44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 9, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, the minister spoke about victims and victim organizations raising their voices over the years and offering input that has been expressed in Bill C-21.
Could the member elaborate on that point, particularly for urban communities? We have seen that impact not only there but also in rural communities. I would like to hear her perspective on that.
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Madam Speaker, as a person who worked closely with communities that have been traumatized by violence, I have met survivors of gun violence, victims of intimate partner violence and certainly groups of allies and advocates across the country in my political role.
The message continues to be the same, which is that Canada has to do more to protect women and vulnerable people, such as those in 2SLGBTQ communities, and that we need to do more quickly. As I mentioned in my speech, sometimes the violence is overt, as in guns are used in extremely devastating ways that end lives, but sometimes guns have been used in ways to control victims through coercive control. I know that is something that has come up in the House and at committees. I am looking forward to the ongoing work to address intimate partner violence, which exists in such endemic ways across our country.
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Madam Speaker, I want to build off the question from my Conservative colleague and ask the minister to explain how businesses are supposed to take over this role of owning handguns for new enthusiasts. In my riding, I belong to the Owen Sound Revolver Club. It is out in the boonies. It does not have any ability to store a large number of handguns. It would have to leave a building unsecured or spend millions. I just do not know how the sport shooting community is going to adapt to that, especially in rural Canada, like where the minister lives.
I would like the minister to expand in greater detail as to how these active sport shooting communities with handguns are going to actually implement what she is suggesting would happen with Bill C-21.
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Madam Speaker, I will say this about our government. One thing that I am very confident in is that we will be able to work with sport shooting communities and business owners to ensure that we understand those challenges, that we can help support those communities and, indeed, support businesses to comply with the law and ensure they continue to support sport shooting across this country.
Again, this legislation is not targeted at lawful gun owners. This is about restricting access to guns that have only one purpose, which is to harm or control people.
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Madam Speaker, it is a true honour for me to speak this evening on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport. It is a riding I am very honoured to represent.
The objective of Bill C-21, which is what we are debating this evening, is to amend the Criminal Code and Firearms Act in order to do four key things: establish a national freeze on handguns; establish red-flag and yellow-flag laws and expand gun licence revocation; combat firearms smuggling and trafficking, notably by increasing the maximum penalty of imprisonment for indictable weapons offences; and prohibit mid-velocity replica air guns.
In short, it is clear action from our federal government to address gun violence, which has been on the rise in Canada and presents a serious and significant threat to the well-being of Canadian communities. Since 2009, violent offences involving guns have increased by 81%, and 47% of Canadians have reported feeling that gun violence poses a serious threat to their communities.
I am a born and bred downtown Torontonian, and while most of my life Canada's largest city has been relatively safe, gun violence has been noticed and, as I mentioned, is on the rise. It is something we worry about because we hear about it in our communities and it makes us feel unsafe.
I was on a call with my staff this morning, who monitor all the social media and media in my riding. Yesterday, there was gun violence on the corner of Gladstone and Bloor in my riding. I do not know all of the details, but this is what I was able to garner from the news media:
One man was transported to hospital with serious injuries after being shot Friday evening.
It happened in the Bloor Street and Gladstone Avenue area just after 7:30 p.m.
The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not immediately known. Preliminary reports indicated that two shots had been fired, police said.
The victim...sustained serious, but non-life-threatening injuries....
Every incident like this makes our community members feel unsafe. It impacts our quality of life and it impacts our well-being.
I have been listening to the debate this evening, and I agree that tackling gun violence is not a simple issue. It is super complex. There is no one measure that will get guns off our streets, and this bill is definitely not a panacea.
It is also not our first action. I am very proud of all the actions we have taken over the last six to seven years to tackle gun violence.
I am really proud of Bill C-71, introduced during the 42nd Parliament. It was for registering firearms, providing additional due diligence practices, providing better supports for enforcement officers in tracing efforts and providing a number of additional measures that would keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. We also put a significant amount of money into our border officers in order to stop guns from crossing our borders, and heavily invested in tackling the root causes of violence.
There are other measures we have taken. Last May, we took the step of prohibiting more than 1,500 models of assault-style firearms and their variants. While the vast majority of firearm owners are responsible, these kinds of powerful and dangerous firearms are not designed for legitimate activities such as hunting and sport shooting. They were made for the battlefield and have no place in our cities at all. Taking that step put us in lockstep with other global leaders in gun control policy.
However, gun violence of all kinds continues to be a major problem in our communities and cities, as I mentioned. All firearm tragedies, from the public ones we commemorate to the private ones that occur in the home, create untold sadness and are often preventable. We acknowledge all those who have felt the tragic loss of a loved one and the loss of a sense of safety and security in their own community.
