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Alex Ruff

Member of Parliament
Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
Conservative

Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
Ontario
Voting Attendance: 67%
Expenses Last Quarter: $91,173.06

Government Page

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

May/3/24 1:28:04 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill for the first time. I understand I have only two minutes, so I am not going to be able to address all the concerns. However, I just want to start. There has been a lot of commentary so far about how members should not have the opportunity to debate. It is one of my biggest observations, and I find it very frustrating when members across all parties want to have the opportunity to speak to a bill, yet we are constantly, especially with the current government in the last couple of years, met with countless time allocation motions and restrictions of the ability for members to speak to legislation here in this chamber. Really, what is this bill all about? It renames an existing body that already exists for the RCMP. It obviously expands upon that, but most importantly, it does expand to cover the Canada Border Services Agency. This is very important, because currently the CBSA is the only public safety agency in Canada without that independent oversight body for public complaints. Establishing this independent review body would foster and enhance public trust and confidence in Canada's law enforcement and border services institutions, something that I think all parties desperately agree is very important. As I just mentioned in my previous comment, it is disappointing that this bill has languished for the last six months and has not been a priority for the government. I am going to address a number of concerns, recognizing I only have a few seconds left. I want to highlight the lack of consultation around this bill, specifically some other issues around potentially how the actual members of the commission would get appointed, and the lack of independence in the process. I will get to that when this bill becomes a priority for the government once again.

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Context: House Hansard - 189 - May/2/23

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

May/2/23 7:55:55 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Chair, I am fortunate enough to represent two first nations in my riding, Saugeen First Nation and Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation. I reached out to them to ask them if they had any questions for the government. They posed two questions that they would like some clarity on. One is really more of a comment. The first one is to get an update on where the government is on all the recommendations that were made in the murdered and missing women and girls report. They would just like an update on whether the government is fully committed to actioning on all of them. Second, the chief shared with me that they had been in great consultation, just even today, I believe, with the local police detachment. Obviously, when we are dealing with this very tragic and important issue, that relationship needs to exist between first nations and their local law enforcement to help find these missing women and girls before they end up in a tragic situation. The chief highlighted to me that more education is needed. Is the government committed to providing the necessary resources needed to help educate law enforcement and Canadians in general about this very important subject?

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Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Feb/2/23 6:31:43 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to elaborate on something that is related to our opposition day motion today. It was a question I put to the government back in November about violent crime, Bill C-5 and the current Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach, which is not doing anything to make Canada safer. In particular, I talked about how violent crime has risen 32% since the Liberals formed government, which equates to over 124,000 more violent crimes since they have been in government. I talked about local headlines of people “arrested again” for participation in a criminal organization, failure to comply with a probation order, 11 counts of knowledge of possession of a firearm while prohibited, two counts of disobeying a court order and two counts of breaching a weapons prohibition. I am going to provide more local statistics from my own riding, because this is a prevalent problem. We see the media coverage all the time in our urban centres, but this problem of repeat offenders committing crimes is pervasive right across Canada. Here is something from December 16, 2022, in my riding: “Charges laid in drive-by shooting”. Charges included possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose, careless use of firearm, assault with a weapon and discharging a firearm with intent. The key point is possession of a firearm contrary to a probation order. This individual also faces an attempted murder charge after a shooting in my riding back in August. Here is another one: “Man suffers fractured skull in Hanover hammer attack”. I know the Prime Minister likes to speak about banning assault weapons. Well, guess what. A hammer used in an assault is an assault weapon, and good luck trying to ban all the hammers in the country. I do not think that is going to achieve much for public safety either. This happened at a convenience store. There were seven different charges, including several counts of breaching probation. I have another one here, just miles from my own farm. It required significant resources from our law enforcement in the local area. A 53-year-old woman and a 48-year-old man were each charged with countless drug trafficking issues. The woman was additionally charged with two counts of disobeying a court order and failure to comply with a probation order. The man was additionally charged with two counts of breach of a weapons prohibition. The fourth example is of a man in my riding. He has 25 weapons charges, with 15 different counts of a restricted or prohibited firearm and two breaches of a firearms prohibition. Finally, I have one more example that required multiple police units to be involved. A 40-year-old man, a 63-year-old woman and a 24-year-old woman all got drug charges, and one was in possession of a firearm contrary to a prohibition order. What is the government's solution? It removed mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders, including 10 of the 12 that were introduced by two former Liberal prime ministers, Trudeau senior and Chrétien. I do not know what the Liberal government had so wrong back in those days, but now we have seen every premier in this country table a letter to the government demanding bail reform. We also have police groups calling for stricter rules against these violent repeat offenders. When are the Liberals going to repeal portions of Bill C-75 and Bill C-5 and stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners, sport shooters and farmers?

598 words

Context: House Hansard - 93 - Jun/21/22

Mr. Alex Ruff

Jun/21/22 1:29:19 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-21

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I have a great deal of respect for him. I have no issues with lists of criminal organizations right across this country. The challenge I have in my riding, as in a lot of rural ridings, is how we quantify that and get down to it, etc. I have no issues with criminal organizations being listed. I think that is important information that law enforcement should have if it can help, because I think it really gets to the root causes of gun violence in Canada: illegal crimes and gangs. Let us fix that.

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Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians

Alex Ruff