Bill C-21

An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) increase, from 10 to 14 years, the maximum penalty of imprisonment for indictable weapons offences in sections 95, 96, 99, 100 and 103;
(b) establish a regime that would permit any person to apply for an emergency prohibition order or an emergency limitations on access order and allow the judge to protect the security of the person or of anyone known to them;
(c) deem certain firearms to be prohibited devices for the purpose of specified provisions;
(d) create new offences for possessing and making available certain types of computer data that pertain to firearms and prohibited devices and for altering a cartridge magazine to exceed its lawful capacity;
(e) include, for interception of private communications purposes, sections 92 and 95 in the definition of “offence” in section 183;
(f) authorize employees of certain federal entities who are responsible for security to be considered as public officers for the purpose of section 117.07; and
(g) include certain firearm parts to offences regarding firearms.
The enactment also amends the Firearms Act to, among other things,
(a) prevent individuals who are subject to a protection order or who have been convicted of certain offences relating to domestic violence from being eligible to hold a firearms licence;
(b) transfer authority to the Commissioner of Firearms to approve, refuse, renew and revoke authorizations to carry referred to in paragraph 20(a) of the Act;
(c) limit the transfer of handguns only to businesses and exempted individuals and the transfer of cartridge magazines and firearm parts;
(d) impose requirements in respect of the importation of ammunition, cartridge magazines and firearm parts;
(e) prevent certain individuals from being authorized to transport handguns from a port of entry;
(f) require a chief firearms officer to suspend a licence if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the licence holder is no longer eligible for it;
(g) require the delivery of firearms to a peace officer, or their lawful disposal, if a refusal to issue, or revocation of, a licence has been referred to a provincial court under section 74 of the Act in respect of those firearms;
(h) revoke an individual’s licence if there is reasonable grounds to suspect that they engaged in an act of domestic violence or stalking or if they become subject to a protection order;
(i) authorize the issuance, in certain circumstances, of a conditional licence for the purposes of sustenance;
(j) authorize, in certain circumstances, the Commissioner of Firearms, the Registrar of Firearms or a chief firearms officer to disclose certain information to a law enforcement agency for the purpose of an investigation or prosecution related to the trafficking of firearms;
(k) provide that the annual report to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness regarding the administration of the Act must include information on disclosures made to law enforcement agencies and be submitted no later than May 31 of each year; and
(l) create an offence for a business to advertise a firearm in a manner that depicts, counsels or promotes violence against a person, with a few exceptions.
The enactment also amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to, among other things,
(a) provide nuclear security officers and on-site nuclear response force members with the authority to carry out the duties of peace officers at high-security nuclear sites; and
(b) permit licensees who operate high-security nuclear sites to acquire, possess, transfer and dispose of firearms, prohibited weapons and prohibited devices used in the course of maintaining security at high-security nuclear sites.
The enactment also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to
(a) designate the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness as the Minister responsible for the establishment of policies respecting inadmissibility on grounds of transborder criminality for the commission of an offence on entering Canada;
(b) specify that the commission, on entering Canada, of certain offences under an Act of Parliament that are set out in the regulations is a ground of inadmissibility for a foreign national; and
(c) correct certain provisions in order to resolve a discrepancy and clarify the rule set out in those provisions.
Finally, the enactment also amends An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms so that certain sections of that Act come into force on the day on which this enactment receives royal assent.

Criminal Code

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-21. It is an act to make certain consequential amendments in relation to firearms, which is really the government's way of saying that this is a bill to confiscate hunting rifles from law-abiding farmers, hunters and indigenous people, and distract from the real issue of the crime wave that is going on in Canada right now. That is really what this bill is. It is purely a distraction to distract from what is going on in our streets, on our subways and in some of our schoolyards right now. It is another virtue-signalling bill from the current government, to pretend it is going to do something about smuggled handguns, illegally attained guns and gang violence, but not actually do anything.

