44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for mentioning the excellent study that the public safety committee did on guns and gangs. I wonder if the hon. member is aware that the government is actually investing $250 million into community groups exactly like the One By One Movement that the hon. member mentioned. By no means is the bill intended to be the one solution for gun violence; it is meant to be comprehensive.
In Saskatchewan, the people who are dying by firearms are actually white, rural, older men who are dying by suicide. I am wondering if the hon. member supports the red flag provisions that are in Bill C-21.
112 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, because I know the member is very knowledgeable as a gun owner, is there any part of Bill C-21 he finds useful as a reform and that would be beneficial? If the bill would go to committee, where would we want to look for making amendments?
49 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, again, that is the mystery, is it not?
I do not see what the rationale is. The following is from the Prime Minister himself, who said, “The long-gun registry, as it was, was a failure and I'm not going to resuscitate that”. The current Prime Minister also said, “There are better ways of keeping us safe than that registry which has been removed.”
Here is a person who is in our House today and is bringing forward other rules to probably, I believe, divide Canadians, which is what he does and how he wins. If he really wants to actually crack down on illegal firearms crime and make our streets safer in this country, he needs to look at what the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security has looked at, what some police officers are saying and what some of the anti-gang task force are saying to do, and to follow what they are saying to do. He should not spend those scarce and much-needed resources on the law-abiding firearms community. We are not the problem.
189 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, we have had atrocious gun crimes in this country and horrific tragedies where neighbours tried to warn law enforcement. I remind the hon. member of what happened in his colleague's riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka, where Mark Jones in Burk's Falls killed many members of his family before killing himself. In 2020, of course, there were the Portapique killings. Some neighbours even moved away out of fear of the man who later killed 22 people. There is also the tragic case of PTSD that took the life of Lionel Desmond and members of his family.
What do the Conservatives recommend we do about gun crimes in rural and remote areas of this country against family members and random strangers in a neighbourhood?
127 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I do not know whether the member has any evidence that supports legal handguns being used in the commission of an offence. In fact, I would say it is zero, as one member already talked about.
Does the member agree that to get to the root problem here, there has to be crime prevention to prevent people from being involved in illegal gun crimes? Doing that is going to cost billions, so rather than a buyback program, would those billions of dollars not be better suited going toward the actual root cause of the problem and prevention?
99 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, from conversations I have had with gun owners in Guelph, I know they go to the shooting range and to businesses that provide opportunities for them to use handguns in target-shooting activities. Those facilities will still be able to have guns available for people to use, but to actually purchase a gun and use it in some way to protect oneself from the public is really what we are trying to address here. Guns are used in ways that endanger the public, rather than protect the public.
90 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, that could not be further from the truth. As the hon. member knows, gun control was a big issue during the last election campaign. In fact, the gun lobby chose to come to my riding twice to distribute pamphlets to try to make sure that I was not re-elected to be able to take action like that contained in Bill C-21.
To say that we are following events in the United States is simply not true. Having said that, I think it is irresponsible for any of us to think that we are immune from that kind of gun violence here in Canada.
107 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I would invite the hon. member to speak to the police service in his riding. When police officers are responding to a call, they have only seconds to be able to know whether they are dealing with a real gun or whether it is an airsoft rifle. Unfortunately, the rifles used at airsoft ranges look so much like the real thing that police do not have the opportunity to check to see and people have lost their lives.
Police officers are put in a very difficult position. I look forward to hearing from the airsoft industry. I am sure its members will be speaking to us at committee when we study the bill, but I would invite the hon. member to speak to the police in his area about the challenges it has with airsoft rifles.
138 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.
It is always a pleasure to rise in this House to speak to legislation, even bad legislation.
I will be frank. I think Bill C-21 has about as much chance of stopping gun violence as there is of me crossing the floor to join the Liberals. It is just not going to happen. The bill will not work because it is the wrong approach, and the sad thing is that the government knows it is the wrong approach. It knows it will not work, but it is doing it anyway.
