44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 8, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, it has been clear since the bill was first introduced that the Conservative Party had no interest in advancing this transformational legislation. Rather than asking relevant questions of officials, last week Conservative members of the committee spent over three hours of the committee's time parroting the speaking points of the gun lobby. In addition to their previous obstruction tactics, this made it clear that the committee was going to be bogged down with unnecessary delays and that it would take not months but years, at that pace, to see the bill reported back to the House.
In fact, the NDP member for New Westminster—Burnaby asked twice for unanimous consent to add 20 hours to the clause-by-clause study of the bill and was twice denied by the Conservative Party. I did the calculation. We are meeting for three hours at the public safety committee tomorrow. In this motion, we are seeking eight and a half hours for two days, which is the equivalent of the committee meeting until June 15 if we were to hold regular meetings.
Non-partisan government officials received death threats due to their appearance at committee as they provided technical advice on the bill, which underscores why it is critical to complete clause-by-clause promptly.
That is why this motion is important today. When I talk about death threats and intimidation, that is something I have been subject to from the gun lobby since 2019, when I first spoke out during the debate on Bill C-71. I have received threats and intimidation, and these are a lot more than “mean tweets”, as the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights calls them. Twice my riding was targeted by the gun lobby, when it visited my riding in 2019 and 2021, and twice the constituents of Oakville North—Burlington have stood up for gun control and the work that we are doing in this House and sent me back to Ottawa in spite of the intimidation tactics that the gun lobby has tried to use against me.
Working in this place as an MP is a privilege I do not take lightly. I have had the opportunity to work on many issues since I was elected, and one that I am most proud of is the actions our government has taken to prevent gun violence. I was elected to this place for the first time in 2015. When one is elected as an MP, a number of things happen very quickly. One learns about the functioning of the House, as one of 338 Canadians who have the privilege to take a seat at the centre of democracy. I was not expecting to be placed on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, but I am grateful every day that this is where the whip chose to put me. I have worked hard to learn the file and advocate on difficult subjects, knowing that the issues the public safety committee deals with are ones that fundamentally shape our country, and that our work on it is fundamentally about building a better, safer and fairer Canada: questions surrounding systemic racism and the oversight of law enforcement; how to build a corrections system that upholds human rights and prioritizes rehabilitation; implementing needed safeguards to protect our national security from hostile foreign actors; and, yes, gun control.
Today, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and as a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security since 2016, I would like to share the context of where we were, where we are now, where we can go with the passage of Bill C-21, and why it is important to expand the scope of the bill and pass it in a timely matter.
In 2019, Bill C-71, an act to amend certain acts and regulations in relation to firearms, received royal assent. Through Bill C-71, our government introduced mandatory lifetime background checks for anyone who applies for a licence to purchase and own firearms, increasing the previous regime from a five-year background check. It also updated the Firearms Act to the modern age by requiring the chief firearms officer to look at a firearms licence applicant's online behaviour for signs of violence when making a determination on whether an individual is eligible to hold a licence. The legislation also required people in businesses to have proof that they are selling non-restricted firearms only to those who are lawfully licensed to possess one. It ensured that when a court issues a prohibition against a person from owning a firearm, the weapon is forfeited to the Crown, instead of giving an individual the ability to give the firearms to a friend or family member. This ensures that those who should not have access to firearms do not.
These measures improved public safety and ensured that those who enjoy the privilege of firearm ownership meet the test of a rigorous licensing regime. At the time, the Conservatives delayed the bill at committee and eventually voted against it in the House.
While many refuse to talk about it, gun control is a women's issue. The Canadian Women's Foundation notes that the presence of firearms in Canadian households is the single greatest risk factor for the lethality of intimate partner violence. Access to a firearm increases the likelihood of femicide by 500%. The Ontario coroner's death review panel said that 26% of women who were killed by their partner were killed using a firearm.
In speaking with groups like the Lethbridge YWCA, they have told me that every single woman who came to their shelter had been threatened by a partner with a firearm. These are among the nearly 2,500 women victimized in this way over the past five years. Intimate partner violence accounts for nearly 30% of all police-reported violent crime in Canada. That number has risen during the pandemic. In my riding and across the country, local organizations like Halton Women's Place are helping shine a brighter light on the dangers of gun violence.
Over the last eight years, we as a country have also become more aware of the role that coercive control plays in abusive relationships. When we add firearms to the mix, it is a recipe for continued physical, emotional and psychological abuse. In fact, coercive control, when a man uses a gun to control women without ever pulling the trigger, is real and happening right now.
An Oakville resident sent me an email that stated, “Let me just say that you can endure the physical and emotional abuse, but when he pulls our a double-barrelled shotgun, loads it and tells you he is going to kill you, then you know true terror! Thank you for looking out for the victims before they become statistics.”
Our government has been advocating, and will continue to advocate, for women, and through Bill C-21, we would be taking additional steps to support survivors of intimate partner violence who have been threatened with or on the receiving end of violence with a firearm.
Bill C-21 would introduce new red and yellow flag laws, allowing courts to remove guns from and suspend the licence of people who pose a danger to themselves or others and would ensure that those individuals subject to a protection order have their firearms licence revoked. Bill C-21 would mark an important next step in removing guns from the hands of abusive partners.
In addition to the creation of these new red flag provisions, Public Safety Canada will establish a program to help raise awareness among victims about how to use the newly proposed provisions and protections. A guide about how to submit an application to the courts and the protections available could be developed, and the program could fund services to support individuals' applications throughout the court process. It would support vulnerable and marginalized groups, including women, people with mental health issues, indigenous groups and other racialized communities, to make certain that the red flag laws would be accessible to all, particularly those who may need it most.
