Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  Very quickly, I would say we need to enhance the communication between organizations like CBSA, the Canadian National Firearms Tracing Centre and others that do this work. Also, we need to invest money in the more global issue of firearms in Canada. Each police service does a good job of handling the crimes happening in its jurisdiction or community, but we need to also look at it globally and enhance good data so that we can make good decisions and try to restrict firearms and these crimes happening in Canada.

Public Safety committee  The position on decriminalization with regard to simple possession is trying to understand that putting handcuffs on someone who suffers with an addiction is not going to solve the problems. It's going to temporarily take them out of the stream, but that's all it's going to do. Unless there's a way we can get them the help they need, recidivism is going to happen and they're going to be back in that stream.

Public Safety committee  Generally speaking, a lot of laws place restrictions on legal gun owners. I'm not going to say that there isn't a problem from time to time with legal gun owners. We have straw purchasing, for example, which is a situation in which someone who has a licence to possess and purchase guns purchases a large number of them and then sells them illegally on the black market.

Public Safety committee  I'll just speak quickly about the committee I work on. Firearm tracing is something that needs to be enhanced greatly in this country, yet, in most individual police organizations, the focus on firearms has to do with the offences that are being committed with them. In Edmonton, any of our major communities or our smaller communities, when a firearm is used in the commission of an offence, we try to solve that offence.

Public Safety committee  In general terms, in the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police work that is going on, we know there are gun problems across Canada. However, they somewhat vary by region. The types of guns being used and how they are being accessed or are falling into criminal hands varies throughout the country.

Public Safety committee  Okay. A very strong theme is that most people who are committing crime with guns are criminals who don't have the ability to possess them. It's not law-abiding gun owners who are committing the majority of these crimes.

Public Safety committee  It speaks again to some of the practices that work in areas that are sometimes geographically different from others. I've referred to that because the Lower Mainland of B.C. or Metro Toronto might look different from the prairie provinces when it comes to the sourcing of these guns and the types of guns that are being used.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of this distinguished committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. I co-chair a CACP special purpose committee on firearms that's been tasked to study growing concerns related to gun violence in Canada from a public safety perspective.