Bill C-71 (Historical)

An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms

Part 1 of this Act amends the Firearms Act to, among other things,
(a) remove the reference to the five-year period, set out in subsection 5(2) of that Act, that applies to the mandatory consideration of certain eligibility criteria for holding a licence;
(b) require, when a non-restricted firearm is transferred, that the transferee’s firearms licence be verified by the Registrar of Firearms and that businesses keep certain information related to the transfer; and
(c) remove certain automatic authorizations to transport prohibited and restricted firearms.
Part 1 also amends the Criminal Code to repeal the authority of the Governor in Council to prescribe by regulation that a prohibited or restricted firearm be a non-restricted firearm or that a prohibited firearm be a restricted firearm and, in consequence, the Part
(a) repeals certain provisions of regulations made under the Criminal Code; and
(b) amends the Firearms Act to grandfather certain individuals and firearms, including firearms previously prescribed as restricted or non-restricted firearms in those provisions.
Furthermore, Part 1 amends section 115 of the Criminal Code to clarify that firearms and other things seized and detained by, or surrendered to, a peace officer at the time a prohibition order referred to in that section is made are forfeited to the Crown.
Part 2, among other things,
(a) amends the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, by repealing the amendments made by the Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1, to retroactively restore the application of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act to the records related to the registration of non-restricted firearms until the day on which this enactment receives royal assent;
(b) provides that the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act continue to apply to proceedings that were initiated under those Acts before that day until the proceedings are finally disposed of, settled or abandoned; and
(c) directs the Commissioner of Firearms to provide the minister of the Government of Quebec responsible for public security with a copy of such records, at that minister’s request.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Let me call the meeting to order before you have your point of order. We'll start off.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, March 28, 2018, we are now moving to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-71, an act to amend certain acts and regulations in relation to firearms.

We have with us three witnesses. From the Department of Public Safety we have Randall Koops; from the RCMP we have Rob O'Reilly; and from the Department of Justice we have Paula Clarke.

Before we move to the formal consideration of clause-by-clause, I understand Mr. Paul-Hus has an intervention.

Instruction to Committee on Bill C-71

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is never too late to do the right thing, but this evening we have certainly heard both positive and negative perspectives. On the one side are those who absolutely want to protect the rights of gun owners, and on the other side are those who think, rightly or wrongly, that gun owners often have criminal impulses. This is completely untrue, but it is what people sometimes think.

What is true is that Bill C-71 does nothing to address the threats to public safety, such as street gangs, crime, criminal gangs, and the fact that customs officers are not able to quickly detect weapons as they cross the border. This bill ignores these realities, which we must absolutely address if we truly want to prevent tragedies caused by criminals with guns.

Does my colleague think that Bill C-71 ignores the issues that must be addressed if we want to keep all Canadians safe? Does it ignore the issues at the heart of the purported problem with guns and the criminals who use them for nefarious and completely unacceptable purposes?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as I was reflecting on this legislation and listening to the debate tonight, some of which I enjoyed and some of which I think the House could do without, the one thing that came to my mind was, “Where are the government's priorities? Where are the government's priorities when it comes to legislation, when it comes to protecting the lives of Canadian citizens?”

This is one of the criticisms that was directed earlier tonight at one of the Conservative members: that our arguments were about the waste and the misappropriation of money, and the fact that this will add expense to firearms owners.

I was thinking about that today when I was reading about the opioid crisis that we have here in Canada. Let us compare what this legislation, Bill C-71, is attempting to deal with. In the year 2016, there were approximately 50 homicides with rifles and shotguns. That is what this legislation is really about, dealing with rifles and shotguns and homicides. There were 50. That same year, just under 3,000 Canadians died of opioid drug overdoses. For the year following, the numbers we have, which have not been fully compiled yet, rose to around 4,000.

Let us just think about that. We have legislation. We have a major government priority here to effectively try to deal with 50 homicides. I do not want to, in any way, diminish the value of those human lives. Every human life is precious. However, we need to think about what our public policy priorities are, where we are putting our energy, and we are putting our legislative efforts.

Is it 4,000 people or 50 people? We can and we should try to help people in both categories, but this is something I think the government members should perhaps think about. While they are looking to deal with this smaller issue, perhaps they need to put a more proportionate effort into dealing with the larger issue.

That brought me to ask, “Why is the government actually trying to deal with an issue of approximately 50 homicides per year?” I struggled to come up with an answer. Again, one is too many, so perhaps that is an argument, but the only real answer I could come up with as to why the Liberal government was doing this is the real understanding that the United States has been having its own gun control and firearms issues and the real understanding that when we go door-knocking to constituents and when we talk to them, many Canadians do not understand the differences between firearms legislation and debate in the United States and firearms legislation and debate in Canada.

To me, that is really the only reason that I could come up for why the Liberals are dealing with a comparatively minor problem while at the same time ignoring a much more major problem. I understand that. A lot of Canadians get their news and confuse American with Canadian policy and politics, and that becomes a problem. I would urge government members not to fall into that temptation of just trying to do something to window-dress for a problem that actually does not exist in Canada.

Specifically, today we are dealing with a motion to try to encourage the committee that is dealing with this legislation to get out there, to travel, and to listen to the views of Canadians across the country on this legislation. If we listen to committee members, we hear that they have had a a very abridged debate in dealing with this issue. I think it is important on this legislation.

However, the point has been well made by members of my caucus from urban areas that there are a large number of Canadians, myself included, who live in urban areas and possess firearms and hunt, and lawfully and quite proudly use their firearms. There are very large cultural differences in how firearms are used.

