Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the SECU committee.

I'm Tony Bernardo, the executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. I have been asked to testify to this committee with regard to the technical aspects of this bill. I also wish to provide some background information regarding the development of this situation with air guns in Canada.

The current laws and regulations that Canada has regarding air guns came as a result of an RCMP firearms lab program that was trying to circumvent previous regulations in order to further restrict the possession of air guns. The firearms lab had been taking air guns of the type purchased at Canadian Tire stores, and had been firing ultralight pellets from these air guns, chronographing the velocity of the ultralight pellets. When it was determined that the velocity exceeded 495 feet per second, they were classifying ordinary air guns as real firearms and demanding that they be registered.

Needless to say, with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of these very ordinary BB guns in the public domain, the Liberal government of the day was extremely concerned that Canadians would find themselves in criminality over the purchase of a common BB gun. The minister of justice at that time, the Honourable Anne McLellan, decided to form the original firearms experts technical committee. This committee was given the mandate to develop new air gun laws that would prevent the RCMP from continuing down the path of criminalizing ordinary Canadians.

The makeup of the committee was wide and diverse and included members of the firearms community, activist groups, and the RCMP, among others. Over the course of several months, the committee met a number of times to discuss how best to keep Canadians safe without unduly restricting freedom or criminalizing ordinary people. I was privileged to be on that committee and to serve Minister McLellan in that regard.

After months of work, the committee recommended that the current air gun laws be changed from a simple 495 feet per second ceiling to a slightly more complicated 495 feet per second with a newly introduced energy component of 5.7 joules of kinetic energy. Because kinetic energy is a measure of mass times velocity squared, the use of ultralight projectiles in BB guns would not exceed the energy requirement even though the tested velocity might be over 495 feet per second. This is a very important point, and I will return to it later in this presentation.

Of particular interest to this committee might be the issue of why this law is so needed. Air guns found themselves in the crosshairs of the Supreme Court of Canada as a result of the so-called pig's eye test. The pig's eye test began to be introduced several years ago as court evidence by zealous crowns bent on obtaining Criminal Code convictions against individuals who had committed certain offences with air guns.

Related to this is the Criminal Code definition of “firearm”. Section 2 states:

“firearm” means a barrelled weapon from which any shot, bullet or other projectile can be discharged and that is capable of causing serious bodily injury or death to a person....

The pig's eye test is based on a postwar military study that demonstrated that a velocity of 214 feet per second was necessary to incapacitate a person. This was done by firing military projectiles—not BBs—into the eyes of dead pigs. However, velocity does not tell the whole story. As illustrated in the first part of this presentation, it was recognized that velocity alone is not sufficient to seriously injure a person. A speck of dust at 214 feet per second will make a person's eye water. A bowling ball at the same speed would easily kill someone.

This was recognized by Minister McLellan's committee and was incorporated into Canada's air gun laws.

As well, there has been no demonstrated correlation between a pig's eye and a human's eye. We know that an octopus' eye is different from a sparrow's eye, which is different from an alligator's eye, but there has never been a medical correlation that I'm aware of between a pig's eye and a person's eye.

Why is this important? Because the Criminal Code says “serious bodily injury...to a person”, not to a pig. If one is to accept the premise that these are interchangeable, it must be clearly established that the two are the same.

The third point regarding this test is that there is no legal opinion I'm aware of that states that losing an eye constitutes serious injury. I'm sure we can all agree that it would almost certainly be very painful and would bring out a huge squeamish factor in most of us, but since the beginning of mankind, people have been losing eyes in accidents and they go on to live perfectly normal lives.

Once again, I'm not suggesting that damaging an eye is not a serious matter. It certainly may be. I'm simply stating there is no legal evidence to establish this and that such a thing becomes necessary when a Criminal Code conviction hangs in the balance.

The point of all this information is that Canada's air gun laws were developed based on the results of committee recommendations from a group of experts appointed by the former Chrétien government. Minister McLellan was satisfied that the recommended changes to the old regulations on air guns were both evidence-based and satisfied public safety requirements. Indeed, we've been using these regulations since that time and there has been no lack of safety surrounding Canada's air gun laws.

Bill C-637 would not restore the former government's status quo of BB guns as non-firearms, but only speaks to the transportation and storage regulations. A kid with a BB gun could still be charged with firearms offences in certain circumstances, and myriad other very serious Criminal Code offences. The decades-old warning about being careful with your Red Ryder BB gun certainly pales against the spectre of being run through Canada's legal system. Even with the successful passage of this bill, all that would revert to the previous legislation is storage and transportation of these BB guns.

Air guns are the primary trainers of the firearms world. Many generations of novice shooters have learned the skills of marksmanship and the responsibilities of safe gun handling through the use of pellet and BB guns, and many more will. The air gun is a marvellous training tool to teach with. Air guns are quiet, safe, and very accurate. That the Supreme Court chose to circumvent the clearly stated will of Parliament is disappointing to the tens of thousands of Canadians I represent. These lawful, trustworthy citizens of this great country now look to you to make this right again.

It is the position of the CSSA that we support this bill. We would like to see it expanded to fully return to the old status of air guns enjoyed by Canadians for so many decades. Air guns are not firearms. They do not have the reach, lethality, or potential of real firearms. Those air guns that do possess those characteristics of real firearms were already regulated adequately within Canada's legal framework. BB guns should not be treated as firearms. I think all of us intuitively recognize the wisdom of this, and we look to our Parliament to make this right again.

Thank you for your time and consideration on this now.

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