope that if there's any sort of time passage that may come into play, it may bring the person back from that impulsive act.

But it appears to me from your comments that much of the rationale behind your feeling that these regulations are positive is the wish to move further and further towards the eventuality that weapons will not be available at all in a person's home. I glean that because you said your group had asked for more in terms of regulatory restrictions.

By making this registration process come into effect, it seems that is what's happening. It's becoming more expensive, more cumbersome, more onerous, and eventually more restrictive for a person to own a firearm for whatever purpose—even a legitimate purpose, I would suggest, and that's accepting your premise that fewer and fewer people need a gun for necessity in this country. Fewer and fewer people rely on a rifle for subsistence purposes.

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But are we not going into the area of being too interventionist in trying to protect people from themselves? If registering these guns is a step towards eventually making guns completely inaccessible...and I don't know if you accept my premise that this is your eventual goal, but are we not going too far to try to protect people from themselves? If that is the purpose, why don't we just state it, rather than putting in these restrictive regulations?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I appreciate that question, even if my head was going both sides.

You are correct in most of your assumptions of where we're going—the barrier part. Decreasing the commodity of impulsive use is perfectly correct. Where I hope there is no misunderstanding is that our goal here is not to ban all guns or ban all alcohol, or all drugs and so on. We know that doesn't work.

Our goal is to control them, to optimize—I don't know if you had arrived when I said that—the public safety of Canadians and minimize the inconvenience to owners so that legitimate owners...for hunting, for sports shooting, even, let's say, for real collection use, is all right. It's part of our tradition.

You raised two questions in your comment. One is the question of affordability. Is it getting too onerous? Is this whole system too onerous to really be worthwhile, and are we not putting too many barriers to even try to protect people against themselves?

I've been in this since 1989. If you remember, in those years the government of the day had proposed Bill C-17, which you referred to on several occasions. It's on the record that the Minister of Justice asked me to be part of the Canadian Advisory Council on Firearms, which was chaired by Senator Jacques Flynn of Quebec City.

We worked for three years on certain rules. One of those that we were quite satisfied with was the safe storage rules. We were mostly satisfied with those because in this council there was a majority of gun users, of gun sellers, of Olympic shooters, and so on. There was a minority of people from the legal system, the judicial system, or from the health system. I was alone.

We managed to find a sort of compromise, and the technical help of gunsmiths was extremely useful in discovering trigger locks and discovering how you can properly store a gun. That was a favourable part, and that came from that government. But there was something missing in that, and that's where you said my group had asked for more.

Bill C-17 was a good step in the right direction, but there was an element that was really missing in Bill C-17, and that we found in Bill C-68, or the one passed in 1995. It was the factor of responsabiliser le propriétaire d'arme.

It was impossible to “responsibilize” or think we could responsibilize all law-abiding gun owners, if they didn't have—and they didn't have then under Bill C-17—a possession licence. They only had to have an acquisition certificate, which was a cardboard paper you could get in those days for $10; it increased a bit more. There was very little checking, and with that you could buy every gun in the world the next day and every day thereafter.

So there was a lack of responsibility for checking. That came with the other law.

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Those things take time, and I'm not blaming the Campbell law, because it made good strides in the right direction. But I think this law finished the job. That's why we want to see it finished.

About responsibilization, there's another factor that came into play, and not only on anecdotal cases, but I could give you anecdotal cases ad nauseam.

On the link between the gun and the owner, I'll give you one example. In Longueuil, I think in 1995 or 1996, a child of 14 went to his buddy's home. The buddy seemed to have access to Dad's pump action 12-gauge or 20-gauge shotgun, which is a very powerful machine. He stole it from his buddy of 14, who had access to this thing. He went home and shot his brother while he was sleeping. He waited for his parents to come back and shot both his parents.

That's a classic case in Quebec. We looked at that case. Not only is it incredible that a kid of 14 could have access to the theft of that gun because it was poorly stored. That was before the application of Bill C-17 storage rules, I must be honest with you, but still, it was incredible. What was really incredible was that the owner of the gun could have legally said “This is not mine”. There was nothing to link that gun to him. There was no registration system.

