- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Red Deer—Lacombe
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $146,499.79
- Government Page
- Jan/30/23 2:09:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been eight years since the Prime Minister took office, and his soft-on-crime policies have unleashed a crime wave in Canada. The government has made life easier for violent criminals by providing easy access to bail and repealing mandatory minimum sentences for serious crimes. As a result, violent crime has gone up 32% in the past year, and gang-related killings have gone up by 92% since 2015.
Furthermore, Liberals have failed to stop the flow of illegal firearms across the border. As a consequence, five police officers have tragically lost their lives this past fall in the line of duty. Our communities feel less safe, and the government is making it worse. Despite their dismal record, Liberals recently initiated a ban on hunting rifles and shotguns, making thousands of these firearms illegal. Hunters, farmers and target shooters are not the problem; Liberals are the problem. This Liberal made-in-Canada crime wave must stop.
Only a Conservative government will do what is necessary to keep violent criminals off our streets.
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- Dec/1/22 2:10:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since the government took office in 2015, gang-related homicides have increased by 92%. The Liberals reduced sentencing requirements for serious gun crimes and now violent crime is up 32%. The Liberals will not admit their soft-on-crime approach is failing all Canadians.
Last week, the government initiated a ban on rifles and shotguns. This will ban hundreds of thousands of firearms in Canada that are used for hunting. The ban includes slow-to-fire guns and purpose-built hunting firearms that are designed to shoot birds or deer. It said it would not, but it did. There is no trust in the government.
Instead of addressing gang crime and gun smuggling, the government is vilifying hunters and farmers. The Liberals know Canadian hunters are not causing the crime surge in Canada, but they are going after them anyway because it is all about politics and not fighting crime. Their ill-conceived plans to go after hunters is the largest attack on law-abiding firearms owners in Canadian history. It is a direct attack on our Canadian cultural heritage.
The Conservatives will always stand up for victims, go after gangs and smugglers and trust Canada's law-abiding gun owners.
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Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent idea and worthy of debate in the House. I look forward to my colleague in the Bloc Québécois tabling a private member's bill, or somebody in the House tabling a bill, to establish just such a thing.
As I said in my comments, I am checked as a law-abiding citizen every day to ensure that I am able to continue to legally possess firearms in the this country, yet we do not have a system in this country that would keep track of people who are prohibited from having firearms because of their affiliation and association with criminal gang activities and prior convictions.
This government, through Bill C-71, now Bill C-5 before the House, would make it easier for criminals to be out on bail, to be out on parole and to have zero time served in jail. At the same time, the only people it would make life difficult for, when it comes to firearms, are law-abiding firearms owners in this country. It is shameful.
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Mr. Speaker, I actually do genuinely appreciate my colleague. We have spent lots of time working together in a constructive fashion on the fisheries committee, and I believe him to be an individual of solid character. I would simply suggest something to him, given the fact and the track record of the government that he has been supporting here all the while. If he wants to provide some solace to the House, I would humbly ask him to go and have a tête-à-tête with the Minister of Emergency Preparedness to make darn sure, before he asks somebody to apologize in the House, that he has all of the actual facts.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-21, the NDP-Liberals' most recent attempt to scapegoat law-abiding firearms owners and to trick the average Canadian into believing they are trying to improve public safety while doing absolutely no such thing.
If we looks at the balance of the government's agenda on public safety and justice, we see that Liberals seem content to undermine both of these departments and the essential institutions that support them. This is being done in order to virtue signal and play petty politics to the detriment of our entire society.
While this is deeply disappointing, it is hardly surprising. The government is light on substantive policy solutions and heavy on press conferences and so-called alternative facts.
Today additional details came to light about interference by the government and the Prime Minister in the investigation of the tragic mass murders in Nova Scotia in an attempt to create a narrative that would fit their political agenda. This is important, because it speaks to the foundation on which substantial parts of the Liberals' firearms policy rests, including parts of Bill C-21, the bill we are currently debating.
The Halifax Examiner reported yesterday that “RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki 'made a promise' to [the] Public Safety Minister...[at the time] and the Prime Minister’s Office to leverage the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020 to get a gun control law passed.”
To be clear, that former public safety minister is now the current Minister of Emergency Preparedness.
The article makes it clear that the commissioner was being pressured by the Prime Minister's Office and the current Minister of Emergency Preparedness to ensure that information was released that would help them politically, to the detriment of the ongoing investigation and potentially placing it in jeopardy.
