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.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The purpose of this amendment is to require the registrar to inform the transferor if he refuses to provide a reference number. In its present form, Bill C-71 provides that the registrar may so inform the transferor. However, in amendment CPC-29.1, we propose to say that the registrar "must", not "may," so inform the transferor.

[Rob O'Reilly]

Because the business record-keeping requirements that are also introduced in Bill C-71 would obligate businesses to record their first point of sale. The first point of sale, presumably, in the example I'm giving, would lead to you as the person who acquired that firearm from a vendor in Manitoba, for example.

You would then be able to say that you are the current owner of that firearm or to suggest that you transferred the firearm to somebody and in doing so verified their licence with the registrar of firearms. You would be able to have it confirmed by the existence of a reference number attached to your licence, indicating that, yes, you indeed did verify the licence at that period of time. Then it would allow the chain of custody to continue to the other person attached to that reference number, namely, presumably, the buyer of that firearm.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

It will be prescribed in the regulations. Do you have any idea of what that prescribed period might be? What would you be proposing to the minister upon the passage of Bill C-71? What would be the recommendation from the department to the minister for the prescribed period?

[Rob O'Reilly]

I'm sorry. I don't have exact numbers in front of me.

I know that the elements of Bill C-71 that were being proposed were subject to an implementation plan that would put appropriate human and monetary resources in place. I believe the costing of that would be part of a future Treasury Board submission.

[Rob O'Reilly]

The transfer number, as proposed under Bill C-71, would be kept in the Canadian firearms information system database, in a segregated database as part of CFIS.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Well, in fact, if they do not have a licence and they sell a firearm today, before Bill C-71, they run the risk of being criminally sanctioned and can receive a five-year prison sentence. Is that correct?

[Randall Koops]

That is not to suggest that transfers that are occurring now under the law as it currently stands are in any way illegal or deficient. It's that Bill C-71 proposes a change to the current process.

[Randall Koops]

Not at all.

Bill C-71 is proposing that there be a means of obliging vendors to verify that a purchaser has a valid licence. In turn, that vendor or seller, the transferor in the terms of the legislation, then has a reference number that proves they did their due diligence as required by law, and checked the validity of the licence of the purchaser.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, CPC-2 clarified what this committee almost unanimously has understood from the beginning, which is that C-71 is not a registry. I welcomed Mr. Paul-Hus introducing that amendment. I think that because we accepted that amendment, what he's talking about here, frankly, and in other amendments that follow is rendered moot.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

All right.

This is a very important amendment.

Mr. Chair, even if the Liberals adopt the bill as it stands, the fact remains that, despite the amendment we adopted on Tuesday, this is a kind of registry because the established concept is consistent with that of a registry. At the same time, I'm pleased to see that the Liberals have voted to add a line to the bill providing that this is not a registry, but, in actual fact, what is here will nevertheless stand.

I received a letter from a Calgary couple, Mr. and Mrs. Delamont, who had an idea for a way to simplify the process. We were short of time, we had four meetings, and we didn't really have enough time to do everything we wanted to do and conduct a good study of Bill C-71. Our travel was also denied.

Amendment CPC-23 eliminates the obligation to issue a reference number and requires only that the transferor's licence be verified as valid. That would be enough, somewhat as we have just done with amendment NDP-2.

Adding verifications and reference numbers is merely one way of restoring, once again, a kind of verification, a kind of registry—we'll call it what we want.

[Rob O'Reilly]

No, except that what would be occurring under Bill C-71 when an individual is issued an ATT to a gunsmith for repair, the ATT they would be receiving would be to that specific gunsmith at a specific window of time. The ATT they would be issued would indicate their place of residence, the gunsmith to which they are going, and the period of time of validity. It wouldn't simply be added to the licence automatically.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

What I've had gun owners tell me—and what you've confirmed for me, basically—is that, by changing the ATT rules, we're suggesting that there's a public safety risk in taking my firearm to a gun shop or a repair shop. If there were not a public safety risk, we wouldn't be here today, unless there's some other motivation.

There's no evidence to support that suggestion at all—zero. No witness at the committee and no evidence I've ever read would suggest that there is a reason because this does not pose a public safety risk. If it doesn't pose a public safety risk—and C-71 is supposed to be all about public safety—why are we doing this?

[Rob O'Reilly]

That's correct. Right now, we will be operating our call centre staff— the individuals who would issue authorizations to transport—nationally, from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., Monday to Friday, I believe.

Part of our implementation strategy for C-71 will be the creation of an online portal, which will allow individuals to electronically make application for an authorization to transport.

[Randall Koops]

When he was before you he talked about the intent as being preserving, for firearms owners, the automatic ATT for the vast majority of reasons for which they would transport their firearms: to bring them home, and bring them to and from the range, for those that are authorized to go to the range.

Of all the many purposes for which one can transport a firearm, the other types of activities are less frequent and the minister has proposed, through Bill C-71, that some of those activities no longer be automatic, for example going to the border with a firearm. That is not as frequent an occurrence for most firearms owners as either taking the firearm home or taking the firearm to the range.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Right. What I'm getting at is this. A law-abiding gun owner will “trigger-lock” their firearm, put it in a locked case, and they will transport it out of sight, in all circumstances unless it's impossible to do so, generally in a trunk or something thereabouts.

This isn't just thugs running around transporting their firearms, as Mr. Holland had suggested in the House. There are clear rules. Those rules apply and are followed by law-abiding gun owners.

I'm curious to know what we hope to accomplish. I go back to you, Mr. Koops, on this. What did we hope to accomplish by restricting the ATTs? I'm still unclear. We had no identifiable issues with individuals who are legally transporting their firearms. You are putting more restrictions on them now under Bill C-71.

If this bill, which the minister told us was ultimately about public safety.... You said it limits their ability to travel from point A to point B; they don't travel around with them. Quite honestly I know thousands and thousands of lawful firearms owners who transport their firearms legally and they don't travel around indiscriminately. I'm at a loss to know why the current legislation has gone to such lengths to try to remove ATTs because there's no evidence to support that this will actually improve public safety.