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.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I will move on to other questions. I just have serious concerns, Mr. Chair, regarding this, because if it includes tubular magazines that includes things like the Winchester lever action, which is a very old wood stock classic gun used by farmers and hunters that very much is Grandpa Joe's hunting rifle. The Lee–Enfield gun is also Grandpa Joe's hunting rifle. I'm just very concerned that we don't have clarity on this. He announced it within the scope of the Bill C-21 amendments. If we can't get more clarity, I'm very concerned that we're not going to be able to answer the many questions we're receiving. Lots of people have tubular magazine long guns, and the Lee-Enfield is about as ubiquitous as the SKS.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Okay. The reason I ask is that it was announced when he was talking about Bill C-21, so he was announcing that there's a new definition and no list, and he was also announcing this. I'm getting a lot of questions about this.

I believe that the officials at the table right now are those who would be supporting those new regulations regarding magazine capacity. Can we have answers on those specifics? How do we get answers on what that means? It is all involved in this conversation as per the minister's announcement, and it's not clear.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to everyone for being back here again. We're talking about Bill C-21. What a pleasure.

I have to start off by making some comments about my colleague across the table Ms. Damoff's opening remarks.

Ms. Damoff, we've had a nice working relationship I believe up until now. I don't think I'm an ultrapartisan guy, but some of your remarks quite frankly use a bad analogy. You kind of took a fully automatic weapon and mowed us all down with your opening remarks about all of your Conservative colleagues across the table spreading misinformation. I take offence to that.

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

Thank you very much, Chair. I appreciate the responses.

I want to clarify a couple of things I've heard to date, to make sure that we're up to speed. One is that this new definition applies only to firearms that are going to be manufactured after Bill C-21 passes. Should Bill C-21 pass and receive royal assent, it then becomes anything manufactured after that. Is that correct?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Semi-automatic action is—and this is quoting Murray Smith from the RCMP—“where much of the loading action is done automatically by the firearm. It's kind of like having an automatic transmission on a car versus a standard.” It is automatic for the user.

All of these actions, like bolt, lever, hinge and pump—actions that require more manual effort to reload—remain unaffected by this new proposed definition. For folks following along at home, we're talking about guns that fire larger bullets and for which most of the loading is done automatically. This seems pretty reasonable to me, and it certainly does to the members on this side.

The next criterion that must be met is a firearm that “was originally designed with a detachable cartridge magazine with a capacity of six cartridges or more”. Again, for those at home, we can refer to cartridges colloquially as bullets. It's also important to note that the legal magazine capacity in Canada is five. Anything larger is deemed to be too big and is illegal. We're only talking about guns that fire a large number of bullets, where much of the loading action is done automatically. The definition is forward-looking only. It applies only to guns that have not been invented yet.

In the amendments I submitted yesterday, I also included a provision that will ensure that there's a five-year legislative review of this definition to ensure the right balance has been struck.

In summary, this definition only applies to future guns that are designed to fire a large number of big bullets, where much of the loading action is done automatically. In the words of Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns, these amendments are “A victory for science, public health, and Canadian values”.

What we have before us is a reasonable and technical definition. It also—and I want to stress this—does not take away from the firearms that were deemed prohibited in the 2020 order in council that banned 1,500 kinds of assault-style firearms, including the AR-15, from our country. Those firearms remain prohibited.

Today what we have before us are new amendments, including a new technical definition that provides clarity and sets an objective standard of what constitutes a prohibited weapon. It's a technical definition that the majority of Canadians support, and it was supported by the Mass Casualty Commission.

I've been on this public safety committee since I was elected in 2015. I've met with and listened to survivors of gun violence, domestic abuse and mass shootings, who have worked with our government to introduce legislation to strengthen gun control and enhance our public safety. That's why, in my community of Oakville North—Burlington, I hear from my constituents about the need to strengthen our gun control laws. One life lost to gun violence is one too many.