The government will make available $5 million through a contribution program to ensure support and equitable access.
Enhanced licensing and the creation of additional tools for survivors of intimate partner violence is just one way our government would implement stringent gun control that prioritizes public safety, while still respecting those who own and use firearms.
I would like to take a moment to take us back to April 2020 and the tragedy that unfolded in Portapique, Nova Scotia, where 22 innocent lives were lost over the course of a weekend rampage. We were all shocked and heartbroken. As we learned the identities of the victims of these terrible crimes, we were reminded of the tragic impact that gun violence could have on all of our communities, urban and rural, from coast to coast to coast. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbours were taken from us in a terrible violent way, and far too soon.
Gun violence is not a new thing in our society, but it is made all the more deadly with the proliferation of firearms that are more powerful than ever before. Assault-style firearms, those that were not designed for hunting or sport shooting, have become more and more prevalent in our Canadian retail market. For as long as these guns have existed, they have been capable of inflicting tremendous damage when they fall into the wrong hands.
For decades, chiefs of police, advocacy groups, grieving families and everyday Canadians have called for a ban on these types of firearms, guns that were designed to kill people, intended in their purpose to kill people in the fastest time, and have been used in Canada to kill innocent people.
Canadians have been calling upon successive governments for reform, for stronger gun control. In May 2020, we took additional action through an order in council to ban over 1,500 models of assault-style firearms, including the AR-15.
As retired U.S. Major General Paul Eaton has said, “For all intents and purposes, the AR-15 and rifles like it are weapons of war.” These weapons were designed for the battlefield and have no place on Canadian streets.
Through Bill C-21, we are building on the work done in 2020 to offer a prospective technical definition to ensure that in addition to the weapons banned in 2020, no future similar weapons would ever be able to make it into the Canadian market. It responds to recommendations of the Mass Casualty Commission.
Doctors for Protection from Guns called the definition “A victory for science, public health, and Canadian values...to permanently ban future models of assault weapons.”
Dr. Najma Ahmed said, “As a trauma surgeon I can say there is no greater damage done to the human body than that from semi-automatic assault weapons. I invite any Member of Parliament who denies this reality to join me in the operating room.”
This scoping motion before us today would ensure that this technical definition could be included in Bill C-21.
That brings us to where we are today. Bill C-21 puts forward some of the strongest gun control measures in over 40 years. These new measures include implementing a national freeze on hand guns to prevent individuals from bringing newly acquired hand guns into Canada and from buying, selling and transferring hand guns within the country, a freeze which through regulations has been in effect since October 2022; taking away the firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking; and fighting gun smuggling and trafficking by increasing criminal penalties, providing more tools for law enforcement to investigate firearms crimes and strengthening border security measures.
Over 75% of firearm deaths in our country are by suicide, and there are provisions in the bill to help medical professionals and others ensure that firearms do not remain in the hands of those who are a danger to themselves or others.
The new amendments that are outlined in the scoping motion before us include tackling ghost guns, guns that are privately manufactured, or 3-D printed. This is probably one of the most important things we can do for law enforcement in Bill C-21 to support them with the emerging prevalence of ghost guns.
Members of the public safety committee visited the RCMP gun vault and were able to see how quick and easy it was for criminals to 3-D print firearms illegally. Police services across the country have told me how worried they are about ghost guns infiltrating our communities.
Investigators like Michael Rowe of the Vancouver Police Department, who appeared at our committee during our study on guns and gangs, emphasized the need to create legislative solutions to address this gap so police would have the tools to apprehend those creating these ghost guns.
During his appearance at committee, Inspector Rowe said:
...one of the trends we're seeing out here in Vancouver right now is the use of privately made firearms or “ghost guns”. During the gang conflict, we're seeing more ghost guns, specifically in the hands of people who are involved in active murder conspiracies or people who are believed to be working as hired contract killers. Ghost guns can be 3-D printed or modified from what's called a Polymer80 handgun...
Modern 3-D printing materials can produce a durable firearm, capable of shooting hundreds of rounds without a failure. For example, one of my teams recently completed an investigation in which we executed search warrants on a residential home. Inside this home, we located a sophisticated firearms manufacturing operation capable of producing 3-D printed firearms. They had firearm suppressors and they were completing airsoft conversions—converting airsoft pistols into fully functioning firearms.
The amendments before us in Bill C-21 are in direct response to Inspector Rowe's ask, which was:
...I'd respectfully like to submit that a potential solution would be to bring in legislative remedies to regulate the possession, sale and importation of firearms parts such as barrels, slides and trigger assemblies. This type of legislation would give us, the police, the necessary tools to be able to seize these items, get active enforcement action and more effectively target the manufacturing of privately made firearms.
Our proposed amendments to Bill C-21 would do just that.
Police services across the country are sounding the alarm on this problem, and the amendments we are introducing to address ghost guns is another reason Bill C-21 is such an essential piece of legislation that would increase our public safety.
I would like to share the words of Noor Samiei. Noor was there that night at the Danforth shooting. She lost of best friend, Reese Fallon. Noor, Reese and their friends had graduated high school and were out to celebrate Noor's birthday with friends.
Here are Noor's words:
“What started off as a night of excitement in celebrating my 18th birthday ended in sheer horror and misery. It has been almost five years since the Danforth shooting, and I still struggle to find the words to speak about what my friends and I experienced that night.”
