- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 69%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I believe I said it was one of the top licensing regimes in the world, or whatever it was I said. I do not project that we have the best, but we are certainly up there when it comes to comparables in other countries. I think the record will show that.
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Madam Speaker, I am just stating my experience. I will retract it.
I have sat in this debate tonight frustrated, and not because of the points we are making but because of the assertion that somehow Conservatives are spreading misinformation and disinformation. I will say this again: What we are doing is reflecting the words of our constituents, and I do that tonight as the member for Barrie—Innisfil.
I will say in all honesty that 95% of the people who have reached to me are opposed to Bill C-21, the amendments that have been made and the work the government, aided and abetted by the NDP, is doing.
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Madam Speaker, that is three times the member mentioned ghost guns, which goes to my point earlier about changing the narrative.
Madam Speaker, I am going to say this and you can cut me off. I have absolutely zero respect for anything that this member says. When I was House leader, he proved himself not to be honourable and to not conduct himself with integrity, so every word he says in this place tonight I take with a grain of salt.
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Madam Speaker, here is what the Liberals have done. They have all of a sudden changed the narrative from hunters and indigenous Canadians to ghost guns. That is what they have been talking about today. They have also been talking about spreading misinformation and disinformation. They have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
Here is another concern that Canadians should have. The public safety minister has indicated that there will be a firearms advisory council. There is no indication yet about the makeup, who is going to be on it and what their decisions are going to be. However, the minister did say that this firearms advisory council will have an opportunity to look at certain guns, make decisions and recommendations to the government, and then the government can issue a ban through the order in council. How is that transparent?
The Liberals are going to continue to attack law-abiding firearms owners. They are just going to back-end it or do an end-around to accommodate that.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening at this relatively late hour to speak to this bill.
I just want to mention, before I start, that, earlier this evening, I had a chance to spend some time with Persian Gulf War veterans. We were at an event, the airing of a new film on the Canadian involvement in the Persian Gulf War. These veterans are fighting the government for the classification of wartime service, and I think it is about time that we classify them as having wartime service, and even our Afghanistan veterans, as well. It was a very powerful evening, and I am very glad to have been there in support of our veterans.
As we sit here to discuss report stage amendments on Bill C-21, let us not get lost on the history of how we got to this point. Sadly, the events in Nova Scotia and the mass killing out there really led to a political response by the government. It saw an opportunity. It issued an order in council on May 1, 2020, that effectively banned thousands and thousands of what were legal firearms in the country. It was so rushed, in fact, to propose the order in council, that they banned the cannon at Stanley Park that fires ceremoniously at nine o'clock every evening as part of this order in council ban.
As we moved forward, the government was indicating that it was going to push a gun ban in this country, effectively an attack on law-abiding firearms owners. It was about a year ago that we saw the iteration of Bill C-21 that was tabled as legislation, and immediately, the reaction across the country was one of shock at the fact that they included an additional thousands more of what were legal firearms. They proposed a handgun ban as well if we will recall.
That sent a ripple effect right across the country because they were attacking not only law-abiding firearms owners, but also hunters and indigenous people. Basically, hundreds of years of history in this country were being attacked by the Liberal government, aided and abetted by their partners in the NDP, but a funny thing happened with the NDP. When the legislation was proposed, its members were joyous about the fact that the government had proposed such a sweeping ban of firearms against law-abiding firearms owners, until they realized just what an impact this was going to have, a disproportionate impact, on rural Canadians. Then, all of a sudden, they started backing up.
They said whoa, and that this piece of legislation is going way too far, because they saw that there was a political threat in those rural and remote ridings where rural Canadians and indigenous Canadians use guns to hunt, feed themselves and participate in a long-standing cultural heritage in this country, not to mention to protect themselves in those rural and remote areas.
All of a sudden, here we were, revisiting this legislation. It is clear that the Liberal government and the public safety minister did not think of the implications of this and the impact it would have on hunters and indigenous people, and they were backtracking. They said whoa, they were not going to introduce this iteration. They were going to pull back on this and go back into consultation with Canadians to try to figure out how to get this right.