I will talk about why it is doing that in just a minute, but let us be clear. Gun control is an important issue. Everyone in the House has agreed that we need sensible gun control, but in this legislation there is the same problem we have come up against every time with the government, and that is that, when it decides it wants to tackle gun crime, it completely ignores the problem. It goes after law-abiding citizens rather than doing the hard work of going after the bad guys. This is because it is easier to control the behaviour of those who already obey the law than it is to deal with those who do not.
Conservatives are eager to tackle this issue. We want to have common sense laws. There are even things in this bill we can get behind, but instead of a serious and honest conversation, we get virtue signalling. We get a Prime Minister who is so eager to import U.S. culture wars into Canada that he politicizes tragedy for his own political benefit rather than taking concrete steps to protect the lives of Canadians. Why is that?
I need to remind the Prime Minister that we do not live in the United States. He is the Prime Minister of Canada, not a pundit for MSNBC. I am not so naive as to think that what happens in the U.S. does not affect us, particularly with the saturation effect of U.S. media, but every time some controversial issue or potential wedge issue pops up south of the border, it would seem that the Prime Minister rubs his hands with glee and wonders how he can weaponize it and use it to divide and control Canadians, whether it is abortion, race, gender, immigration or, what we are talking about now, guns. He seeks to take U.S. issues, import them to Canada and weaponize them to stigmatize and divide Canadians. These are serious issues, and we need to address them, but we need to address them as Canada's Parliament. They are uniquely Canadian issues, but the Prime Minister does not want to do that because it is easier to control people through fear, anger and division than it is to convince Canadians based on the merits of a particular argument.
I spoke in the House last week on the subject of control and how the government wants to pick winners and losers. We see it in the economy. We see it in the media. We see it in society. One group gets federal funding because it agrees with the ideologically of the government and another group does not. One media outlet gets federal funding and the next one does not. Certain people can have their charter rights to travel because they have agreed with the ideology of getting the shot or the second, the third or the fourth. Those who question the government based largely on consistently inconsistent and conflicting information from government sources, not to mention the principle that personal medical choices are private, lost their jobs. They were stigmatized and demonized again and again, and it is still happening.
When certain folks had enough and drove to Ottawa to express their opposition to his overreach, the Prime Minister would not meet with them. He ran away and hid. He and his ministers spun a narrative about these individuals. They said things in the media that have been proven to be false again and again. Where is the accountability for that misinformation? He enacted the Emergencies Act, not, as we now know, on the advice of law enforcement, which is another untruth, but because he had to control. He crushed those people with the full weight of his powers. Why did he do that? It was not because of science or any credible threat, but because of control. He wants to control what we do, what we think, what we can see online.
It was the Prime Minister's father who stated that the government has no business in the bedrooms of Canadians. The government not only wants to be in the bedroom, but also in every other room. It wants to be on every device, and every speech and every thought, and I am not so sure if the government is doing this out of a sense of insecurity. A relationship where one side refuses to listen to the other and always needs to be in control is not a healthy relationship. A relationship where one side belittles and demeans the other is not a healthy relationship. A relationship where one side uses a power differential to force submission is not a healthy relationship. It is an abusive relationship, and right now the relationship between the government and Canadians is not a healthy relationship.
The government has abused power and continues to abuse power, aided and abetted by the New Democrats, who, for a lack of fortitude and courage, are willing to compromise their convictions and sell out to Canadians for just a whiff of power. This is not about public safety. It is about the government controlling the little people, the law-abiding people. Every time government adds to its power to exercise control, individual Canadians lose some of theirs. It only exacerbates and perpetuates the problem.
I look at this bill. I look at how the government went about that process and how it has conducted itself in the past two years, and all I see is another attempt to control law-abiding Canadians. Now, with my remaining minutes, I would like to shift gears a bit because I do want to talk about violence.
