Bill C-47 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act and the Criminal Code (amendments permitting the accession to the Arms Trade Treaty and other amendments)

This enactment amends the Export and Import Permits Act to
(a) define the term “broker” and to establish a framework to control brokering that takes place in Canada and that is undertaken by Canadians outside Canada;
(b) require that the Minister take into account certain considerations
before issuing an export permit or a brokering permit;
(c) authorize the making of regulations that set out additional mandatory considerations that the Minister is required to take into account before issuing an export permit or a brokering permit;
(d) set May 31 as the date by which the Minister must table in both Houses of Parliament a report of the operations under the Act in the preceding year and a report on military exports in the preceding year;
(e) increase the maximum fine for a summary conviction offence to $250,000;
(f) replace the requirement that only countries with which Canada has an intergovernmental arrangement may be added to the Automatic Firearms Country Control List by a requirement that a country may be added to the list only on the recommendation of the Minister made after consultation with the Minister of National Defence; and
(g) add a new purpose for which an article may be added to an Export Control List.
The enactment amends the Criminal Code to include, for interception of private communications purposes, the offence of brokering in the definition of “offence” in section 183.

Export and Import Permits Act

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the presentation made by my hon. colleague, a former colleague on the indigenous affairs committee.

She quoted article 19 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in our debate on Bill C-262 when talking about the situation in Akwesasne.

It was quite interesting in this context, because article 19 talks about consultation and co-operation “in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions”.

First of all, whom does the member consider the representative institution in Akwesasne? Second, I find it curious that members cite indigenous issues and indigenous people in situations that serve their arguments but not in the situation where the House was debating a vote to support indigenous peoples and their fundamental human rights in this place.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what I was pointing out was not in terms of supporting my argument; it was in terms of supporting the discussion that the Liberals say one thing and do another, which I have been pointing out.

The Liberals are the ones who went to the UN and committed to implementing the declaration. It was not the Conservatives; it was the Liberals. They are the ones who did not actually have an engagement process, and they have not created the engagement process they committed to. It was not the Conservatives who committed to it; it was the Liberals. They have failed.

Today at committee, on Bill C-71, we had some representatives from indigenous communities saying there was nothing. The member does address a good issue, in terms of the representative bodies across the country, whether it is Inuit, Métis, or first nations. That is important work that has to be determined, but in the meantime I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the Liberals on this issue.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I value about my colleague is that she has a great memory for history.

I was not in politics at the time, but my recollection is that the long-gun registry was a losing issue for the Liberal Party. When I look at this legislation, Bill C-71, it looks like a sneaky way of bringing that back, which would be a really bad idea for the Liberals to do.

Am I missing anything? Could the member elaborate?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, again, if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, it is a duck. In my opinion, Bill C-71 is a backdoor registry, and Bill C-47 is increasing the complications for our law-abiding hunters and fishers.

I think this answers the member's questions. It is a long-gun registry, just not in name.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, once again, it is a pleasure to rise in this place to give my comments in tonight's debate on Bill C-47, but before I do so, perhaps I can expand upon a couple of the comments made by my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, who talked a little about the procedural aspects of what is happening tonight.

If anyone is actually watching these proceedings tonight, they would notice that there is no debate happening. We are scheduled for debate, we are supposed to be having debate, but “debate” means that there are two sides debating, and the Liberals have chosen not to participate in this debate. That is their prerogative, and they can certainly do as they wish, but from a procedural standpoint, I would like to point out a couple of items.

Number one, if the discussion on Bill C-47 collapses, and by that I mean if no further speaker stands to offer comments, it means that the bill would get passed. Why is that important? It is because, as the government knows, there was an offer made earlier tonight to members on the government side that if Bill C-47 collapsed—in other words, if no one got up to speak—and if the government would not introduce another bill, we would all go home. Not to make it appear that we do not want to do our jobs, the reality is that every extended hour we spend in this place is costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. The lights have to remain on, staff have to be here, security has to be here, the cafeterias have to remain open, and, ultimately, Bill C-47 will be passed. The government knows that. It has a majority, yet we sit here wasting taxpayers' dollars and not even participating in the debate.

I find it shameful that members on the government side who say they want to actively debate will not even comment on their own legislation. I will put on the record that the government is playing games here. We could all be cutting back on the expenses that taxpayers are being forced to pay, but Liberals do not see it that way, and I find that almost unconscionable. That is on the procedural side of things.

