- Member of Parliament
- Caucus Chair
- NDP
- Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 65%
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Madam Speaker, I have spoken to sport shooters, and they just simply want to be able to continue their sport. I would redirect my hon. colleague to the testimony that we had from none other than the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. They said that a handgun freeze is absolutely one method of reducing access to these types of firearms, but they also qualified that by saying they support allowing law-abiding handgun owners to practise their sport.
The NDP is on the same side as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have learned their lessons from Facebook. Facebook knows how to raise a lot of money because it keeps on pressing people's emotional buttons. This is a party that has become expert in rage farming. That is what they do. They churn it out. They take videos out of context. It is all to get people hopping up and down, mad about blatant mistruths. Yes, they have taken great lessons from Twitter, from Facebook, from everyone who has become an expert on this. They have become masters at keeping people angry so that they can rake in the cash. I will take no lessons from them on that.
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Madam Speaker, I spoke to this last week when we were debating Motion No. 25. I made reference to the fact that, for the Conservatives, Bill C-21 is the goose that lays the golden eggs. That is why they have wanted to see it stuck in the House; that hoovering sound we can hear is the sound of the Conservative Party's fundraising machine raking in millions of dollars off this bill. I for one am glad to see that the committee has sent it back to the House, because there are two other important bills waiting to be heard. These are Bill C-20, which deals with important RCMP oversight, and Bill C-26, which looks at cybersecurity; these are both very pressing issues. It is high time the public safety committee got to work in addressing those other key issues.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to take part in this report stage debate on Bill C-21 to give my voice, and to speak to my residents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
I have had an intimate amount of experience with this bill, having been the former public safety critic, and I have seen just how much time it has taken up at the public safety committee. A lot of people forget that the public safety committee is also called the public safety and national security committee, and there have been important pieces of legislation held up at it because of the inordinate amount of time Bill C-21 has occupied.
Of course, things were going quite well for Bill C-21 until those very ill-advised 11th hour amendments landed on the committee's desk with no warning. That is when the whole process got completely derailed. I am thankful that, due to a lot of pressure from the opposition parties, the government finally saw sense in February and withdrew the problematic amendments that would have really impacted so many hunters, farmers and indigenous communities, because it was quite obvious they had landed with no consultation, had completely taken committee members by surprise, and were not, frankly speaking, backed up by any kind of witness testimony we had heard at committee.
Up until that point, Bill C-21 had primarily been about a handgun freeze. There were some provisions in the bill dealing with red flag laws and yellow flag laws, there was a section covering airsoft guns, and so on, but those amendments just completely expanded the scope of the bill so they were withdrawn. That is an important point to underline here, because I have been listening to the speeches on Bill C-21 for most of the day today, particularly the ones from my Conservative colleagues. A lot of their speeches had to do with standing up for hunters, farmers and indigenous communities, which are all very admirable things to stand in this House to say and do, but the problem is that their speeches are muddying the waters, because they are alluding to amendments that are no longer part of the bill.
In several questions today during debate, I have challenged my Conservative colleagues to name one rifle or one kind of shotgun that is going to be prohibited by Bill C-21. They have all deflected and changed the channel to go on to safer ground that is buoyed by their own talking points because they cannot name a rifle or shotgun that is going to be banned by Bill C-21 as they are not in there.
Instead of reading Conservative talking points, I am going to actually read the bill. The important thing here for everyone who is listening to this debate is the new definition of a “prohibited firearm”. The key clause is as follows. I will read it into the record. It states, “is designed and manufactured on or after the day on which this paragraph comes into force”.
In other words, current makes and models that are legally owned by licensed firearms owners are not touched by this bill. I underline that with an exclamation mark. They would not be touched and would still be legal. It is only for makes and models that are designed, manufactured and come on to the market after Bill C-21 comes into force.
