Mr. Chair, I'm presenting a petition today that contains the concerns of Canadians in my riding with the government's approach to firearms legislation and regulation.
The petition highlights that the Liberal government's December 5, 2019, Speech from the Throne contains numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation; that the term “military-style assault rifles” is a political phrase undefined in Canadian law; that municipalities are constitutionally unable to enact criminal law to ban handguns in their jurisdictions; that the experts, including chiefs of police, agree that banning firearms and requiring law-abiding gun owners to follow more unnecessary red tape will not increase public safety; that the majority of guns used in violent crimes are smuggled into Canada from the United States; and that the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal gun traffickers responsible for violence in our communities.
The petitioners in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon are calling on the government to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed, RCMP-vetted Canadians; and to focus our limited resources on anti-gang enforcement, on reducing the involvement of at-risk youth and gangs, on mental health and on providing the Canada Border Services Agency with the tools they need to do their job effectively.