The reason why they were in this place was because they made a political calculation, because law-abiding firearms owners in this country have always been an easy target, pardon the pun, for Liberal and leftist-leaning governments. They are the target. They are not worried about going after gangs, guns and illegal smuggling. That is the hard work. The easy work is to go after the low-hanging fruit, and that is law-abiding firearms owners.
Canada has the most strict regime of registration and training of firearms owners anywhere in the world. I do not have an RPAL. I do not own a firearm. I have fired one firearm in my life, at the Barrie Gun Club, in a controlled environment, so I have no skin in the game.
What I believe in is the right of individuals in this country, because of our culture and our heritage, because of our laws and because of the training, to have the right to own firearms and use them responsibly. What I do not agree with are gangs, illegal smuggling and those guns that are coming in across the border, which are easily obtained by gangs in the use of criminal activity. We have seen an increase in gang-related activity, and we have seen an increase in gun-related activity, so instead of going after the low-hanging fruit, instead of going after the law-abiding firearms owners, they are not doing what they need to do as far as guns and gangs.
One only has to follow the Toronto Police Service operations twitter feed to understand the depth of the problem in Toronto, not to mention there is a problem in Vancouver and Montreal as well. It is illegal guns. It is gangs and gang-related activity that are showing the most increases in illegal gun activity in this country. It is not law-abiding firearms owners.
I had the opportunity to go to the Moncton Fish and Game Association, as I did some stakeholder engagement on this issue, when we were at the height of it. The government at that time was rethinking its position. There was a policy proposal. Colleagues may recall in 2017 the then minister of public safety was going around the country because they were thinking about implementing additional firearms restrictions.
I had an opportunity to speak to members of the the Moncton Fish and Game Association, who are salt-of-the-earth guys, responsible firearms owners and proud Canadians. They submitted a document to the then minister of public safety that should have served as a template for any discussion. It was called a discussion paper, but it should have served as a template for what the discussion was to be about. They talked about the “long history of firearms control in this country.” The document said, “1892 saw the first Criminal Code controls with a permit system for small arms; 1934 saw the requirement for all handguns to be registered with police with RCMP issuing registration certificates”.
The discussion paper that was submitted to the then minister of public safety could have and should have been used as a template. It went on:
There is no clear definition as to what Canada considers to be an “assault weapon” or “assault rifle”. The outdated US Dept of Justice definition (1994-2004) is so broad that a typical rabbit hunting rifle such as the semi-automatic Marlin 60 with a tube magazine that can hold 15 rounds of 22LR ammunition might be construed as an assault weapon as might the Ruger 10/22.
There have been some amendments, clearly, as we have dealt with this to not classify some of these weapons, but had these stakeholders been listened to, had there been a thorough discussion, I think the then minister of public safety would have really understood just the level and the depth of responsible firearms ownership in this country and how they want to be part of the solution to the gun and gang problem.
The discussion paper goes on. One part that stood out for me, section 26, stated;
Unfortunately, with every “mass shooting” and even for single victim incidents, there is an immediate reaction by the media and especially politicians to immediately blame the object for the actions that were perpetrated. It is easy for the Mayor of Toronto, Toronto Council or Montreal City Council to blame the object and call for a gun ban, but it takes political courage to identify the underlying social issues and address realistic solutions that protect people from harm by addressing the root causes of violence. The issue is not “what” was used in the incident but rather “why” the event happened, “what” was the reason, “how” was the firearm obtained and “how” could it have been prevented? It is easy to blame the gun and ignore the underlying and difficult to address societal or mental health factors.
This piece of legislation is flawed in many ways. It still continues to attack law-abiding firearms owners. There are other concerns that I will address in questions and comments.
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Mr. Speaker, as we come to report stage on this piece of legislation, one of the concerning things that the Minister of Public Safety has said is that there will be a creation of a firearms advisory committee. It is unknown at this point, in advance of this bill passing, what the makeup of that committee will be like, who is going to be on it and what decisions it will be making.
We do know that it is going to look at certain firearms and make recommendations to the government. Then it will be up to the government through an order in council to determine whether in fact it is going to ban these firearms. It is effectively a backdoor way of banning firearms that the committee would advise to be banned and that the government wants to ban.
I am wondering if the hon. member has any opinion as to whether in fact this should be the case in the absence of any information and whether this is a good idea or not.
