Bill C-42 (Historical)

Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act

An Act to amend the Firearms Act and the Criminal Code and to make a related amendment and a consequential amendment to other Acts

This enactment amends the Firearms Act to simplify and clarify the firearms licensing regime for individuals, to limit the discretionary authority of chief firearms officers and to provide for the sharing of information on commercial importations of firearms.
It also amends the Criminal Code to strengthen the provisions relating to orders prohibiting the possession of weapons, including firearms, when a person is sentenced for an offence involving domestic violence. Lastly, it defines “non-restricted firearm” and gives the Governor in Council authority to prescribe a firearm to be non-restricted and expanded authority to prescribe a firearm to be restricted.

Second reading

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is so vague and general that he probably did not listen very closely to my speech. One of the problems I see with the bill is the proposed regulation or the process for deciding what kind of weapons will be deregulated.

I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, but if I were, that would be one part of the bill that I would definitely take a very close look at.

My general objection is to the way the government operates when it comes to firearms. It seems to want to divide us—us versus them—as though it were impossible for us to agree on certain aspects.

There are a few Conservative MPs in the Toronto area, but I doubt there will be many left come October 2015. People there have the same concerns about what is going on with firearms as my Toronto colleagues.

We have rural ridings in Quebec too, believe it or not. I do not even need to go to rural ridings, because there is a big hunting community in Gatineau. Those people bring me moose steak. Thank goodness they do not bring me too much because I would have to report that to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. That being said, it is extraordinary, and this affects all communities, so they really should stop trying to divide us.

If these kinds of remarks mean nothing to the member, it is no wonder that Parliament has run amok. The Conservatives are not listening to the message that Canadians are sending. For them, it is better to divide people in order to reign more effectively. However, that does not create a strong democracy, and we have no right to go around the world giving lessons on democracy.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member.

The party opposite wanted a conversation about a regulation that raises concerns. The regulation concerned is about police officers and chief firearms officers as the experts who will decide which guns are safe and which guns are not safe, and about displacing them and putting a political person in charge.

This is the same party that said that your party, the official opposition, denigrated police forces when it said their expertise could not be trusted. This is the same party that has said that, when it comes to police officers, they are the highest authority when it comes to public safety.

What are your concerns about giving a political minister the right to legalize a weapon, instead of giving the police departments and the firearms officers in the provinces the right to make that determination?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The hon. member for Gatineau.

I would remind all members that they are to address their questions and comments to the chair, not to individual members of Parliament.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent question. When I was talking about different trends that are worrying me, and using my expertise as justice critic for the official opposition, that is the benefit in which I would have hoped the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness would have been interested. It is one thing to know that people will vote for or against; it is another thing to know why. There are multiple reasons. We have the reasons of our public security critic, and there are other considerations and different aspects of other members. I have colleagues who are really involved with first nations. I am not saying that I am not involved with first nations, but they are more predominant in their ridings. They are acutely aware of their needs, and so on. Mine is justice and looking at different bills and seeing the similarities in this bill with some of the bills that I have to analyze and discuss at the justice committee, such as the fact that we are giving more and more powers to politicians that we used to give to the experts such as the police.

Even if I were the minister, I would not want that power. We should leave it in the hands of the specialists. We see that in Bill C-53 with the “life means life” thing, we would give the same Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness the possibility to decide if somebody would get out or not. Thank God it will not happen under him. There is a danger there. He wanted something precise with Bill S-2. I hope he reads it, because it is a sleeper bill that would have an impact on all of these bills.

The Conservatives know what they are doing. They are undermining democracy, and that is a danger. If we do not stand up in our place to go against that, one day we will have nothing to do, and we will all stay home because we do not need to vote or do anything. Who cares?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the member's remarks are completely inconsistent, since the NRA, which according to her will raise money with this bill, opposes the bill.

This bill aims to simplify the registration scheme and introduces measures to enhance public safety.

How can the member oppose mandatory training, removing licences from people who have been convicted of domestic violence, and tightening restrictions on importing firearms? Is she prepared to enhance public safety, have an effective system and, as she put it so well, correct the mistakes made with the hunters who were victims of the events of the 1990s?

She has a chance to take action and support the bill. I would like to hear what she has to say about that.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was taken aback when the minister mentioned the NRA in his question.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

That is what you said in your speech.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

The minister mentioned the NRA in his question, but I will ignore that.

There is no doubt that a bill like this does not make the Conservatives totally happy because what they want is for everyone to be able to walk around with a gun. As long as the Conservative government is unable to achieve that goal, they will have to live with their disappointment.