It is a distraction bill to take the focus away from the disastrous result of the Liberals' soft-on-crime bills, Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. It is a distraction from the multiple police officers who have fallen on the job very recently and the random stabbings in Toronto, the Lower Mainland and my hometown of Edmonton. All these random attacks hurt, but the one in Edmonton strikes very close to home. A mother and her 11-year-old child were stabbed to death in a schoolyard park. EPS police chief, Dale McFee, commented on the attack. He said it was “completely random. In no way could the victims have anticipated what would happen to them. There is no making sense of this.” This was a mother and her daughter who were in the playground of a schoolyard. A person drove up, got out of his car, stabbed them to death and just left. It was completely random. The police chief said, “There is no making sense of this.” I agree with Chief McFee that it makes zero sense that this would happen. He also said that the victims could not have anticipated the attack, and I agree with that as well.

However, here is the kicker: The court system could have anticipated this attack, and should have, and we should have had laws to protect this family. The killer had been released just 18 days earlier, on bail from a previous assault. He had a record. The killer was only 33 years old, and he had a record going back 14 years, having been in and out of jail, released on bail, and having had constant charges of assault with a weapon. He was in and out of prison repeatedly. There were robberies. He had stabbed someone who was just sitting on a bus bench. His parole documents stated to him, “You were armed with a knife and stabbed your victim once in the upper back. You then fled on foot. Your victim's injuries include a punctured aorta and a laceration to his spinal cord.” These are not simple injuries. This is attempted murder, yet he was back out on the streets. Between committing that crime and committing the murders in Edmonton, the attacker assaulted a corrections officer and two inmates, and was released, despite the warnings from parole officers. We have to ask where we have heard this before. He was sent back to prison after testing positive for meth, but was released again and assaulted four more people; three of them were assaulted with weapons. He attacked a 12-year-old on the bus just last year, and on the same day was charged with assaulting someone else. Then, he assaulted someone else with a weapon. He was sent to prison on April 14 for another assault and then released on bail. He then went on to murder someone and her young child.

That is what the Liberals are trying to distract from with this bill. It is to distract from their disastrous catch-and-release laws that they have inflicted upon Canadians. The Liberal government will sit and say that it fixed catch-and-release today. However, for five or six years now, the Liberals have denied it was a problem. I want to quote the present public safety minister, in debate. He said that this would simplify the release process “so that police and judges are required to consider the least restrictive and alternative means of responding to a breach, rather than automatically detaining an accused” and that “police would...be required to impose the least onerous conditions necessary if an accused is released.”

A mother and her child are dead in Edmonton because of this law. The Liberals can claim that they are fixing it, but they had half a decade to do something, with warnings from the police chief, warnings from the opposition bench and warnings from the premiers. It is not good enough that they are saying, “Well, we're going to play around with it today. Everything is fine.” It is not fine.

I want to go back to Edmonton police chief Dale McFee. We are talking about the catch-and-release program. For a three-year period, Edmonton saw a 30% increase in shooting victims. Chief McFee stated that the biggest problem is building to attack gang violence, and that most of the problem is gangs and organized crime. It is not a law-abiding hunter going out for a catch. It is not a farmer with his shotgun plinking away at varmints or pests. The police chief says it is organized crime and gangs. Subsequent to Bill C-75 being introduced, 3,600 individuals were arrested for violent crimes in Edmonton in a one-year period. Two years after that, 2,400 of those 3,600 reoffended, a total of 19,000 times, including 26 homicides. That is the result of Bill C-75, the catch-and-release program of the government. That is what this government is trying to distract from. Instead of going after criminals, repeat offenders, they want to confiscate shotguns and hunting rifles from hunters, farmers and indigenous people. The government should be going after the criminals and trying to make life miserable for them, not trying to make life miserable for law-abiding hunters and farmers.

Canadians should not be fooled by this new bill, Bill C-21. The Liberals brought in some amendments and said, “Oh, we fixed all your concerns.” Canadians should not be fooled by this. The Liberals' so-called new definitions are basically the same as the old ones that are targeting hunting rifles. The same ones that they went after before, they will go after again. I do not think anyone should believe that this new Liberal firearms advisory panel would be any different than what they had proposed previously.

This is the same government, members will remember, that politicized the Nova Scotia shooting tragedy. It is the same government that said that it was the police forces that recommended the Emergency Act, but we asked the Ottawa Police Service and the RCMP, and they both said no.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms), as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to continue on Bill C-21 after being so rudely interrupted by private members' hour, as much as I enjoy staying around an extra hour.