There is no greater evil than to perpetuate violence. It is why our criminal justice system reserves the most serious sentences for those who inflict harm on others. However, violence is not a political issue. It is not an issue of hate, but it is an issue of the heart. In my faith we call it sin, which is the corruption of the image of God in humanity. It is a moral defect, the natural expression of which is to inflict harm on ourselves and others. It is a condition and a state of being from which we must be healed if we are ever to find wholeness and peace.
It is a heart issue, and the interesting thing about a heart is issue is that we cannot legislate it. We cannot legislate against what is in a person's heart. We can try, and the government has and will continue to try, and fail, because laws do not fix hearts. Laws cannot eliminate the anger, loneliness or hopelessness that individuals who commit heinous crimes feel, but what laws can do is attempt to control the external factors that contribute to the anger, loneliness and hopelessness that lead to an individual committing such heinous acts. To that end, I would like to offer a few brief suggestions.
We are never going to be able to fully eradicate violent crime, but if we want to get serious about curtailing it, we need to start with our kids. As parents and grandparents, we need to know what they are watching in the media and on social media. We need to know what they are consuming in their minds, which eventually finds its way into their hearts, and the video games and entertainment many of our children and grandchildren are accessing.
We know kids are impressionable and that, even as young adults, people are still developing until their mid-twenties. We know what habitual consumption can do and about neural pathways that habits and patterns create in the brain.
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”, and we can naturally extrapolate that the body acts. To put it in simple terms, what we put in is likely what will come out. There is an expression that was quite familiar when computers first became very prevalent: “Garbage in; garbage out.” Studies have shown, consistently, the direct correlation between violent video games and being not only desensitized, but predisposed, to violence. As early as the year 2000, which was 22 years ago, a study by the American Psychological Association revealed “that even brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants.”
We see similar patterns when it comes to sexual violence. There is no limit to the depths of depravity and dehumanizing behaviour individuals, including children, can view with just the click of a mouse. That is why in the House we have continually called on the government to take action against Quebec-based MindGeek, which owns Pornhub, one of the largest producers of pornography in the world, including illegal content that is racist, misogynistic and violent, as we have shown in the House in the past.
We recognize that pornography not only isolates individuals, but also creates unhealthy and unrealistic depictions and expectations of sexual behaviour, which leads to violence against women. We know this, but when a young person, or for that matter an older person, is routinely exposed to violence and pornography, they will develop radical and racist views, and that is what many people are consuming for hours a day, day in and day out. We should not be surprised when violence follows.
There is the story in the Bible of the very first murder. It is recorded in the Bible, and it is the story of Cain killing his brother Abel with a rock. The problem was not the rock. We do not read the story and say, “If only God had tougher rock control policies.” The rock was a tool. Jealousy, anger, feeling sorry for himself and feeling hard done by were what motivated the irrational rage that brought on the inability to get past himself and his own desires.
Cain lost control and acted out of his emotions. The problem was not the rock; the problem was the heart.
1784 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, if the hon. member was listening carefully, she knows that I was actually trying to talk about Bill C-21. That is the gun control issue, the control that the government is seeking to have over law-abiding Canadians who enjoy the sport of sport shooting, who are hunters or farmers who need firearms to conduct their business.
This bill directly attacks individuals like that and makes their lives miserable. Why does the government do it? The government does it because they are easy targets. They are not really criminals.
92 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the hon. member from the Bloc actually goes to the root of the whole issue here, which is what the Liberals and the NDP are failing to do. She is addressing the actual problem that is the heart of the issue.
Certainly, as I said in my speech, there need to be proper controls but reasonable controls, controls that will actually be effective and that will actually work—not controls that target law-abiding gun owners and farmers and hunters, but controls that go after gangs and seek to address the illegal importation of firearms into the country.
Those are the things that this legislation should address, and it does not address them.
116 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I found the hon. member for Provencher's discussion of issues of the heart and issues of the law compelling.
This quote from the Reverend Martin Luther King is relevant:
It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behaviour can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me.
I wonder if, in that regard, the hon. member thinks there is a role for the state in regulating gun ownership.
105 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I want to add my voice as well to the debate around Bill C-21, which is a very sinister bill that comes out of the evil intentions of the Liberal government.
