44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, at the public safety committee, the Toronto deputy police chief said that 86% of guns that they recover from crimes are illegal guns smuggled in from the United States. I am wondering what the member thinks this bill would do about that, if anything.
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Madam Speaker, it is of grave concern to me that the government has chosen to spend so much time on a piece of legislation that would do so very little to actually deal with the issue of crime in this country. Members might be asking why I am making that assertion. The reason I will make that assertion is that violent crime in this country is up 32%. Many members have talked about this and I think the government realizes this, so what the Liberals have decided to do is to say that they are taking action with this bill. The problem is that this bill actually would not take action where we need to take action. I will explain that a bit.
At the public safety committee, the Toronto deputy police chief said that 86% of guns used in crime are illegally smuggled from the United States. Therefore, what would this bill do with respect to the 86% of guns that are being smuggled across the border? If we were debating today what to do about that, I would say that it is something exceptionally worthwhile and something that Conservatives would be 100% behind. However, instead, we are debating a bill that would do absolutely nothing about it.
When we are facing this surge of crime across the country, including violent crime, gang crime and gun crime, how are we not focusing on the source of that gun crime? Eighty-six per cent of those guns are illegally smuggled across the border.
Let us look at that by analogy. If we are on a ship and the ship is taking on water and we have this giant hole where 86% of the water is coming in, does the captain say that we should look over here at these other little holes and see if there is something we can do about that? That is effectively what the approach of the current government is. It looks at where the real crime is happening, where the real problem is, and pretends it does not exist, and then tries to distract Canadians by saying these people over here and these people over here and with these types of guns are the problem, which of course they are not.
To go through the possession and acquisition of a firearm in this country is a pretty stringent process that includes background checks. This is not where the crime is coming from and yet this is where the government chooses to focus its attention. I would like to say I find it disappointing, but disappointing does not go nearly far enough.
What the government should be focusing on is how to stop these guns from coming across the border. That would be something on which I think every member on this side of the House can agree; though perhaps not the members from the government coalition on this side. They think that this bill is also the panacea to gun violence that is going on this country: to crack down on legal firearms owners who have to go through a rigorous process to acquire those guns and are actually not the ones who are committing crimes. This makes absolutely no sense to me. It is a government that is saying it is not going to do the hard work because the hard work is hard.
It would be hard. It would take incredible investment in resources, in guns and gangs task forces, in border security and in border control to make sure that we stop these guns from pouring across the border and being used to commit violent crimes. That would take a large strategy, a large investment and a lot of moving parts. One thing we know about the current government is that it is not good at dealing with complicated situations in this country. All we have to do is look at how the Liberals are handling the cost of living crisis in this country to know how they would handle this crisis. Why have the Liberals taken this approach?
They have taken this approach because it is an easy-sounding answer. They are going to crack down on guns. That is their slogan. They are cracking down on guns, and that is going to make Canadians safe.
It is a great sound bite, and we all know now that sound bites matter in the fast-paced world of news, the world of social media. It sounds good. They are cracking down on guns. Why are they not cracking down on the 86% of guns that are pouring across the border? I could ask my colleagues across the way that question all night long, and I doubt I would get anything that even resembles an answer.
The problem of their approach in not dealing with the guns coming across the border is that we end up with this surge of violent crime, with a 32% increase. When we break that down, that is 124,000 more violent crimes every single year as compared with 2015, the last time there was a Conservative government.
What they are doing with respect to violent crime and violent offenders is not working. That is a product of a whole bunch of things. It is a product of the Liberals' soft-on-crime approach. It is the product of reforming bail so that it is so easy to get out on bail. We know the disastrous consequences that we have seen as a result of that across this country.
Whether we look at police officers who have been killed in the line of duty or a family that had some of their members stabbed in a violent stabbing, this is the result of people who are out on bail. Why are they out on bail? It is because the government chose to reform bail in its soft-on-crime approach. It has led to a surge in violence across the country.
We might say that cannot be true. In fact, a study was looked at, and in Vancouver, 40 offenders committed 6,000 crimes in one year. We can think about that for a second. If all they did was keep those 40 people in jail, how many fewer crimes would be committed in Vancouver? However, the Liberals will not do it. I have no understanding of why they will not. It is their catch-and-release justice system.
With respect to guns, how on earth can they say that the answer to gun violence in this country is to try to take away firearms from farmers, hunters and indigenous people? It defies logic. It defies explanation. Quite frankly, it will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. What we need is a massive change in how guns are dealt with in this country.
The border should be the focus. Guns and gangs task forces should be the focus. The focus should not be law-abiding firearms owners in the country, who have to go through an extensive process to acquire those firearms, to transport those firearms and to store those firearms. These are not the people who are the problem
The repeat violent offenders who are getting their weapons smuggled across the border are the problem, and these folks are just pretending that problem does not exist. It is a huge problem for me that we are taking up the time of the chamber and of the government to deal with a non-issue, not the real issue.
Why is the government not moving on guns and gangs? Why is it not moving on sealing the border to stop the avalanche of guns that are coming across?
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Madam Speaker, if espousing misinformation is something that should not be done, the member should probably choose not to rise to ask questions.
Just because some guns were seized at the border does not mean the problem has been solved. Did the member not listen to the deputy police chief who recently said that 86% of the guns used to commit gun crimes in the city of Toronto were smuggled across the border?
You seized a couple of guns. Good for you. There are 86% more. Why are you not focusing on that instead of hunters?
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Madam Speaker, if the member, in his power as the junior partner in the coalition, wants to carve all those sections out of this bill and bring it back to the House, we might be able to have a conversation.
What the member does not address in any of his questions is why the junior partner in this coalition is not pushing the government to deal with the 86% of guns that are smuggled across the border. Why does the member not use his influence with the government to get that done?
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Madam Speaker, I think the challenge is that the Liberals are going to be able to classify other prohibited weapons as they go. This is from the government that said it would not raise the carbon tax above $65 a tonne, so I am not sure how we can trust what it is going to do with this firearms committee.
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