“There will never be enough words to adequately convey how beautiful Reese was. As cliche as it sounds, she was unlike anyone I've ever met before.”
“Another word for friendship is love. Friendship is one of the sweetest and most purest forms of love. Reese was love personified. She radiated so much light and shined so bright in any room she stepped foot in. She had a love so strong that nothing or no one could take that away.”
“While some may argue we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, it does not take away from the fact that it was a legally imported handgun that was later stolen from a gun shop in Saskatchewan. That's why legislation is vital and crucial.”
Canadians are calling on us to take action.
Bill C-21 would save lives, because the status quo is not good enough for Canadians. The status quo led to people like Reese not being here today. The status quo led to the slaughter of women at Polytechnique, the shooting rampage in Nova Scotia, the devastating taking of life at Dawson College and the mosque in Quebec City. The status quo has led to firearms deaths from coast to coast to coast.
In my religion, we are taught that the gift of grace has been given to us by God so that we may give it to others, even if we do not think they deserve it.
We do not deserve Noor's grace, but we are given it anyway.
Let us do something with that gift. Let us pass this motion before us, so we can efficiently deal with Bill C-21 in committee and the House and save lives.
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- May/8/23 12:40:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would point out a few things in the member's speech. All along, this party across has been trying to crackdown on illegal firearms coming in across the border. We have been trying to deal with criminals and keeping those guns out of the hands of criminals.
The Liberal Party stands up and says that it is doing great things, but meanwhile it is lessening consequences for firearms-related crimes. I think many Canadians have seen this is a hypocritical thing to so-call crackdown on firearms when, on the other hand, it lessens consequences for firearms crimes.
The question I am going to ask the member is about something she said in her speech. She referred to shotguns. We have already found out that Liberals have been trying to ban hunting rifles, shotguns, etc. She alluded to the fact that shotguns were bad. For clarity, I want to know from the party opposite, are you trying to ban all firearms in Canada?
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- May/8/23 12:42:00 p.m.
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I want to remind the member he is to address the questions through the Chair.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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Madam Speaker, I would encourage the hon. member to read the bill, because there are two provisions in the bill, Bill C-21, that would increase the penalties for firearms crimes from 10 years to 14 years.
It is ludicrous to say that the government is trying to ban all firearms. In fact, we took the time to ensure what we were putting in the bill was respectful of hunters and indigenous peoples, but by the same token keeping Canadians safe from the kinds of firearms that were designed for the battlefield. There is a difference between what hunters are using and what is being used in the battlefield. To conflate the two, as the Conservative Party and the hon. member do, is unfair to Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, in a few days, it will be one year since the government introduced Bill C‑21. One year is usually enough time for the government and the opposition parties to debate a bill.
That is not what happened with Bill C‑21. The regular debate was held in the House, then the bill was referred to committee. After consulting with experts, the government proposed new amendments on assault weapons. Not everyone was on board, because the government did not communicate its intention properly and withdrew its amendments in February. That left the government 13 weeks before it came back here with another amendment, which it proposed last week.
During those 13 weeks, we could have debated Bill C‑21 and amended it in committee, but we did not because the government was not ready. A week after proposing its new amendments, the government is asking us to limit debate on Bill C‑21.
Does my colleague agree that the only one responsible for the fact that we still have not passed Bill C‑21 is the government, which is unable to work for the people?
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- May/8/23 12:44:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would remind the House that last week the NDP asked twice for unanimous consent to add an additional 20 hours of committee time for this week and were denied twice by the Conservative Party.
My hon. colleague, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, calculated that at the rate we were going, it would be October of 2026 before we would be able to complete the study of the bill. It is obvious that there is obstruction of the bill at committee, and that is why we are moving this motion today.
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Madam Speaker, I was glad to hear that the parliamentary secretary started her remarks with an acknowledgement of indigenous communities, because they led the way, with the Assembly of First Nations, in fighting against the amendments the government brought in at the eleventh hour. I am glad to see that those amendments were withdrawn. I would also thank committee members for passing my amendment to save the sport of airsoft. We have had a lot of very positive correspondence from that community, which is glad to see that the government will go back to the drawing board on this.
By my calculation, after tomorrow's meeting, the committee will have had eight hours on clause-by-clause. If this motion passes, there will be an additional 17 hours, which will be the equivalent of 12.5 meetings. By comparison, Bill C-18 only had seven meetings. I think there will be enough time to get this bill through.
Could the parliamentary secretary talk about the other bills that are waiting their turn at the public safety committee, like Bill C-20 and Bill C-26, and how important it is to look at those bills?
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Madam Speaker, we miss the member on the committee, although we welcome his colleague. His contributions to this bill have been important and he is absolutely right.
Waiting in line at the public safety committee is Bill C-20, a bill that would provide important oversight for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency, something that, for many year, has been called for to enhance that oversight for the RCMP, but also provide oversight for CBSA for the very first time.
In addition to that, we have Bill C-26, which deals with cybersecurity. The member is absolutely correct. We have two important bills waiting, but we cannot get to them until we finish Bill C-21.
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- May/8/23 12:46:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to mention one thing for the hon. parliamentary secretary about the motion so it is on the record. It is a small complaint, but it matters. It is the reference to how we will go forward over the next number of days. It refers to independent members but no where does it refer to Green Party members. I do not imagine that the intent of the motion is to leave us out, but I just draw attention to the fact that we are not independents, and I do have amendments before the committee.
