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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 93

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 21, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 93 - Jun/21/22
Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)
  • Jun/21/22 6:59:19 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-21 
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this bill, and I will start with a confession. I am surprised to find myself agreeing with many of the criticisms expressed by Conservative members. This does not happen very often when it comes to firearms. The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-21 and will obviously try to improve it in committee. However, it does not address any of the current problems that are affecting cities, particularly Montreal. There is nothing in the bill to address the shootings on our city streets that are scaring our children. This is very serious. The bill puts a freeze on the acquisition of new legal handguns. This is good and might help, but these weapons represent barely 5% of the weapons used in violent crimes. According to Montreal's police service, the SPVM, 95% of the handguns used in violent crimes are illegal. Bill C‑21 contains nothing more than a few watered-down measures to tackle this problem. Where are the measures to increase resources for border services so they can curb the trafficking of illegal weapons? Where are the additional patrols? I know that I repeat this often, but I would like to remind the House that the Government of Quebec recently provided $6 million to increase patrols in the Akwesasne area. The federal government is nowhere to be found. It must propose something to tackle this issue, whether it is resources, money, a special task force, I do not know. The bill does nothing to deal with the violent crimes currently being committed in our cities. We are faced once more with a government that claims to be doing something and tries to give the impression that it is taking action while actually doing very little. Ideally, the longer it can make this last, the more satisfied it is, because it can repeat 100 promises three or four times in different election campaigns. I am going to take the example of assault weapons, which can fire ammunition at insane speeds and which no one needs in real life. These weapons are a problem. The current government claims that it has already done its job by prohibiting them. It often repeats this claim in its speeches, saying that it is a good thing. In reality, in May 2020, the government cobbled together a list seemingly at random, containing several models of weapons whose names seemed to have been picked out of a hat. Then the government declared that those weapons were prohibited. However, similar models that are just as or even more dangerous continue to be legal. This approach pushed the manufacturers of these weapons to adapt and develop other models since then. We need to work intelligently, and for that to happen, the government needs to listen to the opposition once in a while. The opposition is not always right, but it often is right, and it makes good suggestions. For example, we said that there was no need to make a list of weapons, but that we should consult experts and define what an assault weapon is. Once the legal framework is established, if a weapon fits in this framework, it will be banned and considered illegal, no matter what weapons manufacturers invent five or 10 years from now. That seems so logical to me, so I do not understand—
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