- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- 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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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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- May/3/22 2:24:20 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the main pillar of our justice system is that all Canadians must be treated equally under the law. When new evidence of fraud comes to light, law enforcement has a duty to investigate, regardless of how powerful or privileged any individual who committed the fraud may be. The Attorney General has an obligation to make sure this applies to everyone, including a sitting prime minister.
Does the Attorney General believe that individuals who commit criminal offences, regardless of how powerful or privileged they are, or what positions they hold, should be charged?
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