As someone who has advocated for eight years for a strategy to address and prevent gun violence, it gives me great pride to be part of a government that's introduced this legislation, which is the strongest piece of gun control legislation in our lifetimes.

I was really disappointed to see that already my colleagues across the way in the Conservative Party are spreading misinformation. Bill C-21 is a strong piece of legislation, and it has important aspects beyond the technical definition I've talked about today. Canadians are concerned about their safety and about gun violence. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to address gun violence and crime, but Bill C-21 is one tool in our tool box to address gun violence specifically and to ban guns that were designed to kill the most people in the shortest amount of time. It will bolster border and law enforcement capacity, reduce the number of firearms in circulation in Canada, stop gun crime before it starts, create red-flag and yellow-flag laws, and provide resources to help combat domestic violence involving firearms.

We're making critical investments in housing, mental health supports and youth programs to address the root causes of crime and to set young people up for success. We also created the first-ever action plan to end gender-based violence. All these investments and actions by our government, including Bill C-21, are part of our government's broader strategy to keep Canadians safe and healthy. Bill C-21 is a critical bill that needs to be passed as soon as possible.

I just want to reiterate, Mr. Chair, that we all need to be taking a public health approach to gun control. This is one part of that approach.

I call on my colleagues to support this amendment. Thank you.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to move G-3.1, which deals with ghost guns or 3-D printed guns, as they're also known.

Essentially, when G-4 was withdrawn, an important part of that amendment was a change in paragraph (i) that would incorporate firearm parts into the legislation. That is important because ghost guns, or 3-D printed guns, rely on actual firearm parts in order to be usable.

All members can agree that this growing issue needs to be addressed urgently. It was actually part of our study on guns and gangs, which we were able to produce a unanimous report on. Many of us went to the RCMP gun vault, and we were able to see how quick and easy it is for criminals to 3-D print the receiver portion of a firearm illegally.

I met with police services across the country who told me how worried they are about ghost guns infiltrating our communities. Investigators, like Michael Rowe of the Vancouver police service, whom colleagues will remember, appeared at our committee during our study on guns and gangs. My colleague Mr. Noormohamed and I met him in Vancouver. He emphasized the need to create legislative solutions to address this gap so that police would have the tools they need to apprehend those who are creating ghost guns.

I'm just going to quote some of Inspector Rowe's testimony from when he appeared at committee. He said:

For example, one of the trends we're seeing out here in Vancouver right now is the use of privately made firearms or “ghost guns”. During the gang conflict, we're seeing more ghost guns, specifically in the hands of people who are involved in active murder conspiracies or people who are believed to be working as hired contract killers. Ghost guns can be 3-D printed or modified from what's called a Polymer80 handgun....

Modern 3-D printing materials can produce a durable firearm capable of shooting hundreds of rounds without a failure. For example, one of my teams recently completed an investigation in which we executed search warrants on a residential home. Inside this home, we located a sophisticated firearms manufacturing operation capable of producing 3-D printed firearms. They had firearm suppressors and they were completing airsoft conversions—converting airsoft pistols into fully functioning firearms.

This amendment that I put forward, colleagues, is in direct response to Inspector Rowe's ask, where he said:

I'd respectfully like to submit that a potential solution would be to bring in legislative remedies to regulate the possession, sale and importation of firearms parts such as barrels, slides and trigger assemblies. This type of legislation would give us, the police, the necessary tools to be able to seize these items, get active enforcement action and more effectively target the manufacturing of privately made firearms.

Police services across the country are sounding the alarm on this problem, and the amendments we're introducing to address ghost guns are another reason Bill C-21 is an essential piece of legislation that would increase public safety.

There are also many amendments coming forward that will add the words “firearm part” to legislation, and this would help address the ever-growing problem of ghost guns in our country.

In order to do all of the other pieces that we need to do with firearm parts, we first need to pass G-3.1. Therefore, I'm asking for everyone's support on an issue that is a growing concern across the country. It will actually put us ahead of gangs and organized crime, and it will truly make a difference for police services right across the country.