As the Minister of Emergency Preparedness is a former police chief, we would expect better from him. However, maybe this is how he has always operated. This is a pattern of behaviour with this Prime Minister: He puts himself first, the Liberal Party second, his donors and insider friends third, and then if there is time and the chance for a really good photo op, he might try to do something that actually helps a few Canadians.
This is an example of the first two. The Prime Minister was willing to interfere with the ongoing police investigation in order to try to leverage a political edge. This used to be unimaginable, but given the Prime Minister's SNC-Lavalin track record, it is totally in line with his character. The way someone does one thing is the way that person does everything.
I want to read part of this article, because it is important and deserves to be heard in this place. Nova Scotia Superintendent Darren Campbell wrote about a meeting he had with Commissioner Lucki, stating:
The Commissioner was obviously upset. She did not raise her voice but her choice of words was indicative of her overall dissatisfaction with our work. The Commissioner accused us (me) of disrespecting her by not following her instructions. I was and remain confused over this. The Commissioner said she told Comms to tell us at H Division to include specific info about the firearms used by [the killer]….However I said we couldn’t because to do so would jeopardize ongoing efforts to advance the U.S. side of the case as well as the Canadian components of the investigation. Those are facts and I stand by them.
Those are the words of Superintendent Campbell.
I will add that every police officer carries with them an evidence notebook. I, as a former law enforcement officer back in the 1990s, still have today my evidence notebooks in case I need to recall facts about events that happened while I was on duty.
The article continues:
Campbell noted that Lucki went on at length and said she was “sad and disappointed” that he had not provided these details to the media. Campbell continued:
The Commissioner said she had promised the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister’s Office that the RCMP (we) would release this information. I tried to explain there was no intent to disrespect anyone however we could not release this information at this time. The Commissioner then said that we didn’t understand, that this was tied to pending gun control legislation that would make officers and the public safer. She was very upset and at one point Deputy Commissioner (Brian) Brennan tried to get things calmed down but that had little effect. Some in the room were reduced to tears and emotional over this belittling reprimand.
The article makes it clear that this was not the only way that the government interfered with this investigation and the release of information, by pressuring the commissioner to break agreed-upon protocols.
The article also attributes a quote to Lia Scanlan, communications director for the RCMP, that says, “The commissioner releases a body count that we don’t even have. She went out and did that. It was all political pressure. That is 100% the minister and the Prime Minister. And we have a Commissioner that does not push back.”
Those are the words of RCMP communications director Scanlan. It is deeply concerning that the commissioner would not push back against the government on this request, but it is completely and totally unacceptable that she should ever have had to. I can only surmise that she is all too familiar with what happens to women who speak truth to power to the Prime Minister and his underlings.
This is the foundation on which Bill C-21 was constructed: political pressure and interference with the RCMP, misinformation about the perpetrators of gun violence and naked political opportunism. The bill was also announced on the heels of an American tragedy, deliberately importing American political discourse into domestic Canadian policies. The Prime Minister seems to be confused about the impact of Canadian legislation on American society, of which there is virtually none.
Unless he is announcing his plan to run for president of the United States, he should start trying to address the issues that Canadians face, not American issues here in Canada.
The firearms regimes in our two countries, Canada and the United States, are completely different. It has been made clear that the mass murderer from Texas would not be able to get a gun in Canada. In most U.S. states, a 21-year-old American with no convictions could purchase a firearm and, in pretty much every state, carry it. In about half of them, they could carry concealed with limited regulations. That is not the reality in Canada.
I am a law-abiding firearms owner. In Canada, people need to take a firearms safety course, apply for a licence and submit to a background check, not only on the initial application but on every reapplication every five years, in which the RCMP can contact former conjugal partners. Then, they wait for that information to come back for a few months, and maybe then can go and purchase a firearm and abide by stringent safe storage and transport laws. That is the reality in Canada. Every day, my ability to continue to own or possess firearms is checked against the Canadian Police Information Centre’s database to ensure that I am still legally and lawfully able to.
If only the government of the day would spend that much time following up on people who are prohibited from possessing or acquiring firearms, spend that much time policing our borders and making sure that the people on our borders had the tools and equipment that they needed, and spend that much time in this chamber actually focused on criminals who commit crimes: they shoot guns in our urban centres, in our communities and in our rural areas and have no respect for the law and no respect for human life.