It's hard to feel responsible for your car if your name is not on the licence plate in clear terms. That's why—

Mr. Peter MacKay: Sorry to interrupt you. In that scenario—

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: The onerous part I would like to come back to, if you will.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Okay. I don't know the specifics of how the gun was stored, and I'm keeping in mind the last change with Bill C-17, but on the responsibility side, this regulatory body, I would suggest, is going to encourage those who commit criminal offences using firearms, if they are registered, to dispose of them quickly, so they won't be traced. Do you follow my premise?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Yes, but I don't see the link with the rules here. The punishment side of misusing a firearm I think was already discussed in the past and as a group we had nothing to say about that.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Okay.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Could I come back to the onerous part before Mr. MacKay has to leave? He brought that up and it's an important factor.

Already when I was on the advisory council there was a lot of discussion about the costs of a system, of a law, etc., and not only the costs for the owners of firearms. Will we be making them pay so much that they will stop having guns? That was a legitimate question Senator Flynn was making us work on.

In the years that followed I had the chance to work with economists and had to look at not only the other side of the medal, which is the costs of the system of registration, etc., but also the costs for us of picking up the wounded and the dead and the costs for society of having... In those days we had around 1,400 deaths a year, a little more than three a day in Canada. In Quebec we had 400 firearm deaths a year. That was about one a day, more or less.

So we looked at the costs. You are probably aware of the study that was published, I think a month before it passed through the Senate in 1995, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. That's quite a serious journal, read by 60,000 physicians in this country. It looked at the direct costs and the indirect costs, because we were getting a lot of questions. You can count the police intervention, the funeral, and the medical costs, if there are any, directly, but what about the indirect costs, the costs of lost productivity, the costs of lost quality of life, which is very important?

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We looked at that with an economist and it was published. We came to a quite staggering figure. In 1993 it cost Canada close to $6 billion if you took all the costs.

But recently I got a more precise edition of those costs. Something that will interest you very much is that this author did a study comparing the costs in the United States to those here. It's most interesting, because they're much worse off than we are. But still it's costing Canadians a lot of money.

I'm talking about the costs in American dollars—because they had to compare with the Americans, so they transferred the Canadian dollars into American dollars—to every single Canadian child, grandfather, woman or man per year that each has to pay for gunshot wounds. There are the indirect costs, the bulk costs, and the direct costs. If my memory is correct—and I just read this on the plane—it's something like $180 American per Canadian every year and $50 direct per Canadian every year.

Now, not all Canadians have firearms. In fact, there are a lot of Canadians paying for the costs of them not being sufficiently well controlled. So the argument of costs is really a thing to work with delicately.

Mr. Peter MacKay: There are a lot of people paying for drug rehabilitation programs in prisons who have never had anything to do with either.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: But here we're talking of a sport.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): We are way over our time. We have to go on to Mr. Marceau.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I have two comments, followed by four questions which I would like to put to Dr. Chapdelaine.

First of all, I want to thank you for coming here today. I found your presentation most interesting.

Two of the facts that you alluded to made by blood run cold. First of all, you mentioned suicides committed with long arms in the home and in rural areas. Not only did I find this revelation chilling, but I was also somewhat surprised to hear this. The second surprising fact you mentioned was that the mere presence of firearms increases the risk of suicide fivefold and the risk of homicide threefold. These are two facts which we must bear in mind as we consider these regulations.

If I understand clearly your concept of responsibility, you're saying that the draft regulations and the registration process will prompt firearm owners to store their weapons more securely and that this in itself will help to lower substantially the number of irrational suicides. This additional step might help people come to their senses before they use a firearm.

Secondly, if I understand what you're saying, you want us to hurry up and adopt these regulations so that everything is in place for the year 2001. We have only three years left to accomplish this and we would have to start right away.

Thirdly, on page 48 of the French text, you asked if this included restricted firearms. The answer was yes and you responded that you were not satisfied with this.

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Are you saying that you would like the registration process for restricted firearms to take effect today, not only in the year 2003?