The article that Evan Dyer published in November, which my colleague from Winnipeg North referred to, said that a number of Conservative supporters were disappointed to see that the firearms issue was not moving forward fast enough or far enough. I would be surprised if they showed up in committee and said they were against the bill; I think they would rather say it did not go far enough. We have seen others say that in some committees.

That being said, there are a few words and clauses to consider, such as “reducing domestic violence”. The Conservatives keep saying that if something is good, then the NDP will vote against it. However, they are leaving out other extremely dangerous aspects of the issue, or things that might be good in and of themselves, but would have an impact on small communities that could create certain problems.

The minister does not want to listen to us in this debate. Therefore, if he would assure me that he will listen to what will be said in committee and that we will be able to eliminate the irritants, we might see excellent results after the bill is studied in committee.

In any case, I will wait with a great deal of optimism and little hope, as I already said, for the bill to be studied in committee.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what worries me is that anyone could have access to weapons that were previously classified as restricted weapons—for example, semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons—and which are combat weapons. I own six weapons and they are all registered. Not one of them can shoot more than three bullets. That is all a hunter needs. No one is going to go moose hunting with an AK-47, which would cut a moose in half. That would be pointless and entirely stupid.

Anything can happen with bills that include regulation by reference. It would be hell. I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to give a few examples to please our Conservative friends and follow up on the question posed by my colleague, whom I thank.

Bill C-42 gives cabinet a new power, namely, the power to change the definitions of the classifications of firearms set out in section 84 of the Criminal Code through regulations that make exceptions. Through a regulation, cabinet could classify firearms that would normally be defined as prohibited or restricted as non-restricted firearms. That is what is set out in proposed subsection 117.15(3).

Similarly, cabinet could declare firearms that would normally be prohibited to be restricted. That is what is set out in proposed subsection 117.15(4).

Rather than focusing on public safety, Bill C-42 gives cabinet the power to establish definitions and classifications of firearms. That is what is troubling about this bill.

There is a clause that refers to domestic violence, and the minister knows that we are working really hard to eliminate that scourge. However, that does not mean that just because of that one clause, I am going to ignore all of the clause that we know we will not be able to amend in committee because the Conservatives will not let us. That is unfortunate. We could have done so much better with this bill.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I want to note that I will be sharing my time this evening or as the debate goes to the next stage.

As a member of the Conservative government, I am very proud to rise and speak today in favour of Bill C-42, the common sense firearms licensing act. As I go through my speech, I think people are going to recognize why it is called that, because the name very appropriately reflects all the very important measures within the bill.

It should be no surprise to anyone that our government has chosen to champion this bill. We have always been the only Canadian party to believe in a common sense approach to public safety. Criminals, not law-abiding persons, should face repercussions in the justice system. The bill would make several much-needed amendments to do just that.

The bill has eight components that take a safe and sensible approach to firearms heritage in Canada. It contains elements to target violent criminal behaviour. By cutting red tape, the bill would also reduce the burden on law-abiding Canadians who wish to enjoy full use of their property.

I would like to take this opportunity to outline some of the measures that I think are particularly beneficial to all Canadians in addition to some that will benefit law-abiding hunters, farmers, and sport shooters specifically.

I grew up in an urban setting, and had I never moved to a rural community, I perhaps would not have understood the bill as much as I do, having had the enormous privilege and opportunity to live in a rural area for many years.

Hunting was not part of my life growing up, nor was sport shooting. When we moved to a rural community, one of the things that happened very early on was that I hit a deer with my car in the middle of a very isolated area. The deer was severely injured and was on the side of the road. A person who came by not too long afterward managed to put the deer out of its misery with his rifle.

A few years later, my children were born in a rural community. We lived on some acreage. A cougar had been stalking our children, and our next-door neighbour shot the cougar. Thankfully none of our children was impacted.

As a result, I learned to appreciate that hunters and farmers used firearms as a tool, but it was really, as we so often say, law-abiding hunters and farmers who were getting buried in red tape.

I appreciate how some folks from urban areas might not understand the bill, but we should all agree with the principles of reducing red tape and with some of the protection measures that are going to go into place.

Let us look at the facts. Enjoying a hobby such as sport shooting or utilizing firearms as a part of one's livelihood does not make a criminal, nor does it in any logical way predict the likelihood of committing a crime. I think I gave two very important examples.

That is why the bill would create a six-month grace period for licence renewal at the end of the five-year licence period. People would not be able to use their firearms or purchase ammunition with an expired licence, but they would not be treated like criminals because they made an honest mistake. Who among us has not missed a renewal of car insurance or some other type of important insurance? A little grace period is very appropriate, as any reasonable, sensible person should agree.

