Evidence of meeting #66 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was licence.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Excuse me, Mr. Garrison. A point of order does not come off your time.
NDP
Conservative
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not understanding where this is going. We all had the same opportunity to bring witnesses forward. This bill was debated in the House. All parties were aware that it was coming to committee. We are the public safety and security committee. This is where this type of legislation comes. It's not our fault, on this side of the table, if the opposition parties were not prepared for this meeting.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much.
Mr. Garrison, you have the floor, sir.
Excuse me, is it a point of order, Mr. Easter?
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Chair, I'd like to get in on that point of order, because I think it's wrong to accuse us of being unprepared. We put in seven or eight witnesses. Most of them were police departments and chief firearms officers because we wanted their experience. All have refused and I think that's a problem. I would like to know why they've refused. In any event, we had put witnesses forward, and Randall's right in terms of the rushed nature. We need to hear from both sides, and in all honesty we haven't.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
The chair has already responded earlier to that in that the response from the witnesses to the clerk will be distributed to the members, either verbally and/or in written form if we have it. Certainly the chair will communicate that to you.
Now back to you, Mr. Garrison.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just going to emphasize again that we've had the witnesses who have appeared representing the legitimate gun owners who—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Mr. Garrison, we have bells, so I'll just give you one minute to finish here, and then we must go.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We've had the witnesses representing legitimate gun owners, and I have no problem with either the testimony they've presented or their points of view. They're quite legitimate. We have not heard from those in urban areas who have quite a serious problem with gun violence. For whatever reasons, we've had a schedule that was so quick, not because opposition members did not do their work nor invite witnesses, but because witnesses were not able to appear before this committee. We're going to be moving into clause-by-clause with a very unbalanced study of this bill.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much. We will be adjourning this meeting now.
I'll just say to our witnesses, thank you very kindly. We have a vote call in the House of Commons, which demands that we bring an immediate closing to the committee. On behalf of the entire committee, I would like to thank you, Mr. Mauser and Mr. Grismer, for appearing today and contributing to the deliberations on Bill C-42.
We are now adjourned.