Why do I say that? It is because the bill before us will do nothing to end the crime sprees that we are seeing happen across the country. The bill will do nothing to end the violence that is happening in our streets. The bill will do nothing to support law enforcement in bringing these people to justice and holding them to account.
I hear over and over from community members that criminals are operating with impunity in broad daylight. They do not seem to fear the police whatsoever, or authorities of any sort, and that is the hard work that needs to be done. However, the Liberals are not interested in doing that hard work, because they know that this hard work will not score them political points. Therefore, I lay at their feet that the bill before us is a feeble attempt and that the Liberals should reconsider what they are doing.
Bill C-21 will not reduce gun crime and it will not reduce crime that is happening in our streets across the country. Why? It is because it would not give the authorities new tools; it would not provide new funding for law enforcement; and it would not allow for law enforcement to make quick interventions in these kinds of situations.
In Calgary, not a month ago, people in two cars racing down the street were shooting at one another. One car collided with a minivan and killed a mother of six children. Community members were asking, “How does this happen in broad daylight? Why did these criminals think that they could operate with impunity?” Well, that is because they did not see that there would be any consequence to what they were doing, and that is the challenge. That is the challenge of governing and it is what is required of government, which is to ensure a reward to those who do good and punish those who do evil.
This government is not doing that. For that, it gets a failing mark on Bill C-21.
This particular bill, although it takes the easy way out, would go after law-abiding firearms owners. The people who are already obeying the law and jumping through all of the hoops to own a firearm would only have another hoop placed in front of them. They would not be able to purchase new handguns or be able to transfer those handguns to their offspring and those kinds of things. Under this particular bill, they would be the last generation of handgun owners.
Many of these firearms are heirlooms handed down from generation to generation. Many of my constituents speak with pride about the firearm that their great-grandfather used to own, and they have it in their collection. It is something they will no longer be able to pass down if Bill C-21 comes into force. How will that prevent criminals from operating with impunity in broad daylight? It will not.
That is a punitive, lazy and evil outcome of this particular bill. It would take away a freedom that Canadians have to pass on their heritage to their children, but it would not equip law enforcement or communities in order to prevent criminals from acting in broad daylight, making our communities less safe and a place where the gangsters rule, rather than law and order.
The Liberals claim law and order is their goal, but in reality we know that it is not. If they were actually focused on tackling some of these tough issues around restoring law and order, making criminals fear authorities, putting power behind the authorities and providing political support for law enforcement to do their job, we would see a restoration of peace and security in these communities. However, we have seen the Liberals tacitly support the “Defund the Police" movement; we have seen them radically reduce the length of sentencing that comes from participating in gun crime with Bill C-5; and we have seen their failure to adequately call out the firebombing of churches across the country.
All of these things have allowed gangsters and communities to feel like there is no law and order being upheld in particular communities. Where I come from, rural crime is a large and growing issue. People do not even phone the police anymore, because they are quite convinced that nothing will be done. The police will do the investigation and make the arrests, and the perpetrator will be out again the next evening. Then, when it does eventually go to trial, the whole case will be thrown out on some technicality. This does not bring justice for the victims, but it also does not put the perpetrators on a path to restoration to the community or a path of rehabilitation so that they can operate in the community.
These are some of the things that Conservatives have been calling for. We have been calling for the government to work to back up the police. My dad is a World War II history buff and he has a poster on his wall of a soldier going off to war. It says, “Buy Victory Bonds. Back him up!” That is essentially what we are calling on the government to do, to back up the law and order of this country and to provide the political support to ensure that law and order can be enforced in our communities. That is one of the major things we are seeing, whether it is in downtown Toronto, whether it is in Surrey, British Columbia, whether it is in Calgary, whether it is in northern Alberta or whether it is in Fairview, Alberta. That is something we are calling for.