I have heard Conservatives talk about the firearms advisory committee and how it will be stocked with Liberal appointees who will give advice and suggest that certain makes and models be banned. That is a complete red herring. I will tell members why. The government already has the power under the Criminal Code to reclassify firearms by cabinet decree. That is something that has been abused by both Conservative and Liberal governments. How do members think we got the May 2020 order in council that listed those 1,500 firearms? That certainly was not done with the aid of a firearms advisory committee, but by the Liberal government, by cabinet decree through the Canada Gazette, suddenly making a list of firearms, which was done under the existing authority of the Criminal Code.
I am actually glad there will be a firearms advisory committee, because finally we will have someone at the cabinet table advising the minister. They may come from an indigenous background, a hunting background or a sport shooting background. Why is it a bad thing to have these people provide a sober second thought on any kind of decision the government already has the power to do?
These are complete red herrings with respect to everything the Conservatives have said so far about popular hunting rifles or shotguns, which are in fact going to stay legal. In fact, I look forward to going to my local Canadian Tire and outfitting store on the day after Bill C-21 receives royal assent to show all the different makes and models that are still on sale.
There was a disappointment that I had with this bill. I put forward an amendment at committee that was going to amend the section of the bill that would provide to people an exemption from the handgun freeze. I felt that the current definition that would allow only people who were at Olympic level and Paralympic level to have an exemption from the handgun freeze was too narrow. I put forward amendments to that effect, so that it would have been expanded to the International Practical Shooting Confederation or the Single Action Shooting Society. That amendment almost passed because the Liberal member for Kings—Hants actually made a great intervention at committee where he supported my amendment, but when it came to crunch time he abstained. Therefore, on this critical amendment when he had a chance to show his constituents that he was going to sway this important part of the bill, he abstained. As a result it ended up in a five-five tie at committee and of course it was broken by the chair, so we came very close to amending that specific section of the bill.
The reason I backed this up is that during witness testimony we heard from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Their public statement on this was:
We believe that a handgun freeze is one method of reducing access to these types of firearms, while allowing existing law-abiding handgun owners to practice their sport.
I took great heart from that statement from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. We had Chief Evan Bray as a witness and he backed that up. The association does believe in a handgun freeze, but it thought there should be exemptions to allow people to continue their sport shooting.
We are at the report stage and I want to address a very confusing Conservative report stage amendment to Bill C-21. I was reviewing that and I looked at Motion No. 12, which has been put forward by the Conservative member for Kildonan—St. Paul. It is shocking because the Conservatives are actually seeking to entirely delete clause 43 from the bill. Why is that important? Clause 43 is the only part of Bill C-21 that would provide an exception to the handgun freeze. It would provide an exception to anyone who has an authorization to carry and to people who are training, competing or coaching in a handgun-shooting discipline under the International Olympic Committee. For some reason the Conservatives want to delete the exemptions to the handgun freeze from the bill. Many of their other report stage amendments that they are seeking to delete are ones that in fact they played a very constructive role at committee in helping amend. The Conservatives are all over the map here on report stage. It is quite clear that Conservatives are flailing around and it is quite evident from their speeches today.
I want to briefly address ghost guns. This was a big ask from the law enforcement departments. We had Inspector Michael Rowe, staff sergeant, from the Vancouver Police Department, who did mention that the barrels, slides and trigger assemblies are a big issue for law enforcement. The advent of 3-D printing has allowed a lot of firearms to come onto the market that are completely untraceable. As the member for New Westminster—Burnaby has stated in this House, their growth has gone exponential. Therefore, law enforcement people have very clearly asked for this amendment to Bill C-21 and I am glad to see that the committee responded in kind.
I also want to salute our NDP efforts to save airsoft. It was my amendment that passed that deleted the offending section of Bill C-21 so that the airsoft community could continue to play its sport and would not be impacted by Bill C-21. I want to thank committee members for allowing that part of the bill to pass.
I will end by also saying that there was a really important amendment to the bill, which would recognize section 35 of the Constitution Act, which of course upholds the rights of indigenous peoples. Bill C-21 would not impact that and it was important to have that clarification to the bill.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Essex for bringing his point of view to this speech.