I come from a farm background, so I am comfortable with this. I remember specifically when I worked in Nunavut in the far north. As I have told the House before, I used to be an exploration mining geophysicist. For us, firearms were not just a toy or something to be played with on the weekends. We had to deal with a grizzly bear in one situation, in one area where I was working. In some situations we would have one gun on the block, and, if necessary, a variety of people had to learn how to use it.

I remember one member of my crew, when I was doing an induced polarization survey, telling me how his aunt had actually been mauled to death by a polar bear.

Anything the government or this legislature does to inhibit or discourage the use, sale, and ownership of firearms in the north and in rural areas of Canada can have safety consequences. Widespread ownership of firearms is actually something that makes people safer. While people who live in downtown Toronto or Saskatoon do not often see wildlife that is dangerous, where I worked in the northern territories, this was very much a real and serious issue.

The Liberals are very proud of the Charter of Rights. If a judge invokes the Charter of Rights, the Liberals absolutely follow that path and do not consider using the notwithstanding clause or looking at different interpretations. Looking through my briefing notes, one of the things that came up was the concern that this legislation may have charter issues. For the Liberal Party, which is always concerned about the Charter of Rights, which they view as one of their great contributions to Canadian debate, I have to wonder why they are not more open to discussing, looking at, and possibly amending this and going on the road, listening to witnesses, and listening to testimony to deal with it.

The political part of me is somewhat glad the Liberals have introduced this legislation, because it reminds Canadians what they did the last time they tried to introduce comprehensive firearms legislation. They ended up wasting millions of dollars and irritating law-abiding firearms owners across the country, something that eventually, as my colleague, the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, pointed out earlier, cost them many seats. On the political side of my mind, I think this is a good thing. The brain trust of the Liberal Party's PMO will end up costing them seats. It is the same group of people who brought them things such as changes to small business taxes, the Prime Minister's trip to India, and the summer job attestation.

Having said that, this is bad legislation. This is legislation that will continue to harass and cause hindrances for people who want to use firearms for sport, hunting, and their livelihoods in rural areas. That is why I urge all members of the House to vote for this motion to go out across the country to listen to different people, people from different communities in different parts of this country, from Newfoundland to British Columbia and from Yukon to southern Ontario. This is a motion asking Parliament to listen to something that has an impact on millions of Canadians in their day-to-day lives, something that while it is important, maybe has been given higher priority than it should here in Parliament, compared to things I mentioned earlier in my speech.

We are getting close to midnight, and I have another seven minutes to have some questions and comments, because I am not planning to come back to finish my speech on another day.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of members from the Conservative Party, even though we are debating a motion to instruct a committee on Bill C-71, mentioned Bill C-75 in regards to hybrid-type offences. That proposed legislation provides for a number of offences being turned into hybrid offences, and the Conservatives are saying that the Liberals are soft on crime.

However, I would like to mention a hybrid offence that has existed for quite some time, which is sexual assault. It is one of the worst crimes I can think of, but it was a hybrid offence during 10 years of the Harper government. Is that because the Conservatives were soft of crime or is it because it was good public policy? Which one was it, and can the hon. member have it both ways?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the motion that is on the floor, which is to have the Standing Committee on Public Safety travel as part of its consideration of Bill C-71. This legislation is deeply flawed, and therefore it would serve the committee very well to travel across the country to talk to everyday Canadians. The government claims that this legislation is in the interest of public safety, but the reality is quite different. I would like to outline that for the House.

This legislation would create a bunch of useless red tape that will not make Canadians safer. In fact, this bill shows classic Liberal logic. The current government is saying that it wants to keep Canadians safe and prevent gun violence, but this legislation would do absolutely nothing to accomplish this end. Instead, it would target or go after firearms owners who have already gone through extensive background checks and safety courses in order to possess their guns and use them lawfully.

In addition, it would create the failed long-gun registry that cost Canadians $1 billion, and then was scrapped because it was so wasteful and ineffective. Bill C-71 would force retailers to keep transaction records for 20 years on every single person who buys a gun. This would increase the cost that would then be passed on to the consumer, not to mention that it would also make a great shopping list for criminals, should they get a hold of that list and then acquire those firearms based on where they are.

Furthermore, this legislation would remove the ability of licensed firearms owners to transport their registered firearms between their houses and a gunsmith or a trade show, even though they are allowed to transport their guns between their houses and gun ranges. In addition, the legislation would unfairly turn thousands of Canadians into criminals overnight by reclassifying their non-restricted or restricted firearms as prohibited altogether. I am talking about firearms that have been legally imported and sold in Canada for the last 12 years.

There is not a single one of these measures I have listed that would take guns out of the hands of criminals. At the end of the day, criminals do not purchase their guns by going down to Canadian Tire or Cabela's; instead, they get them off the street through illegal means. Through Bill C-71, the government is simply painting law-abiding gun owners—we are talking about farmers, hunters, and sports shooters—as if they are all evil and deserve punishment.

The Liberals' firearms legislation would do nothing to improve the safety of Canadians. There are no concrete measures to combat gang violence or to address the catastrophic increase in rural crime in Canada. Bill C-71 is a flawed bill that would crack down on law-abiding firearms owners and would do nothing to punish criminals who illegally use firearms to commit crimes. This legislation would create a backdoor long-gun registry, requiring an electronic record of the sale of every firearm in Canada. Furthermore, this legislation would remove the ability of licensed firearms owners from transporting restricted firearms to a gunsmith or trade show.

