- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dufferin—Caledon
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,309.03
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, if espousing misinformation is something that should not be done, the member should probably choose not to rise to ask questions.
Just because some guns were seized at the border does not mean the problem has been solved. Did the member not listen to the deputy police chief who recently said that 86% of the guns used to commit gun crimes in the city of Toronto were smuggled across the border?
You seized a couple of guns. Good for you. There are 86% more. Why are you not focusing on that instead of hunters?
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Madam Speaker, it is of grave concern to me that the government has chosen to spend so much time on a piece of legislation that would do so very little to actually deal with the issue of crime in this country. Members might be asking why I am making that assertion. The reason I will make that assertion is that violent crime in this country is up 32%. Many members have talked about this and I think the government realizes this, so what the Liberals have decided to do is to say that they are taking action with this bill. The problem is that this bill actually would not take action where we need to take action. I will explain that a bit.
At the public safety committee, the Toronto deputy police chief said that 86% of guns used in crime are illegally smuggled from the United States. Therefore, what would this bill do with respect to the 86% of guns that are being smuggled across the border? If we were debating today what to do about that, I would say that it is something exceptionally worthwhile and something that Conservatives would be 100% behind. However, instead, we are debating a bill that would do absolutely nothing about it.
When we are facing this surge of crime across the country, including violent crime, gang crime and gun crime, how are we not focusing on the source of that gun crime? Eighty-six per cent of those guns are illegally smuggled across the border.
Let us look at that by analogy. If we are on a ship and the ship is taking on water and we have this giant hole where 86% of the water is coming in, does the captain say that we should look over here at these other little holes and see if there is something we can do about that? That is effectively what the approach of the current government is. It looks at where the real crime is happening, where the real problem is, and pretends it does not exist, and then tries to distract Canadians by saying these people over here and these people over here and with these types of guns are the problem, which of course they are not.
To go through the possession and acquisition of a firearm in this country is a pretty stringent process that includes background checks. This is not where the crime is coming from and yet this is where the government chooses to focus its attention. I would like to say I find it disappointing, but disappointing does not go nearly far enough.
What the government should be focusing on is how to stop these guns from coming across the border. That would be something on which I think every member on this side of the House can agree; though perhaps not the members from the government coalition on this side. They think that this bill is also the panacea to gun violence that is going on this country: to crack down on legal firearms owners who have to go through a rigorous process to acquire those guns and are actually not the ones who are committing crimes. This makes absolutely no sense to me. It is a government that is saying it is not going to do the hard work because the hard work is hard.
It would be hard. It would take incredible investment in resources, in guns and gangs task forces, in border security and in border control to make sure that we stop these guns from pouring across the border and being used to commit violent crimes. That would take a large strategy, a large investment and a lot of moving parts. One thing we know about the current government is that it is not good at dealing with complicated situations in this country. All we have to do is look at how the Liberals are handling the cost of living crisis in this country to know how they would handle this crisis. Why have the Liberals taken this approach?
They have taken this approach because it is an easy-sounding answer. They are going to crack down on guns. That is their slogan. They are cracking down on guns, and that is going to make Canadians safe.
It is a great sound bite, and we all know now that sound bites matter in the fast-paced world of news, the world of social media. It sounds good. They are cracking down on guns. Why are they not cracking down on the 86% of guns that are pouring across the border? I could ask my colleagues across the way that question all night long, and I doubt I would get anything that even resembles an answer.
The problem of their approach in not dealing with the guns coming across the border is that we end up with this surge of violent crime, with a 32% increase. When we break that down, that is 124,000 more violent crimes every single year as compared with 2015, the last time there was a Conservative government.
What they are doing with respect to violent crime and violent offenders is not working. That is a product of a whole bunch of things. It is a product of the Liberals' soft-on-crime approach. It is the product of reforming bail so that it is so easy to get out on bail. We know the disastrous consequences that we have seen as a result of that across this country.
Whether we look at police officers who have been killed in the line of duty or a family that had some of their members stabbed in a violent stabbing, this is the result of people who are out on bail. Why are they out on bail? It is because the government chose to reform bail in its soft-on-crime approach. It has led to a surge in violence across the country.
We might say that cannot be true. In fact, a study was looked at, and in Vancouver, 40 offenders committed 6,000 crimes in one year. We can think about that for a second. If all they did was keep those 40 people in jail, how many fewer crimes would be committed in Vancouver? However, the Liberals will not do it. I have no understanding of why they will not. It is their catch-and-release justice system.
With respect to guns, how on earth can they say that the answer to gun violence in this country is to try to take away firearms from farmers, hunters and indigenous people? It defies logic. It defies explanation. Quite frankly, it will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. What we need is a massive change in how guns are dealt with in this country.
The border should be the focus. Guns and gangs task forces should be the focus. The focus should not be law-abiding firearms owners in the country, who have to go through an extensive process to acquire those firearms, to transport those firearms and to store those firearms. These are not the people who are the problem
The repeat violent offenders who are getting their weapons smuggled across the border are the problem, and these folks are just pretending that problem does not exist. It is a huge problem for me that we are taking up the time of the chamber and of the government to deal with a non-issue, not the real issue.
Why is the government not moving on guns and gangs? Why is it not moving on sealing the border to stop the avalanche of guns that are coming across?
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Madam Speaker, at the public safety committee, the Toronto deputy police chief said that 86% of guns that they recover from crimes are illegal guns smuggled in from the United States. I am wondering what the member thinks this bill would do about that, if anything.
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- Jun/14/22 1:21:38 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the problem with the question is that it compares American justice with Canadian justice and compares American mandatory minimums, which are extraordinarily high, with Canadian mandatory minimums, which are quite low in most cases. That is a false narrative and a false comparator.