Fourthly, you indicate that if these regulations succeed in saving but a few lives by erecting barriers to irrational suicides, the objective will have been met. Indeed, our objective will have been met if we manage to lower, however slightly, the excessively high rate of suicide in Quebec and in Canada.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: As far as your comments are concerned, you will find our responses in all of the briefs that we have tabled here on other occasions. We would be happy to send them to you if you would like to see where we are coming from.

We are grappling with a fairly serious problem in the case of long arms in homes in rural areas owned by people with no prior history of any problems. Studies have shown that the mere presence of a firearm in a home increases fivefold the risk of suicide and threefold the risk of homicide. Time and time again, stories confirm this fact. In the field of epidemiology, we do not make a statement like this without conducting a series of well-structured methodological studies. I thank you for bringing up these two points.

On now to your questions. As for responsibility and irrational suicides, we prefer to use the term "impulsive", but I know we are talking about the same thing. We hope that increased responsibility will lead to improved storage practices and consequently, to increased physical and spatial barriers.

In terms of our wanting gun owners to assume greater responsibility, our philosophy is based on the whole history of public health care. When increased awareness is achieved through education, the results are always better than when we simply go ahead and impose laws on people.

[English]

In public health, there are three big measures that we call the three E's: engineering, enforcement, and education.

[Translation]

In French, it's not quite as catchy. Engineering refers to all the technologies in place to protect people, such as vaccines, safety locks, air bags in automobiles, and so forth. There are also child-proof caps

[English]

for the pill bottles. That's engineering, and it works because you don't have to count on people to make it work. It just works.

The other thing is enforcement of the laws, etc., and the last thing is education. If you have laws telling people that drinking and driving will be punished and you add to them roadblocks and checking people, you therefore have a technology to test for drinking and driving. If you then also educate them at Christmas, at festivities, etc., you have more results than if you only put one egg in your basket.

It's a question of a mix of strategies. We have written that in our various briefs.

[Translation]

Your second question had to do with why we are so anxious for these regulations to be adopted as quickly as possible. We encourage you

[English]

to make them pass because time is short. I'd like that message to stay with you, because the year 2001 is coming quickly, and the year 2003 is coming quickly too. The job is quite important, it is complicated, and, as anybody knows who has been in this business for so many years—like some of you—the enforcement aspects are very complex.

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But we are quiet and very serene with this because we have the dates 2001 and 2003 in the law and nobody can change that law unless we go back to Parliament. That hopefully will not happen. But still, time is pressing, and if we want this to work effectively, all the chances must be put on the side of the legislator.

I'm not sure I understood you very well.

[Translation]

Regarding the verification process scheduled to take effect in the year 2003, we are concerned that restricted firearms such as handguns which have always been registered since 1978... The owner carries a card listing the licence number of the firearm in his possession. We understand that. However, when possession of the firearm is transferred, what happens then?. Let's suppose your uncle decides to get rid of his .38 calibre police service revolver that he bought we he retired and to transfer ownership of the weapon to one of his friends. We would like the registration number to be verified at the time of the transfer. We do not want these weapons to be re-registered, but we do want a verification to be carried out.

We note the following in the regulations:

C) On or after January 1, 2003, the transferor shall present evidence to the registrar that the information submitted in support of an application for a new registration certificate has been verified by an approved verifier, [...]

We're talking here about restricted weapons and about a verification process which should be in place before 2003. We accept this. We've discussed this matter at length, but for practical reasons, we accept what is being proposed in these regulations, namely that long arms be verified, but not until after 2003.

Let me explain to you

[English]

logic that brought us to accept the year 2003 for long guns is the same logic for why we don't accept it for short guns. For long guns we accept it because we go on the premise that most Canadians are law abiding. When they enter their tax form every year they usually put the correct information. There are some who don't, but not all. We don't see any reason why the cost and inconvenience should be borne right away until the year 2000. We accept that every single long gun that will be registered in this country by the year 2000 will not all be verified before 2003 because we accept that people will do their best to put the right number when it's feasible. When it is not feasible they will ask for help, and I am sure that help will be provided.