Another thing I want to bring up as well is about some of the sports that involve firearms, particularly the handgun-shooting sports. I have a good friend up in Slave Lake who participates in a particular type of competition around this. He is of elite skill. I do not have any concern that he will not be able to get the elite skill exemption that is placed in this bill, but his question is, how does one become elite? One becomes elite by starting out as an amateur. One becomes elite by beginning at the bottom of the totem pole: buying one's first handgun when one is 18 years old, going to the range, learning how to shoot, getting a mentor, all those kinds of things.
In hockey, we have thousands of people who play hockey who want to make it to the NHL. The same thing happens with elite handgun-shooting competitions at the Olympics. Typically, there are thousands of people who are participating at the amateur level so that we can have one or two make it to the Olympics to represent Canada on the world stage. How are we going to ensure that we have a strong and growing base of people to draw from for those things?
The other area of competition I want to talk about is paintball and airsoft. These two particular sports are going to be extremely penalized by this particular bill, because many of the paintball markers or airsoft tools look like a replica of a firearm. How does that help anybody in Canada? Many times these are replicas that are used for training purposes. They are used for simulation purposes. Again, the point is that if we want to have Canadians competing at the Olympic level, we need to ensure that we can use these particular tools.
I find that Bill C-21 is a sinister bill. Bill C-21 does not do the things that it is purported to do. I look forward to the defeat of this bill and the government providing support to law enforcement to restore law and order in our communities.
1347 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Whitby.
I want to recognize that I am speaking to the House of Commons from traditionally unceded Algonquin territory.
I am speaking today on a very important bill, Bill C-21, an incredibly important bill that addresses the proliferation of handguns in Canada and the need for greater measures to protect community safety.
Just by way of a refresh, our work on gun control, as a government, started much earlier. Since 2015, we have banned AR-15s and listed 1,500 models of assault-style firearms as prohibited. We have cracked down on illegal trafficking by investing in law enforcement and enhancing border security. We have invested $250 million to address the root causes of gang violence.
Bill C-21 is part of the evolution of this approach and it is targeting specifically handguns. The question is why. We know that gun violence in Canada is on the rise. Since 2009, violent offences involving guns have increased by 81%, and handguns are the number one type of gun used in shooting homicides in this country.
Around 47% of Canadians have reported feeling that gun violence poses a serious threat to their communities. My community of Parkdale—High Park is no exception. My city of Toronto is no exception. We know that handguns are the preferred weapon of criminals in Canada, and that criminals obtain their guns through different means: smuggling, theft or what is known as straw purchases.
For example, the horrific Danforth shooting a few years back in Toronto involved a gun that was originally a legal firearm that was stolen in the province of Saskatchewan. We are trying to address part of the problem, which is the supply of handguns that are circulating in Canadian society.
How will we do that? This bill would freeze the market. Individuals will no longer be able to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns, subject to some very narrow exceptions. This means that there will never be more handguns in Canada than there are at the moment this bill passes. I just want that to sink in for members of Parliament, because that underscores the need to ensure community safety by passing this legislation as quickly as possible.
That begs the question, what about other sources, such as the borders? We are addressing borders and smuggling as well. While Bill C-21 limits the domestic supply of handguns, what we have done at the borders, and we have heard this injected into the debate by people like the member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges, is that we have made a $350-million investment into the RCMP and the CBSA, in their capacity to intercept weapons coming across the U.S. border. While we venerate our relationship with our strongest ally and our largest trading partner, that trading partner also happens to be the world's single largest manufacturer of firearms on the planet.
When we made that investment, and I will note this for the people watching on CPAC, the Conservative Party of Canada voted against that investment, betraying its perspective when the rubber hit the road, in terms of voting patterns.
What happened after that historic investment? Let us look at the evidence. In 2021, the RCMP and the CBSA intercepted nearly double the number of firearms at the border than they had in 2020. The investments in border safety are working to keep our communities safe.
Both in this debate and in the context of other debates about firearms and gun control in this legislature, at least in the time I have been here, since 2015, we have heard a lot about the narrative about victims, that the focus needs to be on the victims. Let me talk about three victim groups that I feel are strongly served by a bill like Bill C-21.
