44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 9, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/9/22 2:38:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec has had a carbon market with California since 2014.
The Minister of the Environment actually went to California yesterday, but not to announce that he would be forcing polluting sectors to join the carbon market. No, he announced that the federal government will be creating its own pseudomarket, a system with no emissions cap that allows companies to exchange the right to pollute without actually reducing greenhouse gases.
In a GHG cap and trade system, the “cap” part is not optional. Why is the minister creating a licence to pollute?
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- Jun/9/22 2:39:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is actually a win-win for oil companies.
This new scheme is not actually a carbon market. What it will do is let oil companies continue to pollute like there is no tomorrow while buying offset credits that will give the false impression they are reducing emissions. It is cosmetic, and Greenpeace agrees: “Offsetting doesn’t stop carbon from entering the atmosphere and warming our world, it just keeps it off the books of big polluters responsible.”
Why is the minister creating a greenwashing system instead of promoting the carbon market?
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- Jun/9/22 2:41:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us recap the Minister of Environment's actions this year.
First of all, he approved an additional $2.6 billion in oil subsidies. That is his key budget measure on climate. Then, he approved the Bay du Nord oil project and its billion barrels of oil. Now he is creating a system that will enable oil companies to keep polluting, but to buy credits that will hide their real greenhouse gas emission numbers. What is more, he is a self‑proclaimed environmental activist. Sure. Okay then. Soon he will be making us drink oil.
Does the Minister of Environment take us for fools?
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- Jun/9/22 7:57:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, my colleague and I work together on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, notably on the gun control file.
Every time I hear my Conservative colleagues ask questions about Bill C-5 in question period, I hear the Minister of Public Safety respond with something about Bill C-21. I find that somewhat unfortunate because they are not the same thing.
Although I quite like my colleague, we both know that our opinions differ on this subject. For example, the Bloc members are big believers in rehabilitation and social reintegration. I think that Bill C-5 will help with that.
However, I think my colleague will agree with me that this is not the time to be introducing this bill, given the rise in gun crime across the country. We are trying to find ways to combat that situation.
What message does my colleague think is being sent to the public by introducing this bill at this time?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech. I am very pleased that we are finally starting this debate on Bill C‑21. I have a question about how to proceed and I would like to hear the minister's answer.
At the press conference announcing Bill C‑21, it seemed pretty clear that a freeze on handguns was part of it. We later realized that this could be done by regulation.
It seems to me that the government did not anticipate the fact that these regulations, which would not come into force immediately, would lead to a spike or an explosion in handgun sales in the country. Now that the government has realized this, it is trying to put out the fire and get the regulations through more quickly, for example by moving a motion in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security today and perhaps adopting a motion in the House later to speed up the process, which I think is good. The intent of the bill was to reduce the number of firearms in circulation, but now that number is increasing because people are allowed to go out and buy more.
I am wondering what other ways could have been used. I also wonder why the Liberals decided to proceed with a freeze and regulation instead of a ban, as they did with the May 1, 2020, regulations on assault-style firearms.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to finally speak to Bill C-21.
We had almost given up hope of hearing about a gun control bill before the end of the parliamentary session. The government finally introduced a bill last week, perhaps somewhat reactively. That is typical of the Liberal government, always reacting to events. Unfortunately, a few days ago, there was the massacre in Texas. Also a few days ago, shots were fired near a child care centre in Rivière-des-Prairies, in the greater Montreal area. I get the impression that these kinds of events are what finally pushed the government to act. That is fine, but it is unfortunate that violent events like these have to happen before the government introduces legislation that we have long been calling for.
My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord and I make it our mission during virtually every question period to remind the minister that taking action on gun control is important. That is our topic this evening, but legal weapons are not the only problem. Illegal weapons and arms trafficking, especially in Quebec, but also across Canada, are problems too. I think legislation is long overdue. The Bloc Québécois made it clear elsewhere, in the media for example, that it thinks Bill C‑21 is a step in the right direction.