I will turn my remarks now to Bill C-47. I will make a couple of brief comments on the bill itself, which of course is about the Arms Trade Treaty. The reason I am bringing it up is the fact that any arms treaty should recognize the legitimacy of responsible gun owners who wish to own guns for their personal use, for their recreational and sporting activities, but the treaty does not recognize the legitimacy of that. For that reason, and that reason alone, I cannot support Bill C-47.

However, we should not be surprised, because this is just the latest in a long litany of Liberal attempts at gun control that have ended badly. The member for Sarnia—Lambton referenced it just a few moments ago when she talked about the failed Liberal long-gun registry back in the 1990s and early 2000s. For those who have perhaps forgotten the history, let me remind them that in 1995, then justice minister Allan Rock introduced the long-gun registry as a piece of legislation in this place, ostensibly and purportedly, according to him, that it would save lives.

History has taught us many things, and one of the things it has taught us about this failed attempt at a good piece of legislation was that the long-gun registry did nothing to save lives. What it did do, as was found out in later years, was cost Canadian taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars. In fact, in 1995, the then justice minister, the hon. Allan Rock, stated in this place that, by his estimations, the long-gun registry, once fully implemented, would only cost $2 million a year. At that point in time, many people took him at his word, because there were no real records or precedents for what a registry of that sort would cost taxpayers, but, luckily, for the taxpayers of Canada, a former colleague of mine, Mr. Garry Breitkreuz, from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, knew that this figure of $2 million was obscenely low, that it certainly could not be anywhere close to that and that it would cost much more. Hence, for years thereafter, Garry Breitkreuz filed ATIPs, access to information requests, time after time, month after month, year after year, getting limited, if any, response from the government.

Finally, after years of diligent and persistent requesting of the government for pertinent information on the cost of the gun registry, it was revealed that the gun registry did not cost $2 million, but $2 billion.

What did it accomplish? Did it accomplish anything? Did it save lives? Well, I am here to argue that it most certainly did not. Why not? It is because the one fundamental flaw in the rationale and reasoning of Allan Rock, back in those days, supported by every Liberal in Canada is seemed, was that criminals do not register guns.

We have seen over the years an influx of illegal handguns and other guns coming across the border from the United States to Canada, but the people who brought these illegal guns across the border had no plans to register their weapons. Therefore, the gun registry legislation was absolutely worthless. To say it cost $2 billion for a worthless piece of legislation and call it obscene is being kind to the word obscene. It absolutely was one of the largest fiscal mistakes the former Liberal government has made in that party's long history.

I do not think the current government has learned anything from these past mistakes, because we see them time and time again trying to introduce legislation that would in fact be a back door gun registry. Whether it be Bill C-47, Bill C-71, or Bill C-75, we know that what the Liberals would love to see is another gun registry being enacted here in Canada. However, I can assure members that if they try to do that, if they try to force their position on Canadians, on rural Canadians in particular, legitimate gun owners would again be absolutely beside themselves. The first time the Liberals tried to force the gun registry on legitimate gun owners and on rural Canada, the reaction was visceral, and it will be again.

I will conclude with a true story that happened when I was on the campaign trail in 2004. During the campaign, when I was door-knocking, I did not know the gentleman living at the residence I visited, but I saw in my identification that he was a former RCMP officer. I naturally thought that he was probably going to be in favour of this. Well, how wrong I was. When I got to the door, I was met with hostility on every issue I brought forward to the point where I actually started losing my temper, which I normally do not do, particularly when I am door-knocking. It finally got to a point, after many arguments on different issues, that the gentleman asked me “What do you think you're going to do about the gun registry?” I said, “We're going to scrap it.” He said “I worked for the gun registry.” I said “Well, in that case, don't vote for me.” He said, “I won't, and get off my doorstep. ”

I was laughing by the time I got to the sidewalk because it was so bizarre, but it just illustrates the visceral reaction that so many people have about this very contentious issue.

The gun registry that the Liberal government of the day tried to force down the throats of rural Canadians was something that should never have happened in the first place, but it did, unfortunately. However, for $2 billion in taxpayers' dollars, it is something that Canadians, particularly rural Canadians, will never forget, and because of that, when they see the current government introducing legislation like Bill C-47, Bill C-71, or Bill C-75, they harken back to the dark days of the 1990s when the Liberal government tried to force this obscene long-gun registry down their throats.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on the Liberal government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I want to address one particular point.

We have had a couple of opposition members raise the issue of participation. The only thing I want to emphasize is that in the past, even with Stephen Harper, and often towards the end of a parliamentary session, we had time allocation, extended hours, and so forth.

