44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
- May/16/23 10:08:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise again on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba to present a petition on the rising rate of crime. The common people of Swan River are demanding a common-sense solution to repeal the Liberal government's soft-on-crime policies that have fuelled a surge in crime throughout their community. Since 2015, crime has increased 32%, and gang-related homicides have increased 92% in Canada. What was once a safe rural community has now turned into a place where people fear leaving their homes.
The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies, which directly threaten their livelihoods and their communities. I support the people of Swan River.
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Mr. Speaker, one thing I did not get to talk about is all of the investments and programming that the government has made with respect to changing culture and ensuring that there is a place to go and an alternative to crime, particularly in urban areas, so that young men, primarily, have access to sport, the arts, mentors and role models. That is what is missing in so many of those communities: making sure there are services and programs available. I used to work with a justice-involved youth organization called MLSE LaunchPad, in downtown Toronto. It was an extraordinary organization that made sure there were options for kids so they could make good choices. That is exactly what Bill C-21 would do.
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Mr. Speaker, as we look at trying to reduce violence and at trying to get illegal guns off the street, we need to go to where these issues are happening.
Time and time again, as stated in my remarks, we have seen that over half the people have been out on bail. That is a great place to start. We need to deal with the people who are actually perpetuating most of this crime. That would help to make our streets safer.
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- May/16/23 2:45:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' Bill C-75 entrenched the catch-and-release bail system that is devastating Canadian communities. Violent crime has shot up 32% under the Prime Minister's watch. Premiers, police officers and victims groups have been desperately calling on the government to fix their broken bail system, but the bill they introduced today is nothing more than a slap in the face. It will not keep repeat violent offenders behind bars. The Liberals' catch-and-release system remains in effect.
When will these Liberals finally end catch-and-release for violent criminals?
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Madam Speaker, I was listening to the member's speech and he was talking about a confiscation program. I do not know how much that is going to cost. Maybe it is $1 billion or $2 billion. I do not know if there is a figure out there.
Does the member think that money could be spent somewhere where it would have an actual effect on rising crime, especially gang and organized crime?
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Madam Speaker, we are not against stopping crime. We are for stopping criminals from making those crimes happen.
As I clearly said in my speech, we are for finding all the ways to defend Canadians. However, we are against going after law-abiding Canadians who own guns while leaving the criminals on the streets to trade and bring in guns from everywhere in the world and then sell them to kill Canadians. That is what the bill has not addressed.
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Mr. Speaker, it would change absolutely nothing.
The bill, this change, was done by the Liberal government to deflect from its horrible job at stopping the rampant crime wave we have seen across this country. It is for its members to go into their strongholds to fundraise and say, “Oh, we're taking away guns. Gun crime will stop.” However, it does nothing to stop the gangs and the smuggling of the guns across the border, and it is doing nothing to prevent the crime.
The government is soft on crime. The bill is going to do nothing to stop the criminals or the crime wave that is going on in this country right now.
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Madam Speaker, what I am looking for is always results-based. What is going to actually work? What we are doing today is failing right now with the serious crime, the shootings and the deaths of members. What we are doing to battle organized crime and gangs is not working. From my experience, we need to change course. We should be focusing, first, on educational programs for our youth and, second, on enforcement against organized crime and gang activity, which means border crossings with illegal guns. We need to start putting more money into that. Spending a billion dollars on the confiscation of legal guns is absolutely not based on any kind of evidence.
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Madam Speaker, the reality is that we live in a vast country. We live in a country that has predominantly agriculture in our rural areas. We have pastimes in this country. Since the inception of this country, we have used hunting rifles, and the Liberals are coming and targeting law-abiding farmers, hunters, indigenous Canadians and sport shooters. They are targeting things that are pastimes in Canada, which we have done safely for years in this country.
Quite frankly, the bill would do nothing for crime. It would not do anything to protect people on the streets or to remove gangs and criminals from our streets who are smuggling those guns illegally over our border.
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Madam Speaker, 32% is the Liberal government's record after eight years in power. Violent crime in Canada has increased by 32% since the election of this Prime Minister and his Liberal ideology of freeing criminals as quickly as possible, allowing them to be released more quickly and serve their sentences in their living rooms.