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Madam Speaker, one of the concerns coming out of report stage is about the firearms advisory committee that the public safety minister spoke about, and the power it is going to have to potentially ban firearms going forward. Could the member speak to that briefly?
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Madam Speaker, I recall over a year ago, when Bill C-21 was introduced, just how giddy with glee the NDP was until it had an epiphany about the impact this was going to have on its rural ridings. Those ridings include Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, Courtenay—Alberni, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, North Island—Powell River, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, Timmins—James Bay and Nunavut. All of those MPs reversed course on Bill C-21 when they, in fact, were supporting it at the beginning.
Canadians are not stupid. Members in those ridings and the citizens in those ridings are not stupid, and they will remember what the NDP did with Bill C-21.
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to stand to present petition e-4221 from Barrie—Innisfil resident Bob Dowdell, which asks the government to withdraw the amendment tabled at committee in November 2022. The petition was signed by 13,964 Canadians who agree the amendment and the evergreen definition were an overreach, unfairly made law-abiding firearm owners and sport shooters criminals, and infringed on the treaty rights of indigenous firearm owners.
Mr. Dowdell was very concerned about the prohibited firearm definition, as it is an item currently contained within a federal court case concerning the order in council of May 2020. The amendment could directly affect the outcome of the federal court case.
I support this petition. I thank Bob and the close to 14,000 Canadians who are residents of Barrie—Innisfil and signed and supported petition e-4221.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we have already seen examples of an overreach with this particular government on many aspects. I talked about Bill C-21 during my speech. My colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap highlighted many of the egregious events of the government in taking down or limiting the rights and freedoms of Canadians. I think that is a concern and certainly a concern that I have heard from people as well.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said during my speech, there has not been any other issue that I have been seized with other than Bill C-21, which is the firearms legislation, more than this piece of legislation.
I have heard from more people who are opposed to this piece of legislation, because of the impact it would have on user-generated content. I have listened to the voices of those people I represent. I have heard, at committee, the testimony of people. I read many of their comments about their concern about this piece of legislation. The Senate has a concern. The only sides that are not concerned about this are the Liberal and NDP side, and to some degree the Bloc. It is understandable why the Bloc is in support of this piece of legislation, but the NDP and the Liberals are not doing what they need to do, and that is to listen to those people who have expressed concerns.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.
Democracy does, indeed, die at night. We are sitting here dealing with amendments from the Senate on a deeply flawed and deeply controversial piece of legislation. I have not been in the House all day, but for the last couple of hours. I have heard the debate and the concern expressed by the Leader of the Opposition. It was a profoundly convincing argument that he made as to why this piece of legislation should not be passed.
However, it is not just the words of the Leader of the Opposition that tell us why this piece of legislation needs to be, at a minimum, overhauled or, better yet, halted at this time. The concerns of Canadians, the concerns of digital content creators, those who understand this space, those who have looked at this piece of legislation, those who have taken the time to appear before committee to express their views and all of their concerns, including the Senate amendments, to deal with one part of this deeply flawed piece of legislation are being ignored by the government, which is certainly being aided and abetted by other opposition parties.
What I thought I would do tonight is take a different tack from where this debate has gone today. There have been, like I said, hundreds of thousands of voices. There is not one issue, perhaps other than Bill C-21, the firearms legislation that I heard more about from my constituents than Bill C-11. Like the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, I am an elected member of this place, I am the voice of the people who I represent in Barrie—Innisfil and I am going to share their voices this evening. I am going to share the voices of other eminent Canadians who have expressed a concern about this piece of legislation.
I received an email from Kim, who said, “Dear Mr. Brassard, The passing of Bill C-11 will be a sad moment in Canadian history. Please consider making sure this bill does not get passed. This kind of censorship should not come from our government or any free society.” Violet said, “Dear Sir: I want the brakes put on this Bill now! I am not a fan of this ridiculous Bill.”
Rose said, “This bill is an overreach. It needs to be scrapped. Anyone who has been following this bill understands that we do not need the government to tell us what we can read/see [online].” Peter said, “Hello John, Regarding the above, my opinion is Bill C-11 should be scrapped and the [...] government keep their hand off of our social media. I hope you are [doing your] best to keep this Bill from being passed. Hopefully the Liberals will be ousted in the next election.”