Continuing on with Bill C-21, earlier I was quoting the Edmonton Police Service Chief McFee about the problems with the government and gun control. Now I want to quote Dr. Teri Bryant, chief firearms officer for Alberta. She commented:

Even after the withdrawal of G-4 and G-46, Bill C-21 continues to undermine confidence in our firearms control system while contributing nothing to reducing the violent misuse of firearms. Bill C-21 is built on a fundamentally flawed premise. Prohibiting specific types of firearms is not an effective way of improving public safety. It will waste billions of taxpayer dollars that could have been used on more effective approaches, such as the enforcement of firearms prohibition orders, reinforcing the border or combatting the drug trade and gang activity.

I could not agree with Dr. Bryant more. It is clear that we need a focus on the criminals, on ending the gun trade on the border and on keeping violent offenders in prison, instead of a catch-and-release program.

Dr. Bryant refers to the confiscation cost. The Liberal government is the same government responsible for the past long-gun registry, which ballooned from $2 million to several billion. It is the government that has bungled the Trans Mountain pipeline, which was supposed to be $7 billion and is now over $30 billion. The Liberal government is the only entity in the world that has found a way to lose money on oil. The same government left us waiting many hours in passport lines. Then there is the Phoenix pay system, military procurement and immigration backlogs.

No one believes the Liberal government could confiscate weapons from Canadians and do it in a fashion that does not punish Canadian taxpayers and law-abiding firearms owners who want the government to punish criminals, go after the crime gangs and stop going after law-abiding firearms owners.

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

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the member is voting against this legislation, Bill C-21.

In Bill C-21, we see the issue of ghost guns being addressed. Police agencies, virtually across Canada, have expressed a growing issue with ghost guns. They look at the legislation from that perspective as an important tool. I said this earlier, but it is interesting that the Conservatives tend to want to use Bill C-21 as a fundraising issue as opposed to an issue to provide a higher sense of security for Canadians.

Why do the Conservatives not support the ghost gun aspect of the legislation? Why do they not support making our communities safer?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to imagine I waited an extra hour for that question.

The problem with the Liberal government is that it hides one or two small, good parts in a massively flawed bill. If it was so concerned with the so-called ghost guns, the government should introduce legislation to address that, not hide it in this overall package so it could fundraise in municipalities and urban areas, pretending Liberals are against gun crime, when in fact they are promoting it with Bill C-75 and other actions on their part.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is passing strange that the ghost gun component is actually the biggest part of Bill C-21, and Conservatives, who have been saying all along that they want to crack down on criminals, have been filibustering and opposing the bill at every stage.

However, what is not in the bill are the G-4 and G-46 amendments, and I am prohibited from showing a prop, but on the amendments it says very clearly “withdrawn”. This means that those amendments do not exist, but Conservatives keep speaking to them, which shows a very strange hypocrisy when it comes to this particular bill. The other thing I find passing strange is that the Conservatives have tabled a report stage amendment to eliminate all exemptions for handguns, including for the Olympics and Paralympics.

The Conservatives have been all over the map on this. My simple question is this: Will the member agree that G-4 and G-46 were withdrawn at the beginning of February, and they should stop speaking to amendments that do not exist?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that Canadians remember that the NDP supported the ban on hunting rifles and wanted to confiscate shotguns and other things.

I want to go back to Dr. Teri Bryant, the Alberta chief firearms officer, who knows far more about the issue than anyone in the House. She said that, even after the withdrawal of G-4 and G-46, the offending amendments, “Bill C-21 continues to undermine confidence in our firearms control system”, contributing nothing to reducing violent crime.

I will take the word of Dr. Bryant any time over the member opposite, who continually chooses to support the Liberal government in trying to confiscate innocent farmers', hunters' and other people's firearms.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is already illegal to manufacture or possess a 3-D printed gun without the proper registration and certification. What would Bill C-21 change with respect to 3-D printed firearms?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it would change absolutely nothing.

The bill, this change, was done by the Liberal government to deflect from its horrible job at stopping the rampant crime wave we have seen across this country. It is for its members to go into their strongholds to fundraise and say, “Oh, we're taking away guns. Gun crime will stop.” However, it does nothing to stop the gangs and the smuggling of the guns across the border, and it is doing nothing to prevent the crime.

The government is soft on crime. The bill is going to do nothing to stop the criminals or the crime wave that is going on in this country right now.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise on behalf of the democracy-respecting constituents of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke and lawful firearms owners nationwide.