I'm hoping that colleagues will support this.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I believe we have consensus. Thanks, all of you.

That being said, we shall carry on with our further business.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, June 23, 2022, the committee resumes consideration of Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments related to firearms. The committee resumes clause-by-clause consideration.

I welcome, once again, after a long absence, our officials. It's good to see you. We'll do our best to get this done.

At the point when we last engaged in clause-by-clause, we were embroiled in a vigorous debate on amendment G-4, which has been withdrawn. That effectively adjourns that particular debate.

We will continue.

I'm sorry. I forgot to introduce our officials.

From the Department of Justice, we have Marianne Breese, counsel, criminal law policy section; Paula Clarke, counsel, criminal law policy section; and Phaedra Glushek, counsel, criminal law policy section. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Rachel Mainville-Dale, acting director general, firearms policy. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Rob Daly, director, strategic policy, and Kellie Paquette, director general, both from the Canadian firearms program.

Once again, thank you for joining us today. Your participation is much appreciated.

We will recommence as close as I can figure out to where we are.

You all should have received a new package of amendments. We start at this point with G-3. I believe that is standing in the name of Ms. Damoff.

Please go ahead.

(On clause 1)

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

For the Diefenbaker government, I was not there. I never met John Diefenbaker, but I knew his executive assistant. MP Maguire met John Diefenbaker.

He was first elected prime minister in 1957 in a minority, but he had an overwhelming, smashing victory in 1958, winning many seats. He was only to be surpassed in the number of seats by Brian Mulroney's victory in 1984.

Apparently, in 1958, with the election of the Diefenbaker government:

...greater use was made of standing committees; for the first time, a member of the official opposition was chosen to chair the Public Accounts Committee—

Imagine that. The Conservative government of John Diefenbaker expanded the roles of committees and said examining the spending of government accounts by the public accounts committee is not something that should be chaired by a government member. They, in government, said, “We should have an opposition member chair the public accounts committee.”

Is that a dedication to ministerial accountability? That's a belief in our parliamentary system like we don't see these days.

Again, I will read it, “for the first time, a member of the official opposition was chosen to chair the Public Accounts committee and the Committee began to hold regular meetings”. That's a good concept.

In 1968 there were more significant reforms made to House procedures, including the following—and remember, I don't know what time of the year it was in 1968 that it happened. It could have been under Prime Minister Pearson, or it could have been under newly elected Prime Minister Trudeau, who was fresh faced, and there was Trudeaumania. If it was under him, with all the world before him to change the world and use government for good with an unusual respect for Parliament for the Liberals, in 1968 they made a series of significant reforms to House procedures, including the following three key changes.

The estimates were no longer considered by a committee of the whole of the House but were sent to standing committees. That was a good reform. It gave those expert committees the ability to scrutinize the spending of the departments that the minister is responsible for, i.e. the Fisheries minister in the fisheries committee or the Industry minister in the industry committee.

The second significant reform, according to Treasury Board, that was made in 1968 was that the opposition was given a total of 25 days when it could choose a topic of a debate. Those are colloquially called opposition days, when we get to propose a motion for the House to debate and move and, for the general part in this government, for the government to ignore the vote or, in some cases, vote against it, as they did recently on several opposition days. We were thankful that they voted to send China interference, which the government has been aware of for two years, I believe, yesterday, to the procedure and House committee. Thanks to some of these reforms, those things can happen.

The third thing was that most bills were referred to standing committees. I was talking with MP Blaikie the other day about bills going to standing committees, and talking about the time.... Again I'm going to give a story. There is a standing order that is still on the books today, little used, that committees could be freed up from the arduous work of dealing with legislation, which can throw off the important subject studies that standing committees do. For example, we now have three government bills before the industry committee, which has stopped, halted, right in the middle of the important study we were doing on a Bloc motion to have the electronics and recycling ecosystem studied by the industry committee to understand all types of things. That has been stopped because we now have three bills, Bill C-27 on privacy, Bill C-34, changes to the Investment Canada Act, which I'm sure all members here are very interested in, and Bill C-42, a bill to create, finally, a beneficial corporate ownership registry.