Instead of treating hunters, farmers, and sports shooters as criminals, the Liberals should be focusing their energy on the real criminals, those who actually commit crimes and use their guns illegally. This would be a common sense approach and the right approach, but the Liberals are not interested in making a positive difference. Instead, they are simply interested in optics. They want to be seen as if they are protecting the Canadian public from gun violence, but in actuality the legislation before the House would do absolutely nothing to this effect.

The Liberals would in fact be making life a whole lot easier for criminals. I will talk about the legislation by which they are doing this. It is Bill C-75. The Liberals are reducing penalties for a massive list of extremely serious crimes, and I will list a few: participating in a terrorist group, trafficking women and children, committing violence against a clergy member, murdering a child within one year of birth, abducting a child, forcing a marriage, advocating for genocide, participating in organized crime. The sentencing for all of these heinous crimes that take place in Canada would be reduced. Those criminals will get off. Meanwhile, the individual who properly owns and registers his or her gun would be punished by Bill C-71, the legislation before the House. That is wrong.

The rights of victims and communities must always come first. A young person in my riding, who has the ability to see the smoke and mirrors in Bill C-71, asked this: Why is the government sending the message that it is okay to punish law-abiding citizens instead of going after those who actually commit crimes?

Canadians are rightly concerned about Bill C-71 criminalizing innocent people.

I have the privilege of sponsoring e-petition 1608, which is currently open for signature by Canadians, and I encourage them to sign it. This petition was started by a gentleman by the name of Ryan Slingerland, who is 16 years old and lives in my riding. He was incredibly upset about the negative impact this legislation would have on his family members who hunt. He was incredibly disgusted by the fact that Bill C-71 would do everything to hinder their ability to be law-abiding citizens and use their guns effectively, and do absolutely nothing to go after rural crime in our area, which is skyrocketing.

Since launching this petition, it has gathered national media attention and my constituent, Ryan Slingerland, has done an incredible job fielding those questions. In fewer than two months, this petition has become the second-largest e-petition in Canadian history, being signed by nearly 79,000 Canadians from coast to coast. Twenty-three thousand of these signatures come from Ontario and 5,800 from Atlantic Canada, thus showing that this is a concern of Canadians from coast to coast. It is not just regional.

When I was in Nunavut this spring, I heard the concerns of Inuit hunters about the potential implications of this legislation. Furthermore, at the public safety committee, indigenous leaders were coming to the table and threatening potential legal action because they argue that the bill would infringe their constitutional rights.

It is important for the Liberal government to recognize that it does not understand the impact this proposed legislation would have on Canadians, which is why the public safety committee needs to travel to talk to Canadians from coast to coast. It is the right thing to do.

I am proud to represent a southern Alberta riding. There are many families who enjoy our heritage of hunting and sport shooting. When I talk to my constituents, they are deeply concerned about this proposed legislation. They want to know why the Liberal government is targeting law-abiding, licenced firearms owners and not going after criminals who are using their guns illegally.

I sat down with my youth advisory board members and got their feedback on the bill this week. They asked that I communicate their views to the Prime Minister. First, they wanted to remind the Prime Minister that he is the leader of the country in which they live, and not the leader of a high school drama classroom. They want him to lead with honesty. They want him to function with integrity. They want him to stop attacking those who own firearms legally. They call upon him to use legislation in a way that is common sense, not nonsense. They ask that this proposed legislation not be used as an emotionally charged response to a problem in the United States that unfairly punishes Canadians who rightly own and use their firearms. They ask that I speak out on their behalf and to ask in particular, why is the Prime Minister skewing the facts and telling mistruths in order to pass this legislation that punishes those who lawfully own firearms?

The fact that indigenous people in this country, the fact that young people in this country, the fact that law-abiding citizens from coast to coast in this country are asking the Prime Minister to sit up and listen to their concerns, the fact that they are begging him to this, and the fact I have a petition that is signed by nearly 79,000 Canadians are all facts that say that this proposed legislation is ill placed. They see that this proposed legislation needs more time. They say that the right thing to do would be for this committee to travel and to listen. It is simply good governance, listening followed by action.

Therefore, I am calling upon the House to take this motion into consideration and to vote for it, not for my sake, but for the sake of Canadians from coast to coast who deserve to have a voice on this topic, who deserve to be treated as law-abiding citizens first and foremost. This proposed legislation, in its current state, would not do that, and we can do better.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to this motion tonight. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lethbridge, who just had a very good question in the House.

This motion is a simple motion that should play well to what the Liberals talk and brag about. I will use the fisheries committee. Every time we want to get something done there, we had better consult. The Liberals have their chance this time to actually go and consult with Canadians on a very important bill. They are fighting it tooth and nail. It does not surprise me, but it is certainly wrong.

This is a good motion and is one that is certainly needed, as many have said here tonight. It asks that the public safety and national security committee travel throughout Canada to hear testimony from witnesses as they continue to review Bill C-71. The reason this is necessary is that the government has failed, as with a lot of other consultations it says it is doing or has done, with Canadian firearms owners and other interested groups when it comes to the new firearms legislation. It really is shameful. As I said earlier, it is not surprising, but it is certainly shameful.

The government has introduced legislation that will make significant changes and will impact only law-abiding firearms owners. However, they have proposed these changes without truly engaging with these individuals to fully understand what these changes would actually do.

Since the 2015 election, the government has conducted more than 2,000 different consultations on a wide range of subject matter. However, a search through those consultations shows that they did not, or would not, consult with firearms owners about legislation that would significantly impact them. What is the reason for that? Is it that they are not going to like what they are going to find? I think they know that this bill, Bill C-71, has nothing to do with what they said they wanted to tackle, which was gang crime and illegal firearms. Why they do not want to, I do not know.