I do hear Conservatives talk a lot about hunters, farmers and indigenous communities. What I would like the member for Essex to do, for the benefit of members in this House, is name a specific rifle or shotgun that would be prohibited as a result of Bill C-21, because when I read the bill that has been reported back to the House, it specifically makes mention of something that has been “designed and manufactured on or after the day on which this [bill] comes into force”.
Does the member have a specific make or model that would actually be banned by the bill? I would like him to stay away from anything the government currently has in its power under the Criminal Code, because it is a completely separate issue, the order in council. What under Bill C-21 would be banned by it?
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Madam Speaker, since we are at the report stage of the bill, I wanted to ask my Conservative colleague about a Conservative amendment to the bill at report stage.
Under Motion No. 12, the Conservatives are seeking to completely delete clause 43. Does my colleague realize that this is the only clause in this bill that provides exemptions to the handgun freeze? Why are Conservatives getting rid of exemptions for anyone who has an authorization to carry and to anyone who is training for the Olympic or Paralympic committee? Why do they believe in getting rid of this clause of the bill?
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Madam Speaker, I was listening to my colleague talk about hunters, farmers and indigenous communities. For the House's benefit, could he name a specific rifle or shotgun that would now be prohibited because of Bill C-21? The way I read the bill, it references any rifle or shotgun that is manufactured on or after the day on which the bill comes into force. If he is going to go on about the Canadian firearms advisory committee, I would remind him that the power to reclassify firearms already exists under the Criminal Code, and it is completely separate from Bill C-21.
Can the member enlighten the House on a specific rifle or shotgun that would be affected by Bill C-21? I await his answer.
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Madam Speaker, every community deserves to feel safe, and that is what Bill C-21 was originally intended to do: end handgun violence. Instead, the Liberals introduced amendments at the eleventh hour that would make it harder for indigenous people, farmers and hunters to support their families and put food on their tables. Today, the Liberals finally dropped the amendments that the Assembly of First Nations said would go against its treaty rights.
Will the minister apologize for the mess he made with these amendments?
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Madam Speaker, I was very happy to see the government also introduce Bill C-20, which is the result of some very considerate recommendations from a report in the previous Parliament on systemic racism in policing in Canada. That bill would set up a public complaints and review commission: It is a stand-alone piece of legislation, a stand-alone agency, that would have the authority to investigate both the CBSA and the RCMP. It would require statutory timelines for responses to its investigations, and it would have the funds necessary to hold both of those law enforcement agencies to account.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's intervention, and I will focus on his remarks about the CBSA.
It is true that the CBSA is still recovering from those cuts, but I think we also need to have a conversation about its role and responsibility. Currently, the CBSA is limited to operating at Canada's ports of entry, and if CBSA officers see illegal activity that is happening outside of a port of entry, they have to call the RCMP in. This can sometimes result in some snafus between the two agencies working together, so we may need to have a conversation about expanding the mandate of the CBSA and also providing the funding so that CBSA officers can do their jobs and keep those illegal firearms from coming into Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I remember in May 2020, when that Order in Council was issued, I got a lot of feedback from my constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. Overwhelmingly, their frustration was with the suddenness of it: the fact that Parliament never had the opportunity for its elected representatives to debate it. Their preference, overwhelmingly, would have been to have Parliament debate that issue.
I acknowledge my colleague's concern on the lack of a proper definition. I think that both she and I will have questions for the government members on the committee about what they intend to do and whether that loophole is something that needs to be fixed in Bill C-21, and I will be looking forward to the Liberals' response in that regard.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague. I do not have the statistics in front of me, but I can assure my colleague that I have seen them. I was reading them in preparation for the speech. The issue, though, is when it comes to legal firearms, handguns or long guns that have been stolen. The discrepancy is with the ones that were reported missing and ones that were reported stolen versus the ones that were recovered. Yes, handguns especially have been registered and they are in the system, but there is a discrepancy between the ones that were reported stolen and the ones that were actually recovered. We know that some of those legal firearms are still out on the street. They could potentially be used to commit crimes and they may never be recovered. I think that is the discrepancy I was referring to.