After eight years of this Liberal government, gang-related homicides have doubled. In 2019, the Liberal government saw fit to pass Bill C‑5, which I will refer to in a moment, that makes the bail process easier. As a direct result of that legislation, more and more criminals are ending up at home rather than in prison. Let us remember this number: a 32% increase in violent crime.
Today we are discussing the Liberal government's solution to this violence. I want to ask my colleagues to use their imagination. Imagine the kind of scenario that resulted in the Liberal Party making a recommendation such as this and introducing a bill such as this. Imagine the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety meeting in a coffee shop, probably downtown in some major Canadian city, wondering how to combat gun crime on the streets. The Minister of Justice, seeing the number of illegal guns coming into the country, tells the Minister of Public Safety that the government cannot ban illegal guns because they are already illegal. The Minister of Public Safety adds that weapons that enter illegally at the borders are not easy to seize, because criminals have their ways, obviously. The Minister of Justice says he wants nothing to do with threatening armed citizens who commit violent crimes with longer prison sentences. The Prime Minister said not to be too tough on criminals.
It was in that coffee shop that the Minister of Public Safety came up with this brilliant idea. He knows who owns firearms and he even knows where to find them. They have licences. They took courses, and they have a lot of guns. The Minister of Justice was starting to question all of this, but he already saw a good opportunity to divert attention from his inability to put an end to violence in the streets, violence that has made families in too many of our cities afraid. He asked where those guns can be found. The Minister of Public Safety proudly responded that they can be found in all regions of Canada, on farms, in the north and in indigenous communities. They could seize thousands of weapons. The Minister of Justice felt like saying that those guns are not used to commit crimes, but he did not. He preferred to remain silent. Why let facts get in the way of a great Liberal initiative?
In this story, that is how Bill C‑21 was born, and quite frankly, I do not see any other way it could have happened, since the Liberals are so far off the mark. This bill had just one objective: to make the Liberal government look good. Unfortunately, it was to the detriment of law-abiding gun owners and sport shooters.
I listened to several speeches today. I should point out that this bill was supported by the Bloc Québécois, who left out a part of the story in everything it was saying today. When the Liberal amendment that would have made hunting rifles and sport shooter firearms illegal, the Bloc member from Rivière-du-Nord said in committee that the definition contained in amendment G4 almost feels like the Bloc Québécois wrote it. It meets our expectations.
I do not often quote members of the Bloc Québécois, but when it is time to set the record straight, I like to set the record straight. That truly is what the member for Rivière-du-Nord said. It is a fact.
Then they strut their stuff and claim that they changed things, but when we see that from the outset they supported a bill that would ban firearms used in every region of Canada and did not react when they realized that people were reacting in their own region, there is a problem. Most of all, there is a lack of credibility.
We are here after hours of debate to ask the government to see the light. Although they did backtrack, which was rather strategic and the result of the strong opposition from the Conservatives, hunters and residents of rural areas in Canada, no one has any illusions about the Liberals' intent to go after honest people who are just engaging in a centuries-long tradition.
We expect that, as a result of these measures, most of the firearms targeted by the Liberal amendments at the end of last year, including hunting rifles, will again be subject to prohibitions in the future, end of story. We are saying this because we have lost confidence in the Liberal government. Unfortunately, I deplore the naivety of the Bloc Québécois, who seems to be defending the government today. It seems to want to have faith in the Liberal government once again.
I must admit that I am not surprised by the position of the NDP, the Liberal government's coalition partner. It cannot be denied that the NDP also reacted to public opinion. It too had openly supported Bill C‑21, its first iteration and the amendments.
Why do I not trust the Liberals? It is not because I am a Conservative. It is not because I listened to the hunters. It is because the Prime Minister himself, the member for Papineau, was very clear when when he said, “our focus now is on saying...yes...we're going to have to take [these rifles] away from people who were using them to hunt”. Instead of going after the illegal guns used by criminals and street gangs, the Prime Minister is going to great effort to confiscate the hunting rifles of law-abiding farmers, hunters and indigenous people.