We have the hon. colleague from Scarborough, a former police chief. When he was in the public sector working as a police chief, he was adamantly against the legalization of marijuana. What he is doing today? He is the guy who is managing how it is going to come about. It is total hypocrisy. Things change when one puts on a political stripe. I cannot get my head around that and how wrong it really is.

In fact, I have been hearing from a number of concerned Canadians regarding this exact issue. They are concerned that not only did no consultation take place but that consultations were only conducted with groups that support the government's agenda when it comes to firearms. They keep asking me where this gang crime and illegal firearms issue is the government purports to want to address. Again, there is exactly nothing in here about it.

I put a question on the Order Paper on April 18 . It asked the government where, when, and with whom the government consulted when it came to Bill C-71. I am still anxiously awaiting the government's response. It is coming up to two months. I strongly suspect that the reason I have not had an answer to my Order Paper question is that the government did not consult at all on Bill C-71.

That said, this is another reason this motion is necessary. The government has been unwilling to listen to firearms owners, and we need the public safety committee to do the work the government is unwilling to do. They need to travel across Canada to ensure that any firearms legislation that is passed through this House directly targets gangs and illicit firearms and not individuals who have safely and properly used firearms for years, like me. I have had a gun in my hand since my father taught me when I was eight or nine years old. I had my granddaughter, who is now 13, on the range with a safety instructor there when she was 12.

It is all legal. It is the way to teach things. It does not matter whether it is manners or anything. If people are taught the right way, at the right age, they will learn it, and it will stay with them. That is what I want my granddaughter to do, and my other grandchildren as they come of age. That will happen the same way. It is what people in rural Canada do. Actually a lot of urban Canadians do the same thing. It is just a higher proportion in the rural parts, for different reasons.

Had the government conducted consultations, it would have heard that its proposed legislation only would create more red tape for those who already followed the law. It would do absolutely nothing to fight the real problems when it came to firearms violence in Canada: gangs and illegal firearms.

I sit with the hon. member for Avalon on the fisheries committee. I have a lot of respect for the gentleman. He told the previous member about a terrible incident that had happened in his riding. Unfortunately, with people, things happen from time to time, but that is not the norm and is not what happens every day with law-abiding firearms owners. As I said, it was very unfortunate

However, because something like that happens, we do not go out and basically victimize every law-abiding firearm owner in the rest of the country. We already have the toughest handgun laws and firearms legislation in the world. There is no doubt about that. It is not up for questioning. However, we have a segment of people out there, and I hope my colleagues across the way understand this and realize it, whose goal is not for stricter rules on firearms. Its goal is to at some point in time have absolutely no guns in the world. If it ever gets to that point, there will still be guns, but they will all be owned by the criminal sector of gangs, organized crime, etc. Why those guys across the way cannot get that through their heads always leave me shaking mine.

We hear time and again from a diverse range of groups, associations, and individuals that Bill C-71 is an attempt to solve problems that do not exist.

Last week, I was able to sit in at the public safety committee for my colleague to my right. It was a great meeting. We had some great witnesses on both sides of the issue. I have some testimony of that day. For example, Mr. Soloman Friedman of the Criminal Lawyers' Association told the public safety committee “Bill C-71...fails to meet that mark” when it comes to meeting the benchmarks of being modest, fundamentally rational, and supported by objective evidence. He went on to say that the apparent problems that Bill C-71 would attempt to solve were “unsupported by the evidence.”

I would like to quote again from his testimony before the committee. He stated, “in presenting its rationale for this bill, the government has misrepresented the objective statistical data to create the appearance of a problem that simply does not exist. As a society, we are the poorer for it when government promotes criminal legislation on a misunderstanding, or worse yet, a willful manipulation of what it claims is empirical evidence.”

These are very strong words, and they are true. One thing the government did was use the year 2013. Gun crimes have been steadily dropping since the mid-60s, but in 2013 they really dropped. What did the government do, and it was pretty sneaky? It used that year as ground zero, knowing it was going to go up the next year. It started with the wrong data. It is misleading.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that question is a good juxtaposition of the two bills, a contrast, almost.

I am very happy that one of the member's constituents is the one who proposed what I think is going to fast become the e-petition with the most signatures. Maybe the member could tell me afterwards what the signature count is.

It is interesting to see that in Bill C-71, we would be going after law-abiding firearms owners. What will do they? They will abide by the new law. They will try their best to obey the law as it is written by the Parliament of Canada.

On Bill C-75, we would download onto the provincial courts a lot of the provisions for criminal activity, such as the promotion of genocide, such as drinking and driving causing serious bodily harm, such as infanticide, and say that the provincial courts would handle it now, and that would be better.

What happens in Alberta, oftentimes, in provincial court, because they are so overloaded with cases, is that they are always looking for an opportunity to find a plea deal they can live with. They will offer up a fine to people, saying that if they do not pay the fine, they will serve jail time. In certain cases, and there is a laundry list of these provisions in Bill C-75, it is irresponsible to offer an opportunity to simply pay a fine for the crime done. We can contrast that with Bill C-71 and the provisions imbedded within it.

These are the wrong priorities, especially at a time like this, when resources at our courthouses are limited. For the longest time, the Minister of Justice was behind on appointing judges, and the issue remains. If we approve of this, travel of the public safety and national security committee, the members are going to hear this story in our communities. They are going to hear stories of local courthouses being overloaded with work already and not being able to deal with additional court cases.