Possession-only licences would be eliminated. They would be converted to possession-and-acquisition licences, giving the right to purchase firearms to all who hold a valid POL. When I learned about the system that we had in place, I was quite flabbergasted in terms of the POL, the PAL, and the firearms registry. It really seemed like a system that was buried in red tape, so we are not talking about reducing safety; we are talking about reducing a system that is buried in red tape. That means 600,000 Canadians who have owned and used firearms safely, many for more than 20 years, will now be trusted to purchase new firearms if they wish, as they have safely used firearms for years. Again, I think any reasonable person would agree.

This bill proposes that first-time firearms owners must attend firearms training prior to being issued a licence. That is safe and sensible. The bill proposes to create firearms prohibition orders against those who commit domestic violence, thus punishing those who commit criminal actions as opposed to those who stay within the law.

I find it very difficult to understand why people across the floor could possibly oppose this bill, though I must say again that I am not really all that surprised, because I saw what happened with the long gun registry. Some NDP members represent rural communities. I know that they voted against the wishes of their constituents when they voted to keep the long gun registry, and if they vote against this bill, they will be voting against the wishes of the majority of their constituents again. Those constituents should be very concerned, because they are not being represented by their NDP members, the people they sent here to represent them.

Today if a law-abiding gun owner wants to get a restricted firearm repaired for a day at the range next week, they cannot, and I will say why. It is because they would have to submit a piece of paperwork to the Ontario CFO's office to get a letter authorizing them to transport it to that location, even if they have a piece of signed paperwork saying they can take it to their local range. That is simply nonsense.

If someone has a licence and wants to take guns to a licensed armourer, is it really a risk to public safety if the firearms are transported in a locked case, with a trigger lock on the firearms and with the firearms out of arm's reach, as required by law? If it really is a risk to public safety, then why, after waiting several weeks or more for a piece of paperwork from the CFO, is it now somehow made safe? If the CFO thought someone was unsafe, he should never have approved the licence in the first place. The entire process is nonsense. The government's bill would address this aspect as well.

As firearms owners, people are already subject to continuous eligibility screening. This means their licences are checked against the police information system to see if they have committed a crime. This bill proposes to end needless paperwork around authorization to transport restricted firearms by making them a condition of a restricted licence for routine and lawful activities. CFOs who approve licences for firearms owners would now also be approving the legal use of those firearms at the same time.

This bill would end the arbitrary discretion of the chief firearms officers. Without a legitimate public safety need, they would no longer be able to create regulations that deliberately infringe on the enjoyment of property.

This bill would make two extremely important changes that would benefit many Canadians. One is that the bill proposes to end the loophole that stops information sharing between law enforcement agencies when they are investigating the importation of illegal handguns. The other change proposed in this bill is to put the final say on the classification of a firearm in the hands of the elected government after it receives professional advice on the characteristics of the firearm.

These last two changes would end bureaucratic nonsense. I keep using that word because we can see how bogged down the process is in red tape. Yes, we need to worry about safety, and yes, we need to worry about proper training, but no, we do not need one piece of paperwork after another.

I believe that protecting Canada's heritage is at the core of the bill. Hunters, farmers, and sports shooters are at the very core of Canadian heritage and deserve representation against false perceptions that are being propagated in the House. We have heard many of them already. People are not criminals in this country just because they own firearms, nor should they be made criminals through fearmongering.

On this side of the House, we will always stand up for safe and sensible firearms policy. If we look at the eight points that I brought up, we see that they would reduce red tape and increase safety measures. They are sensible and appropriate, and I suggest that all members on both sides of the House should seriously consider supporting this bill.

They are really reducing red tape and increasing safety measures. They are sensible and appropriate, and I suggest that all members on both sides of the House seriously consider supporting the bill.

The House resumed from April 1 consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Firearms Act and the Criminal Code and to make a related amendment and a consequential amendment to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of the common-sense firearms licensing act, Bill C-42. This important legislation highlights our Conservative government's commitment to firearms policies that are safe and sensible.

This is a theme that is seen throughout the bill, and it is a theme that has been at the heart of how our government deals with issues related to firearms. In other words, we believe that we should punish lawbreakers, but we should reduce red tape for law-abiding Canadians.

I would like to briefly highlight the eight changes contained in this important legislation, but first I would like to give some context as to how we arrived at the situation we are in today.

While a variety of permits and documents to possess firearms have existed in Canada since 1892, licensing in the context that today's Canadians would recognize did not begin until 1979. The firearms acquisition certificate system existed until it was amended by the previous Liberal government in 1995.