The first is women. The member for Vancouver East just asked a very poignant question of the member who just spoke from the official opposition, about victims of intimate partner violent and things like gender-based violence. We have heard, and it is fairly common-sense, that if there is violence in the home, the presence of weapons in the home would accentuate the propensity of that violence to end up being lethal. That is exactly what has happened. A stat was just provided that 500 instances of intimate partner violence involved firearms. That is almost two per day in terms of how frequent that is. That is an alarming statistic for all of us who are concerned about violence, and I am sure there is no debate that all of us in this chamber are concerned about intimate partner violence.
What does this bill do? This bill would provide, among other things, regulatory authority that will allow for an individual who is the subject of a restraining order to be prevented from having either a firearm or a firearms licence. We know that the number of women who are killed at home because of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence is far too large. That is why we are working to address this.
The next area I would like to address, in terms of whom we are supporting, is those who are dealing with mental illness. We know that we have a concern about mental illness, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.
We know that rates of suicidality are going up. We know that when people are contemplating suicide, or having what is called suicidal ideation, the presence of a weapon can, again, be lethal. We know that guns in homes lead to greater numbers of suicides in this country. There are members of the official opposition who have called for various measures, and they are right to call for them, to address suicidality and to address getting people support.
One way of ensuring that suicidal ideation does not result in death is by restricting the numbers of firearms in homes. This bill would do that. I found it a bit perplexing, to be candid, to hear, in the debate just prior to my intervention, about the notion of background checks. It was raised by the Conservative member who just spoke. When the issue of background checks was moved in the House of Commons in the previous Parliament, the Conservative Party again voted against that aspect of the legislation. That is really troubling for a party, when all parliamentarians need to be addressing the need to ensure that lawful firearms are only put into the hands of people who should have firearms, not people who may perhaps be suffering from mental illness.
Let me address a third group, and this one is really important to me in the work that I have been doing for the past seven years. What this legislation would do through the red flag provisions is address people who could be targeted by hatred. I am talking about people who might be racial minorities and religious minorities. I am talking about people who could be targeted online, and the women I spoke of earlier. If such people have a legitimate basis or reasonable grounds to believe that a firearm should be removed from the home of a potential assailant, or someone who was stalking or threatening them, etc., they could apply for a court order to do just that. The court order raising a red flag could be for a limited period as short as up to 30 days. A long-term prohibition order could be all the way up to five years, if there continued to be a reasonable basis to believe the individual posed a public health risk.
The removal of the weapons could be done immediately, via a court order that they be surrendered immediately to law enforcement. This is important because we heard from, and listened to, women and minority groups who are targeted by violence. They are targeted by hatred and are threatened. They told us that their fears are real and that there are fears of reprisal.
I am going to get to an aspect that we have improved in this legislation. What they have said is that they were not going to come forward because if they did so, it would put them in even greater vulnerability. They would have a greater sense of jeopardy, with a higher likelihood of potentially fatal consequences. What we have done with this iteration of Bill C-21 is we have improved it. We have listened to those stakeholders, and we have cured what we feel is an aspect of the old Bill C-21 that needed curing. This is in terms of protecting the identity of those persons who would apply for such a court order.
Under the current version of the legislation that we are now debating, a court could close the court hearing to the public and the media. A court could seal the documents in the record for up to 30 days and remove identifying information for any period of time, even permanently, if the judge felt that was necessary. That is important because it gets to the heart of this issue: that people who are facing threats and have very legitimate fears need to be emboldened to come forward and not be afraid to come forward. This is what this legislation would do. It would allow for such people to be protected.
I want to point out the types of people who have been calling for the red flags. One amazing group is a group of physicians called Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns, and I salute their incredible work. I had the occasion to meet with some of them, including Dr. Najma Ahmed and Dr. Julie Maggi. Many of their colleagues were doing incredible work from a medical perspective about this being a public health crisis that we are dealing with, in terms of firearms violence.