They are going to be able to tell the story that law-abiding firearms owners will abide by the law, whichever way it is written by the Parliament of Canada. However, gangsters, organized crime, and other criminals will not. That will not change. Those individuals who take part in illegal organized crime activity, such as trafficking in firearms, people, and narcotics, are not going to be swayed by a piece of legislation passed in the House. Frankly, they just do not care about those things. The deterrence will be through greater law enforcement resources, more police officers, and a more effective way of tracking down the money as it is being spent by those types of organizations.

We are not focused on that. We are focused on lawful firearms owners who are looking to just obey the law.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if my hon. colleague could comment on the juxtaposition or comparison between Bill C-71, which would punish law-abiding firearms owners, and Bill C-75, which the Liberals would also put in place, which would decrease sentences for heinous crimes, such as being a part of a terrorist group or an organized crime group, promoting genocide, forcing women into marriage, and trafficking women and girls for sex purposes.

There are these types of crimes the Liberals would actually be going extremely soft on. They would actually decrease the sentences for these types of crimes. Meanwhile, the Liberals want to put law-abiding firearms owners behind bars.

Could the hon. member comment on the comparison of the legislation the Liberals would impose on the Canadian population?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his 30-plus years of service in law enforcement. When he speaks of the community he used to be part of, he speaks from experience. He knows the subject very well.

Fundraising with a firearms-related event such as skeet shooting is really common in Alberta. I have been to political events all across Alberta, and probably a half-dozen skeet shooting events that were political fundraisers. These are simply a way for the community came together to raise money for a good cause. Sometimes it is for a political party, and other times it is community organizations looking after fellow community members. This is what they do. This is what they know. It is very popular. It is part of the shared cultural heritage of a lot of our communities, especially in rural Alberta. They have been doing it for generations and want to continue doing it. The rules embedded in Bill C-71 would make it that much more difficult to continue these types of good events.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, every summer in my riding of Yellowhead, we have a shooting competition called Got Your Six. First responders and military personnel from across Canada participate. I am talking about ambulance drivers, police officers, firemen, and retired and current military personnel. They come to our community of Edson because we have one of the longest ranges in western Canada. It is a mile range. I go there every year during their competitions and meet with the guys.

Bill C-71 would directly affect these people. These are hard-working Canadians who are first responders. Why do they go to Got Your Six and what is it? It is an organization that looks after people in the military, police, fire department, and ambulance who have post-traumatic stress. They raise funds through their combat shoots. It is a way of bringing some of those comrades suffering from post-traumatic stress out to the range and to help them. It is a form of medication, yet Bill C-71 would directly affect these people.

Money could be more wisely spent on seriously combatting the criminal element out there than going after the law-abiding Canadians. I wonder if my hon. friend from Calgary Shepard would like to comment on that, especially since they have a problem in Calgary with organized gangs.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

If a member wishes to heckle me, I will be happy to cede some time to them if they want to ask me a question.

This piece of legislation creates a registrar. The only purpose for creating a registrar is to manage a registry. I used to work for a professional association, and I was named its registrar. I managed a registry of professional members. A mayor will run a city. A reeve will run a county. The president of a company will run a business. We cannot pretend for one minute that a registrar will not run a new long-gun firearms registry. In this piece of legislation is embedded a method to do so; every single sale will be tracked. It is a return through the back door to the national firearms registry that a previous government got rid of because it was so massively unpopular across Canada. It was ineffective and a boondoggle. Billions of dollars were wasted on a registry that achieved very little.

In this piece of legislation are also provisions on a background check, and that will go on for lifetime. At a time when people have become extra sensitive about their privacy, it is interesting that they will go through a whole lifetime of an individual to judge whether they should be able to have a PAL or an RPAL to own and use a firearm.

What about second chances? What about persons changing? I thought that was one of the things we were advocating for. That is a concern of mine. I have met a lot of great constituents, great individuals, who in their past had criminal activity, and they changed. They have successful professional pursuits. They have married. They have family lives. Are these the people we want to target? Do we want to tell them that there are no second chances?

I completely agree that there should not be second chances for certain types of criminal activity. It is hard to tell in the provisions in Bill C-71 what those are and where the line will be drawn. Why not go out into our communities and ask Canadians where the line should be drawn? Where should the difference be between people who perhaps have made mistakes early in their lives and have reformed, and decades later are seeking to have the privilege in Canada to own a firearm so they can go hunting with fellow family members?

As I have mentioned many times in the House before, there are provisions in this bill that would give the right to reclassify a firearm from unclassified, non-restricted, or restricted, to prohibited, solely to the RCMP, with no oversight from the House of Commons or the minister. I have a serious problem with that. To me, it is a deep issue of parliamentary supremacy and responsibility with respect to who is responsible at the end of the day for decisions made on the administrative side. It should be this House that keeps the Minister of Public Safety accountable for the decisions he or she makes in the conduct of duties. It should be members in the House making these decisions, and not the RCMP. The RCMP is there to advise. We can say that it has a body of evidence and it can provide a certain expertise, but it should not be solely up to the RCMP to make decisions on how certain firearms are reclassified.

There are two important ideas why it should not be allowed to do this. First is this idea of parliamentary supremacy that I talked about. We should not be giving agencies of government the power to deprive people of their private property without having Parliament make a judgment call. That would be by making a direct decision, or by demanding the Minister of Public Safety to be held accountable in the House through the different procedures we have, either through committee, question period, or through debate in the House. I do not think that should be allowed.

Second, this is private property as well, and a lawful firearms owner can have his firearm reclassified. Sometimes we are talking about just one firearm that an owner has to dispose of, but we could be talking about thousands of dollars in firearms that an owner no longer has access to.