There is a standing order that still exists today that says you can refer bills to legislative committees. These are special committees that get set up for each bill. They exist for a bill, then disappear.

During the days when I was a young legislative assistant to a minister, that's where all bills went. They didn't go to standing committees, except for the budget. They didn't go to standing committees; they went to specially constituted legislative committees that would be set up, for example, to deal with Bill C-21, which changed the Firearms Act. It wouldn't go to security, SECU, as we call it. It would go to a special committee of MPs set up from all parties, and it would have its own budgets, its own clerks and its own travel budgets and then, when the bill was reported back to the House with or without amendments, that legislative committee would disappear.

For example, Mr. Chair, look at the biography of a former chair of this committee whom I knew well, Don Blenkarn, an irascible fellow from Mississauga who was elected and chaired this committee, I believe, for six years during the Mulroney government. He wasn't always a person who followed the government rules, I can tell you, much to the chagrin of then finance minister, Michael Wilson. When you look up his bio, you will see legislative committee after legislative committee after legislative committee listed by bill, because when a finance bill came out of second reading in the House, the legislative committee would set up, and Don Blenkarn would always be one who wanted to be on those bills to examine them.

While this reform in 1968 referred it to standing committees, I know personally that there were further reforms to the Standing Orders to allow for more flexibility. It is something we should use a little more today, those legislative committees, but, like I've said before, I've gone a little off topic from this, but I still think it's about how we hold ministers to account in Parliament.

There are different ways to do it under the Standing Orders, and some are effective, but the key part of it, whether it's a standing committee, a legislative committee, public accounts, the finance committee or two of my favourites, industry and fisheries, is that ministers come because it's a courtesy on both sides.

It's a courtesy to ask the minister to come and explain why this is such a great legislative initiative, but it's also generally polite—like when you get a dinner invitation to somebody's house—to go. I won't say to you, Mr. Chair, since I expect I will get an invitation to dinner with you sometime, “Well, I can only go for half an hour.” I know you want to talk to me about the insights I've provided the committee on ministerial accountability for more than that over dinner and maybe a few glasses of wine.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Oh, there is a public accounts meeting later today, so it's being requested that we actually hear just a little more, for the usage of those who have dual committee responsibilities, what the Treasury Board says the roles of ministers are with respect to the public accounts committee.

It has in the final paragraph on page 16, “The Standing Committee on Public Accounts”—otherwise more colloquially known as the public accounts committee—“scrutinizes all reports of the auditor general and The Public Accounts of Canada once they are tabled in the House of Commons.”

If viewers want to see what the agenda is for those committees or for this committee, they can go to Ourcommons.ca and click under “Committees”, pick out the committee they're interested in and see the agenda. If, for some reason, this committee's not being broadcast on CPAC, those who are watching this will know already, I guess, that they can go to ParlVU. They can watch anything that's going on online in Parliament. They just click on the committee. They can actually go back and view past things. They could go back and start to watch from the beginning, if they wanted to, my presentation on ministerial accountability and these important government documents.

It's being pointed out that these are in both official languages, because I do respect immensely my Bloc colleagues and want to make sure people know that they can get any of these presentations or minutes and can watch or view in both official languages. It's easy. There's a button to click at the bottom. You just choose between English and French. That's very important, because we are an officially bilingual country.

We only have one officially bilingual province, though: New Brunswick. Canadians have a right to ask for government services in the language of their choice.

This final paragraph continues about the public accounts committee, “The Committee helps ensure that public funds are spent for the purposes authorized by Parliament.” It doesn't say that the committee helps understand or oversee the monies spent by the Minister of Finance on her own, without anybody watching over her shoulder, except for, maybe, the chief of staff of the Prime Minister. It doesn't say that here in this Treasury Board document.