The decision by these radical socialists who rammed this property confiscation legislation through Parliament is just the latest example of their utter contempt for democracy. When the Prime Minister said he admired the communists who controlled China because of their ability to ignore democracy, Canadians should have been alarmed. When the Prime Minister assaulted two members of Parliament on the floor of the House of Commons, he revealed his inner dictator, and they are laughing about that. However, now we have Bill C-21, which is the cherry on top of the illiberal, anti-democratic cake.

The bill was first decreed as an order in council after the Prime Minister had shut down Parliament and locked down citizens. He sought to capitalize on the Portapique crime spree while masking the complete, flagrant incompetence of the RCMP. They failed to activate the Amber Alert, even though every step had been laid out in the manual. The RCMP could not communicate by radio because a tower had been taken down to make way for a highway, and the decision-makers were too cheap to replace it. They had not bothered to collect the shooter's firearms, despite knowing he was not licensed to possess them.

Instead of targeting crime, this government is targeting the most law-abiding citizens in our country. Each day their names are run through CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, and anyone who has committed a crime is flagged. Introducing useless, virtue-signalling legislation based on clichés and empty slogans is par for the course for these Liberals. This time, they played—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is rising on a point of order.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we just heard from House staff that the kitchen is completely out of tinfoil.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Order. That is not a point of order, and quite honestly, not that funny.

I will remind everyone that the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke has the floor.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this time, the Liberals played bait and switch on their own MPs. Con artists bait a victim with something of lesser value, then switch it out for something more costly. These radical socialist parties voted for a handgun freeze. That was the bait. Once the bill reached committee, the Liberals switched it for a hunting rifle ban. Banning hunting rifles was never debated in Parliament.

The Liberals knew they had to trick Canadians to get it passed. They even pulled one over on their own MPs. Fortunately, Canadian democracy worked as intended, at least for a while. The public was alerted to this hunting rifle ban, and concerned constituents contacted their members of Parliament. First, the government tried to gaslight Canadians by claiming its amendment to ban hunting rifles was not a ban on hunting rifles. The Liberals accused everyone who did not support them of spreading misinformation. They continued to claim they were not banning hunting rifles, despite providing a list of which hunting rifles they were planning to ban.

Eventually, the radical socialists withdrew their amendments. They tried to pull a fast one and got caught, but the government wants Canadians to be dependent on it, so the Liberals tried again. Their last attempt to ban hunting rifles ran aground because of too much public debate. Their new plan is to avoid debate, so now the law is being made behind closed doors. They do not want Canadians to know what they are up to. Instead of banning firearms through Parliament, they plan to appoint a secret committee of anti-firearm activists to ban hunting rifles for them. Of course, the committee has to be secret. Transparency and democracy are like sunlight to vampires.

The Prime Minister no longer even bothers to hide his contempt for democracy. It is the misinformation he spreads that demonstrates his contempt for the intelligence of Canadians. The Prime Minister is the prime palterer. First, he states that no one uses AR-15s to hunt. That is a classic example of using truthful facts to deceive. It is true that scary AR-15s are not used to hunt deer. What the prime palterer neglects to mention is that the reason is that it is unethical to hunt large animals with underpowered rifles. These types of firearms are more often used on farms and ranches as pest control and for target shooting. Many bolt-action rifles are more powerful at longer ranges than these so-called assault-style firearms.

However, this has never been about power or lethality. This has always been about looks. For these radical socialists, it is the appearance of these black guns that scares them. This is the reason they have struggled to come up with a definition of “assault-style” that does not capture hunting rifles. The barrels of most guns are black, a colour radical socialists recoil at. There is no technical definition they can create that would exclude popular hunting rifles and include firearms that look scary to them.

Making judgments on the basis of appearance never ends well. That type of discrimination is rooted in fear and ignorance. These radical socialists prey on people's fears and exploit their ignorance of Canada's current firearms laws, and it is clear from their deliberate misinformation campaign that they think most Canadians are stupid.

The Prime Minister harbours contempt for Canadians. From admiring communists to assaulting MPs, it is clear the Prime Minister holds Parliament in contempt as well. None of this is a surprise. What is a surprise is that the Prime Minister would hold Pierre Trudeau's legacy in contempt. As fond as the Prime Minister is of clichés, he clearly does not embrace the fact that guns do not kill, but people do.

