The Library of Parliament Research Branch examined two different reports published by Statistics Canada on violent crime in 1999. They determined that the “Presence of a Firearm in Violent Incidents” was 4.1%, but the “Use of a Firearm in Violent Incidents” was only 1.4% – almost three times lower than the figure reported by Statistics Canada and accepted and repeated by the media without any explanation or clarification.
On July 21, 1997, the J.P.R. Murray, Commissioner of the RCMP wrote the Deputy Minister of Justice to complain about the department’s misrepresentation of RCMP statistics. The Commissioner set the record straight: “Furthermore, the RCMP investigated 88,162 actual violent crimes during 1993, where only 73 of these offences, or 0.08%, involved the use of firearms.” Copy of this letter attached for easy reference.