What can be done? I have a few suggestions that have been suggested to me by constituents. Minimum sentencing laws are a proven way to keep gangsters and criminals who use guns off the streets. I do not mean for administrative penalties; I mean for violent crimes committed with firearms. As long as minimum sentencing is not excessive, it serves the purpose of taking violent criminals off the street for the minimum amount of time necessary, and it keeps our streets safe. Repeat criminals would also be deterred by this. We should punish criminals. People should be sent to jail for using a firearm in criminal activity. It cannot be that a person gets to go just to provincial court, or that a person gets a fine.

I also think we should do more to help our major urban centres, because crime does not stay there. One of the things the Calgary Police Service told me repeatedly is that rural crime is driven by what happens inside the cities. There are criminals inside the cities who go into rural communities to commit crimes. I know it has happened in the member for Foothills' riding just south of mine. There are repeated stories all across Alberta of criminals from big cities moving into our smaller communities and taking advantage of the fact that there are not enough police officers to police every single township road there. It is not physically possible. Cities need to do more to take control of the gang problems they have.

Lastly, prison time should be used for rehabilitation. It is something I fervently believe in as a result of the time I spent learning about the prison system in the United States while I studied there. I believe that prison time should be used for rehabilitation. A component of prison time is punishment and paying one's dues back to society for the crime one has committed, but rehabilitation should definitely be part of it.

These are just a few things. The problem is repeat criminals, the gangsters.

To go back to the Yiddish proverb I mentioned that no one hides, let us not hide the committee here in Ottawa. Let us not allow the wicked his wickedness, nor the fool his folly. We have an opportunity here to instruct the committee to travel across Canada and collect more information and more evidence from Canadians. I see no harm in this, and therefore I am supportive of it. I hope all members of the House will support it as well.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join this debate and have an opportunity to add the points of view that my constituents have shared with me. I represent an urban riding. I do not have any type of rural area in it. It is wholly within the city of Calgary. Therefore, I represent people who enjoy shooting on weekends. They will go to a shooting range, with their kids and spouse, and enjoy a few hours of doing it as a pastime or hobby. Some of those I have met are amateurs who would like to someday compete for Team Canada in the biathlon. It is something they look forward to. Others in my riding are hunters. They live in the big city but travel out every year during the hunting season to partake in something that really is part of Canada's heritage; it is something that Canadians have been doing since colonial days before the creation and establishment of this Parliament. It is something they have been enjoying for generations, and is passed down from generation to generation. There are special spots that individual hunters have in a little corner of Alberta where they go every single year to enjoy hunting with their kids because their grandfather took them, because their great-grandfather took them. Everybody has those types of stories in Alberta. That is the point of view I want to share with the House today, as I add my voice in support of an instruction to the committee to travel across Canada so that we can hear these types of stories and include them in the record.

My hope, and the hope of many constituents who have communicated with me on this particular issue, is that the government will change its mind. The question is not between having less regulation when it comes to firearms or having way more; it is what is reasonable in this situation, and a lot of the provisions contained within Bill C-71 are unreasonable. There are a lot of hunters, firearms owners, and individuals who used to own firearms stores and provided that service to the community, selling firearms in a reasonable, respectful, logical, rational way, not just selling them willy-nilly to anybody who came off the street, but doing their due diligence in providing a service and a product that people wanted because they had a past-time that involved it. Those are the people I represent, and I hope to be able to pass on their wisdom to the House so it can vote and move in favour of this instruction to the committee to travel.

I am a big believer in having committees travel across Canada. I sit on the Standing Committee on Finance. It is a committee that travels every single year, and maybe it will be able to travel later on this year if it says yes to a certain mortgage study I would like to undertake on behalf of constituents in my riding. Travel is something that the finance committee does quite often, with the pre-budget round tables that it holds to hear from Canadians in different communities to get their perspectives and not have them all travel here to Ottawa, which is a cost to many. It is a cost in time especially because the House reimburses much of the cost of travelling here, but time is the most precious thing that they do not get back and many people simply do not have the time to travel to Ottawa to have their voices heard at committee.

There were 95 briefs provided to the public safety and national security committee on Bill C-71 and 31 witnesses. I do not think that is enough for this particular piece of legislation. The committee could easily have double, triple, quadruple that number of witnesses, who would give them really interesting data and personal perspectives, and provide evidence that is so crucial to good public policy-making. Therefore, where is the harm in sending the committee to travel and to have the time to consult with Canadians and hear from them both the evidence and their individual perspectives of what a reasonable piece of legislation on firearms regulation is?

I have heard members here accuse our side of not wanting any types of limits on gun ownership, which is patently untrue. We understand that some limits, some administrative procedural limits, are indeed reasonable. However, where is that fine line where it becomes a burden, sometimes such a burden that a person abandons even owning any type of firearm? In the cases of firearms owners who are farmers as well, that becomes an immense inconvenience to them. If hunters, because of government regulation, give up the practice of hunting they have done for generations and hope to pass on to their kids, that is unfair and unjustified. Government should not lead people to abandon hobbies they have been doing in a law-abiding way for generations. It is part of the Canadian experience to go out and participate in hunting. I will mention that a bit more as I go into further points on why I believe this committee should indeed travel, because it is worthy to hear from Canadians.

I have a Yiddish proverb, as I always do. A lot of members ask me which one it will be today. It goes like this: “No one hides—neither the wicked his wickedness, nor the fool his folly.” I really hope that neither of those is true in this case and that the Liberals are not trying to hide here in Ottawa something that they know will be deeply unpopular in rural areas and in parts of my riding in suburban Calgary, where I have many constituents who hunt and enjoy sports shooting at the many target ranges in Calgary.