The last question of M. Marceau,

[Translation]

in the field of public health, our role is not to say that even if we manage to save only a few lives, it's worth it if we can maintain some control over this area and so forth. Because we must bear in mind the cost-benefit ratio, we need to ask ourselves the following question: How do we go about getting, as people in the military say, the biggest bang for our buck and the biggest return on our investment?

In light of what I've told Mr. MacKay about what it costs Canadians every year in terms in injuries and in light of the cost of implementing the controls that we have been requesting for seven years, we believe that the benefits will far outweigh the costs. When Bill C-17 was introduced, the benefits of this legislation were reflected in a drop in the number of accidental deaths.

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We had anywhere from 200 to 300

[English]

unintentional injuries every year in Canada in the 1970s. It went down to around 60, when Mrs. Campbell arrived, and it's still going down. Much of that was because of the law in 1978 with Mr. Allmand and then C-17. That was very education-oriented. It works for accident prevention.

But we're dealing with other problems, like suicides and homicides, and we can't count only on education to subsidize those problems.

I think Parliament has decided on a very good investment. In crime prevention it is the best investment of all investments for a government to go that way. You won't save only a couple of lives. You will save many more.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Thanks, Dr. Chapdelaine.

Mrs. Barnes.

Mrs. Sue Barnes (London West, Lib.): Thank you very much.

I'm so happy to see you again. I always find your testimony the most rational I've ever heard, and you present it so well on what is such an emotional subject for many people.

This is the first time I've been talking at this committee in this Parliament. Earlier today you mentioned Bill C-17. One of the biggest disappointments to me was the change in the Conservative Party's position on this bill, because the best man at my wedding was the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice on C-17. I followed that very passionate debate advocating this type of gun control by the Conservative Party at that time. That's when I started paying attention to this file.

I remember the day we heard the testimony about the $6 billion worth of annualized costs of death and accidental costs relating to firearm injuries. Unfortunately, it wasn't televised, and I remember the very small inches it got in the papers. Yet there were the very large number of pages about the costs of registration, which we've always heard about.

I continue to hear about the inconvenience of registering long arms and other weapons. Again, I always remember the testimony of Priscilla de Villiers in the last Parliament when we did this legislation. Her quote was, “Let me tell you about inconvenience.” I remember using that in the House in my speech on this bill.

Here we are again. I'm certainly in support of everything you have said today. I know that it's very difficult to deal with the very easy statement, “If people want to kill themselves, they will”. We do know, very definitely, that a completed suicide usually occurs when you use a firearm. All the other methods combined don't come anywhere near the statistic of the completed suicide attempts.

I'm glad you've given us the benefit of your vast experience and expertise again today to clarify that, because I know these arguments will get used over and over again until this debate is finally dealt with and we do have our registration that is so necessary for safe communities for Canadians.

In your opening statements you talked about the study that gave the different rates of the incidence of suicide or accident or death with a firearm in the home. I know you have the data there, and I would like you to place it on the record so that people can be clear about the fact that this wasn't somebody's opinion or a minor case, so that people can be clear about the scientific data. Please just fill us in a little more about when that study was done and about the scientific basis. Just give us a fuller view of when, how, how much, and where.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Do I understand your question as being—

Mrs. Sue Barnes: Tell me more about the science of your statements.

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Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Obviously, you are right, Mrs. Barnes. The things that stick in our minds over the years are often cases, maybe one case if we've met one and seen one. But that is not sufficient to make a good case, either in court or when you are trying to bring information to legislators like you to help you in your decision. That was the role public health tried to bring, to help make this decision. That cannot be done just with anecdotes. It has to be built on science.

The other reason we did that was because by giving you good, timely data, things that are solid but in a good timeframe, it helps you make decisions where you'll make fewer mistakes. If you do it on a hunch, you might have the political savvy to not miss your mark, but you minimize your chances of missing your mark if you have better data on which to make a decision.