Gun violence remains a tragic reality that impacts our cities and regions. We only need to look at the Polytechnique tragedy, or what happened at the Quebec City mosque in recent memory, when a killer entered and murdered six people and injured many others. We also remember the massacre that happened in Nova Scotia.
No one should have their life cut short in this way. No one should have to live with the pain of losing a loved one to firearms violence. It is why we have made gun control a top priority, including by regulation and by legislation. It is why we stand with those who advocate relentlessly to increase safety in their communities. Their voices have deepened our resolve, and have helped to form our response in the form of this new legislation.
As I noted, since 2015 we have made some real and concrete progress to keep Canadians safe. We have introduced common-sense gun laws. We have invested in our law enforcement. As the Minister of Public Safety has said, we have also invested in kids and communities, because we know that makes a difference and addresses the determinants of crime and violence. However, there is always more we can do, and we must continue to address the root causes of gun violence to address the conditions in communities that lead to violence, and target the ways that guns get into the hands of people seeking to do harm.
For example, criminals can gain access to firearms in a number of ways. Some are smuggled across the border from the United States. Some are stolen from legal gun owners. Some are purchased legally by individuals who have the licence to make the purchase, but are then sold illegally through straw purchasing. Bill C-21 addresses all of these issues.
We also know that there are circumstances when a gun may be owned legally, but the circumstances of its ownership may change. It may be in a home where there are now incidents of gender-based violence and domestic violence. There may be a situation where a person suffering from suicidal ideation has access to a firearm, or it may be accessible to someone who has been radicalized to violent extremism. In those circumstances, we have to have the tools to enable firearms to be removed from a situation that is dangerous and made deadly by the presence of a firearm. That is another important element of Bill C-21. It is empowering Canadians to take action.
Situations involving domestic and intimate partner violence have been compounded by the pandemic. Beyond domestic violence, there are also other situations where a person may be suicidal or has openly advocated hatred or violence against someone.
In response, Bill C-21 proposes the creation of red-flag and yellow-flag provisions. These provisions would make it easier for anyone who feels threatened by the presence of a firearm in their home, or by an individual who owns a firearm, to take action to protect themselves and others. More specifically, the red-flag regime would allow anyone, not just police, to apply to the courts for the immediate removal of an individual firearm if it poses a danger. Similarly, the yellow-flag regime would allow anyone to ask a chief firearms officer to suspend and examine an individual's licence if there are reasonable suspicions that the person is no longer eligible to hold a licence.
As colleagues know, gun ownership in Canada is a privilege, not a right. It is a privilege earned by Canadians who adhere to our strict laws, our regulations and our requirements regarding licensing, training, storage and use of a firearm. In Canada, guns are only intended to be used for hunting and sport purposes.
Let me also acknowledge, as the Prime Minister has done, that the overwhelming majority of firearm owners in this country are law-abiding. They are responsible firearm owners. They acquire their firearms legally. They store them securely. They use them responsibly. They earn the privilege of firearm ownership, and we respect them for their adherence to these laws.
I know a lot of those individuals, not only in my own community but in the firearm-owning community in this country, and I can say that they are concerned with the safe use of firearms and restricting the access that criminals and people intent on violent crime can have to firearms. I believe they will understand the importance of the work we are introducing today to keep our communities safe.
All Canadians deserve to live in a place where they can be safe and secure. That is the objective of Bill C-21. As the Prime Minister has said, “we need more than thoughts and prayers. We need concrete action.” That is exactly what Bill C-21 proposes: concrete action to stem the tide of gun violence in Canada.
I am very proud to support the bill at second reading and I hope my colleagues will do the same.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the speech by the member for Davenport, and I have some sympathy for the challenges people in large cities like Toronto and in your riding face, as I lived for about 10 years in Leaside, not far from your riding, even though I am on the south shore.
In your speech, I think there were a couple of things that perhaps—
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- Jun/9/22 10:54:14 p.m.
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I will remind the member to address his comments through the Chair and not directly to the member.
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Madam Speaker, the member mentioned a number of tragic incidents throughout Canada, the most recent of which was in Nova Scotia in Portapique. Those crimes were committed with illegal firearms smuggled across the U.S. border, not with legal handguns.
I am wondering, given this initiative, what percentage of crime in large cities with handguns will be reduced by this bill.
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Madam Speaker, I would say that, while the hon. member used to live in Leaside, I lived on the other side of the railway track, so we lived in a more working class neighbourhood where a lot more violence and, I think, a lot more crime took place. A key intent of Bill C-21 is to absolutely cap the market for hot handguns. Individuals will no longer be able to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns.