My specific question for the parliamentary secretary is about what this bill would do now to deal with the SKS semi-automatic rifles that have a 7.62 mm dimension. The rifle, with an extended magazine, was the type of gun used on June 28, 2022, in what was not actually a bank robbery in my riding. It was an attempt to kill as many policemen as possible as fast as possible. Thank God none of the police officers who were wounded, many seriously, died, but six officers were in hospital following this devastating attack, some for months.
I wonder if we can get these weapons off the street. Many innocent people are killed and wounded, including police officers.
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- May/8/23 12:48:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the work that she has done over the years on this issue.
With regard to her specific question on the SKS, that was one of the firearms that was included on the list, which has been withdrawn from the bill. However, the minister has indicated that we are reconstituting the Canadian firearms advisory council. That council will take a look at those 482 firearms to determine in an independent way those that we should not move forward with and provide advice to the government.
We have seen how politicized and divisive this debate has become. We are asking a non-partisan, independent advisory committee to take a look at these firearms and to provide us advice on how we should be moving forward. The one the member mentioned, in particular, is one of the ones it would be looking at.
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- May/8/23 12:49:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was glad to hear the hon. member in her speech refer to the Vancouver Police Department and the concerns it has expressed about ghost guns. One of the things that is really important in my community is that we address the proliferation of these ghost guns, which are being seen more and more in criminal activity.
What delays would be caused and what are the consequences of not moving forward with dealing with the very important issue of ghost guns, which affects all of our communities in urban and rural Canada?
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- May/8/23 12:49:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member has raised a very important point. Until this bill is passed, the police do not have the tools they need to deal effectively with ghost guns, and lives are being lost. These guns are cheap to manufacture and there are limited tools available to the police. The sooner we can get this bill passed, the sooner lives would be saved, because we would give police services not only in Vancouver but across the country the tools they need.
We would be ahead of organized crime and gangs by passing this legislation and giving the police the tools they need to deal with these guns.
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to be talking today. I take that back, I am not very happy to be talking today in the House of Commons on the circumvention of the democratic process and the very important discussion we are having on Bill C-21. I have a lot to say about the many amendments that were being discussed on Bill C-21, and I may not have the right to talk about those, other than in a very limited way at committee, if this time allocation motion passes today.
I want to put on the record what we are really talking about.
The Prime Minister has made his true agenda very clear to Canadians very recently, in the last four months, while we have been having this discussion on Bill C-21 and the Liberal effort to expand it to be the largest hunting-rifle ban in Canadian history. When the Prime Minister was pressed about this after enormous backlash from the hunting, sport shooting, farming and indigenous communities, he did admit that taking hunting rifles away was the goal when he said, “Our focus now is on saying okay, there are some guns, yes, that we're going to have to take away from people who were using them to hunt”.
The Prime Minister said it himself. He has let Canadians know what his true intentions are, and so no matter what the Liberals talk about, no matter what slogans, quick words or terminology they want to use, make up or pull out of thin air, he has made it very clear that the Liberal government, in partnership with the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, are going after firearms used to hunt by Canadian hunters, farmers and indigenous Canadians. There is a lot to talk about today, but, again, I would underline what the motion would do if passed.
The discussion at committee that we are having about Bill C-21, now that the Liberals have let us resume the process on Bill C-21 discussion at committee, is proceeding quite well. We have done almost half the amendments, and there are many amendments, in just two meetings. Considering how contentious this is, that is record time.
Also, considering the Liberals reintroduced a so-called “new definition” to the previous version, which is almost the same, really put shockwaves through the firearms community in Canada. Members could imagine that our scrutiny as opposition parties is very high, and so it is quite miraculous that we have actually managed to get through that and half of the amendments for Bill C-21, which amounts to inches of paperwork. The bill would impact 2.3 million gun owners, their families, their communities, hundreds of millions of dollars in our economy and tens of thousands of jobs, not to mention centuries of culture and heritage in Canada. It is surprising that the parties worked so well at committee, and we have gone over almost half of the amendments in only two meetings, which is quite surprising. So, why the need for the motion before us?
Well, it is very interesting. Part of the work that we have been doing at committee is to, of course, heavily scrutinize Bill C-21, and the very sneaky and underhanded amendments that the Liberals introduced at the 11th hour of committee back in, I believe, November 2022, which was when everything blew up about Bill C-21. Hunters, farmers and indigenous Canadians saw the true feelings of this government, which is that it would come after hundreds of their firearms.
Remember, Bill C-21 is supposed to be the so-called “handgun ban”, which it is not really, but the Liberals expanded it to banning hunting rifles and many hundreds of long guns. Of course, Conservatives, right off the bat, said, “Well, that is not in the scope of the bill.” We went to vote at committee to rule it out of scope and to kick this part out of Bill C-21 for good. However, the NDP teamed up with the Liberals and voted down that out-of-scope vote. We could have stopped this right at the beginning if not for the NDP. Of course, its members are working very closely with the Liberals and their true agenda to take away firearms from hunters, sport shooters, farmers and indigenous Canadians.
Then, I think the NDP was having some remorse. Obviously, in their rural and northern communities, there was significant backlash. I know for a fact that the NDP member from northern Ontario got a lot of backlash. The NDP sort of moved to almost wanting to rule this out of scope, which we appreciated and the hunters appreciated. Now they have completely backtracked, despite almost the exact same definition coming in, but it is actually much worse, which I will talk about in a minute.
Again, Conservatives, in our diligence, at committee last week moved to rule this out of scope again, because the bill is not about long guns, it is not about banning hunting rifles. Yet, the Liberals, working with the NDP, are trying very hard to make that within the scope of the bill. They voted that down yet again. So, it is very convenient to have today's time allocation motion, which is very long and talks about a lot of things.