Historically, firearms deaths and injuries were not subjects that public health looked at. We were too busy with infectious disease, occupational health and injuries, maternal and child health, etc. We were notably, and in my opinion discouragingly, absent in the debates around firearms control in the 1970s in Canada, when Mr. Allmand was the Minister of Justice. We were totally absent. The police were there. The police had a vested interest and the good sense to have better controls because they were dealing with the criminals. They had the law enforcement aspect and they were also being menaced by guns. They were being shot down. But they didn't have much hard data to bring forward.

It was only in the 1980s, in the United States, because of the enormity of the problem there, that several scientists decided that perhaps this was a public health problem after all. They were looking at the deaths. They were looking at the circumstances, the injuries, the costs, etc. This was a major problem in the United States.

As many of the best brains in epidemiology and on the planet are from the United States, they also said that because this is a health problem, could we not look at it in the same way we've looked at infectious disease, the same way we look at smoking tobacco? Can we look at it and see what the links are, what the risk factors are? Perhaps we can put our hands on it and say this is linked, so we can now work on that risk factor. Does it work? That's how we proceed.

They only started studies in 1982. The first studies were starting to be published only when the Polytechnique massacre started. I must admit very humbly that I was trained in the United States in the 1980s. I had a vague interest in the subject, but I was an infectious disease guy in those days. I started getting slightly interested.

I started getting very interested the day I had to pass my Royal College exams in 1987. We were preparing questions, and you always come up with very bizarre questions. The question came out: Firearms. Is this a health problem? What do you do about it?

I had to imagine very quickly what... Then I realized how little we knew about it.

In the summer of 1989, before the Polytechnique massacre, there was a case of suicide in Quebec that struck us very much, so we started looking at the instruments of suicide. We started looking at all the literature that was available. There wasn't much. There was not a single Canadian public health physician who was interested in the subject.

Some studies were starting. Notably, the study that compared Vancouver with Seattle, which I've talked about to this House frequently. It was interesting. It looked at regulations and death rates in both countries in two similar areas.

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Seattle is very similar to Vancouver, both socio-economically and racially. The death rates were much lower in suicides and homicides in Vancouver where there were some controls, especially with hand guns, than in Seattle where there were hardly any controls. That was the very first one.

I must admit that when Polytechnique happened, we were appalled by the event. We were very careful, because we did not want to jump on that occasion to start talking about it, so we left it quite a while before we manifested our interest. Our interest became public sometime after Christmas when we said this is the tip of the iceberg and the real public health problem is the bottom of the iceberg. There are 400 deaths in Quebec. Twelve women have been killed in very special circumstances, but there are other circumstances in which this happens and there we might be able to help.

To tell you the truth, I was particularly worried because we didn't have very strong data to satisfy your type of criteria to help you make decisions. But it was coming in. I don't want to quote somebody from Ontario, but you have to use some common sense in public health.

At the beginning we were working on some data, some studies, and some common sense. Thank God, our common sense was being corroborated more and more by studies. In the 1990s there was a load of publications. I read all the scientific journals that are of some worth, like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, etc., and the Canadians one too, like the Canadian Medical Association Journal, where it is published. The studies were coming out and were extremely interesting and responded to most of the questions we were asking.

What is the difference between a house that has a gun and a house that doesn't have a gun? You have the answer. What is the difference between a house that has a gun to protect itself against intruders? Does it really protect against intruders or is it more of a peril for the owners of the house? You have that answer too.

Mrs. Sue Barnes: Do you want it on the record again for my colleagues?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I am sure that everybody has heard those studies several times. It is obvious that a gun in the home will kill more of the members of the household than it will kill intruders and not fivefold but forty-threefold. There are 43 more chances that a gun that is loaded and kept for protection in the home will finish by killing a member of the household, either through suicide—mostly suicides—or homicide, or by accident, than will kill an intruder. That is one of the questions I was asked.

Another question I was asked by Mr. Ramsay at the beginning of this session was the whole question of intention. If you really want to commit suicide and you don't have a gun, you will use something else. The rationality part of your question was very pertinent, in my view. Those questions were asked, and it is not a question of only rationality. It is a question of whether it is available and is as deadly as it is. If it is used you won't be injured, you'll be killed.