I also hope this is not folly, the folly of following activities and the news that we hear from the United States, which do not translate very well to our experience here in Canada. They are not the same thing. We cannot be influenced by what we hear happening in the United States on the six o'clock news and then instantly compare that to our experience here in Canada. We have a totally different civic culture and a different point of view on what is considered responsible firearms ownership. It is completely different.

I say this as someone who has studied in the United States. I say this as someone who has spent a lot of time with Americans on campus. I can attest to the fact that they have a totally different perspective when it comes to their inheritance of what they call the second amendment. It is something completely different from what we have in Canada.

I also hope that there is no ulterior motive behind this particular piece of legislation, such as sewing division among Canadians for purely partisan political purposes. The wicked cannot hide their wickedness, just like the Yiddish proverb says. I really hope that is not the case.

As supporter of mine sent me a fundraising email put out by the Liberal Party of Canada, which was fundraising off this particular piece of legislation. I am concerned when I see things like that. I am concerned when I see division being sewed for the sake of division.

Going outside of Ottawa will help us draft better legislation. I do not think we have all the answers here in the nation's capital. The common wisdom of Canadians will pull through in the witness testimony and briefs they provide. Why do we not send the committee out to draw out that information? It could bring it back to the House so we could create a more comprehensive piece of legislation, a more comprehensive report to the House of Commons, and make a judgment call that is evidence-driven and not driven by what happens inside the bubble. We have all heard stories of what happens inside the bubble. If we get this information, we will not be swayed just by debate here on the floor, but by what Canadians have to say on the subject.

As I said, I have spoken to many constituents in my riding who are hunters and sports shooters on weekends. They are all lawful firearms owners.They are not looking to break the law in any way. The simple thing is that they have likely spend thousands of dollars on a sport they would like to continue to enjoy. A few of them will attest to the fact that some of these rifles do not come cheap.

I am not by any means saying this is a sport for everyone. Sharpshooting or sport shooting on weekends requires a certain type of firearm that is simply not easily available. This sport takes a lot of skill and ability. These people are not looking to commit crimes. They do not want to lose the investment they have made. This is the perspective they have brought to me.

There are a lot of shooting ranges around Calgary where they go to practice. They are worried that some of the provisions in Bill C-71 would make it more difficult for them to travel between their homes and the range. They are worried that the bill would make it more difficult to purchase a new firearm to replace an older one. They are worried that the legislation would make it more burdensome for them to continue practising a hobby they enjoy.

This is not the case for everyone. As we heard from our colleague from Thornhill, there are people out there who will commit a crime. They will commit a crime of passion. They will commit a crime because they have fallen on hard times and have resorted to criminal activity. These people will not be stopped by more procedure, more administration, or more red tape. If they are intent on committing a crime, they will find a way to do so.

We have heard from other members, and I agree with this point, that this legislation would not stop gangsters and criminals in any way from continuing to commit crimes.

The wicked will continue their wickedness, and there is nothing in this piece of legislation that will stop them. Neither gang nor organized crime appears in this piece of legislation. I would have thought if the stated purpose was to clamp down on violent crime with firearms, then why is no one addressing that issue? Why are we not going after those who use firearms in their daily activities, as far as an organized crime gang? Why are we not targeting specific individuals? Things like minimum mandatory sentencing achieves that goal. It puts them away.

I want to propose a few ideas I have that the government could achieve to reduce gang activity, to take away the ability of gangsters to cycle through our justice system without ever facing a judge. The FOB gang is a good example, in Calgary. They are gangsters who have been involved in murders, attempted murders, trafficking, and their leader was set free once again a few weeks ago because of the Jordan decision.

That same day, I met the arresting officer here in Ottawa. He explained to me how they arrested this gang leader. Now he is out on the streets once again, and the police know he will commit another crime. He had a loaded firearm underneath his car seat when he was stopped and then arrested. That was why they were able to arrest him on that charge and send him back to jail.

Why are we not targeting those types of individuals? Those are the individuals we should be trying our best to keep off our streets. It is not the hunter, the farmer, or the gentleman who enjoys showing his kids how to do sport shooting on weekends. They are not the problem; it is the gangsters. Those are the people we should be targeting. The FOB gang is a good example. It is a perfect example, coming from Calgary. There are other provisions.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are any number of inconsistencies and contradictions in the answers and explanations offered not only by the public safety minister, but also by some of those on the backbenches of the Liberal government who are trying to make excuses for what is a regulatory bill that takes clear aim at legal, law-abiding, licenced sport shooters, farmers, and hunters. The provisions and contradictions in the bill, the arguments presented by the minister at any number of news conferences, and reflected in the early termination of witnesses before committee show that the government, in fact, has a very difficult time explaining those contradictions in Bill C-71.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned dishonest legislation. I want him to comment on the misleading comments made by the government to gain public support, and its contradictory statements.

I will read the government statement: “The requirement for retailers to maintain their own private records is just that, they’re private records of the retailers, and they will not be accessible to government.” However, the Minister of Public Safety, on March 20, 2018, reiterated that “These records would be held by businesses only—not law enforcement or government.”

I would like the member to consider that section 102 of the Firearms Act grants the provinces' chief firearms officers full access to all store records and inventories at any time, and they may make copies of any record they find without explanation or justification.

Bill C-71 would not repeal section 102 of the Firearms Act and, therefore, the minister is not being honest when he tells Canadians that the government will not have access to these records. The minister said that a search warrant is required to obtain them, but we can see from section 102 that they do not require that.

Could the member please comment on the strategy here, where the Liberals are going out and saying things to get the support but in reality they are not making the appropriate changes?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the motion that would enable the public safety committee to continue its work and to hear witnesses beyond Ottawa and across Canada.