In essence, what is really important to remember is that this will expand the scope of the bill. They are retroactively expanding the scope of Bill C-21 so that we cannot have it ruled out of scope. Of course, as a last-ditch effort there was a parliamentary procedure we could have tried. That would have been to go right to the Speaker to rule this out of scope of Bill C-21. Considering he represents a rural riding with tons of hunters, sport shooters and farmers, I would imagine he would have considered it, especially considering that we are right and it certainly is outside the scope. I find it very convenient that that is part of the objective of today's motion. It is within the scope. That eliminate all options for us to have it ruled out of scope. No longer do we have any parliamentary procedure left to have this ruled out of scope. It is very important for people to understand that.
This is a nuclear option. This is what happens when committees go awry and there are hours of filibusters with nothing moving. That is all that was happening at committees last week. We went through half of the amendments in a highly contentious bill at only two meetings; two meetings, which is pretty impressive by every measure that I have seen in my time as a parliamentarian. There is no reason for this at all. In fact, the NDP member at committee has spoken more than almost anybody in the last two meetings.
It does not really make sense why the Liberals are trying to forcibly limit debate the way they are doing it. If this passes at committee, we will only have five minutes to ask any questions about each clause. If people ever watch me, which I know a lot of people interested in this have, we have to ask the officials questions and ask for clarification.
Again, this impacts 2.3 million gun owners, their families and hundreds of millions of dollars of the economy; tens of thousands of jobs, centuries of culture and heritage in Canada, so the idea that we would limit debate so severely is very concerning to us, especially since we have been enacting in good faith and have gone through half of the amendments in two meetings. I cannot stress that enough.
I was very surprised to see this over the weekend. I have to be honest that it was a real slap in the face to the work that we have been doing at committee. If we wanted to drag it out, we could still be talking about that definition. There are so many ambiguities in that so-called new definition we could easily be talking about that still, yet we had our questions. We recognized that there are other things to talk about at committee. It is the public safety committee and we are in a public safety crisis in this country because of repeat violent offenders that the Liberals keep letting out of jail. I will talk about that later.
There are so many things we should be talking about at the public safety and national security committee so we are moving along. This is what we get; a real lesson to me about working together at committee. I have learned my lesson today about giving any benefit of the doubt or acting in good faith at all. Obviously, it is upsetting because we have been working hard at committee and doing our due diligence. This is what we get: forcing the elimination of proper debate and scrutiny on Bill C-21 amendments that impact millions of people. I think I have harped on that enough. Maybe I will come back to it later.
Let us talk about this new definition. It is really not new. It is just almost like lipstick on a pig, for the lack of a better expression.
I will outline the old definition. It said a firearm that is “a rifle or a shotgun that is capable of discharging centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner and that is designed to accept a detachable cartridge magazine with a capacity greater than five cartridges of the type for which the firearm was originally designed." That was the original definition. That was clause G4. If folks have heard of G4, that was G4, along with a number of other things from the May 2020 OIC, which we are all very familiar with. It was also provided in a very short order, in a very sneaky, underhanded way, with clause G46, which folks will remember was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages long and looked to ban an additional, almost 500, long guns. That is where the infamous SKS is found, which is very popular with hunters and indigenous. Again, that list was massive. It was about three inches thick. They dropped that in a very sneaky and underhanded way, along with this definition.
Months went by. There was a massive uproar with hundreds of thousands of phone calls, letters and social media posts from the firearms community across Canada. The Liberals, for once, relented and withdrew G46 and G4. I have never seen that before. That was actually quite shocking. I have never seen them back down on anything before. That was round one, as we found out.
Round two, here we are yet again with almost no change. Actually, I would argue that it is worse now. I will tell the House why.
I just read the old definition. This is the new one. The definition includes a firearm “that is not a handgun that discharges centrefire ammunition“, which was mentioned before, “in a semi-automatic manner”, which was also mentioned before, “and that was originally designed with a detachable magazine with a capacity of six cartridges or more.” There are weasel word changes there, but they are very subtle. The reason they mention a firearm that is not a handgun is interesting.
There is more weaselling manoeuvring here. The French translation for what they originally had was “fusil de chasse”, which means “hunting rifle”. That was the direct French translation of what the Liberals were trying to ban late last year, but of course there are tens of thousands of hunters, sport shooters and farmers in rural Quebec, which the Bloc forgets, but there are, and they were in an uproar, obviously. Therefore, the government has worked it out so that at least it does not say “hunting rifle” in French, but that is the translation of what it was trying to ban just in November. Let us just be clear about that. The government just switched around the words a bit, which is very interesting.
What is very problematic about this is that the government has mostly boasted or talked at length about how it is not bringing forward the big list, not to worry about the big list and the government is not going to ban those in legislation. That was what the public could scrutinize. There were almost 500 additional rifles and shotguns in there, many of which are very commonly used hunting rifles. There were a lot of them in there and the public could at least see the list. People did see it, and they were shocked at the number of hunting rifles being banned. The government said not to worry, and that it was not bringing forward the list again, just the definition.
However, what the government is doing in a very sneaky, underhanded way seems to be a theme for the government when it comes to banning hunting rifles, which is by doing it through the back door. The Liberals are bringing forward a firearms advisory committee, and they keep referring to it. When asked about the SKS, for example, which does not technically fall under this definition but was on the original list, the Liberals have as much as told us that the firearms advisory committee will look to ban that. The minister has said that and the parliamentary secretary has referred to that. Immediately, when asked about the SKS, the answer is that the firearms advisory committee will be looking at that.
