Public Safety Committee on April 23rd, 2015

[Kathy Thompson]

Okay, very good. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the authorization to transport is being streamlined in order to attach those privileges now to the licence request, and it only applies to restricted and prohibited firearms. The ATT will really be streamlined to coincide with the licence request. In terms of whether the transportation requirements will be affected, it is going to be streamlined so that it is specific to certain purposes. In the past, the ATT was very specific to a specific purpose for transportation. It could be for a specific time, as in to transport the firearm or firearms for a specific day, or it could extend to a broader period but be specific to a purpose, for example to one trip to transport the firearm from a shooting range back home. The licence will be streamlined with the ATT now in that it will be specific to certain purposes. I mentioned earlier that there are certain purposes for acquiring a firearm, and for our purposes today it was a shooting range, a competition, or a gun collection. If you are requesting or renewing your licence for the purpose of acquiring a firearm for the shooting range, then, as a privilege on the ATT, you would also have authorization to transport to and from a shooting range, a gunsmith, your residence, and a peace officer or the chief firearms officer in your province or territory. Those would be very specific to those purposes.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you very much.

Finally, under Bill C-42, a mandatory lifetime prohibition on the possession of prohibited or restricted firearms would apply following any conviction for an offence involving the use, threat, or attempt to commit domestic violence, rather than only in cases where the possible sentence is imprisonment for 10 years or more. Does this mean that even for relatively minor offences, such as domestic dispute involving mutual threats of violence, a person would be prohibited from possessing a firearm for life?

[Julie Besner]

First of all, there has to be a conviction on indictment. For example, for simple assault or another low-level threat there would most likely be a prosecution by summary conviction offence. There the court retains discretion whether or not to impose a prohibition order, and it can do so, with the proposed amendments in this bill, up to life for all classes of firearms. If an individual is convicted on indictment of a domestic violence offence, the prohibition will be for life for restricted or prohibited, and a minimum of 10 years up to life for non-restricted.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Casey, for seven minutes again, sir.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Clause 6 of the bill makes amendments to the Firearms Act with respect to transport of a firearm within a province. The proposed amendment to the Firearms Act refers to a port of entry or exit. What is a port of entry or exit, as contained in the Firearms Act?

[Kathy Thompson]

My understanding, and I may ask Mr. Murdock to elaborate, is that it's in order to be able to travel, for example, to a competition. If you are travelling to the U.S., for example, it would allow you to take the firearm to the port of entry, and of course then you'd have to have a separate authorization from the United States government.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, please forgive me for asking a question that pertains to my constituents. I live in Prince Edward Island. There is no port of entry or port of exit to the United States, nor is there one, to my knowledge, in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland and Labrador. Therefore, it strikes me that the impact of this amendment will mean that the law-abiding gun owners in those provinces will have to jump through some additional hoops. They will have to obtain separate documentation in order to be able to transport their firearm across an international border because they are crossing a provincial border. Is that the case and, if so, why?

[Kathy Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, to clarify, the port of entry doesn't have to be a land port; it could be by air as well.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay.

So if someone in the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador is seeking to transport their firearm and cross the border into the United States via a vehicle, are they treated differently than someone from a province with an international border, such as New Brunswick, Ontario, or all of the other Canadian provinces would be?

[Kathy Thompson]

My understanding is that they would require an authorization as part of their licence to transport it to the next province and would have to get in contact with the chief firearms officer from that province to acquire the right to then travel with their firearm from New Brunswick to the U.S. border.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Could you shed some light on the question that stumped the minister in the last hour?

I asked him about the February 20, 2014, briefing note from the RCMP, which contained the words “a threat to public safety and” and the fact that the exact words from the briefing note were contained in the binder that was provided to this committee, with the exception of those words.

I asked him whether the omission was deliberate or inadvertent, and he said that he would have to get back to me or that he didn't know, or he wasn't in a position to answer the question. I appreciate that these binders aren't prepared by the minister. They're probably prepared by someone under your direction.

Can you help us with that answer? Why were those words deleted?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Ms. James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I was just wondering if the member opposite could tell me what page in the binders he's referring to so I could follow along.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

That's fine.

She's asking for a point of clarification.

Do you have that information, Mr. Casey?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

It's page 60.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very kindly.

If you have a response, that's fine. If not, we just don't have a response. We have to have an indication.

[Kathy Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, I don't have a response at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

That's fine. Thank you very much.

Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

We asked the Library of Parliament to do a little bit of research on whether cabinets in other western democracies had the power to override firearms classification principles. We were told that a review of firearms legislation in several selected countries, including the United States, Australia, and the U.K., did not reveal any jurisdictions in which a cabinet, a government department, or even the police would have the authority to override the firearms classification principles set out in the legislation.

Can you point to any jurisdiction where this power that is now being given to cabinet exists? Or, is there any example of best practices that Canada is relying on to take this measure?

[Julie Besner]

I'm not aware of international comparisons. The Library of Parliament conducted that research, so it is probably your best source. All I can point to is that explicit authority is being provided in this bill. That's the proposal there.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

And that makes us unique among western democracies in giving such powers to cabinet.

[Julie Besner]

I can't speak to whether it's unique, but it is explicitly provided for in the bill.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

The bill will allow for the transport of a firearm across pretty vast distances given that it sets out the ability to transport a firearm within provincial borders. For example, someone could lawfully transport a firearm from, say, Cornwall, Ontario, to Thunder Bay.

Would you agree with me that during a trip of that length, it wouldn't be inconceivable that the firearm would be left unattended for periods of time?