John and Corrine from Barrie said, “Trust all is going well with you and your family. We ask that you vote 'no' to Bill C-11. This will hurt and restrict healthy free speech and debate which is the democracy our nation is founded on. This is a great concern to us. As our constitutional freedoms and rights are restricted, this opens doors to tyranny and dictatorship which is dangerous to every level of our nation.”
Another says, “Good afternoon Mr Honourable Brassard, I know you're busy so I'll be brief.” This is from Brent in Barrie. “I'm very much against Bill C-11. I don't want an unelected government official/body determining what my family can watch. Margaret Atwood is against it. The previous CRTC commissioner is against it. This bill will stifle freedom of speech and shut down contrary views under the threat of 'misinformation and/or disinformation'. Please fight for our freedom of speech.”
We have certainly heard in the arguments from the opposition, the NDP and others about this being an issue of disinformation. In fact, I would suggest the ones spreading the disinformation are those on the government side.
The other person who has been directly involved in this entire debate has been Michael Geist, who is a law professor at Ottawa University. Interestingly, I was going through some his posts earlier today and he has been watching the debate intently in this House of Commons. He made a post earlier that said, “Bill C-11 is not China, Russia or Nazi Germany. As I’ve stated many times, it does not limit the ability....[of] implications for freedom of expression but it does [not] turn Canada into China.”
Mr. Peter Julian: Bravo. Bravo.
Mr. John Brassard: Don't get ahead of yourself.
Madam Speaker, his post continues, “To the claims that user content regulation is excluded from the bill, Section 4.1(2)(b) and 4.2.2 clearly scope such content into the bill, an interpretation that has been confirmed by dozens of experts and the former Chair of the CRTC. Liberal and NDP MP claims to the contrary should be regarded as disinformation, a deliberate attempt to spread false information. Indeed, the Senate proposed a fix. The government rejected it. That was supposed to be the focus of the debate, yet Liberal MPs such as [the member for Winnipeg North] falsely claimed that it is not there.”
He continued, “There were many other misleading or inaccurate statements throughout the day. Contrary to what some claim, the bill will not result in hundreds of millions of new spending or lead to increased consumer choice (the opposite is true). It will require the CRTC to re-examine Cancon rules, which experience suggests are only loosely correlated to the professed goal of “telling Canadian stories.” But leaving all of these things aside, there was really only one question that needed answering: if the government’s intent is not to regulate user content and the Senate passed an amendment consistent with that goal after concluding that Bill C-11 in its current form opens the door to CRTC regulation, why is the government rejecting the amendment?”
That is the fundamental question to this debate, and it is a question that has not been answered by either the government or any other members of the opposition.
In fact, Mr. Geist goes on and actually references a Bloc MP's intervention. He says, “[It probably provides] what is likely the most accurate, if deeply troubling answer. When asked to confirm that the bill maintains freedom of expression safeguards, [this Bloc member] responded with the following per the House of Commons translator 'if violating freedom of expression means ensuring that Quebec content is well represented online then that’s worth it.'”
To hell with everyone else.
We need to be able to protect freedom of expression online for everyone in this country, not just based on a geographical region. That is what is most egregious about this bill.
Mr. Geist goes on, “in the zeal to court support from the Quebec culture lobby, [the] Canadian Heritage Minister and the government are choosing in Bill C-11 to sacrifice some freedom of expression, which includes both the right to speak and the right to be heard.”
I mentioned earlier there have been other Canadians who spoke out against this. Timothy Denton, former CRTC commissioner and president of the Internet Society Canada Chapter, spoke out against this, as did Peter Menzies, former CRTC commissioner, and Scott Benzie, content creator and director at Digital First Canada. J.J. McCullough, in a well-document Twitter intervention, posted his video. He talked about his concerns, and he is a journalist and commentator, about the impact this is going to have on user-generated content.
The Digital Media Association has expressed concern, as did Jeanette Patell, the head of Canada government affairs and public policy at YouTube. We have heard all of these interventions at committee all expressing concern about this particular piece of legislation and the impact it is going to have on the ability for Canadians to be seen and heard for the type of content they create.
