- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Humber River—Black Creek
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,163.57
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his years of work on the issues of safety and improving safety throughout Canada.
I can share with him the fact that when I came here, 23 years ago, one of my issues was very much the issue of crime and safety.
I, too, lost a cousin who was an OPP officer in a terrible shooting. The results for the individual who performed the shooting were, I felt, very insignificant. I have talked a lot about these issues. I think they matter a lot to all of us as parliamentarians. At the same time, as we move forward, there is always the issue of being responsible and having to be responsible in how we bring in laws and how we enforce them and that we have to also make sure that we are considering everything, including the victims.
I would like to say to the hon. member, as we move forward, that many of us share concerns about how we improve safety, whether we are talking about Bill C-21, guns and knives or all of the rest of it.
Basic safety is critically important and I would like to look at how we can work better together to improve the judicial system and our laws and orders, and find answers.
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Madam Speaker, when it gets referred to committee in the immediate future, there will be an opportunity at the committee level to discuss all the options on the table, including the issue of buyback.
Whatever we can do to get guns off the street is something I am very supportive of.
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Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge the continued great work that the member is doing as a member of Parliament.
I was very focused on so many people in my particular riding who have been asking for such a long period of time for more to be done to eliminate handguns in our communities. If we did an analysis, we would probably find that one in four is carrying a gun in my riding of Humber River—Black Creek. That is very frightening. People are asking for action.
In the same way, we are moving forward and taking more action to protect more indigenous women, as well as all women in Canada. Indigenous women have certainly experienced a lot of sorrow and violence, and we are looking at trying to eliminate that as well.
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Madam Speaker, unfortunately, whatever happens to the south of us ends up being duplicated here in Canada, whether it is a month later, six months later or two years later. When we look at the killings and those mass shootings in the schools, when there are 19 babies killed, those were not done with a handgun. We have already banned some of those, but the handguns we are talking about are the illegal handguns.
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Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise in this House today, especially following my illustrious colleague, who never seems to run out of words and manages to fill the time slot all the time.
I represent a riding that, like many others in a large urban centre like Toronto, has a tendency to have a lot of violence, and the majority of that violence is gun violence, so I am very pleased that Bill C-21 is on the table.
The part that bothers me about Bill C-21 is the fact that we will not get it to committee and back before the House rises. I, and some of my colleagues, would have been more than happy to remain until the middle of July or the end of July to pass this bill, but it takes consent to do that, which was not available. We will get the bill as far as we can in this session, and as soon as we come back in the fall, I hope this will be the first item the committee deals with, understanding its importance. I wonder how many more lives could have been saved had we been able to get the bill through, but there are a lot of things that governments do, and there is a lot of legislation that is important. I am glad that we finally got as far as we have. Let us hit the ball home and get this through committee and back to the House.
We have a very close relationship with our neighbours to the south. Clearly, whenever we see what is going on there, we know it is going to happen here. It is just the way it is. We are a smaller country, and these things tend to be exposed later, but we follow the U.S. in so many ways.
I think I speak for all of us as parliamentarians when I say that we are sick and tired of turning on the news and feeling heartbroken at yet another act of gun violence. The common response from all of us as elected officials is to send our thoughts and prayers. However, as time goes on and these instances of violence continue to occur, the overwhelming response is that thoughts and prayers accomplish nothing and that we need action. I have been hearing this in my community for the 30 years that I have been elected to office, and several members of my own family have been victims of gun violence. We have been waiting and pushing and asking when we are going to get tougher on illegal handguns.
This is certainly not about hunters, God bless them, who can go right ahead and do their hunting. I have family who hunt deer, moose and all of that, as well. That is not what we are talking about with this bill. We are talking about gun violence, handguns. That is what is doing the killing in my riding and throughout the city of Toronto.
Last Sunday afternoon, there were four separate incidents of gun violence. Thank God, none of it was in my riding, which is always my first thought, selfish as it is. It was in other parts of our city, but there is a lot of it. This bill is just one more tool that we have in the tool box. It will not do everything we want it to do, but at least it tries to address the number of guns that are flowing. There was a shooting yesterday from a car window, which missed the person evidently, but again, this is becoming just like in the U.S. Whatever we can do as parliamentarians here, and whatever our government has the courage to move forward on to try to tackle this issue, is what we are elected to do. We are elected to deal with the tough issues, and this is one of them.
I am very proud of the government, and while some may have wanted this legislation later, I would have liked to see it sooner. I am tired of responding with thoughts and prayers, of saying “I feel sorry for you.” I am sorry for the families who have gone through this and yes, I will do what I can, but we do not do enough. Frankly, I do not know what is enough, but this is at least another step forward, which is why I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to say some words today.
Since 2015, when our Liberal government came in, we have banned AR-15s and 1,500 models of assault-style firearms. These kinds of weapons do not belong in the homes or on the streets of this country, or any country, unless they are in a war, as in Russia or in Ukraine, but there is no reason for them to be needed on the streets of this country of ours.
Cracking down on illegal trafficking by investing in law enforcement and enhanced border security is another key part of it, because it seems that no matter how much more security we get at the borders, somehow the guns are getting smuggled in. They are coming from somewhere. We are not manufacturing all of these handguns here, so they are coming across borders and we are not doing enough to prevent that from happening. I know we have put millions more into CBSA, and here and there, but it never seems to be enough. This is, again, one more step to try to decrease the number of guns on our streets.
The other issue is, why do we have so much gang violence? In my riding, as in others, I deal with a lot of families that have had tremendous trouble, and we need to look at the root cause of why they would pick up a gun and decide to take somebody else's life. In a round-table session I had a few years ago with young men and women, I questioned them and said, “You know who these people are on the street. Why would you not discourage them from using a gun?” They said, “Why? You don't value my life, so I don't value your life.” I never forgot that statement, because I do value their life, but they do not seem to think that we as a society value their lives. That is important because people need to understand that every life is valuable. Every life matters to all of us, but to think “I don't care about you because you don't care about me” leaves a real challenge.
Since I had that conversation, I have gone out of my way, to the extent possible, as an elected official to make sure that the people in my riding and everywhere else know that we do care and we are trying to help them, but they have to help themselves. This is not a one-way street, where we are out doing everything for them and they are waiting to see what we are going to give them. It takes all of us working together. If people are having issues, they should talk to somebody, reach out and get the help they need, just not think that their life does not matter.
The ability to trace guns is another issue we have talked about for some time, looking at how to better identify where those guns have come from. The red flag laws are another important thing that should have been on the books a long time ago. It is really important.
I have to thank my staff for putting a speech together that somehow I never got to.
I am proud that the government is doing this. We all need to work harder at decreasing gun violence in a variety of ways. This is one more tool in the tool box, and we owe it to the people who have sent us here to reflect their views and thoughts and do what is necessary to decrease gun violence. I hope we get this to committee soon, make some changes and improvements to it and move forward together on this legislation.
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