What it has is, “The Committee helps ensure that public funds are spent for the purposes authorized by Parliament.” Only Parliament can authorize spending, right? This is part of this process, this massive omnibus bill amending 51 acts. It's important, to get to an understanding of that act that we be able to ask the key questions, and we need to ask them to the minister responsible. It's a fairly basic thing.

It actually goes back to the basic establishment of the mother of all parliaments in Great Britain. For those of you who don't know, the reason the House of Commons is green is that the first House of Commons in Britain was held in a farmer's field. It wasn't held in the winter, so the grass was green. That's why that's our colour—to represent the commoners, the farmers, agriculture, the roots of our country, the common people, because the common people have common sense. That's what we should be following to bring it home.

The Treasury Board report continues to say that the public accounts committee does not assess the appropriateness of policies adopted by the government. It's actually for committees like this to examine the appropriateness of those issues. Public accounts' job is to ensure that the money that was allocated to change the symbol on the king's crown from a religious symbol to a snowflake—because apparently Canada is the only country with snow—has been spent correctly, and that it hasn't been spent on enforcement of rules regarding elvers—although, Lord knows, we need that since the RCMP is refusing to enforce the law in Nova Scotia around illegal poaching. Maybe some of that money could be diverted there—but, no, the public accounts would find that a misuse of public funds, because that is not what Parliament will be approving. If Parliament approves this bill, it will approve those specific changes.

It's funny though. Even though this bill deals with symbols around royalty, I was shocked to learn that the bill doesn't deal with the imagines on Canada's passport. The government decided on its own that we should remove the image of Terry Fox and replace it with a squirrel eating a nut. Apparently a squirrel eating a nut is more Canadian than Terry Fox.

That would be an interesting question to pose to the minister. Maybe the minister is thinking that she has to squirrel it away for a rainy day. I don't see any squirrelling away for a rainy day in this budget with $130 billion of debt projected to be added to our national debt, bringing it to almost $1.4 trillion, by the way, of which $1.1 trillion will have been added by the two Trudeaus. For those who don't know it, the current Prime Minister's father was also prime minister for a number of years and left our country in—oh, I've been asked which years, because we have some young people in the room.

Specifically, he was first elected in 1968 and then defeated—which was a glorious day—on February 23, 1979, if I am correct, but I will defer to my Beatles expert, who may know more specifically.

Unfortunately, nine months later, that government of the Right Honourable Joe Clark.... By the way, for those who don't know it, after Pierre Trudeau was defeated, he resigned as leader. He drove away from Parliament Hill in his rare Mercedes Gullwing car because he didn't have the limo anymore. That car, which the son now owns, is worth something around $30 million or $40 million. The car is actually worth more than the $14 million that apparently the Prime Minister is worth. The car is actually worth more than his other assets. That doesn't seem right, but he inherited a beautiful car, and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau left town with his tail between his legs in a very expensive, collectible and rare car.

In early 1980 a very colourful finance minister, who later in the Mulroney government went on to serve as justice minister and trade minister, someone by the name of John Crosbie, who was Joe Clark's finance minister in 1979, presented a budget, accountable to Parliament. That budget proposed the outrageous idea that in order the help pay off the debt and deficits that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had built up—which was the reason he lost his finance minister, by the way, in 1975 when John Turner resigned over that—there would be a tax on gasoline of 18¢ a gallon. We hadn't converted to metric yet, but that would be 4.5¢ a litre. For those who don't know what a Canadian gallon is, it's not a U.S. gallon. They would have been pikers compared to this government and the carbon tax, which, before the end of the decade, is going to add 41¢ a litre to the cost of gas. Unfortunately we lost John Crosbie a couple of years ago, but John would blush at the thought of presenting a budget that imposed 41¢ per litre of tax because the result of John Crosbie's tax of 18¢ a gallon or 4.5¢ a litre was that the Liberals and the NDP got together, I believe with the Union Nationale from Quebec, to defeat the Crosbie budget and send us to an election.