As I said at the outset, we are dealing with Senate amendments. The Senate found it within itself, many of its members who are Liberal-appointed senators, to approve the amendments and send those amendments back to this place so we could have a wholesome debate. What is so sad throughout this whole process is the fact that this debate is being stifled at this point by closure by the government because it does not want to hear the truth from many of those Canadians who have expressed serious concern with this bill. Of course, the government is being aided and abetted by its coalition partners within the NDP.
We will always stand for the rights and freedoms of Canadians. We are not going to sit idly by and allow the government to kill democracy at night.
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Mr. Speaker, I just spoke to the hon. member who is scheduled to speak. My suggestion is that we suspend until the issue is fixed, but that is your call, of course, and I respect whatever decision you make, sir.
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Mr. Speaker, that is fine. When we get to questions and comments, there may be some people who may not be able to participate. I would just provide that as a warning, but I am so looking forward to hearing the hon. member speak.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know the Table is aware of this situation. We are getting reports of some technical difficulties. Members are not able to get into Zoom. I know our lobby coordinator in the back is dealing with a problem with the dashboard that he uses. There are emails that are not circulating. I am wondering if you could provide the House with an update.
I know the Table is aware of this. I certainly did not want to interrupt my colleague from the Bloc, but before the next speaker rises, perhaps a suggestion could be that we may suspend.
I see the opposition whip is coming in. Perhaps he has some more information about the technical difficulties.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from the Bloc for his speech.
The member talked about some of the issues that the government has been dealing with, and spoke in terms of illusion. I would suggest that, right now, we are a country in chaos. Even the most basic government services are being bungled by this government: passports, immigration, border issues at Roxham Road, the issues with Afghanistan and Ukraine, inflation, affordability and, not least, political interference, according to a news story that came to light today.
This is a complicated issue that requires complicated solutions. Is there any confidence, on the part of the member who just spoke, in the government's ability to deal with this issue effectively? The issue is guns, gangs, illegal criminals and the illegal importation of guns that are used for violent crimes. Does the member have any confidence in the government's ability to actually find an effective solution through Bill C-21, or is this simply smoke and mirrors and just another way of the government mishandling something?
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-5, the soft-on-crime bill, actually allows for lesser sentences for those who commit crimes with guns. I was wondering how the hon. member can reconcile what he sees in Bill C-21 with this soft-on-crime approach by the Liberal government.
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Mr. Speaker, once again we are seeing the hammer drop. It is on Bill C-21 this time, which further strengthens our resolve. You and I are unfortunate to have a front row seat to the further decline in democracy in this place and another attack on the institution of Parliament.
There has been three hours and 24 minutes of debate on this bill, which is a very substantive bill. Just last week, the Conservatives made an offer to the government: split the bill so we can work on portions of it that we can support, such as domestic violence and other matters within the bill. That was rejected by the government.
This bill would do nothing to solve gun and gang criminal activity in this country. This past weekend there were seven shootings in Liberal-held ridings just in Toronto. Instead of dealing with the situation, what the Liberals are doing is further traumatizing, stigmatizing and dividing Canadians through a bill by not offering to work and do the right thing.
My question for the minister is this. Is it true that, for the purposes of further dividing, stigmatizing and wedging, and using this bill as a politicized weapon, the Liberals have earmarked almost $1 million for an ad campaign in the summer to target opposition parties that are looking to better this bill as opposed to oppose it?
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Mr. Speaker, divisive policies do not protect people. Fear does not protect people. Virtue-signalling does not protect people. The Liberals are using U.S.-style wedge politics for their own political gain. It will not keep Canadians safe, and it will not stop violence.
Conservatives will be putting forward a sincere offer to split Bill C-21 so that victims of domestic violence can be protected as soon as possible. We can work together to get this done, but it is up to the Liberals. They have two options: They can either accept the offer to protect victims immediately, or they can reject it and continue with their divisive rhetoric, which would leave victims vulnerable.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives believe that meaningful and effective steps must be taken to end gun violence and gun crime in Canada. Canadians need to be safe, and victims of domestic violence need to be protected. While there are aspects of Bill C-21 that we can agree on, specifically on domestic violence issues, the rest of the bill falls short and would do nothing to end gun violence.
Will the Liberals agree to split Bill C-21 into two bills? One would be to protect the victims of domestic violence, while the other aspects of the bill would be reworked to offer real and effective solutions to gun crime and gun trafficking.
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