That is not the case with the 2.1 million law-abiding Canadian firearms owners. In fact, the data clearly says the opposite. If we are going to be harmed by somebody in the country with a firearm, the vast majority of that harm is coming from somebody who is not licensed to have the firearm in the first place.
Every gun in this country is illegal unless it is in the possession of somebody licensed to have it. We have the best firearms laws in the world, and I will put that up against the record of any other country.
It is shameful that the government is importing U.S. politics into Canada to sell misinformation to the voters of this country and disenfranchise law-abiding Canadian citizens.
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- May/17/22 2:22:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a database with Canadians' personal information attached to a unique identifying number attached to the serial number of a firearm and administered by the firearms registrar is a gun registry.
We know the Prime Minister does not think much about Canadians who support legal firearms ownership, but we are not fools. What is foolish is gutting penalties for criminals who steal firearms, possess stolen firearms, traffic in firearms or smuggle firearms.
Could the Prime Minister explain why he has such a vendetta against target shooters in Estevan while he lets gun-wielding criminals run free in ridings his backbenchers represent?
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- May/17/22 2:20:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is mind-boggling that the Prime Minister thinks that gangsters who use guns on our streets do not deserve jail time.
Conservatives know for a fact that law-abiding firearms owners are among the least likely people to commit an offence with a firearm. The original long-gun registry was a $1-billion boondoggle that did nothing to enhance public safety. This new Liberal backdoor registry will not either.
Why will the government not focus on criminals and smugglers and leave law-abiding Canadians alone?
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- May/17/22 2:19:54 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's approach to justice reform has been an abject failure. It prioritized the wants of offenders over the needs of victims. There has been a consistent increase in the amount and severity of crime since the government took office, especially in Liberal ridings.
Bill C-5 continues to gut our justice system by removing minimum penalties for criminals who commit serious gun crimes. When will the Prime Minister finally admit his plan is not working, change course and stand up for victims instead of criminals?
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- Dec/15/21 5:59:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, neighbour and colleague for Red Deer—Mountain View for his excellent speech.
As this is my first opportunity to deliver a speech on behalf of the constituents of Red Deer—Lacombe in the new Parliament, I want to thank all of my volunteers and my family. Of course, I thank the voters of Red Deer—Lacombe for sending me here for a sixth term. My commitment to them is to do my best in representing the issues and values that we hold deer in central Alberta. One of those is addressed in this proposed legislation.
Many of the hard-working people in central Alberta are law-abiding firearms owners. They get up every day, go to work, follow all the rules, follow the law, work hard and pay their taxes. In return, they simply want to be treated with dignity and respect by their government. They want their tax dollars used effectively and efficiently, and none of them feel very good right now about the direction that our country is heading, particularly when it comes to the legislative agenda of this current government. They are very concerned and very worried about government's approach, which is soft on violent and dangerous crime.
Bill C-5 is another iteration of Bill C-22, which appeared just before the election was called in the last Parliament, and the bill is absolutely abhorrent, I believe, in the minds of most of my voters back in Red Deer—Lacombe.
I am a law-abiding firearms owner, and I am a former law enforcement officer in the conservation law enforcement field. My job was to go into situations and deal with law-abiding hunters and firearms owners on a daily basis. I would go into situations as a conservation officer or as a national park warden where virtually every person I dealt with had an axe because they were camping; a knife because they were fishing; or a firearm, bow or crossbow because they were hunting.
I did this with complete confidence that the people I was going to deal with and work with were going to be honest and forthright people for the most part, and I had nothing to fear and nothing to worry about from law-abiding hunters and firearms owners in this country. I am proud to say that I safely did my job with a respectful group of hunters, anglers, campers and outdoor enthusiasts for a number of years before I ended up in this place.
These are good people, and they do not deserve to be demonized by this current government. They certainly do not deserve to be taken to task or held accountable for dangerous, violent criminals who are operating under the auspices of organized crime in our large urban centres, such as Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. Even in one of the largest cities that my colleague for Red Deer—Mountain View and I share, Red Deer, Alberta, which is a beautiful city full of good, honest, hard-working people, there is the odd one that causes problems. We need to be focusing on the ones that cause problems, which is the problem with the legislation before us today.