I am pleased as well to speak to the content of Bill C-71, despite the legislative guillotine that has fallen in committee, blocking any further witnesses after barely four two-hour committee meetings, and in the shadow of the time allocation that will almost inevitably be imposed by the Liberal government. As members know, time allocation was imposed five times in barely three days last week, setting a new and unfortunate record for the Liberal government.

I am pleased I have this opportunity to debate this dishonest legislation. I use the word “dishonest” advisedly in the same way the Liberals attempted to impose their version of electoral reform and then abandoned their own legislation when they could not get their way. It is dishonest in the same way the Liberals promised to run modest budget deficits and then threw all caution and fiscal prudence out the window with runaway and ineffective spending.

Bill C-71 is dishonest in the same way as the Liberals' legislation to impose on Canadians a carbon tax, while downloading the responsibility at the same time on the provinces, imposing a carbon tax on Canadians, while refusing to share with Canadians the actual cost of such taxes.

Bill C-71 is dishonest because the Liberals claim that the legislation the government is ramming through the House, without adequate consideration, is in response to increased criminal gun use. However, the legislation is absolutely void of any provisions to actually combat, control or reduce the illegal guns used by gangs and organized crime.

Bill C-71 would target law-abiding Canadian gun owners who already follow regulations to acquire licences for gun purchases and who use them within the law.

Bill C-71 boils down to the Liberals' imposition, again with the tyranny of their majority, of the recreation of an expensive, bureaucratic, and ineffective gun registry by the back door. The claim by the Minister of Public Safety that this is not a backdoor registry is preposterous, it is farcical. The government says it is a public safety bill, but, as I mentioned earlier, it does not deal with threats to public safety as posed by gangbangers or organized crime or even the increasing wave of rural crime.

This is a regulatory bill, a regressive regulatory bill, aimed at already law-abiding citizens. The public safety minister claims that Bill C-71 only requires firearms retailers to keep records of who buys a gun and with which possession acquisition licence. However, that is not true. I would direct the minister to section 58.1 of Bill C-71 for those details, and the mention of the registrar and the references.

With regard to the new requirement under Bill C-71, that the private transfer of firearms between two legally licensed individuals confront bureaucratic hurdles through a yet not costed firearms call centre, we are told it is not a registry because, at this point, a description of the firearm in question and its serial number will not be required. However, a reference number will be generated and registered, and it would only be a short hop to amend the legislation in future to achieve a 100% registry.

I would like to speak on what the public safety minister claims Bill C-71 would do to combat gun crime and the reality of what it would not do.

There is nothing within Bill C-71 to address the 167% increase in gun violence in downtown Toronto this year. There is nothing to address the 162 shootings up to May 28, just last week, that have occurred in Toronto this year, beyond downtown and across the suburbs of Canada's metropolis. If this trend continues, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that it will not, this will be the fourth straight year in Toronto in which the number of shooting victims has increased.

In 2015, Toronto saw 429 shootings. In 2016, there were 581 shootings. In 2017, there were 594 shootings. This year, with 215 people shot to date, the city is on course for another very bad year. There were six shooting homicides in May alone. In fact, these recent numbers will exceed, in fact are approaching double the numbers of Toronto's infamous year of the gun in 2005, when there were 359 shooting victims and 52 died.

Just this morning, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, Irvin Waller, was reported by the Toronto Star newspaper as saying that Canadian cities had not prioritized violence prevention. The same can be said about the Liberal government's Bill C-71, which misses the mark so unacceptably. The problem that the Liberal government cannot seem to recognize is that the problem is gun crime, not legal firearms ownership.

Statistics Canada informs us, in the oft-quoted testimony tonight of Gary Mauser, the professor emeritus at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University, that licensed gun owners, those holding possession and acquisition licences, pose virtually no threat to public safety. Professor Mauser told the committee that PAL holders had a homicide rate lower, at less than one PAL holder per 100,000 licensed gun owners, than the national homicide rate. The professor reminded the Standing Committee on Public Safety that there was agreement among criminologists that no substantial evidence existed that legislation restricting access to firearms to the general public was effective in reducing criminal violence.

We will recall that the Minister of Public Safety and a passel of acolytes hosted a so-called summit on guns and gangs, at which they claimed the problem of gun crime was domestic. They claimed the problem was no longer the illegal smuggling of weapons of all sorts from the United States. However, turning to the testimony before committee by Professor Mauser, he said that criminals were not getting their firearms from law-abiding Canadians. It was either by stealing them, as the public safety minister suggested was the case these days, or through what the professor called straw purchases. He said that at the height of the long-gun registry, only 9% of firearms involved in homicides were registered. He quoted Statistics Canada again, revealing that only 135 out of 1,485 firearm homicides from 2003 to 2010 involved registered weapons. In other words, barely 3% of the total number of homicides recorded in that period were legally registered firearms.

Professor Mauser said, “All reputable research indicates that gang crime — urban or rural — is driven by smuggled firearms that flow to Canada as part of the illegal drug trade.” He said, again as an academic expert in the field of gun control and firearm law in Canada, “Analyses of guns recovered from criminal activity in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and the Prairie Provinces show that between two-thirds and 90% of these guns involved in violent crime had been smuggled into Canada.”

I return to my original contention that Bill C-71 is dishonest Liberal legislation, as with so many other pieces of legislation that the government has either abandoned or steam-rolled, or attempted to steam-roll, through Parliament. Bill C-71 would impose a back door gun registry on law-abiding citizens, while doing absolutely nothing to address gang gun crime or organized crime.