Tonight we are in extended hours. The intention is to allow members who want to address the proposed legislation to do so. If it collapses, then we will continue to move on with other proposed legislation. That is something Stephen Harper and other governments have done. We should not be shy of working extra hours, as many Canadians have that expectation, to get legislation moving.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my friend's comments to try to spin this, but the reality is that he knows as well as I do, although he probably will never admit it, that there was an agreement that was proposed to the members opposite that if Bill C-47 were left to collapse, there would be no new legislation introduced tonight. Members would simply go home and save the taxpayers, I would say, probably at least $30,000 or $40,000 from our not staying here until midnight.

That is the right of the members opposite to say no. We will gladly stay here until midnight and debate the merits of Bill C-47, but what I find absolutely unconscionable is that there is no participation by the Liberals. They were the ones who introduced this bill. They were the ones who put it on the schedule for debate tonight. It was them not us, yet they are not putting up even one speaker to support or defend this legislation. That is the worst of all scenarios, game playing and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I was talking to one of my colleague's former colleagues, the hon. John Williams of Edmonton—St. Albert, a few months ago and he relayed a story to me about a conversation he had with a deputy minister at Public Safety. The deputy minister said, “You could give us a billion dollars every year and we could never stop the flow of illegal guns coming in from the United States of America.” This is a problem that Canada has had for a very long time. Could the member comment on how he thinks taxpayer resources could be better spent to tackle gun crime and gun violence in this country?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is right about one thing: there are many other things that could be done to benefit Canadians than throwing $2 billion of taxpayer money down the drain, as happened in the 1990s with the failed Liberal gun registry. Let us think for a moment about where some of that money could be spent: health care, and certainly on infrastructure needs. However, to literally flush $2 billion of taxpayer money down the drain on a piece of legislation that had no hope in hades of saving lives, as was its purported purpose, is something that I find almost incomprehensible. It was an absolutely dark chapter in the life of Parliament when that legislation passed, and ultimately Canadians understood that this was something that would hopefully never happen again.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the hon. member mentioned Bill C-71, and like everything else we see from the current Liberal government, a lot of it is all optics. In Bill C-71 in particular, it speaks about guns and gangs zero times, but the words “register” and “registrar” are used there well over 30 times. What is the member's his opinion of that?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will be brief because I know that our time is tight. Quite frankly, resources could be best spent in perhaps increasing the police forces across Canada and perhaps in educating well-meaning and recreational hunters and shooters about the proper use of guns. However, to suggest that this piece of legislation or Bill C-71 would do anything to combat crime is a farce, because the legislation does not say anything about that. We do have a problem with crime, particularly rural crime, in this country, but Bill C-71 does not address that and Bill C-47 certainly does not. If the Liberals are serious about trying to prevent and eliminate crime across rural Canada, there are better ways to do it than this.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to talk about the arms control treaty. I would like to say that I am delighted to be here, but I find that when the government decides to force us into these midnight sittings and then chooses not to participate in the debate, it is a bit of a one-sided conversation. Normally, when I show up to bring my viewpoints on why I am going to oppose a piece of legislation, I am looking to hear from the government about why it thinks this legislation is such a good idea, but I guess I am not going to hear that tonight.

First, I will talk about arms internationally, and then I will talk a bit about arms at home and some of the concerns I have with the bill.

First, there is this arms treaty that the UN is trying to get people to sign on to. My first concern is that there are a lot of countries that have not signed on to it. One of them, of course, is the U.S. This is concerning to me. If this was such a great treaty, a lot of countries ought to be signing on.

Here in Canada, we have the Trade Controls Bureau, which supposedly keeps us from shipping weapons to places where they would be used in internal and external conflicts, and used by people who commit human rights violations. I had the opportunity to sit at committee this afternoon, and the member for Edmonton Strathcona has already testified that she asked a question about arms that are being shipped through the U.S. into South Sudan.

This is not an isolated incident. There are parts of guns that are being assembled in other countries and sent to places where there are conflicts and human rights violations. She gave a statistic showing that the applications for these permits are pretty much all approved. Only 10 out of 7,000 in 2014 were turned down. Therefore, it appears that there is not enough traceability from where parts begin or arms are created to where they ultimately end up. That is something that ought to be fixed if we are really trying to meet the intent of the bill, which I think is to try to make sure we control where arms are going.