Mrs. Sue Barnes: Do you want to give me a statistic on that?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Very quickly. If you compare fists, knives, etc., in an interpersonal violent situation between, say, a husband and wife or two spouses, conjugal violence, and all these means are used, if it is a gun you have 12 times more chance that the victim will be killed than with any other means. That has been studied several times. I will not elaborate.

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Mrs. Sue Barnes: I'm just going to close and say that in the past year since I've been here the National Rifle Association now has observer status at the United Nations, so I'm glad people like you are around to counteract that type of influence.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): We've taken a rather long round. We still haven't expired the time, but I would ask as we start round two that the questions be brief and succinct, and perhaps the answers too, if possible.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: You mentioned that since Bill C-17 came in, the accidental death rate has dropped by 300 across the country.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I'm sorry. I was misunderstood. I wasn't clear; I'm sorry.

No. When Bill C-17 came in, it was 60 deaths per year by accident. This is non-intentional injury. We've seen it go down, but I can't remember exactly by how much. Justice statistics people would tell you.

It's not due only to the law in itself. That's the point I was trying to bring to Mr. Marceau.

The fact that there is a law and that a lot of people are talking about it also helps. For the past seven years you've seen the press. People are talking and fighting in buses about this thing—fighting nicely. They are discussing it, and it creates an environment in which the mixture of a good law with good regulations like these and good education is reinforced by education and a sensitivity to a question, and you see results go down.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Do you have any statistics to indicate whether or not the suicide rate has gone down since Bill C-17 has come into effect, and if so, what has been the percentage of decrease?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I know that it has gone down, but it wouldn't be prudent to say that it's due to Bill C-17 only. That's why I answered—

Mr. Jack Ramsay: That's not my question. If you have the statistics that you could provide the committee... Do you have the statistics that indicate by how much the suicide rate has gone down from the year in which Bill C-17 came into effect, regardless of what the factors are in reducing that figure? Has it gone down or has it gone up, or do you have those figures?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: The numbers have gone down slightly, but I don't have them by heart. They're provided by Statistics Canada.

I have them here, but we have the numbers only until 1995. When I appeared here the first time, say in 1990, in terms of suicide deaths there were 1,054 that year. The next year there were 1,109. In 1992 there were 1,048. In 1993 there were 1,053 and in 1994... I guess it's so similar to the other numbers that I wouldn't say it went down, but it's just psychologically encouraging to see that it went below the 1,000 mark, to 973. But on a five-year basis and with numbers that vary so little, I wouldn't pass my Royal College exams if I told you that there was a real decrease.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Through your research, are you able to tell the committee or give us any prediction of what you think will be the reduction in the suicide rate when this becomes fully implemented, when this bill and all its regulations become fully enforced?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: No, I can't. I can't give you—

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Not even a ballpark figure?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Or an educated guess figure. I wouldn't commit to anything of that sort.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: That's fine. Thank you.

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The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.): Suicide is probably the worst aspect of our health care system in Canada because first of all it shows a failure either on behalf of society or in terms of the individual's relationship with it.

I know in many provinces—I'm not sure about Quebec—many suicides occur in a non-violent fashion and are never really reported to the authorities properly. Is that an assumption that's true across the country? In many cases, do doctors simply say “heart attack”, or whatever it might be, to complete the death certificate rather than saying there was a suicide but it was non-violent? There's a certain stigma effect of a suicide. Doctor, is that a true assumption?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Usually when you look at data on deaths that includes suicides and homicides there is a variety of suicides, homicides, accidents, legal intervention deaths—a little less than 10 per year in Canada—and undetermined as to intention. The undetermined numbers are only about 30 or 40.

We aren't in a society any more where religion has a lot of influence on the way police, coroners, or physicians report death. There's much less now than in previous years in Quebec when the church was extremely powerful. I'm just talking about Quebec; I don't know about the situation elsewhere. I don't think it's so much under-reported.