He is absolutely right. We do not know what we do not know. If we are going to have an adult conversation about this, the Government of Canada needs to give Statistics Canada the proper resources so that we can paint a picture, not only for the citizens of Canada, but for the law enforcement that does that important job for us every single day.
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Madam Speaker, he mentioned the model AR-15. It is a firearm that has become synonymous with some of the most brutal mass shootings imaginable in the United States. We have to be careful. Canada and the United States are two very different countries when it comes to our firearms laws, but I would agree that certain models of firearms have no place in our society.
I am not talking about non-restricted firearms, or the people who are out there hunting and shooting with their bolt-action rifles or shotguns. I am talking about those ones that can cause death as quickly as one can pull a trigger.
With Bill C-21, though, the debate is not on the way a firearm looks but its functionality. We have had this debate at the public safety committee. It is something that is still unresolved because there are models of firearms out there, semi-automatic rifles, that have the same capacity and same function as firearms that were banned by the OIC, but they are still legal.
We need to have a conversation about where we are drawing the line and how we are actually going to define what a prohibited firearm is. That is a conversation that we still owe to Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be joining colleagues from all parties in this debate tonight on Bill C-21.
I want to acknowledge the time I have enjoyed as the NDP's public safety critic. It is a big responsibility. There are many different departments to keep track of. I also want to say in deference to previous speakers that I have enjoyed working with the minister on a number of issues and with my Conservative and Bloc colleagues. I will echo previous comments tonight that we do enjoy a good working relationship. If we look at previous Parliaments, that might seem a bit odd for the public safety committee because we do deal with some fairly explosive issues where there is not always a lot of agreement to be found.
I come at this debate tonight as a representative of a rural riding. My riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford is about 4,700 square kilometres in size. A lot of the constituents whom I represent are responsible firearms owners. They enjoy going to the range. They enjoy using firearms for hunting and other recreational activities.
However, it has to be stated, and this is a key difference between Canada and our southern neighbours, that owning a firearm in Canada is a privilege. By far the vast majority of firearms owners in Canada respect that privilege. They use their firearms in a very safe and respectful manner. Gun safety and the careful operation and storage of guns have always been paramount to the constituents that I have spoken to.
Indeed, I do have a lot of friends who are firearms owners. I grew up with firearms. My father has several that he inherited from his childhood. I have enjoyed spending time at various ranges throughout my riding. A few years ago, I was a guest at the Victoria fish and game club. Under the careful supervision of someone with a restricted possession and authorization licence, I was shown how to safely use a handgun at the range. There a lot of people who do enjoy the target shooting aspect of it.
I have seen a lot of debate on firearms before and during my time in Parliament and it is a pretty explosive issue. It can be very often used as a wedge in our political system. I want to find a way to talk about the legislation before us in a respectful way, one that lowers the temperature and where we can depolarize the debate while maybe seeking to make some parts of the bill better at committee.
I am trying to walk the line between the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Liberals sometimes have a tendency to put forward a bill, hold it up as a shiny trophy, and say it is going to fix the problem. The Conservatives on the other side tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to firearms legislation and their default position is to oppose. This is an issue where we have to walk the line between those two, where we recognize that legislation is important. We cannot simply say no for the sake of saying no, but we also have to realize that legislation by itself is not going to solve a problem as complex as gun violence. It has to be part and parcel of a whole range of things.
Bill C-21 in this Parliament does share the same number as the previous firearms legislation in the 43rd Parliament, which was also Bill C-21. That bill, however, never advanced past second reading. Unfortunately, it was allowed to die on the Order Paper when we had, in my view, the unnecessary election of 2021. There was a lot of hullabaloo about the introduction of that bill, but not a lot of effort was put forward by the government to advance it in any meaningful way.