Bill C-68 created the Firearms Act, which put new and onerous requirements on the licensing and transportation of firearms. This same Liberal bill also created the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry.

Following our Conservative government's election in 2006, we immediately took action to make sure that no one could be prosecuted for being in possession of an unregistered long gun. We also took action to end the needless Liberal gun-show regulations. We deferred and are examining the repeal of the UN firearms marking regulations.

After many years of work, we ended the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry once and for all. Following an inappropriate and unacceptable decision made by unelected bureaucrats, our government took action to restore the property rights of law-abiding owners of Swiss Arms and CZ858 rifles.

It is clear that we are taking safe and sensible firearms licensing seriously, and that brings us to the important common-sense legislation before us today.

As I stated earlier, there are eight key measures in this legislation. As I have said, these measures are safe and sensible, and the bill could be broken down along those lines.

We are bringing forward measures that will keep Canada safe.

We will require all first-time gun owners to receive basic firearms safety training.

We will create a system for the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, to share information on firearms smuggling investigations. Shockingly, thanks to loopholes in the Liberals' Firearms Act, these law enforcement agencies are barred from working together. This has led to literally thousands of firearms making their way into the black market and into the hands of thugs and criminals. Sharing would occur under Bill C-42.

We will make firearms prohibitions mandatory for serious crimes of domestic violence. We believe that the best indicator of future criminal behaviour is past criminal behaviour. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all those convicted of spousal homicide have a previous history of domestic violence. Taking firearms out of these volatile situations just makes good common sense.

To that end, we are also making firearms laws more sensible for law-abiding Canadians who work hard and play by the rules. We will streamline licensing by merging the possession-only licence and the possession-and-acquisition licence. This would give new purchasing rights to 600,000 experienced firearms owners.

We will end the needless paperwork around the authorization to transport a restricted firearm. No longer will law-abiding sports shooters need to fill out endless reams of paperwork to do something their licences ought to have authorized them to do.

We will put a six-month grace period at the end of the five-year firearms licence. One will not be allowed to purchase new firearms or ammunition, or even use one's firearms during that time, but a person will not become an overnight paper criminal as a result of a simple, honest mistake.

We would end the broad and often arbitrary discretionary authority given to chief firearms officers. The Firearms Act is a Canadian law, and we believe that there ought to be similar standards from coast to coast to coast. Rules and procedures differing vastly between Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario is completely unacceptable, as is the troubling trend of unelected officials trying to make policy on the fly without consulting Parliament, and from time to time, by directly confronting Parliament.

Last, but certainly not least, we would create powers for the elected government to overturn incorrect classification decisions made by the Canadian firearms program. On the advice of independent experts, we will take steps to make sure that all decisions made regarding issues that impact the property rights of Canadians make good common sense. I can assure the House and all Canadians that the first of such measures would be to return the Swiss Arms family of rifles and the CZ858 to the classifications they had prior to February 25, 2014.

These measures are safe and sensible. We can see that from the broad support they have received. Front-line police officers are supportive. Police chiefs are supportive. Hunting groups are supportive. Sport shooting groups are supportive. I would like to quote the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, which said:

We support smart, cost effective firearms policy that keeps Canadians safe, but treats gun owners fairly. We applaud the [Conservative] Government’s ongoing efforts to streamline firearms licensing in Canada to make it more effective and efficient.

Unfortunately, the other parties disagree. The NDP leader takes a different position on this issue, depending on whether he is in rural or urban Canada. Most recently, he said that he believed that the long-gun registry was useful. However, the Liberals take the cake when the member for Malpeque makes process arguments about who ought to be making decisions, which is simply a ruse to cover the real views of his party. Consider the quote from the member for Trinity—Spadina, who said that “emotional arguments” from firearms enthusiasts are not enough of a reason to justify the sale of ammunition. Can members believe that? The member would do away with the entire hunting and sport shooting industry in Canada in one fell swoop. We cannot allow that sort of reckless move to happen in Canada.

I can assure the House that our Conservative government will always stand up for the rights of law-abiding hunters, farmers, and sport shooters. I hope that all parties will support this legislation.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, during his speech, the member basically said that the law should be simplified and that certain unelected individuals, such as firearms control individuals and the police, should not have the right to control gun ownership laws.

This is a vast country, with different needs and very different attitudes about everything across it. I wonder if my colleague discounts the fact that the people on the ground have a better idea of how certain things affect their community. Should they not be in a position to say, “This is a problem in this community. It may not be in another community, but it is a problem in this community”? I wonder if he would like to answer that question.