Ladies and gentlemen of Canada, and ladies and gentlemen of Toronto, who are watching need to know the crimes the people they voted for are actually reducing and eliminating mandatory minimum penalties for. One is robbery with a firearm. We would think that in a city such as Toronto, where there are virtually daily shootings being reported, that somebody would say, “Robbery with a firearm is a fairly serious thing and people should probably go to jail for that”, but not according to a Liberal member of Parliament members from that city.
Another is extortion with a firearm, which must be a pleasant experience for the victim. Why do we not do what Liberals do and get rid of any mandatory minimum prison sentences for somebody who is being extorted with a gun to their head? the thirds is weapons trafficking, excluding firearms and ammunition. Weapons trafficking is the illegal movement, sale and acquisition of firearms. This is the problem.
We know from people like professor emeritus Gary Mauser from Simon Fraser University that a person is very unlikely to be a victim of crime from a law-abiding firearms owner. In fact, when we take a look at the statistics from Statistics Canada going back to 2012, we know that 0.6 in 100,000 murders in this country were committed by law-abiding firearms owners. That is less than the average of 1.8 murders per 100,000 in the country.
The safest person we can be around in this country when it comes homicide is a law-abiding firearms owner, but we are going to make sure that smugglers and people who traffic firearms and bring these guns into the country would potentially face zero jail time for their actions. There is also importing or exporting knowing that a firearm or weapon is unauthorized, which is called “smuggling”, and it is smuggling firearms across the border.
This is the problem. This is what Liberals in la-la land think deserves no jail time whatsoever. If voters are in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, these are the people that they voted for and sent here and this is what they are doing to the community. The Liberals are saying to the people who voted for them that they are going to remove mandatory minimum sentences for people who smuggle guns across the U.S. border and instead blame and conflate issues on law-abiding firearms owners. It is absolutely disgusting.
Discharging a firearm with intent, when does that happen on the streets of Toronto? Daily, but if someone is the one with the gun, apparently in Liberal la-la land, they do not need to go to jail.
With regard to using a firearm in the commission of an offence, holding somebody up, committing a robbery, committing a carjacking, using a firearm, in theft or any of these other types of activities, if people take a firearm along with them, they should not worry if they voted Liberal. The Liberals are looking out for their interests and making sure they spend no time in jail as a result.
On possession of a firearm knowing its possession is unauthorized, these are people that are not getting firearms licences like every law-abiding firearms owner in this country actually does. Canadians might be surprised to know that every single day all 2.1 million of my fellow law-abiding firearms owners are checked by CPIC to make sure that we are eligible to continue to possess firearms.
As a matter of fact, the law is written in this country that people cannot possess a firearm at all. Every firearm is illegal, unless they have a licence to have one. That is what the law currently says. Law-abiding Canadians by the millions in this country follow those rules on a daily basis and we are checked on a daily basis to make sure that we can continue to lawfully possess our property.
Instead of harassing people like me, the government is going to make life easier for people who are unlicensed. If people are found in possession of a basketful of handguns in downtown Toronto, they should not worry; they do not have an RPAL, the guns were smuggled and they might even be the smuggler. Guess what? They have the option of going home and sitting in their house and thinking hard about how bad they are because that is the Liberal solution to organized crime in our country. This is absolutely ridiculous.
On possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition, these are guns we are not even allowed to have, so now we are talking about illegal owners. They should not worry; the Liberal Party of Canada has their back. If they have one of these, they do not have to go to jail, here is a “get out of jail” card just like in the Monopoly game; they do not have to face the consequences.
Possession of a weapon obtained by commission of offence is theft. That is someone who comes into my home and steals my gun. That is someone who comes into a rural property in the County of Red Deer, the County of Lacombe, the County of Ponoka, or any one of our communities, steals from us and may be purposefully there trying to steal our firearms. The Liberal response is because our disarmament policy for law-abiding Canadians is not working, they are going to let thieves out of jail for free for stealing a law-abiding citizen's property.
This legislation is absolutely ridiculous. It flies in the sensibilities of everybody. On these mandatory minimums just on the firearms, and not getting into the drugs and all of the other things that the government is reducing or limiting minimum penalties for, in this legislation, virtually all of them except for one, guess who introduced these pieces of legislation in the Criminal Code? Was it Stephen Harper or Brian Mulroney? One of them happened under the government of Stephen Harper. The other dozen of these provisions in the Criminal Code were put in place by none other than Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. Today's Liberals are certainly not yesterday's Liberals, ladies and gentlemen. Our country is not any safer with these guys at the helm.
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