On the basis of comparing Statistics Canada or death registered numbers, we have coroner investigation numbers. In Quebec, a coroner has to investigate every single suicide.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: For my own information, how many suicides would there be yearly in Quebec where firearms were involved?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: It might vary from one year to the next. There are around 1,100 to 1,200 suicide deaths in Quebec per year. We started getting interested in it because it went over the motor vehicle crash injury death rate in Quebec, which is down to under 1,000. Of the 1,100 to 1,200 suicides, 400 are firearm deaths. That's a bit more than 30%.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Most of your evidence stressed that we should hurry up and get these regulations passed. It didn't really look at them in terms of different aspects, although you made suggestions in one minor part.

I think many people in the country are concerned. We've had Bill C-17, which, according to our police, has never really been enforced. Are the police and the justice department in the province of Quebec willing to commit the effort that's needed to enforce these regulations?

Have there been any discussions within Quebec about what Parliament passed in Bill C-68 and these regulations? Will the province of Quebec, in your opinion, support the efforts that are needed to verify them and to see that the act is complied with?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: We can look at the Quebec public, the Quebec government, and Quebec representatives in this House. If you look at polls from 1990 to 1997, the Quebec public has always been between 80% and 94% in favour of every proposal of law. That public happens to vote for the representatives provincially and federally.

When the head of the current provincial government was in this House the Bloc was very strongly supportive. If you look at the roster of votes in the House on June 13, 1995, the entire Bloc voted in favour.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: What percentage of households in Quebec has firearms?

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Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: The studies vary, but it's between 21% and 23%. There's just one bizarre study that goes up to 29% or something, but let's say it's a quarter.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Mr. Malhi, do you have a quick question?

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton, Lib.): Yes.

Which provinces have the highest suicide death rates involving guns? As well, are there any particular reasons for that?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I didn't know if anybody would ask that question. I'm glad to finish with it.

I'd like to distribute to members a chart I did up last night, before I took the plane. It's of very poor quality, for which I apologize.

The chart compares, by province, the percentage of homes that have firearms with the death rates. If you took a ruler and made a line following this you would have almost a straight line going up.

I had to do this quickly, so I didn't take the time to write the whole name of the province, but you will recognize that, for example, Ontario, with 15% of households with firearms, is the lowest one in terms of death rates. That's for suicide, homicides, and accidents over almost an eight-year period. We're not talking about just one year or two; it's six or eight years—which, I can't remember. So that's at the lower scale. Quebec is somewhere in the middle.

Alberta is quite high up, but the percentage of homes that have firearms is quite high up too. I can't remember exactly. It's something like 49%. What is really off the scale is Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

To tell you the truth, this idea came to me through a colleague in the States. He was comparing the provinces with the States.

Where do you think the States would be, if I may ask the members?

Mrs. Sue Barnes: Off the record?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Strangely, it's between 50% and 60%.

When he showed me this, he showed me the Canadian provinces. He asked me which province was indicated by the black spot, between 50% and 60%, about here. That province was the U.S.A.

So there really is a correlation between the density of firearms in homes and the death rates. But there is also correlation between another phenomenon that's extremely important.

Which are the provinces in Canada that oppose gun control the most? It's normal that if you have more firearms you will want to keep them, or you might have more opposition. The provinces, of course, are Alberta, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.

It's a sad irony that the higher the death rate, the higher the percentage of homes that have a firearm, and the more there is opposition.

I'm sorry for the quality of the graph.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Is there anything further, Mr. Malhi?

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: No.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Are there any other questions?

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Yes.

Do you have the overall figure for the suicide rate during that same period that you gave us before? That's the overall suicide rate across the country, from all causes.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: The overall suicide rate.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Yes.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I know you realize that by talking about a rate you're looking for numbers divided by 100,000 of the population, instead of numbers—

Mr. Jack Ramsay: No, it is the actual numbers. Do you have the actual numbers?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: The numbers; the ends.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Yes.

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Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: On suicides, Justice Canada should provide you with these figures.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: I was wondering if you had them.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Suicides, total numbers, all of Canada... Which year would you like?