While he might reject it, his father did not. It was Pierre Trudeau who first introduced Canada's system of gun owner control. That model was later embraced by the Mulroney government. Canada's system of gun owner control has been a tremendous success. Sadly, the Liberals and their media allies have been captured by the radical anti-firearms lobby. They have one goal, and one goal only: They want to abolish private, legal gun ownership.

Make no mistake, criminals will still own firearms, and the government will guarantee it. The increasingly authoritarian state will own firearms. Only law-abiding citizens will be prevented from owning firearms. Now, these radical socialists will claim they have no plans to ban all firearms, but they have already shown their hand. As much as they like to prostrate to diversity, they are tone deaf to actual differences.

Most of these radical socialists have the same urban, condescending demeanor. How many of them understand the training and scrutiny people go through to obtain a possession and acquisition licence? How many of them ever had to hunt to put food on the table?

The carbon tax is already fuelling food inflation, and once the clean fuel regulations take effect in July, we can expect to see another surge in food prices. Not a single one of these radical socialist MPs will have to rely on the food bank. Not a single one of them will wonder where their next meal is coming from. For many Canadians in rural Canada, driving to a food bank is not an option, but the radical socialists do not care. They will impose their urban norms on everyone. They do not care if the closest police station is an hour's drive away. They do not believe Canadians have the right to protect their livestock from wolves and coyotes.

The minister for misinformation and emergencies likes to claim Canadians do not even have a right to own wood and metal if it is in the shape of a rifle. The minister for misinformation and public unsafety actually claims their legislation is reducing crime. They can only gaslight so long before people realize that the government is trying to convince them that what they know to be true is not.

These radical socialists need to ram this bill through before people realize what is happening to this country. Canadians sense the authoritarian assault on their property rights. They are seeing the Prime Minister's repeated assaults on democracy for what they really are. They know we are less safe today than before the totalitarian party took power. Firearm-related crime had been in decline for 40 years until the government declared war on mandatory sentences for the illegal possession of a firearm. These radical socialists eliminated all mandatory minimums, waived bail for gun criminals and lightened sentences for pedophiles. Canadians are seeing criminals getting away with murder as long as these radical socialists are in charge.

While the Prime Minister “took the knee” for Marxism to defund the police, violent crime has gone up and police officers have been targeted for murder. Instead of giving police resources, the Prime Minister marches against them. The radical socialists harass lawful citizens and strip away property rights. At first they came for the firearms they did not like the colour of, but people who did not own a gun said nothing. Then they came for the hunting rifles and handguns, but people who did not own a gun said nothing. When they decide, in the name of their climate crisis emergency, that owning a cottage or a second car is a climate crime, then these people may say something but it will be too late. Once the state decides it can strip away one's property on the pretense of public safety, there is no recourse. Just ask those who supported the freedom truckers and had their bank accounts frozen.

More and more Canadians understand the threat posed by planning regulations to strip people of their private property. A growing number are becoming aware of the threat the Prime Minister and his incompetent ministers pose to democracy. These radical socialists want to impose their post-national absence of values on Canadians. They are stripping us of our heritage, our property and our freedom of expression. Only by tearing down history can they build back their reimagined Canada into some socialist utopia.

It is time for Canadians to join the Conservatives to make Canada work for Canadians who work, and bring home our values for those who value our homes, their homes. Let us bring it home.

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

Mr. Speaker, talk about conspiracy theories. Over the weekend, the leader of the Conservative Party was talking about passports. Colleagues would not believe how weird that discussion got. The more I listened to him, the more I wondered if this guy is real. Can the leader of the official opposition really be that much of a conspiracist?

Then I hear one of his inner circle members of Parliament deliver a speech that kind of blew me away. If one wants to motivate people to ensure that the Conservatives never get into government, one can have them listen to the tweet from the leader of the Conservative Party and this member's speech.

Can the member indicate how she can justify this when the Conservative Party of Canada is espousing all sorts of misinformation, almost on a daily basis, not only on this legislation? How does she justify saying that we are spreading misinformation when the degree to which the Conservatives are using this legislation to raise money is fairly well documented? It is not about concern over Canadians' safety.