Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Welcome, minister. My question is about handguns, the tools that are designed to kill or harm people, and how they limit people and are of limited social value.

In the previous Parliament, the government introduced Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms), which included measures to support local prohibitions on handguns. Much criticism has been expressed regarding the implementation of local prohibitions instead of a national one.

Minister, do you see merit in a national ban on handguns? When are we going to see action on this issue? Thank you.

Senator Housakos: Thank you, minister. Clearly, you do not appreciate the urgency because it has been three years and we’re still waiting for a clear and unequivocal answer on whether we will ban them or we won’t.

In December, The Washington Post reported 100 confidential PowerPoint presentations that lay out Huawei’s participation in mass surveillance of Chinese people by their communist regime, including the local tracking of political persons of interest. The document also shows how Huawei is involved in human rights violations against the Uighurs in Xianjing province through surveillance, cameras and facial recognition. One document appears to show that Huawei did technology design work on their prisons. Is this not enough reason to ban Huawei, minister? If this is not reason enough, what will it take for your government to ban them? And, please, it should not take three or four more years until we get a final decision.

I want to assure you that as we undertake a careful review of all of the factors that go into this important decision that we are not sitting idle, that we are deploying a number of strategies and countermeasures to ensure that any hostile actors, be they state or non-state, are being mitigated and addressed in real time. We’ve made significant investments into our national security apparatus with the various agencies that report to my portfolio, as well as others within government, so that as we leverage the new technologies and innovations that are important to keep Canadians and others connected through the internet and cyberspace we are doing so in a way that recognizes that there have been evolutions to the threat landscape, including those which may be perpetrated by hostile state actors. We’re very mindful of the concerns that you have expressed. We do recognize that there is an expectation and an urgency to communicating the decision and we will do so as quickly as we can.