Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying I will be sharing my time with the always incisive member for Rivière-du-Nord.
Some debates are complex, difficult and delicate. They elicit strong reactions, and even divide us and help create rifts in our society. The debate on Bill C-21 is a striking example.
I remember that this is the first file I commented on publicly after I was elected for the first time in fall 2019, and here we are at the end of the session in my second term, in June 2022, and we are still talking about it.
I would like to point out that the Bloc Québécois will still be voting in favour of Bill C-21 at second reading, but we believe that the bill should be improved in committee. My colleagues can rest assured that the Bloc will try to be as constructive as possible, but our now-famous dynamic duo, namely the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord and the hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, could explain it better than I can, since they have asked the Minister of Public Safety many questions on the issue. I will begin my speech by addressing certain aspects of Bill C-21, then certain points more specifically related to femicide and, lastly, other points focusing on domestic violence.
First, given the numerous events in the news in Montreal lately, Bill C-21 is a step in the right direction, but it will have little effect in the short term and change practically nothing in the streets of Montreal. The most important new feature in this bill is a complete freeze on the acquisition, sale and transfer of handguns for private individuals. Legal handguns will therefore disappear on the death of the last owner, since it will be impossible to bequeath or transfer the guns to others.
However, the bill includes exceptions for people who need a handgun to perform their duties, such as bodyguards with a licence to carry, authorized companies, for filming purposes for example, and high-level sport shooters. The government will define by regulation what is a “sport shooter”.
Those who already own a handgun will still be able to use it legally, but they will have to make sure to always renew their licence before the deadline or lose this privilege. The bill freezes the acquisition of legal handguns, but we will have to wait many years before all of the guns are gone, through attrition. In contrast, the number of illegal guns will continue to grow.
The federal government estimates that there are more than one million legal handguns in Canada and that more than 55,000 are acquired legally every year. The federal freeze would therefore prevent 55,000 handguns from being added to the existing number, but it does nothing about the millions of guns already in circulation. The Bloc Québécois suggests adding handguns to the buyback program in order to allow owners to sell them to the government if they so wish. In short, we are proposing an optional buyback program.
However, one of the problems is that, according to Montreal's police force, the SPVM, 95% of the handguns used to commit violent crimes are purchased on the black market. Legal guns are sometimes used, as in the case of the Quebec City mosque shooting, and it is precisely to avoid such mass shootings that the Bloc Québécois supports survivor groups in their demands to ban these guns altogether.
Bill C‑21 does nothing about assault weapons either, even though manufacturers are custom designing many new models to get around the May 1, 2020, regulations. The Bloc suggests adding as clear a definition as possible of the term “prohibited assault weapon”, so that they can all be banned in one fell swoop, rather than on a model-by-model basis with taxpayers paying for them to be bought back. The government wants to add to the list of prohibited weapons, but manufacturers are quick to adapt.
Also, Bill C‑21 will have no real impact on organized crime groups, which will continue to import weapons illegally and shoot people down in our streets. The Bloc Québécois has tabled Bill C-279 to create a list of criminal organizations, similar to the list of terrorist entities, in order to crack down on criminal groups that are currently displaying their gang symbols with total impunity while innocent people are dying in our streets. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord will discuss this bill in more detail, since he is the sponsor.
The most important thing for getting to the heart of the problem is reducing the number of guns available. Bill C‑21 increases prison sentences for arms traffickers, from 10 years to 14, and makes it an offence to alter cartridge magazines. It was already illegal to possess cartridge magazines that exceed the lawful capacity, but the government is now making altering cartridge magazines a crime.
Second, as the Bloc Québécois critic for status of women, I am regularly asked about this type of bill. What is interesting in this case is that Bill C‑21 incorporates the red- and yellow-flag system from the former Bill C-21. With the red-flag provisions, the Criminal Code will allow any individual to ask a judge to issue an order to immediately confiscate firearms belonging to a person who could be a danger to themselves or others, and even to confiscate weapons belonging to a person who might make them available to a person who poses a risk. The order would be valid for 30 days, and judges could take measures to protect the identity of the complainant.
The yellow-flag provisions would allow chief firearms officers to temporarily suspend a person's firearms licence if they have information that casts doubt on the person's eligibility for the licence. This suspension would prevent the person from acquiring new firearms, but it would not allow for the firearms they currently own to be seized. However, the person would not be allowed to use those firearms, for example at a firing range.
A new measure in this version of Bill C-21 is the immediate revocation of the firearms licence of any individual who becomes subject to a protection order or who has engaged in an act of domestic violence or stalking. This measure has been lauded by many anti-femicide groups, like PolyRemembers. There are several such groups, far too many, in fact.
This includes restraining orders and peace bonds, but also, and this is interesting, orders concerning domestic violence and stalking, including physical, emotional, financial, sexual and any other form of violence or stalking. A person who was subject to a protection order in the past would automatically be ineligible for a firearms licence.
However, there is another problem in relation to gun smuggling. The bill contains only a few measures and, I will say it again, it does not mention a buyback program for assault weapons or even the addition of a prohibited assault weapons category to the Criminal Code, two things that are absolutely necessary.
It is important to point out that 10- and 12-gauge hunting rifles are not affected by the ban. The gun lobby tried to sow doubt with a creative definition of a rifle's bore, which is now limited to under 20 millimetres. The bill therefore does not affect hunters. I know that many hunting groups are concerned about the new measures, but we need to reassure them that assault weapons are not designed for the type of hunting they do.
Getting back to assault weapons, the government as already planning to establish a buyback program through a bill in order to compensate owners of newly prohibited weapons, but it did not do so in the last legislature. If the government persists in classifying guns on a case-by-case basis, the number of models of assault weapons on the market will continue to rise. That is why the Bloc Québécois suggests adding a definition of “prohibited assault weapon” to the Criminal Code so that we can ban them all at once.
The Liberals keep repeating that they have banned assault weapons when there is nothing preventing an individual from buying an assault weapon right now or going on a killing spree if they already have one, since a number of models remain legal. Having already come out against this in Bill C‑ 5, the Liberals are also sending mixed messages in removing mandatory minimum sentences for certain gun crimes.
Third, I know that this bill will not stop all cases of femicide, but it is significant as part of a continuum of measures to address violence. There is still much work to be done, for example in areas such as electronic bracelets and health transfers, to provide support to groups that work with victims and survivors.
On Friday, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women tabled its report on intimate partner and family violence in Canada, and that is essentially the message I wanted to convey in my supplementary report. I hope it will be taken seriously. We will also need to work on changing mindsets that trivialize violence and try to counter hate speech, particularly online.
To talk a little bit about the bill, it relates to cases of violence, and we mentioned electronic monitoring devices. The bill would provide for two criminal offences that would qualify for electronic monitoring, including the authorized possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm or ammunition. That is a good thing. Something worthwhile came out of the work that we did at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
In closing, we are not the only ones who are saying that this bill does not go far enough or that it needs more work. The mayor of Montreal herself said that this bill does not go far enough. She said, and I quote:
This is an important and decisive measure that sends the message that we need to get the gun situation under control. The SPVM is making every effort to prevent gun crime in Montreal, but it is going to be very difficult for police forces across the country to do that as long as guns can continue circulating and can easily be obtained and resold.
There is still work to be done, and we must do it. We owe it to the victims. Enough with the partisanship. Let us work together constructively to move forward on this important issue. We cannot stand idly by while gunshots are being fired in our cities, on our streets and in front of schools and day cares. Let us take action to put an end to gun culture.