What is this firearms advisory committee? The Liberals are saying it is a non-partisan group of experts they are putting together. We have heard that before. The Liberals have had similar advisory committees for firearms, and they have had some of the biggest anti-gun groups in the country on the so-called advisory committee they had before, in a previous iteration. Therefore, I do not trust for one minute that there are going to be advocates for lawful firearm ownership for hunters, sport shooters, farmers and indigenous Canadians in this regard and from this perspective on that committee. Not for one minute do I trust that this is going to be the case.
The Liberals keep referring to that committee whenever we ask about the SKS. Therefore, to me, it is very clear. In the language that was used just today in the House was very telling. The member said that they will take a look at that, referring to the SKS, and the 482 firearms to decide which ones to move forward with. When the member was asked about the SKS, she would be referring to the firearms committee. She was talking about deciding which ones to move froward with banning.
Again, it is very sneaky because there is no list we can scrutinize. It is just some unelected body. The firearms advisory committee would be a committee of so-called experts, which we know will be partisan anti-gun groups from the country. They will be coming up with lists to ban, so this is worse than what we had before because now we cannot see the list. It is likely not even going to be announced. It is just going to be a new list added to the OIC or some other version of it, and people will find out somehow down the road what they can no longer own. It is a very arbitrary list, indeed.
I will remind folks that, in May 2020, after the worst mass shooting and worst mass killing in Canadian history, in the hours and days following that, when people had not had the chance to bury their loved ones or properly mourn the people who had been lost by that vile, sick killer, the government was scheming to bring forward the May 2020 OIC. It did, and there were 1,500 long guns that were banned in the cloak of darkness during the middle of the pandemic, as it had hit Canada just a month and a half prior. The government banned that and has subsequently added 400 more long guns to that over the last couple of years. Then, in November, there were another almost 500 added on.
The Liberals are not going to stop. If we were to ask any Liberal if this is going to be the last firearm ban they are going to bring forward, I would be shocked if any of them said yes because, again, this firearms committee is going to be bringing forward tons more firearms to ban. The Liberals keep referring to the committee when we ask about the SKS, which is a ubiquitous hunting gun in this country, so I do not trust them at all.
Again, we have been acting in good faith, and here we are with this time allocation motion to limit democratic debate.
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- May/8/23 1:05:53 p.m.
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The hon. member for Vancouver Granville is rising on a point of order.
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- May/8/23 1:05:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member noted that she was dealing with the criteria. She has ignored one important criteria that seeks to take the conversation—
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- May/8/23 1:06:04 p.m.
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This is debate and not a point of order. I would remind the hon. member that he will have an opportunity to ask questions and make comments, depending on how many people rise to be recognized.
The hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul.
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Madam Speaker, I will remind the Liberal member that, if he is looking to throw me off, he is severely underestimating me, just like many a man before him. I have a lot to say, and I will be here for quite some time, so hopefully he is hydrated and fed because he is going to be waiting a long time.
I have more to say on the announcement last week, which was impacted by Bill C-21. The minister at the same time announced the firearms advisory committee, the so-called new definition, but with the old definition, but sneakier.
He also announced that there is going to be something about a permanent alteration to magazines, which we have already, but the way he worded it would signify to me that there is going to be a change in what that means. When we tried to ask about it at committee, we did not get any answers because apparently it was not technically within Bill C-21, but he announced it at the same time he was talking about the bill. The Liberals and officials would not answer our question, but what was taken from that in the firearms community is that the permanent alteration of magazines would go a step further than what is being done now and would impact many a firearm that really is Grandpa Joe's hunting rifle.
For example, the Lee Enfield, is a very popular firearm. It was the British firearm until about the 1950s. It is well made and has been passed down through generations. It is made completely from wood stock and is exactly what we would think of and picture when we think about Grandpa Joe going out to hunt deer. However, one cannot permanently alter the magazine capabilities of that firearm without destroying it. There is no way. Therefore, is the minister now saying that he is going to destroy the Lee Enfield? He will not answer. I have urged people to write to the minister to ask him about that because he will not answer our questions, nor will the Liberals on the public safety committee.
I will also note that the tubular magazine hunting rifle, where the bullet goes right into the tube because there is no magazine, as in the image the Liberals are trying to bring forward, is an old school, 1800s-level technology. For example, the Winchester 1873, I think it is called, is a tubular magazine firearm that holds seven to 14 cartridges or bullets. It cannot be altered in any way, as that would destroy the firearm.
These are heirloom firearms. I am pretty sure my grandfather had one in the closet for when coyotes would try to get into the chicken coop. That is how old school these firearms are. There are hundreds of versions of these in rural Canada. It is owned by collectors, and certainly by hunters and indigenous Canadians. If the SKS is popular in indigenous communities, so too is the Lee Enfield, so why would the Liberals not be clear on what they are talking about with respect to these permanent alterations to magazines? Why are they being so cagey about that? Is it because they do not know? Is it ignorance, or are they hiding something? I do not know.
I have given them the benefit of the doubt before. However, here we are, and they are forcing an end to the democratic discussion and scrutiny that is needed on this bill at committee today, so I really do not trust anything they are about to say on that, if they say anything at all, because they have refused to answer my questions and our questions at the public safety committee about the Lee Enfield and tubular magazine long guns.