Here we are again. We are in the 44th Parliament. We are in June. We have been at this for quite some time and we are only now just getting to the first round of second reading debate on the bill.
There is an important human element to this debate. Many lives have been lost in Canada to rising gun crime and we have to acknowledge that many communities are feeling unsafe.
Canadians want their government to act to prevent tragedies, not just respond to them. That is the proactive piece of the puzzle here, not just reacting to the bad news we often see. We need to demonstrate that follow-through and commitment to addressing firearms violence. That is where I think Bill C-21 comes into play. Not only is the smuggling of illegal firearms a big problem in Canada, but there is also a very real issue with the domestic diversion of legal firearms and the way they can find their way into the hands of criminals.
I am proud to be a member of a party that has supported the goal of getting military-style assault weapons off the streets. I support the plans for a mandatory buyback. That is a significant improvement over the voluntary buyback that was proposed in the previous Parliament, because we want to find a way of making sure that these weapons are forever off of our streets and do not pose a danger. Back in 2008, Jack Layton, our leader at the time, was the first political leader in Canada to propose giving municipalities the power to ban handguns within their jurisdictions.
I think whatever side of the spectrum we fall on with respect to this debate, we can all agree it is time for the government to get serious about tackling gun crime. We have different ideas on how that is to be achieved, but I think we agree on the same basic premise.
I want to give a nod to the public safety committee. The great report that we tabled earlier this year has been referenced in a few speeches tonight. That report was the result of 50 witnesses over seven meetings. We had numerous representatives from different police services across Canada, criminal defence lawyers, community organizations and also important government bodies like Statistics Canada. I want to acknowledge the Bloc Québécois for bringing forward that motion for a study. It resulted in 34 recommendations. We are awaiting a government response. I know that takes time, but I am looking forward to reading the government's response to those solid recommendations.
We had a number of recommendations. We realized that Statistics Canada needs additional resources. It has reported that there are gaps in its reporting. There are limitations in its knowledge about the firearms that are used in crimes. We need more information and details about particular firearms, their exact type, who owns them, how they are stored, whether the owners are licensed, and so on.
There was also a recommendation about increasing funding to the Canadian criminal intelligence service to enable comprehensive intelligence sharing across all police services so we can improve their effectiveness in tracing firearms. There was a recognition that smuggling is a significant contributor to gun and gang violence in Canada and that more resources must be allocated to combatting it. Also, the Government of Canada, as part of its prohibition on firearms, should implement a mandatory buyback program. That was a recommendation in the report that was supported by committee members.
In addition, I also think that because the report also illustrated the context in which we operate, this problem is not going to be solved by legislation, funding or a shift in policies alone. It is a multi-faceted issue that is going to require reflection, a comprehensive set of solutions, including data collection and research, prevention and intervention, coordination and collaboration between all levels of government, law enforcement and civil society actors.
We know the statistics have not been favourable. That has been mentioned by a few of my colleagues. We know that the rates of firearms-related violent crimes started an upward climb in 2014, with the largest documented increase between 2014 and 2015. Between 2019 and 2020 there were notable increases, including in southern rural British Columbia, the northern part of Ontario, rural Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nova Scotia. This is the important part: Handguns were the most serious weapon present in most firearm-related violent crimes between 2009 and 2014, and also between 2015 and 2020.
I now want to focus on the smuggling, which we know is a major problem. It is a consequence of our sharing a border with the United States. The problem, and this goes to the data collection, is that we do not have an accurate figure. It might even be impossible to ever get an accurate figure, because for every successful interdiction, there are so many that will get through. It is simply impossible to extrapolate what the full problem is in that regard.
In this conversation about firearms and the root causes of gun and gang violence, we have to know that there are so many different factors at play here. This is far from a black and white issue. During our committee study, we learned from great testimony from witnesses that things like poverty, inequality, racism, mental illness, social isolation, substance abuse, extremist ideologies, education and health, are all factors which in some way contribute to the phenomenon of gun violence and how bad it can be in some communities.