Let me be clear. The new definition, or the supposed new definition, is really the same as the old one. Commonly used hunting rifles, which were targeted by the Liberals in the fall, will likely be added to the ban by the new Liberal firearms advisory committee. I am sure a bunch of very independent people will also be appointed to this committee. I would not be surprised to see a Trudeau Foundation executive on this committee.
I have had the opportunity to speak with hunters in the Mégantic—L'Érable area. That is why I am here today. They are not reassured by the government's changes to Bill C‑21, nor by the amendments. Most of all, they are hurt that they are being used by the Liberal government for political purposes. They have witnessed the increase in violent crime in Montreal, as we all have. They are shocked that they have been targeted by the government as criminals. These people are careful, trained, and most importantly, they take gun safety very seriously.
The Liberal government has the wrong target in its crosshairs. Hunters, sport shooters and farmers are paying the price. No one believes the Liberal government anymore.
That being said, these people are realists. They are wiser. I want to quote Martin Bourget from Aventure Chasse Pêche, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking during a big interview on Bill C‑21. He said, and I quote, “Legitimate gun owners in Canada are deeply puzzled about the very legitimacy of the process set out in Bill C‑21 and the enforcement of these measures. They are asking for nothing less than a study of the bill's true impact on the safety of Canadians and on traditional hunting and harvesting, and sport shooting.”
Does that sound extreme? No, not at all. It is reasonable. People want to know whether Bill C‑21 will really bring down the crime rate on the streets of big cities and across the country.
In closing, I would like to remind members that violent crime in Canada is up 32%. That is the Liberal government's track record over the past eight years. That is the Liberals' grade, and it is not even a passing grade. Unfortunately, because of what they have done in the past, we do not have any confidence in them moving forward.
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Madam Speaker, since the Harper government was in power, it is 32%. That is the figure that the member for Winnipeg North should remember.
There has been a 32% increase in violent crime in Canada despite everything the Liberals have done. Actually, I should say because of everything they have done, such as the changes in Bill C-5 concerning parole and violent offenders serving their sentences at home in their living rooms. That is the Liberal government's record after eight years.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly am very much concerned about ghost guns and, as the member mentioned, the proliferation of ghost guns. In my comments, I did not have enough time to get into details, but we definitely have to focus on all of those aspects of crime. We have to bolster the borders to ensure that firearms are not coming across the borders illegally, and we have to ensure that there are enough proper resources for law enforcement to combat all forms of illegal firearms, including ghost guns.
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Madam Speaker, if the hon. member wants to deal with that one specific issue, he can use his clout in his partnership with the Liberals and move that as a stand-alone bill that we can have a stand-alone conversation on, but the member talks about crimes being stopped from being committed before they are committed. Do members know what would go a long way toward that? It is keeping repeat offenders in jail. Do members know what else would go a long way toward that? It is not giving bail to violent repeat offenders.
That is not the conversation we are having right now, unfortunately. This is a conversation that targets firearms owners who are hunters, farmers, sport shooters and collectors and would do absolutely nothing to reduce crime in this country.
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Madam Speaker, when the Liberals are in trouble, they like to refer to Stephen Harper rather than talk about the issue at hand. The facts on the ground and the reality from 10 years ago are different than they are today. Ten years ago, violent crime was down 20%. Despite all the money the Liberals have spent, violent crime is up 32%, but even worse, gang-related crime is up 98%. All this comes from the Statistics Canada website, a government website that has that information. That is extremely important.
We talk about the illegal guns coming across the borders and the ones being used in the commission of crimes, and the vast majority of them are falling into the hands of gang members, who are not law-abiding citizens. They are not legally and lawfully obtaining these firearms. We want the Liberals to continue to focus on illegally obtained firearms, but we are not seeing that approach when we talk about Bill C-21.
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Madam Speaker, most of these, if not all, are illegal firearms in northern Saskatchewan. We know that. A lot of the “tough on crime” that the Liberals have not done over the last eight years is now paying massive dividends in northern Saskatchewan, as the member talked about.
We are in trouble in northern Saskatchewan for a very good reason. It is because they are not tough on crime. We have seen many people, day in, day out, go into court who should be sentenced and are not. They get out and do the same tactics they did a week before, and this is part of the problem we have right now in northern Saskatchewan.
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