While this has been going on, and we have heard so much about this, the Liberals are attacking us, particularly me. I suppose it is because I have been the lead on firearms. They talk about the Conservatives more in their announcements than they talk about the crime that is wreaking havoc in our communities, which they are not doing a lot about.
I want to say that I know this debate is very heated and very personal to people on all sides. I have always done my best to lead this discussion from our perspective, from a professional and authentic standpoint, and what really shocked me was last week, or it might have been the week before, when the minister was announcing phase one of his so-called buyback, which I will get to. He said, in essence, that Conservatives were at fault and bear some of the responsibility for the abuse the Liberals are getting from what they say are gun owners. I have no idea, as I have not seen that.
It is interesting that they talk about it as if we have not received any abuse from people who do not agree with our position. I can tell members that I have certainly received very threatening abuse for the position we have taken. I am the lead on this file. I have received many threats and have been concerned for my safety in this debate, so I was very offended when I heard them trying to blame Conservatives, particularly me because I am the lead in this regard, when I have not been spared or kept from any of that abuse myself.
I am undeterred. I will continue on. I will not be bullied into silence on this. However, just to be clear, the rhetoric from the Liberals is trumping up a lot of hate toward me and others on this side of the House as well. I do not like talking about it. We do not want copycats. We do not want any heroes from these evil, sadistic people, but when I heard something like that, I thought that I had to say something.
I have kept quiet, but I will not stand idly by while the Minister of Public Safety blames me for the abuse he has gotten for his underhanded policies, when I too have suffered abuse because of his rhetoric. I just wanted to put that on the record. I hope to speak to the minister personally about that.
We are talking a lot about firearms. Of course, exclusively, Bill C-21 only impacts, with the so-called handgun freeze or ban, which is really not any of that, people who follow the law. They are the trained, tested and vetted Canadian citizens who are approved by the RCMP to own firearms. Those are really the only people who are impacted by all of these measures since the May 2020 OIC and Bill C-71 before it. It only impacts regular, everyday Canadians who are legally allowed to own firearms. They are heavily vetted Canadians, who are legally allowed to own firearms.
However, the government continues to bring forward measure after measure to attack this group of people. Meanwhile, criminals are running rampant on our streets. I have talked at length about the crime issues. Canadians know full well what has been going on, on public transit and on the streets of Toronto. Everywhere we go in Canada there seems to be horrific headlines of innocent people being attacked by complete strangers who are deranged.
We are facing very serious issues, yet the Liberal budget 2023 really failed to address those violent crime issues. In fact, violent crime was not mentioned once, zero times, in that budget.
Do members know what else was not mentioned once in that budget? Bail reform was not mentioned once in the budget and has not been mentioned in the priorities of that budget from the Minister of Public Safety, despite the fact that every premier of every province and territory in Canada has written two letters to the Prime Minister demanding bail reform because of what is happening in their provinces and territories with crime and repeat violent offenders continuing to get bail and getting back on our streets, hurting Canadians.
When have we ever heard every premier in the country agreeing on a letter? It is very rare. Maybe when they are asking for health care funding, but aside from that, it is a very rare occurrence. There have now been two letters sent to the Prime Minister.
There are also municipal police forces. I just spoke at the big ten police conference, which included every major police association, municipal police forces across the country. I just flew to Calgary last week to speak to them. They are demanding bail reform. Every big city mayor in Ontario is demanding bail reform. While everyone seems to agree on bail reform, there has been no meaningful action or change taken by the Minister of Public Safety on bail reform. I will remind those watching of violent crime in this country, which is up 32% from 2015 to 2021.
When we get to 2022 stats, it will be deeply concerning, I am going to guess that they are going to be way up, just based on the headlines, but they are up 32% between 2015 and 2021. It equates to 124,000 more violent crime incidents per year, which is an insane amount of additional crime that the police are having to deal with, despite police numbers really suffering, which I will talk more about in a minute. We are seeing that crime wave steadily increase, year by year, under the Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety's watch. That is all happening.
On that, bail reform is a huge issue. If we look at Vancouver, there were 6,000 crime incidents, interactions with police, for crime. Of these, 40 people were responsible for 6,000 interactions with police. Those 40 people are sure keeping police busy in Vancouver. These are violent repeat offenders causing havoc on transit, when we walk down the street with one's family and when we are trying to enjoy the parks. There are 40 people causing 6,000 interactions with police in one year, yet there are crickets about bail reform. They say, “Oh, we are meeting and talking about it”, but that is all we hear. It has been months.
In fact, the Victoria police recently put out a news release about a vile rapist who committed 10 sexual assaults with a weapon. Why was he released? The police wanted to make sure the public knew why it was not their fault he was released. At the bottom of the news release, there is a question that asks, “Why was this person released?” I think this is consistent on their news releases, when it is relevant. It was because of Bill C-75. That is a Liberal bill from a few years ago that made bail, in essence, the default for violent repeat offenders. They got bail by default.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost. We are seeing a massive crime surge, and this is one of the reasons police are underlining this and making this heard by MPs over and over again. That is all going on. We are hearing through Toronto police statistics that of the 44 murders, I think it was either last year or in 2021, in over half, 24 or 26 of the 44 murders, the murderers were out on bail at the time. Over half of 44 murders could have been prevented if the Liberals had not brought in such a weak bail regime. They are getting up at the mike and talking about how this so-called new definition, old definition, no list, sneaky list given to the firearms advisory council is going to solve crime, or is one of the things that are going to solve crime.