There is also a very strong correlation between the drug trade in Canada and firearms violence. I think this is important. This House has recently been seized with the issue of Canada's drug laws. We have seen reference to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in another government bill, Bill C-5, which sets out a declaration of principles.
The member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke was able to successfully amend that to make sure that criminal records for simple possession will be sequestered after two years. That is an important amendment. The member for Courtenay—Alberni, my friend and neighbour to the north, has his very important private member's bill, Bill C-216.
Almost every single police agency that was before our committee spoke of the interwoven nature of the drug trade and the gun trade. The simple fact is that there are obscene amounts of money that can be made in the drug trade. The introduction of fentanyl and carfentanil has completely changed the profitability game. Every single witness who was talking on this subject said that gang members involved in the drug trade feel the need to have guns on their person to protect their turf and their trade because of the competitive nature of it.
One of the most successful ways we can tackle gun problems in Canada is to enact bold, progressive policies to deal with the demand side, to deal with people's addictions and to make sure we are not harming the people who are out there being nabbed by police for simple possession. Instead, we should be trying to make sure that we are relieving them of the criminal stigma of substance use. We should be drying up that demand so that gangs are not competing for that turf. That is a big scourge for many of our big cities in Canada, and until we see bold policy to deal with this, I fear that years from now we are still going to be having the same conversation about gun violence in Canada.
Let us now turn to some of the main features of Bill C-21. By far, the one that has garnered the most attention is the handgun freeze. It is essentially going to prevent the chief firearms officer from approving the transfer of handguns to individuals. It will effectively ban the buying, selling, transferring and importing of handguns to anyone other than certain businesses and exempted individuals.
To be clear, my technical reading of the bill is that if Bill C-21 were to receive royal assent tomorrow, anyone who is a current RPAL holder and owns a handgun will still be able to lawfully use that handgun just as they did today and yesterday. That will have no change.
It will impact people who are seeking to buy new handguns, but again, exemptions are carved out, for example, if someone can demonstrate that they need a handgun for their line of work. I know foresters who will not travel out into the bush in grizzly country unless they are carrying a handgun. That will be considered an exempted individual.
If someone is a professional target shooter and belongs to an Olympic-qualified organization, we might look at amending that and broadening the scope. The person would still be allowed to use a handgun, and so on.
I acknowledge that smuggling is a huge problem, but we have also had witnesses talk about the problem of the domestic diversion of legal weapons and people using their licences for straw purchases. I think, if we were to completely ignore that side of the equation, we would be doing a disservice to Canadians and to the whole question of public safety on this issue.
The other big aspect of Bill C-21 is the red flag and yellow flag regime, which would basically allow anyone to bypass the police and go directly to a provincial court judge to request the immediate removal of weapons from an individual who they believe is going to pose a danger to themselves or to others. I will note that, in the way Bill C-21 is written, there is an improvement to this aspect of the previous bill, because it would allow a judge to protect the privacy of an individual applying for that emergency prohibition. The judge could also have the option of holding hearings in private and sealing court documents. That is an important improvement to the previous version of the bill.
However, we know organizations such as PolySeSouvient still have problems with how this section is written. I believe that at committee we are going to have to take a deeper dive into whether this can be improved upon.
We also know that members of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians were not fans of the previous red flag law. They said:
...placing the onus on a family member of a depressed person, a demented parent, or the perpetrator of domestic violence to go through the court system is a largely unworkable and unwelcome hindrance to getting guns temporarily out of the home of those in crisis.
Others said that the current version of Bill C-21 was “a big, evidence-based step towards reducing gun injury and death in Canada,” so kudos to the government for getting that from physicians who deal with gunshot wounds on a regular basis. They still want to see the particular details of the new red flag law and how it is actually going to work. Of course, the yellow flag law would allow the chief firearms officer to temporarily suspend and review an individual firearms licence while that eligibility is determined.
