Statistics Canada has started a project to increase the amount of information collected on guns used in crime.
Researchers have said for decades there isn’t enough data about where guns come from and how they are used.
Without that information, it is a greater challenge to stop the flow of illegal guns into Canada or to curb gun violence.
“It’s been a problem for 30 years,” said Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control.
“The information is quite fragmented. Jurisdictions like Toronto collect and trace and track crime guns, but a lot of others don’t.”
Statistics Canada is working with police services and Public Safety Canada to change that.
Last year, the agency added a variable to its homicide survey allowing police to indicate whether firearms used to commit a homicide were sent for tracing, and to provide the origin if discovered.
Besides that, Statistics Canada hasn’t said how it will increase the amount of information it receives on crime guns, just that it’s working on it.
But that’s a good first step, said Cukier.
Wendy Cukier is president of the Coalition for Gun Control. (Chris Dunseith/CBC News)
More data would help identify hot spots of gun activity in the country, she said.
It’s something law enforcement in the U.S. has done successfully. In the past, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has traced a large number of crime guns back to illegal sales.
“In Canada, we don’t have the mechanisms to make those sorts of determinations because we don’t have the tracing, the tracing data,” said Cukier.
“When it comes to identifying hot spots in Canada — dirty dealers, points of entry and so on — I think the police would say there is less information than they would like to have.”
Collecting that information nationally would allow police to target smuggling rather than discovering illegal firearms by chance when a car crosses the border, she said.
A rifle seized at the Alaska-Yukon border in 2014. (Canada Border Services Agency)
The Canada Border Services Agency seized 647 firearms in the 2019-20 fiscal year. In the last three fiscal years, that number peaked at 751 seizures in 2017-18.
There is no way of knowing how many guns escape detection.
Cukier said the broad pattern of gun crime in the country has been known for years.
Licensed guns like rifles and shotguns are often used in domestic assaults and attacks on police officers in rural communities. Handguns used by gangs are smuggled in from the U.S., stolen or sold illegally, she said.
But the figures used in crimes are elusive.
Even what police refer to as a gun used in a crime isn’t the same across the country, according to an email from Peter Frayne, a Statistics Canada spokesperson.
Rifles are generally the most seized type of gun in Nova Scotia. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
Some jurisdictions may refer to a ‘crime gun’ as a firearm used to shoot, rob or threaten another person.
But some police services don’t use the term, meaning there is a “barrier to consistent data collection and recording,” according to Frayne.
Statistics Canada says it’s working with police and other groups to come up with a definition.
Harrington said legislators should get all the facts before they create laws that hurt licensed gun owners, especially when guns smuggled into the country could be the problem.
“[It’s] so backwards,” he said.
He said it is important to define what it is that needs to be stopped.
“Like, assault rifle has no legal definition in Canada,” he said. “So define it, find out where it’s coming from, find out what you can do to stop that and then do it,” said Harrington.
Daniel Harrington is a gun owner who uses his firearm for target shooting. (Submitted by Daniel Harrington)
Statistics Canada’s work is further complicated by a lack of requests to trace a gun’s ownership history.
Not all crime guns are submitted for tracing by police. There is no legal requirement that firearms be submitted by police for tracing through the RCMP-run Canadian National Firearms Tracing Centre.
The aim of the centre is to help law enforcement figure out the history of a gun connected to a criminal investigation and to use that information as potential evidence in court, said Catherine Fortin, an RCMP spokesperson in an email.
“We are not mandated to collect statistics on illegal firearms,” she said.
That means the centre does not retain the information it gathers.
“Instead, the results are sent back to the police of jurisdiction, and are recorded in various, and inconsistent, formats,” said Frayne.
The federal government has moved to ban the sale and importation of several types of semi-automatic firearms in Canada. (CBC News)
Not all tracing pans out, meaning the origins of some guns remains a mystery.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is also trying to fill in some of the gaps. The association represents senior police leadership from across the country.
It has been exploring ways to increase data collection on the criminal uses of firearms through Statistics Canada.
The association also wants to “standardize definitions of key firearm-related concepts,” said spokesperson Natalie Wright in an email.
Wright said they are trying to identify possible options for data collection and analysis on firearms.
HRM residents turned in 152 guns to police in an amnesty program in 2016. (Stephen Puddicombe/CBC)
Despite the difficulties, collecting the information is still worth the effort, according to Jooyoung Lee, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto. Lee studies the causes and consequences of gun violence.
“It’s important to determine the origin of crime guns because any attempts at legislating the sale and flow of firearms has to recognize that the United States is a global supplier of firearms,” said Lee, “We just simply don’t know how many guns are Canadian in origin versus American in origin.”
Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at University of Toronto, says gun bans are effective at reducing violence. (CBC)
“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘There’s no point in banning military-assault weapons because we have a problem with gun smuggling,'” she said.
“That’s like saying we shouldn’t try to treat breast cancer because lung cancer is a big problem. The ban on military-assault weapons is aimed at reducing the risk we will have mass shootings.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