I was fortunate enough to go to Geneva, Switzerland with the World Health Organization as part of the Canadian delegation with the health minister. I was astounded when I was there to hear some of the members from countries across the world talk about how 684 hospitals were bombed last year. This is unbelievable and totally against the Geneva convention. In many cases, the weapons that are being used are weapons originating in countries that did not intend for them to be used in such a way. Therefore, we definitely need to tighten this up.

The Congo, for example, is at the point where its minister of health is talking about rebuilding its structure and having only 44% of the country with any kind of medical service access. It is definitely a serious issue.

If we focus on arms internationally, I talked about having better traceability. Definitely for those places that we know are committing human rights violations, we should have some eyes on the ground there to detect and eliminate those passages.

In terms of arms at home, it is important to state that we currently do not have a problem with law-abiding gun owners in Canada. We have to state this again and again. We are not having difficulty with law-abiding gun owners in Canada. We will kill more people with drug-impaired driving than we will with lawful guns in Canada. The Liberal government is rushing to legalize marijuana, which will double the number of people killed in that way. The Liberals are pretending there is a problem where there really is not.

The problem in Canada is guns and gangs in big cities, which is a problem with people who do not obey the law. If they do not obey the current gun laws, they are not going to obey future gun laws. It would be naive to think otherwise. That point cannot be made often enough. There is no problem with lawful gun ownership in Canada.

I have heard the testimony of some witnesses who talked about rural ridings. I happened to have a contingent of rural ridings in Sarnia—Lambton, perhaps not as rural as some of the people who have spoken, but there are a large number of folks there who are gun owners, many of whom are farmers. When there are no police close by or the police response time is measured in hours, not minutes, people need protection. Not only that, there are many times when one may have to take action. In the place where I live, we have cougars. It has not just happened in one year, but in multiple years, that when the weather is mild the cougars come down and attack the pigs and horses on the various farms around and the farmers have to shoot them. That is protection. I have friends who have a lot of horses. If a horse has to be put down, they do it humanely and they use a gun. In the rural environment, guns are a tool that is used wisely.

I have said before and I will say again that we do not have a problem with law-abiding gun owners. The other thing I would say is there are a lot of people who hunt for enjoyment or who have guns to practise shooting at a shooting gallery. I do not personally own a gun. However, I do not begrudge those who want the right to do so. I know that a lot of the people in the rural environment where I live have multiple guns. They have a different one for pheasant, for turkey, for moose, and for the deer. Apparently, there is quite a skill to this whole thing. What all Canadians want is to make sure that we take more control of things that could kill multiple people. We have all seen the news when people take a weapon that can shoot 50 rounds and really do huge damage. Therefore, I think there is a way of balancing that and making sure that the people who are getting guns are of sound mind. Everyone would agree that is also important.

This legislation does nothing to address any of that. This legislation, along with Bill C-71, is really a backdoor gun registry. It is bringing that back. I appreciate the history that the member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan gave me, because I do recall that the long-gun registry did not turn out well for the Liberals. Bill C-47 and Bill C-71 will bring them to the same fate.

The other thing is that the bill is introducing a lot of red tape, bureaucracy, record keeping, and costs to businesses. I am not a fan of that.

If we talk about Bill C-71, the sort of partner legislation to this bill, there are a lot of unanswered questions about who does the background checks, who assesses that they are okay, and how people access the records. There is language that suggests it is a judicial process. What does that mean? Does it mean one needs to get a warrant to get that information? Is that information generally available to security organizations? Who can really access that information? Those questions need to be answered.

Also, in Bill C-71, I do not know why the government would take out the authorization to transport guns to and from gunsmiths, gun stores, border points, and gun shows. If people who own guns have to get their gun fixed, they have to take it to a gunsmith. Eliminating people's ability to transport guns to a gunsmith seems ridiculous. Similarly, if people are a fan of guns, they would go to gun shows. How would they get the guns there if they are not allowed to transport them? It just seems like a lot of roadblocks are being put up for people who are law-abiding citizens with whom we do not have an issue.

Overall, when I look at this legislation, it appears to me that it does not address the goal, which is to make sure that arms do not fall into the hands of people who would use them for human rights violations, in conflicts, or against Canada. It also does not do anything to address the issues with crime in Canada due to guns and gangs. For that reason, I will strongly oppose this legislation.

I would repeat that it is really too bad that the government has chosen not to put up any speakers in this debate tonight.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There does not appear to be a quorum in the House.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I will ask the Clerk to count the members present.

And the count having been taken:

We do have quorum.

Was the hon. member only rising with respect to a quorum count or did he actually want to ask a question?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a question as well.