I also want to salute the lifetime work of my constituent, Ms. Wendy Cukier, a professor at TMU in Toronto and also the president of the Canadian Coalition for Gun Control. I first met Wendy when I was a parliamentary intern in this chamber in 1995. She was doing work back then, 27 years ago, to promote better gun control. She has never wavered in those 27 years. I salute her for the success that this legislation has achieved.
The last piece I want to address in closing is the idea of having municipalities deal with this on a one-off basis. Having bylaws in individual municipalities would create a checkerboard. It would not serve the constituents of Toronto if guns were banned in Toronto but available in Markham or Mississauga. The same would apply across the country.
We are taking a national approach because this is a national issue and a national crisis. It is important for victims. It is important for women. It is important for people who are suffering with mental illness. It is important for racial and religious minorities. I firmly support this bill, and I hope my colleagues will, as well.
1856 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity today to join this important debate.
Let me begin by saying two words: Resolute and realistic. I think the Minister of Public Safety said it best. Resolute and realistic is what this government has strived to be since we began tackling gun violence as soon as we were elected to lead this country almost seven years ago, and these adjectives have been our true North Star. We know that no single bill or initiative has the power to single-handedly end gun violence. That is being realistic.
We also know that morally, ethically and humanely we are bound to do all we can, using all resources at our disposal, to stop senseless deaths and injuries from firearms. That is exactly what we are determined to do. In other words, we are resolute. We believe it is the only appropriate response to the tragedies we have seen in our communities, from the École Polytechnique in 1989 to Portapique in 2020 and all the deadly incidents in between that did not receive widespread media coverage precisely because they were all too common. Let us not have any doubt about it: These are preventable deaths. The grief of the victims' loved ones will never be fully soothed, and those who survived will always carry with them the trauma of what they experienced. We must resolve ourselves to do anything and everything that we can to ensure no one else has to live through these horrors. That is why we have introduced decisive actions such as implementing a national freeze on handguns so that no new handguns can be brought into Canada or bought, sold or transferred within the country, and implementing red flag laws to protect those who are most vulnerable from gun violence at the hands of intimate partners. These are the strongest gun control measures this country has seen in over 40 years. These measures will save lives.
I would like to share a few important statistics with my colleagues. We know that the more available guns are, the higher the risk of homicides and suicides. Handguns are the most commonly used firearms in homicides. Suicide by firearm accounted for 75% of all firearms deaths in Canada between 2008 and 2018. Victims of intimate partner violence are about five times more likely to be killed if a firearm is present in the home. Members should think about that. Of guns used in crimes, 58% are traced to domestic sources that are predominantly from straw purchasing and theft. This means that, contrary to what the Conservatives keep telling us, these guns are legally obtained initially. Making handguns unavailable to buy, transfer or sell and prohibiting new handguns from being brought into Canada just makes sense. Reducing the number of guns in our communities means reducing the number of victims of gun violence.
Let us be clear. We are realistic. We know that a national freeze on handguns, however strong and effective a measure it will be, cannot end all forms of gun violence, of course. That is why this bill contains numerous other measures to complement and strengthen Canada's gun laws. A priority for this government is protecting women who are disproportionately victimized by intimate partner violence that often involves guns. Bill C-21 contains legislation to revoke or deny firearms licences for people who have a protection order against them or have been involved in domestic violence, criminal harassment or stalking.
The red flag provisions of this bill are also designed to protect women and other vulnerable persons. Under these provisions, anyone could apply to a court to remove firearms from someone who may be a danger to themselves or others. We can imagine the utility of a law like this. We can imagine the lives saved in situations where people were experiencing abuse and feared for their lives at the hands of their partners who owned a firearm, or for firearms owners who tell their friends they have suicidal thoughts or ideation. Bill C-21 also contains yellow flag provisions, where anyone can ask a chief firearms officer to suspend and examine a licence if there are grounds to suspect that person is no longer eligible to hold a firearms licence.