Mr. Jack Ramsay: The same period; from 1991, I believe it was; for that five- or six-year period.

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: You have a suicide total in 1990 of 3,379. That year there were 1,054 firearm suicides. If you go down to 1994, you had 3,749 in total, with 973 firearm suicides.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Yes, it's interesting to note that although the suicides caused by firearms are going down, the overall suicides are going up. What does that say? Does that suggest that although they are not using firearms, they are using some other means?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: I don't know.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Do you have any comment on that?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: No, I wouldn't make any comment on such numbers, to be truthful.

May I respond on one thing. Mr. Ramsay is posing an important and interesting question not only scientifically, and it has a consequence for your rules. It's the question of replacement. If you don't have a gun, you'll use something else.

I must put you on guard against this argument, for two reasons. First, the replacement theory will obviously go to means that are less deadly. You might have more people trying the means but fewer who fall into the statistics.

The other point that's important is that it varies with age groups, and strangely, the epidemiology in older people is very different from that in the young ones. The young ones don't replace. The older ones will replace, but not with just anything.

In Great Britain there was a reduction of suicides with domestic gas because they replaced coal gas, which was very high in carbon monoxide, with methane gas, which was very low in carbon monoxide. It's the carbon monoxide that kills. So in England no fewer people were putting their heads in the oven but far fewer people were dying from it. In the older age group, people weren't replacing. They weren't using a rope or a... In England, for historical hanging reasons, the rope is not very popular for suicides. They weren't replacing.

In our subjects, with the youngsters, who are a very important part of the future of Canada, they don't replace with firearms. If they don't find a firearm, they just don't do it. I don't know why that is. Perhaps it's because of the irrationality of the type of suicides you evoked. I don't know why.

So whatever the conclusion is with more years of these figures, be very careful not to jump to the conclusion that it's not worth while doing gun control because they are replacing or it's going down anyway.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: The point I was interested in is if a program is successful in reducing the suicide rate in one area, it's unfortunate that we don't see that reflected in the overall figures; and we don't see that in the figures from 1990 to 1994. There is an encouraging figure, in that during that period the overall suicide rate caused by firearms is down, but overall suicides over that same period are up.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): You had a quick comment, Mrs. Barnes.

Mrs. Sue Barnes: I was just going to ask our expert to tell us about why suicide prevention hotlines work.

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Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: Why do they work? It is not proven that they do.

Mrs. Sue Barnes: Okay. I will rephrase that, then, to get at the point I'm trying to make.

Why does delaying a decision or delaying an attempted suicide—any effort, whether it's, in our context, an application time, a waiting period to get your licensing, filling out a form, having locked ammunition or a locked-up firearm—why does that have any effect? Or does it not have any effect, with respect to suicide attempts?

Dr. Antoine Chapdelaine: It's a delicate question. Grosso modo it's a different question than to know if suicide lines work. It's not proven that they do; it's not proven that they don't.

It's not proven that they do, because it seems that it's always the same people who call, and those people aren't very intent on doing it. Those who really will do it don't call. And those, if they can put their hands on a gun—they're dead. They have a high chance of succeeding in their suicide. That's where the barriers work more.

It's really two ways to put your eggs into the same basket, but not in the same boxes. One is to have suicide lines for reassurance of certain types of suicide attempters, and the other is to reduce the accessibility and the feasibility of using a very lethal means.

Strangely, we are seeing suicides go down and stop completely on the Pont de Québec. Québec Bridge used to be a bridge that was very popular as a suicide site—so much so that we decided to put barriers all around it. Since then, there have been two cases. There used to be 12 a year. In five years we have had two cases, instead of 12 a year. So just putting barriers seems to do something.

Mrs. Sue Barnes: That was my point—the barrier was the point. Thanks.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Maloney): Thanks, Dr. Chapdelaine, we appreciate your testimony. It was very interesting. We especially found this graph very interesting. Thank you very much for coming down today. We very much appreciate it.

I apologize for going a little late, gentlemen and ladies.

The meeting is adjourned.