Senator Wallin: The government wants to take away firearms from the people who have been advocating for licensing of firearms but are now having their property expropriated.

The way the government proceeded on this bill — and this was on several occasions — prevented an informed parliamentary debate or proper committee hearings with a full range of witnesses. Instead, they used cabinet orders to regulate “. . . the circumstances in which an individual does or does not need firearms.” All the more reason for this bill to be well studied by the Senate. We need evidence and facts, not just opinion and politics.

As if to further alienate rural voters everywhere, the Liberals are actually reducing the punishment for crimes committed using guns. With the passage of Bill C-5, the government has repealed one third of all mandatory minimum prison sentences, including for some 14 firearms and tobacco and drug-related offences.

Here is the issue in a nutshell: If you want to stop illegal gun crime, you need to crack down on gangs and gun smugglers, not on hunters and farmers.