44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 8, 2023 11:00AM
- May/8/23 12:13:00 p.m.
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moved:
That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms), be disposed of as follows:
(a) it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, that during its consideration of the bill, the committee be granted the power to expand its scope, including that it applies to all proceedings that have taken place prior to the adoption of this order, to:
(i) address unlawfully manufactured, unserialized and untraceable firearms, electronic in nature or otherwise, including their parts, that can be purchased online and/or assembled at home by amending the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act,
(ii) address the illegal acquisition of cartridge magazines by requiring a Possession and Acquisition License to purchase cartridge magazines,
(iii) amend the definition of “prohibition order” and provisions relating to prohibition orders (sections 109 and 110) to include prohibiting a person from possessing any firearm, crossbow, prohibited weapon, restricted weapon, prohibited device, firearms part, ammunition, prohibited ammunition, or explosive substance, or all such things,
(iv) amend the definition of “prohibited firearm” in the Criminal Code to include a further technical description for an assault-style firearm and criteria that includes any unlawfully manufactured firearms,
(v) allow for an amendment that will ensure a statutory review of the technical definition proposed in paragraph (iv) above,
(vi) amend the Criminal Code as it relates to the proposed definition of prohibited firearm,
(vii) add a definition of “firearm part”, which means to include a barrel for a firearm, a slide for a handgun and any other prescribed part, but does not include, unless otherwise prescribed, a barrel for a firearm or a slide for a handgun if that barrel or slide is designed exclusively for use on a firearm that is deemed under section 84(3) not to be a firearm,
(vii.1) add new offences, and exceptions to the offences, relating to a firearm part or relating to computer data and provide for their enforcement and provide for the court to impose restrictions in relation to firearm parts;
(vii.2) expand the concept of orders under section 117.011 to include orders in respect of access to a firearm part,
(viii) add a new definition of “semi-automatic”, which, in respect of a firearm, means that the firearm to include a firearm that is equipped with a mechanism that, following the discharge of a cartridge, automatically operates to complete any part of the reloading cycle necessary to prepare for the discharge of the next cartridge,
(ix) add a non-derogation clause affirming the rights enshrined under section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
(x) allow for the addition of a regulation-making authority and definition respecting unregulated firearms,
(xi) make any consequential or technical amendments;
(b) during consideration of the bill by the committee:
(i) the committee shall have the first priority for the use of House resources for committee meetings,
(ii) amendments filed by independent members shall be deemed to have been proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill,
(iii) not more than 20 minutes be allotted for debate on any clause or any amendment moved, to be divided to a maximum of five minutes per party, unless unanimous consent is granted to extend debate on a specific amendment, and at the expiry of the time provided for debate on an amendment, the Chair shall put every question to dispose of the amendment, forthwith and successively without further debate,
(iv) the committee shall meet between 3:30 p.m. and midnight on the two further days following the adoption of this order,
(v) if the committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill by 11:59 p.m. on the second day, all remaining amendments submitted to the committee shall be deemed moved, the Chair shall put the question, forthwith and successively without further debate on all remaining clauses and amendments submitted to the committee as well as each and every question necessary to dispose of the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, and the committee shall not adjourn the meeting until it has disposed of the bill,
(vi) a member of the committee may report the bill to the House by depositing it with the Acting Clerk of the House, who shall notify the House leaders of the recognized parties and independent members, and if the House stands adjourned, the report shall be deemed to have been duly presented to the House during the previous sitting for the purpose of Standing Order 76.1(1);
(c) not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at report stage and on that day the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be midnight, and, not later than 11:59 p.m. or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment;
(d) not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at the third reading stage and on that day the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be midnight, and that, not later than 11:59 p.m. or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment; and
(e) on the sitting days the bill is considered at report stage and the third reading stage, after 6:30 p.m., no quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Chair.
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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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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 3:04:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every time a criminal uses a firearm in the commission of a crime, it costs society half a million dollars. A study published by Yanick Charette, a criminology professor at Laval University, states that the most expensive crime is homicide, costing an average of $10 million per murder committed with an illegal firearm. Instead of addressing the source of this problem, the great Liberal-NPD-Bloc Québécois coalition would rather spend billions more on buying up legally owned guns from harmless hunters.
When are we going to stop the partisan games and actually work for public safety?
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