These are all strong measures, and we know there are those who, as responsible firearms owners, may worry that these new laws would affect them. Canadian gun regulations and requirements are already robust, and we know that the majority of firearms owners take great care to own and operate their firearms safely in accordance with these rules. We have taken care to ensure that the privileges of lawful gun owners would not change. Current handgun owners would continue to be able to possess and use firearms for as long as they own them.
Bill C-21 is targeting handguns, not firearms used for hunting or sport shooting. However, as the Prime Minister has said, there is no reason other than these activities that the general public should need guns in their everyday lives. Let us think about it. All it takes to take a life is the pulling of a trigger. Do Canadians really need to own lethal force to be used at any moment? I do not think so.
Firearms owners can rest assured that, as always, we will consult with Canadians before finalizing and implementing regulations. The bottom line is that Canadians know that this government is serious about gun control and has been since we were elected. Since 2016, we have invested more than $920 million to address gun violence and keep guns out of the hands of gangs and criminals.
Budget 2021 committed $312 million over five years for the CBSA and RCMP to increase intelligence and investigative capacity at the border and increase the RCMP's ability to trace gun crimes and detect straw purchasing. We have made significant strides in combatting gang violence as well, with $250 million committed to support municipalities and indigenous communities with anti-gang programs through the building safer communities fund. This builds on the $358.8 million under the 2018 initiative to take action against gun and gang violence for provinces and territories. This is not to mention that under the leadership of the previous minister of public safety two years ago, we took the bold step of banning assault-style weapons, prohibiting over 1,500 models of such firearms.
This is how we are combatting gun violence and how we will end it. We have a suite of comprehensive measures that prevent it from taking root in the first place, that protect vulnerable individuals when there is reason to believe violence is imminent and that remove guns from the hands of those who have malicious intentions. We cannot wait to take action.
I speak for all my colleagues when I say that we have already seen too much violence in each of our home constituencies. I know I have. There have been too many tears with too much grief, because even one person lost to gun violence is too many. I implore my colleagues to pass Bill C-21 as quickly as possible. Let us end gun violence in Canada now.
1203 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, our government knows that illegal gun smuggling is important, as is increasing the investigative capacity of the CBSA and the RCMP to investigate purported gun smuggling and crack down on it. We have increased the penalties for those who are caught, from 10 to 14 years. To my knowledge, we are increasing capacity at our borders and ensuring that our law enforcement agencies can share data and information to have better intelligence on these matters.
77 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, this goes to show that just because people are law-abiding gun owners when they purchase a gun does not mean they are not capable of committing an act in a heated moment. It is important for us to realize that limiting gun ownership and restricting guns are going to help reduce gun crime.
56 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/20/22 2:23:20 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, under the Liberals, murders are at a 30-year high. We are seeing shootings and deaths increase. This weekend in Toronto is another sad example. However, we should not be surprised. The same minister who is busy misleading Canadians on the Emergencies Act is the one in charge of public safety.
The Liberals implementing gun bans while at the same time letting violent criminals into our communities is illogical and dangerous. Why will the soft-on-crime Liberals not do something to protect our streets and start by making sure that gangsters and drug dealers stay behind bars?
100 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/20/22 2:24:00 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, if the member had actually read Bill C-21, she would see that we are taking on organized crime head-on by raising maximum sentences for illegal gun smugglers. She would see that we are addressing the alarming concerns around handgun violence by introducing a national handgun freeze. She would see that we are also addressing the alarming trend around the connection between intimate partner violence and guns by the introduction of red flag protocols.
The only thing the Conservatives can offer is making AR-15 assault-style rifles legal again. They should come to this chamber with more ideas.
102 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/20/22 2:24:38 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, under the Liberals, those who commit a crime with a gun get to do their time at home. How is that protecting communities?
However, everything the Liberals touch is a disaster, whether it is the soft-on-crime and often misunderstood public safety minister, the heritage minister, who is taking away Canadians' online freedoms, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who invites her delegates to a party with the Russians, or a finance minister trying to spend her way out of inflation. It is all a disaster.
Is it not true that Canadians are much worse off today than they were seven years ago and that it is all because of terrible Liberal policies?
115 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