It is not going to do anything about the people in Toronto who are getting out on bail and murdering people. Toronto police will remind us that about nine out of 10 firearms used in crime in Toronto, mostly handguns, are smuggled in from the U.S. We could outlaw, and I am sure the Liberals are working on it, every single handgun legally owned in this country, and the situation will get worse in cities. The statistics will continue to go up because these criminals are not legally owning the guns. Most of them are prohibited from ever going near a firearm.
Most repeat violent offenders should be in jail, because they smuggle the firearms in quite easily through the Prime Minister's very porous border, through which he has allowed all these drugs and guns to come into the country. That includes human trafficking and all kinds of other things he has allowed under his watch. They are flowing into Toronto and other big cities, such as Montreal and Winnipeg. I have seen the firearms myself, as the Winnipeg police have shown me smuggled ones. There are 3-D-printed guns as well. People are using 3-D printers and printing plastic handguns that are going for $7,000 a pop on the streets of Winnipeg. Bill C-21 would really not do a lot about that.
We worked together on an amendment to perhaps give police a teeny extra tool, which I supported, but going after lawful firearms owners is not going to do anything about the problems in Toronto. Nothing in Bill C-21 would really have stopped the murders of those 20-odd people who were murdered by those on bail who smuggled guns in or printed them. The Liberals say they are increasing maximum sentencing on gun smugglers. That is technically true, but in reality it is baloney. One of my Conservative colleagues, who did great work, made an information request to the government asking how many people have received the maximum sentence, up to right now, for gun smuggling. Do members know, for the eight years that the Prime Minister has ruled the country, how many people got the maximum 10-year sentence for gun smuggling activities? Zero people have gotten the maximum, so to increase it to 14 years is really not going to do a whole heck of a lot.
Perhaps what they should have done is to bring in mandatory minimums for gun smuggling. That would have taken criminals off the street. That would have actually done something, maybe. Conservatives were looking at maybe doing that with an amendment, but we were told it was out of scope so we could not bring forward mandatory maximums. Maybe that is something the member for Carleton, as prime minister of the country, will look at, because that would make a real, actual difference in cracking down on gun smuggling.
I will remind the House that, at the same time as the Liberals were going after lawful firearms owners to such a degree, with so many taxpayer dollars and so much effort by the Minister of Public Safety, in the fall, the Minister of Justice brought forward a bill, which he apparently celebrated quite excitedly when it was passed, to remove mandatory minimum sentences for serious gun crimes and violent crimes. Does everyone want to know what the list of those crimes is? On the list is robbery with a gun. Someone can rob a store with a gun, and it is no longer guaranteed that they will go to jail. That is the Liberal Prime Minister's vision of what we should do about crime: People can rob someone at gunpoint, and there is no longer a mandatory minimum for them.
The list continues with extortion with a firearm; weapons trafficking; importing or exporting, knowing the firearm is unauthorized; and discharging a firearm with intent, including things like drive-by shootings. There is no longer mandatory prison time for the people who commit these offences. Also on the list, there is using a firearm in the commission of an offence, or breaking the law with a gun; there is no longer a mandatory prison time for this. For possession of a firearm, knowing its possession is unauthorized, or illegally possessing a firearm, there is no longer mandatory prison time. For all those criminals in Toronto, it was a good day when Bill C-5 passed.
There is also possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition. A person could have a prohibited gun with a whole bunch of ammunition, and there is no longer mandatory prison time for them. Again, gangs are celebrating every time the Liberal Prime Minister is elected. For possession of a weapon obtained by commission of an offence, stealing one, in essence, there is no longer mandatory prison time. For possession for the purpose of weapons trafficking, excluding firearms ammunition, there is no mandatory prison time.
For discharging a firearm recklessly, there is no longer mandatory prison time. People die in cities because there are gangsters discharging firearms recklessly all the time, firearms they have smuggled in or 3D-printed. There is no longer mandatory prison time for them. In fact, in that same bill, Bill C-5, the Liberals brought forward a supposedly improved option for people who commit sexual assault. Now the law ensures that people who commit sexual assault, rape, do not have to go to prison. They can actually serve house arrest in the comfort of their homes. Rapists can serve their sentence playing video games, with their feet up, in their own homes. It is unreal. I should not be laughing about it, but it is so outrageous and ridiculous that it is hard for me, as a woman, to wrap my head around a so-called feminist government saying that rapists can serve house arrest for their sentence. This just happened in Quebec, where a vile rapist violently raped a woman and got zero days in prison and only 20 months under house arrest.
This is all in the scope of what the Liberals view as their crime priorities. They are getting up at the mike every other day, announcing new gun control measures to go after folks who are lawfully allowed to own firearms, and saying that that is going to make a difference. What would make a difference is repealing Bill C-5 and making sure violent criminals and rapists go to jail. That would make a difference in public safety.
It is not just about firearms. In fact, a lot of the crime we are seeing involves knives. Where is the conversation about knives? We just had what I believe was the third-largest mass killing in Canadian history, and we barely heard a peep about that, certainly not from the Liberals. We tried to study it at committee, and they would not let us. It was in the fall, the third-largest mass killing in Canadian history. A man who got out on parole despite—
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- May/8/23 1:24:41 p.m.
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One moment, we have a point of order.
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- May/8/23 1:24:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. member does not mean to mislead the House, but there was absolutely no stoppage of anything on the stabbing at—
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- May/8/23 1:25:00 p.m.
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I would say that this is debate, and I would ask the hon. parliamentary secretary to consider rising to be recognized for a question when it is time for questions and comments.
The hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul.
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