Thank you for your question, Mr. Moore.
At this time, most shootings in major Canadian cities are committed by street gang members, who are fairly young. Some gang members give small contracts to younger members to intimidate people, threaten them and so forth. We can see that impunity reigns at this time. Several media have done multiple reports on this. On social media, we see young people laughing at the justice system. They proudly display their firearms, the vast majority of which are illegal. We are already in this situation.
The passage of Bill C‑5 would lead to lower standards and trivialize the possession of firearms for a criminal purpose. It would send the wrong message to criminals. In a way, we would be telling them that maybe society is being a bit too hard on them and that we'll be giving them more lenient sentences. We are therefore trivializing the possession of firearms.
It must be remembered that possession of a firearm by young people, who have easy access to such weapons, is followed in most cases by a criminal act. It's not just possession; the next step is shooting at enemies or people from the same backgrounds, including racialized and diverse communities or similar socio-economic backgrounds. Indeed, victims from the same background as the suspects are overrepresented.
By releasing criminals who were in possession of a firearm sooner—and parole also factors into that—we are allowing them to victimize more people in their own community or in an enemy community. This is a very bad signal to be sending. Passing such a bill is not appropriate given the reality on the ground.