I also have another message here, which is that there will never be more handguns in Canada than there are when this bill passes. Our goal is to absolutely eliminate handguns from our cities. There is no need for us to be able to have handguns in our cities. The fewer guns there are, the less gun violence there will be and the safer our streets will be.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague briefly touched on why this bill is important for cases relating to intimate partner violence. As the status of women critic, I am participating in the committee's study of a report on what goes on in certain intimate partner violence situations. The goal is to figure out how to reduce intimate partner violence.
One aspect of the bill I want to focus on is the immediate revocation of a licence for anyone under a protection order or involved in an act of intimate partner violence or harassment. That is obviously essential, but we cannot just tackle physical violence.
How can we expand the scope to emotional violence in order to include what is known as coercive control, a much broader concept of intimate partner violence? That is what I am getting from this measure. Is that what the member is getting as well?
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Madam Speaker, every time we take some additional steps, we better protect those who experience both gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. We need to never stop until we are absolutely sure that those who experience this type of violence and this type of threat are secure.
I will say that this is a key part of the reason why we are establishing the red flag and yellow flag laws. We are actually allowing a number of ways to go to the courts to be able to keep those who are experiencing gender-based violence and intimate partner violence safe.
This is just one of the many ways we are doing it. We will not stop until all women and those who experience this type of violence safe.
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Madam Speaker, the member mentioned the red flag laws in her last response. I know there have been many stakeholders who have serious concerns about this because it still puts the onus on people who are victimized and who may not feel safe to come forward.
I am wondering if the government would consider doing more work around this and listen to the stakeholders.
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Madam Speaker, we are at second reading right now. If colleagues agree and pass this bill, it will go to committee. I think that is the right place for us to be hearing from some of those experts. If there are parts of this bill that can actually be strengthened, we would welcome that opportunity.
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Madam Speaker, it is honour for me to be here this evening to join the debate on Bill C-21, a bill recently introduced by the government in an attempt to keep our citizens safe.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame.
In his opening comments, the Minister for Public Safety stated his wish that we would find common cause on this very important topic, and I was happy to hear the member for Davenport, the previous speaker, say the same. We are all in agreement that our streets need to be safer and our citizens need to be safe, and it is our job as parliamentarians to find ways for that to become a reality, because gun crime is a problem in Canada, despite fairly strict gun control laws over many decades.
Unfortunately, gun crime is up quite substantially since about 2014, and then there was another uptick with the start of the pandemic. Illicit drug crime and smuggling are also up. Toxic drug overdose deaths are also up. These are all real threats. Fortunately, the public safety committee has conducted a study into guns, gangs and illicit drug smuggling. I think that there is some very interesting information coming out of the study that is going to be useful for us as we develop laws and policies.
Illicit drugs are a real problem in Canada. Certainly they are a real problem in my hometown of Langley and in metro Vancouver. I grieve with a family friend, who is grieving the passing away of their adult son about a year ago in a toxic drug overdose death. They did not know he was addicted. They do not know where he got the drugs. He was a responsible citizen. He had a good job. He had a family. He had people who loved him. These seem to be the types of people who are caught up in this.
Guns are a real problem too. Just about a year ago, there were a series of gangland-style shootings in metro Vancouver, including in my riding of Langley, as I mentioned in an earlier speech. There was a shooting in broad daylight in which somebody was murdered right in front of the sportsplex where my grandsons play hockey. It all hits very close to home.
In response to that shooting incident, and there were a series of them in metro Vancouver about a year ago, I asked a question in question period of the former minister of public safety, which he then was. This was in the previous Parliament. I asked him what the government was doing about keeping our streets safe from gun crime. His response was that he was looking into the source of guns used in crimes.
The previous speaker mentioned exactly the same formula: Guns used in crimes are either stolen from lawful gun owners or are straw purchased, which means they are bought legally by a person who has a licence to purchase a gun, but it was bought for somebody else, probably for gang-related activities. Number three is that they are smuggled in from the United States of America.
I did not have a follow-up question with the minister at the time, but there is only so much information that can be exchanged in the 60-second question-and-answer period.
I thought I would do the research myself. I thought that would be a relatively easy answer to find. I wanted to know how many guns used in crime were stolen from lawful gun owners, how many were straw purchased, by percentage, and how many were smuggled into the country illegally?
I went to Statistics Canada and I found out that the answer does not exist. The data is missing. I went to the Library of Parliament and asked those folks if they could conduct some research for me. They did their best, but they came back and said that they do not really know, because there are a lot of a gaps in the data.
I went to my local police force, and the police confirmed exactly that. They said that police services across the country are not required to trace guns used in crime, and that is if they can actually find the gun that was used in the crime.