Quite honestly, the previous version of the bill, which was introduced in the last Parliament, pleased nobody. Neither groups for gun control nor those against it liked the bill. It was flawed. I will say that the government really listened to groups advocating for women and victims of shootings. They came to talk to the government and tell it which important elements they thought should be included in the bill. Clearly a lot has changed since the first version, and that is great.
However, we need to point out some elements that are perhaps more negative. As I was saying, unfortunately, Bill C‑21 does not solve all the problems. Currently, one of the biggest problems in the greater Montreal area is the shootings being carried out by criminal groups. They are obtaining weapons illegally. There have been shootings in the past with firearms that were 100% legal and that belonged to licensed gun owners who had no mental health issues or criminal records. It does happen, but not very often. I have the impression that most of the shootings happening these days involve illegal firearms. We must find a way to address this problem.
There was talk earlier about how Quebec has been proactive and has almost done everything that we have been calling on the federal government to do for months. We were with the minister this morning at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security when the news dropped that Quebec will invest $6.2 million in the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service. Representatives from this police department came to tell the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security about their particular situation. Akwesasne is an indigenous community that straddles the borders of Quebec, Ontario and even the United States. This requires collaboration among the different police departments. Smugglers are very familiar with this area, where trafficking is done by boat in the summer and by snowmobile in the winter. Weapons come through the area by the hundreds every week. The federal government needs to get involved because it is responsible for the borders.
This morning, Quebec announced $6.2 million for police services. This money will be used to hire five additional police officers and to purchase a new patrol boat, an all-terrain vehicle and snowmobiles to bolster the fight against gun smuggling in Quebec. This is great news. While making this announcement, Geneviève Guilbault, Quebec's public safety minister, said she was still waiting on the money from an agreement with the federal government. The federal government promised funding to help Quebec and the provinces crack down on firearms, but it seems they are still waiting for this money. They are anxious to receive it and continue this important fight.
Let us come back to Bill C‑21. This version is better than earlier ones, but there are still some flaws. Some elements seem poorly drafted. I think it is shameful that the government is rushing things and not letting us have the time to do our job as parliamentarians. I am guessing that is what it intends to do, since that is what has been happening in the House of Commons over the past few days. By constantly invoking closure, the government is trying to shorten debate by a few hours in order to move forward more quickly. However, it is actually our job as parliamentarians to take the time to study bills, debate them in the House, make amendments and improve them. That is what I intend to do with Bill C‑21.
I want to try to work constructively with the government to improve the bill. I want to come back to the motion my Conservative colleague wanted to move today at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I must say that she stated in good faith that there are some elements of the bill that we can all agree on. Let us move forward quickly with those measures, while taking the time to study the rest more closely.
The Liberals did not agree, obviously, for partisan political reasons. On the other hand, when the Liberals try to speed things along, the Conservatives oppose them. Let us try to be more constructive and work together like we do at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. As my colleague mentioned earlier, we very much agree on the firearms issue, to the point where it feels almost unprecedented. We have managed to work together quite well, which is important to highlight.
I want to discuss all aspects of the bill, beginning with the measure about handguns. This is really the government's key measure, which proposes a freeze on the acquisition, sale and transfer of handguns by individuals. This was quite unexpected. I myself was surprised to hear this. I never thought the government would go so far.
It was the way it proceeded that surprised me a bit. The way this was announced at the press conference made it sound like the freeze was part of Bill C‑21. A little later, the government realized that it could proceed through regulations, which is a whole other procedure. It would be 30 business days before this came into effect. Those 30 business days left enough time for those who already had a licence to go out and buy more guns. Gun sales exploded across the country. I saw a B.C. gun seller on CTV News who said that the Prime Minister had become “salesman of the month”. That really is the message he sent to people.