I want to end on airsoft. In my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, there is a massive airsoft community and people love this sport. I had previously only participated in paintball, so I know the fun and the thrill of it, and people who engage in airsoft as a sport love what they do. It is a great outdoor recreational activity, and these people are concerned by the provisions in this bill that are targeting replica models.
We have to find a way to have members of the airsoft community come before our committee. I think we have to have a conversation with the government on how we can find a workable solution so that people are not unfairly targeted for participating in a sport they enjoy. I think there is a middle ground in there somewhere. I acknowledge the concern that law enforcement has with replica airsoft rifles. At a distance, it is not easy to tell whether it is a replica or the real thing, and we certainly did hear at committee that some people had been successful at converting airsoft guns into fully functioning firearms, so that is a very real concern out there.
I know I am in my final minute, so I will just conclude with this: The firearms debate is never a black and white issue, and I know there are a variety of opinions on this topic, but I am going to try to thread the needle. At this point in the debate, I am going to signal my support for getting this bill to committee, because I do not want to just throw it out at this stage. I believe it deserves a closer look, and I believe all members, including my Conservative colleagues, deserve to have the opportunity to focus on the particular sections of the bill, bring forward their witnesses and have an adult conversation about the direction we want to take our country in and what we ultimately want to see out of this.
With that, I will conclude. I appreciate this opportunity, and I look forward to questions from my colleagues.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy serving with my colleague on the public safety committee.
During the course of her speech, she very much highlighted the problems with smuggling and Canada sharing a border with the United States, which is the largest gun manufacturer in the world. We know that gun smugglers are finding creative ways to get them into Canada. There was a story last month about criminals using a drone to bring handguns into Canada.
Therefore, it is going to require a set of policies. We have to work with our U.S. partners to tackle the supply, but I want to know about the demand side. Those guns are coming into Canada because there is a demand for them. I just wonder if the member can inform the House on some of the policies she thinks would be best to tackle the demand side of the gun equation here in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with my colleague on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. She is quite right that we have a good working relationship.
I have two questions. The first one is that through a technical reading of the bill—because she did talk about lawful gun owners—my understanding of Bill C-21 is that if it becomes law, current owners of handguns could still legally use them. People could still go to a range to fire handguns under the supervision of an RPAL holder, especially if the range owns a collection of handguns. I am just wondering if she can clarify whether that is her understanding of the bill as well.
My second question is about this being a very complex problem. She quoted a lot of police officers. Let me also quote from Staff Sergeant Michael Rowe of the Vancouver Police Department, who also appeared before the public safety committee. He identified straw purchases and the diversion of legally owned handguns as also being big problems.
Therefore, two things can be true here: We can have a problem from gun smuggling, but there is also a problem from the illegal diversion of legally owned handguns. If we ignore that and focus only on the smuggling problem, we are doing a disservice to public safety. Would she not admit that domestic diversion is also a problem, as was clearly identified by Staff Sergeant Michael Rowe of the Vancouver Police Department?
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Madam Speaker, I know the minister is approaching this issue from a very personal position, and I appreciate that, but I think we have to be very clear. I think the minister would agree with me that Bill C-21 by itself is not going to solve the very complex problem of gun crime. It is going to require a whole host of measures working together.
At the public safety committee, our first study in this Parliament was on gun and gang violence, and witness after witness was correlating the rise in gun crime with the drug trade. The government, just a few short weeks ago, did vote against Bill C-216, which would have decriminalized personal possession, set up a national strategy and set up expungement. I do not want to get into a debate about that, but I think the onus is now on the Government of Canada to explain what its next steps will be to address the incredibly high profit margins that exist in the drug trade that are driving the violence in big cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
It is the highly addictive nature of fentanyl and carfentanil and the massive profit margins that are leading to gangs competing with one another for that turf. That is driving a lot of the gun violence. In the absence of supporting Bill C-216, can the minister tell us what the next steps are to address that very specific problem?
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