Mandatory minimums can serve a whole bunch of purposes, including showing society's denunciation of what is happening. When we look at the context of the gun crime going on in this country, the fact is that almost all of the guns are coming from the United States. Does the member agree that we should be reducing mandatory minimum penalties for gun traffickers? These are the people who are bringing the weapons in that are used to commit all these terrible crimes. That is just one example of why I believe this should not happen.
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- Jun/14/22 1:07:00 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I am in the chamber often and I certainly hear from members on the other side of the House this constant refrain: “We listen to the experts.” When Conservatives talk about vaccine mandates, the Liberals say, “We listen to the experts.” When we ask where those experts are or to produce that expert report, of course, it never gets produced. “We listen to the experts” would be the Liberals' mantra, so let us talk about some experts.
The first thing we should talk about is that gun crimes in Canada have almost tripled over the last decade. We have an epidemic of gun violence. What do some of the experts have to say about the gun violence that is happening in Canada?
At the public safety committee, Toronto's deputy police chief said that 86% of gun crimes come from illegal guns and it is on the increase. He then went on to say, “Our problem in Toronto is handguns from the United States.” There is the expert and the expert's position on what is happening with gun crimes.
What does the government do in response to listening to the experts? It is going to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for weapons trafficking. Yes, that is going to solve the problem of illegal guns coming into the country from the United States. We are going to eliminate a mandatory minimum sentence for gun trafficking. That will solve it.
When we eliminate a mandatory minimum sentence, the judge now has the discretion to give a lower sentence. We can bet dollars to doughnuts that is exactly what is going to happen. The government wraps itself in the shroud of experts and says that it listens to the experts, but where is it listening to the experts here?
If anything, we should be increasing penalties for weapons trafficking. The weapons traffickers are the ones who are directly responsible for the carnage that goes on in our streets, in cities like Toronto. It is getting worse. It is not just the fact of an increased number of guns. The chief also testified it is the increased number of rounds being discharged. Police recovered 2,405 shell casings in 2021. It is up 50% from 2020. Again, what is the response? Let us lower sentences for that.
It is for weapons trafficking and eliminating the mandatory minimum penalty. It is for importing and exporting knowing it is unauthorized. On both sides of the weapons trafficking, people are now getting a reduced sentence. How is that for an incentive to stop doing what someone is doing? I do not think that is going to work.
Where is the conversation about victims? When we stand here and talk about gun crimes, there is always a victim. Victims want to see justice done. There has to be an appearance of justice. When a weapons trafficker is going to get a lower sentence, the victims of crimes from these weapons certainly are not going to think that justice has been done.
We can talk about all kinds of ways to deal with sentencing for indigenous people and for people from racialized communities. Those can be actual factors that judges consider for reduced sentences when sentencing. We can put those in the sentencing guidelines. However, what we do not do is make broad changes to the sentencing for serious offences. Not everyone is going to be from an indigenous community or from a racialized community. This change will apply to everyone. Everyone will then get that reduced sentence.
I sat on the justice committee from 2011 to 2015, when we brought in increased sentences for trafficking in persons. This is a very serious crime, and the damage done to victims is extensive. They came to committee to tell horrifying stories that stick with people for the rest of their lives. This is an extraordinarily serious crime that has long-lasting impacts on victims, so why would the expansion of conditional sentencing be allowed for trafficking in persons?
I just heard the member opposite say that they would have to get a sentence of less than two years. Yes, that is true, but why let the option be there? Why let someone convicted of trafficking in persons have the possibility of getting a conditional sentence? If it has happened once, it has happened too much.
That is why this bill makes no sense. There might be some good aspects to the bill, but I am not here to talk about those. What I am going to talk about is the dangerous precedent being set here.
It is the same thing with sex assault. This is an incredibly serious crime, but there is a conditional sentence including house arrest for sex assault. Yes, someone would have to get sentenced to less than two years, but if they commit a sex assault and get house arrest, what is the victim going to think of the justice system? When we talk about the justice system, we have to think about the integrity of the system within the view of the public. If the public loses faith in the justice system because they see that it does not deliver justice, then we have a very serious problem.
The bill would allow conditional sentences to be brought in for crimes such as sexual assault, trafficking in persons and kidnapping, and that is just three. Imagine the victims of any of those crimes. They have to show up at court to testify. It is not an easy process for victims to testify in court. They often describe it as retraumatizing.
Then they have to do a victim impact statement. I have been in court to listen to victim impact statements. They can be absolutely devastating, because we know that the effect of crime on a victim's life is long term, long lasting and devastating. Then imagine they hear a verdict of house arrest for any of the things I just listed. That is the sentence. A person who committed a sex assault gets a conditional sentence with house arrest.
I think the government may have good intentions with this bill, but it is missing the mark in so many ways. This is going to have serious consequences. In its gun buyback program, it is making certain guns illegal, but that does not work. The Toronto deputy police chief just said at committee that 86% of guns used in the city of Toronto are illegal guns coming from the United States.
I can tell members that gun traffickers can see that the mandatory minimum penalty for trafficking in weapons is gone. Do members not think that will have an effect? Do members not think that is going to say to them that this is now even more advantageous for them? It is financially advantageous, of course, but now they do not have to worry about a mandatory minimum penalty.
These are the kinds of things the government thinks are going to make a difference. Maybe they sound good, but the practical reality of the bill is this. It is not going to reduce crime. It is not going to protect victims. It is going to have victims once again feel like the justice system has done them wrong.
I hope the government will study this bill in great detail and will bring in victims to talk about it. This bill should not proceed.
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