The government's intention was to reduce the number of handguns in circulation, but it had the opposite effect. That is a shame, because I think there was another way to go about this. Take for example the assault weapons ban on May 1, 2020. The government compiled a list of 1,500 banned guns, and the ban came into effect immediately. People did not have time to go out and buy a gun before the ban took effect.
I wonder why the government chose a freeze instead of a ban and why it did that through regulations, when we were led to believe it would be in the bill from the start. Questions like that remain unanswered.
I think it is especially unfortunate that the government did not anticipate that people would rush to the store to buy more guns. Perhaps they should have taken more time to iron out all the details before presenting them.
Our understanding is that once the freeze is in place, handguns will eventually disappear because they can no longer be transferred to someone else. People who currently have a permit will be able to continue to use their guns. Of course, there are some exceptions for police officers and bodyguards who have a firearms licence. It is still unclear what will happen with sport shooters. We are being told that the government will establish by regulation what it all means, but questions are already popping up.
The procedures in Quebec are quite strict already. I get the sense that these regulations will not necessarily change much in Quebec, but I will come back to that.
I would like to say that I am not a firearms expert. It is easy enough to go on social media, demonize me and say that I have no clue what I am talking about.
Recently, I was asked if I knew the procedure for buying a weapon. It is actually fairly complex. I will give the people who asked me this: It may happen overnight in the United States, for example, but not here.
Gun culture is a thing in the United States, and it is pretty intense. We are worried it might spread to Canada. Acquiring a firearm, however, is very different. After the Texas shooting a few days ago, people from Le Journal de Montréal went down there to run a test and find out how individuals get firearms. What they found out is that all one needs is a driver's licence and 15 minutes to walk out of the store with a gun and ammo. In Texas, it takes longer to buy a car than a weapon. That is pretty unbelievable.
In Canada, the rules are stricter, and I think that is a good thing. People who choose to pursue their passion for firearms and make it their hobby need to understand that weapons are dangerous. That is why they need to be regulated. It all needs to be governed by regulations. I think we have to be cognizant of that.
If someone in Quebec wants to obtain a handgun right now, they have to complete several training courses. There is the Canadian firearms safety course, the Canadian restricted firearms safety course and the Bill 9 aptitude test. Next, they have to apply for a possession and acquisition licence. That can take around six months. Lastly, the individual has to join a shooting club. That is a requirement in Quebec.
I will admit that this is not a simple process and cannot be done overnight. I sometimes hear the rhetoric that guns are not dangerous, that the person pulling the trigger is dangerous. I have to disagree. Guns are dangerous.
As I was saying, anyone using this device or tool, I am not sure what to call it, needs to be aware that it is dangerous. Anyone choosing to use a firearm must be aware that it could be used by a person with bad intentions and that firearm regulations make sense.
What we understand is that with the freeze handguns will eventually disappear. We also understand that for people who train to use guns competitively, there may be a way to get around the rules. Reading legislation or regulations is rather complicated. However, when we take the time to read between the lines, we sometimes see certain details that may be questionable. That is true here, there are questionable details, and we certainly need to take this to committee to determine what it means.
The other thing is that the freeze may not do anything beyond what Quebec is already doing, in other words require that a person be a member of a gun club before being able to acquire a handgun. If a person is already a member of a gun club then there will be no real change. They will be grandfathered and allowed to continue using the handgun. These are questions I will have to ask during study of the bill.
I want to come back again to the fact that people have been rushing out to purchase handguns, because they know the regulations are not yet in effect. This shows that Bill C-21 will not solve the problem in the short term, so it does not meet its own objective. Guns continue to be a problem on our streets and in our municipalities, which is why people are increasingly concerned. We are reminded of this every day, given current events.
There was another car chase in broad daylight in a residential area in greater Montreal yesterday. Dozens of shots were fired. People were eating on their balconies and walking down the street, and they witnessed this first-hand. Fortunately there were no casualties, but there could have been injuries and even fatalities. It has practically become the norm in Montreal, in Quebec. It is scary when you think about it. It is also scary for parents to send their children to school, to go to work, or to go anywhere for that matter, because in the last few months, there have been shots fired near a day care centre, near schools and even in a library. The library's windows shattered because of the gunfire. It is unbelievable.