There is another thing that I discovered: There is no standard definition for what a crime gun is. Is it the gun that was actually used in a crime in which somebody pulled the trigger, intending to harm somebody, or is the definition much broader than that? Does it even include guns in the possession of people who accidentally or inadvertently allowed their gun licence to lapse?
At the public safety committee, we studied this and the answers were all over the place. One person said that 80% of guns used in crimes were smuggled in from the United States. Someone else, also a very credible witness, said that 80% were sourced from home. When we dug into it deeper, we realized they were working from completely different definitions.
Statistics Canada came to our committee and we put the question to them. This is what they said, “At this point in time, we do not have national data” and “I cannot provide you with specific information”. Statistics Canada is acknowledging that there is a big gap.
It is such an important question, because if as parliamentarians we are going to develop laws that are designed to be effective in keeping people safe and accomplishing what we set out to do, we need to have good data. I asked myself if we have passed any other laws where we did not have the data. We have passed laws to try to manage inflation, housing affordability and the cost-of-living crisis, but we have a lot of data. Statistics Canada keeps data on those things. When managing a pandemic, of course we have data on that. We want to know how the virus spreads from one person to another. We base all of that on data.
Here we have Bill C-21 purporting to stop gun violence and we do not have the data. We do not know where the guns are coming from. I am very puzzled by that. This to me is the biggest problem. The government is presenting this legislation to people as being a means of keeping us safer and we know that is not the case.
In our study, we discovered that probably 80% of guns used in crimes have actually been smuggled in from the United States. We had a number of witnesses explain to us, to state the obvious, that Canada has the longest undefended border between two countries anywhere in the world. The United States is the largest manufacturer of guns. There are more guns in the United States of America than there are citizens. We know this is the primary source of guns that are used in crimes. They are smuggled across the river. They are smuggled across the Great Lakes. They are smuggled across border crossings in my riding at the Aldergrove and the Peace Arch border crossings.
This is what we need to do. We need to get better data. We need to work with the United States of America. This is not a problem we can solve by ourselves. We need to work with Homeland Security, get it to co-operate with us to try to stop the flow of illegal guns getting into the hands of criminals and gangsters. Very importantly, we need to tackle the root causes of crimes. We need to understand why young people are getting involved in gangs. We need to divert them away from that. We need to understand how toxic drugs are getting onto our streets. We need to be able to stop that. We need to be able to encourage people to get the mental health and addiction help they need.
Guns and drugs are so tied together that we cannot solve one problem without solving the other.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I do not believe there is a quorum in the House.
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- Jun/9/22 11:08:09 p.m.
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Again, if the hon. member was not in the House a little while ago, I already ruled on that. There are no quorum calls during this debate.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Shefford.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about the border. I know that this is an important aspect of this debate. I was formerly the assistant to an MP whose riding was on the U.S. border, and I know that people can get very creative when they want to bring all kinds of things across the border.
This evening's debate reminds us that guns are obviously getting across the border. I am not referring to legal guns but to smuggled guns that are illegally imported by train or boat.
It was rather surreal today to see the Quebec public safety minister make an announcement about Akwesasne without a federal representative being present, given that the federal government should be contributing to and helping with this important fight.
I would like to remind members about my Bloc Québécois colleagues' idea of creating a joint task force whose members would all work together to crack down on illegal guns. What does my colleague think of that?
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Madam Speaker, having guns come into Canada is a very complicated social problem and there is no easy solution. I do not believe that the CBSA can stop all guns coming in. As the member pointed out, they are being smuggled across the border by rail. Trains are not being inspected for guns. They are being smuggled in by boat across rivers and lakes. They are being smuggled in across unofficial, non-border crossings. We are not going to be able to stop it on our own. It is very important that we work together with American counterparts and Homeland Security and have them come to our assistance. This needs to be a team approach.
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Madam Speaker, the research that the member has done on the issue is admirable, as well as the work at the public safety committee.
What I am curious about is this. The member explained what measures will not work, but I would like to hear what measures will work. Often, when we have put measures in place, such as stronger background checks, the Conservative Party has opposed them. When we invested $350 million in law enforcement to prosecute gangs and stop trafficking, the Conservatives opposed it. Would there be any kind of gun control measure that the Conservatives will not oppose?
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Madam Speaker, I am not a hunter or a gun person myself, but I have a lot of constituents who are and I speak with many of them. They are all law-abiding citizens and they are okay with gun control laws that make sense. They are okay with background checks. The RCMP does criminal checks. All of that is completely acceptable. That is all good policy, so laws around that I would completely support.
Also, we need to fully resource police services and community groups across the country that are focused on keeping kids out of gangs, as well as health supports for people with addictions.
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