You would think that, at the time since the Liberals didn't have a leader, they wouldn't have done such a thing and would have respected the fact that somebody was trying to clean up the mess they had caused, but apparently not, so the wily old Allan MacEachen from Nova Scotia got Pierre Trudeau back into the saddle to fight the 1980 election, where he ran around calling himself “The Gunslinger”. Can you imagine that? A Liberal Prime Minister called himself the gunslinger. Given what the Liberals are doing with Bill C-21, I find it hard to believe that they would be proud of the legacy of a Liberal prime minister who served ultimately from 1968 to 1979 and then from 1980 to 1984 called himself the gunslinger.

He would actually stand with his fingers pointed like guns in his belt loop when he was campaigning. The gunslinger. I guess he had a different view on firearms from the one the current government has.

If I could go on to the next sentence of the report, it's the last sentence on page 16—

Public Safety

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Madam Speaker, combatting crime is a complex issue. Rather than offering solutions, the party opposite wants to come up with catchy slogans and obstruct the policies we are putting forward.

We need to be dealing with mental health. We are providing options when it comes to housing. We are very proud of Bill C-21 and the things that are being put in there to get a handgun freeze and additional penalties on organized crime. We are taking an overall approach to dealing with crime, and I am proud of what we are doing.

Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague and I are members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I also studied the budget from a security perspective. I realize that not enough is being done, as she said, to counter gun violence.

Yes, we are working on Bill C‑21. There are good things in there. Is this going to solve all the problems? Unfortunately not and it is certainly not going to solve the problem of illicit firearms trafficking.

For months, the Bloc Québécois has been proposing that more people work together and that we create a sort of squad of New York police officers, Akwesasne Mohawk police officers, police officers from the Sûreté du Québec, police officers from Ontario and Border Services officers. They also need to be given more resources.

When these people appear in committee, they tell us that guns are crossing the border and they do not have the resources to stop it. Does the member think that the government is putting money in the right place?

Firearms

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

Mr. Speaker, I have 21 petitions calling on the government to repeal Bill C-21, the confiscation of private property act.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, again, we are seeing the NRA spokesperson making things up. It will be three years next month since we got rid of assault-style weapons in Canada. It is now illegal to use them, buy them or sell them. The Conservative Party of Canada wants to bring these assault rifles back, but we will not allow that to happen. That is why I am calling on everyone in the House to support Bill C‑21 when it comes back to the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

Thank you to all of our officials today. I know we had a long day. You've given us some excellent information. I appreciate your service.

I'll just mention to the committee that there is the subcommittee on Friday. The point of that is we want to get squared away in an abundance of ambition for what happens after Bill C-21.

Thank you all.

We are now adjourned.

[Talal Dakalbab]

If you'll allow me, I will start by answering the question.

First of all, the red flag provisions in Bill C-21 do not remove the responsibility of law enforcement and the police to do what they have to do, as prescribed right now in the Criminal Code of Canada for the red flags. It is an addition to further allow the victims' families or Canadians, when they feel there's a risk, to bring it to the attention of a judge for an assessment.

I would say that I was part of the first introduction of Bill C-21 by Minister Blair. I was part of the second one, and I had discussions with stakeholders. The second bill added some provisions to ensure privacy and to ensure in camera hearings, in response to criticism in Bill C-21's first time around.

That does not remove the fact that there is work to be done. That is the reason some of the funding that is provided to law enforcement in provinces and territories is to work with law enforcement and for their time to react or to take it seriously when they get these complaints.

I want to clarify that what I'm saying is that this bill adds support, but it's not the only thing that is required. There is more to be done through training for law enforcement and clarity on their roles and responsibilities.

I'm happy to turn it over to my colleague, Deputy Commissioner Larkin, if he wants to add anything.