This notorious gun culture, which I mentioned earlier and is entrenched in the United States, seems to be gradually taking hold in Canada, and no one wants that. Unfortunately, Bill C-21 gives us no reassurance that it will solve this problem. It might solve certain things and it might be a step in the right direction, but the terrible problem of gun trafficking remains prevalent. Bill C-21 does not address this.
I want to share some statistics. According to the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, 95% of handguns used in violent crimes come from the black market. During question period we often hear that organized crime uses illegal weapons and that members of these organizations are the ones committing crimes most of the time.
I often hear people say that we are going after good, law-abiding gun owners. This is true in some cases, but not always. As I said earlier, mass shootings with legal firearms are rare, but they do happen.
We made a lot of proposals that were not included in Bill C‑21 in an attempt to find a number of measures that would work best together. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord introduced Bill C‑279 to create an organized crime registry.
The way we see it, giving police officers more tools and means to act is another way we can control firearms. Why is being a member of a terrorist group illegal but being a member of organized crime is not? This is a fair question because organized crime groups are behind the violence we are seeing in the big cities right now. I think that this bill could be a worthwhile, easy-to-implement tool, and I urge the minister and his colleagues to read it.
We have heard a great deal about investments at the border, and I just mentioned the investments made by Quebec. We must not forget that the border is under federal jurisdiction and that there is work to be done there. Witnesses told us about what is actually happening at the border. Even border services officers told us that they were ready for their mandate to be expanded and that they would like to patrol the areas between border crossings, which they currently cannot do. It is true that the Canada-U.S. border is so long that it is almost impossible to have officers covering every kilometre of it. However, the mandate of these officers could be expanded so they could go on patrol.
My colleague also reminded us earlier that smuggled guns and drugs arrive in Canada by boat and by train. We do not have the tools we need to search these conveyances. These types of measures could certainly help the fight against firearms, especially those that are illegal.
Thanks to a motion that I moved a few months ago in the House, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security was able to study this problem. It was the topic of its first report, which was tabled recently in the House. The report contains several recommendations for more resources and more collaboration. On that subject, the RCMP commissioner admitted to the committee that police forces could talk to each other more and share more information.
Experts from public safety agencies agreed with every point and argument we made and told us that we do indeed need to provide more financial and human resources. It is a problem that we will not be able to fix in the short term, but we should start working on it immediately.
The National Police Federation told me that the police forces are short on officers and will not be able to get more overnight. I learned that dozens of officers are deployed every week to Roxham Road to receive irregular migrants. The Government of Quebec and the Bloc Québécois have been calling for that road to be closed so that the migrants can be received the regular way through a safe, normal process. This would allow these officers to be reassigned to the fight against guns.
Madam Speaker, since you are signalling that my time is up, I will end there and I look forward to my colleagues' questions.
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Madam Speaker, I can see that my colleague is very familiar with the file, and I thank her for that. Of course I talked about the negative first and left the positive to the end, but I did not have time to get to the positive. I must admit that Bill C-21 does actually contain some good measures, such as the the red flag and yellow flag measures. As I pointed out earlier, the minister has been very attentive to various groups and what they were calling for.
I said that I would work constructively with the government to improve any aspects that are perhaps less positive. When it comes time to vote, we will see whether the Bloc Québécois will support this bill.
I would also have liked to see something on assault weapons in this bill. What we heard from the Prime Minister at his press conference was that the buyback program would be postponed and that public consultation would begin later. A lot of work remains to be done on this, unfortunately, and we can talk about that at another time.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her French, which I must say is excellent. I thank her for making the effort to ask this question.
Indeed, this subject concerned me in committee. The opposition parties cannot invite as many witnesses as the government, but I still made an effort to invite the band council for the indigenous communities of the Akwesasne territory and the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service to appear.
They came to explain their reality to us. They are often demonized in the media and accused of being complicit in this arms trafficking, which is definitely not the case. They asked to be partnered with other police forces in this fight, and that is exactly what the Quebec government did today by giving them the means to act. Unfortunately, that is not what Bill C-21 does for them.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague's question. Those were recommendations from the report that members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security agreed on. The government must invest more in community services to prevent youth from committing crimes and joining gangs. These changes do not happen overnight; they are a long-term proposition.
Mental health issues are another factor. Young people are radicalized or join gangs for many different reasons. I think it is important to invest in that kind of measure as well. It is complementary.
I feel compelled to ask the federal government once again to invest in health, to give Quebec and the provinces the means to take care of things by transferring the money they are entitled to. That has not yet happened, unfortunately. We need that money to take action for young people, to address mental health and to tackle guns.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question, but it brings another question to my mind. How did these gun owners get them in the first place?
Did they get them legally or illegally? That question needs to be asked.
Of course, it does not help that there are so many guns already out there. The fact that people have guns in their homes without any real restrictions, that they do not keep them out of the hands of children or prevent children from having easy access to them, certainly does not help.
I do agree that Bill C‑21 has a noble objective: to take as many handguns as possible out of circulation. This will certainly have a positive effect, since an individual who does not already have a licence will no longer be able to obtain a handgun. We will wait to see the figures, but we hope this will have a positive impact, because we are working together to improve this bill.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
That is something we addressed by asking public safety agencies to invest more in tracing in order to determine, once they are seized, where these guns are coming from.
However, once again, we need to give the police a way to seize these weapons and then share the information with other police forces. We need to make it easier for them to work together to obtain this type of information.
As the member said, it is hard right now to know where these guns are coming from. We can guess that many of them are from the United States, but were they brought in legally or illegally? Often, they came in illegally.
As for this sharing of information between security agencies and police forces, I think that improvements need to be made. Of course, this takes investments. That is what we recommended in the report, and I hope this will produce tangible results.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about AR-15s and the mandatory buyback program for assault weapons. I did not have time to talk about this in my speech earlier, but I would like him to comment on how the government has decided to proceed.
The government started by banning 1,500 guns effective May 1, 2020. Today, the list of banned guns has grown to nearly 1,800, including the AR-15, which is quite popular and was used in certain unfortunately notorious shootings. However, guns that function much like the AR-15 are still being sold. For example, the WK-180 uses the same ammunition and is still on the market.
The gun lobby, gun shops and gun sellers are finding ways to get around these regulations. Even if we continue to add gun models to the blacklist, others will come on the market. We proposed including a definition of a prohibited assault weapon directly in the Criminal Code. That way, they could all be put in the same basket and would be banned all at once instead of one by one. What does my colleague think about that?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I will continue along the same lines.
A few days after Bill C‑21 was introduced, Le Devoir conducted a little investigation to see if the handgun freeze would actually be effective or a good idea.
The journalists interviewed André Gélinas, a retired detective sergeant with the Montreal police service. Without hesitation, he said that this freeze will in no way solve the problem or reduce crime in this country. In fact, he believes the freeze is aimed at the wrong target, because handguns are smaller and lighter, making them the gun of choice for criminals. They are bought illegally and arrive from the United States, as has been mentioned several times this evening. According to Mr. Gélinas, in order to reduce the number of shootings and incidents involving stray bullets, we need to deal with illegal guns.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.
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Madam Speaker, I was saying earlier that the government decided to proceed with a freeze that did not take effect immediately, but rather 30 working days after the announcement. This resulted in an explosion in handgun sales across the country.
It appears that the government realized this today. It tried to move a motion at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to refer the regulations directly to the House to speed up the process. The motion was blocked, so we did not get to debate it.
Does the government intend to come back with a similar motion so that we can push this process along before Parliament rises for the summer?
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