Public Safety Committee on May 8th, 2018

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

The main problem is not the weapon itself, but the person's mental health. Most often, crimes are committed by people who are not criminals, but who have mental health problems.

In light of the proposed changes in Bill C-71, will the government have the necessary resources to properly monitor people with mental health problems? Right now, there are 2.1 million license holders. How do you think you will be able to control the situation with your current resources?

[Randall Koops]

There's nothing in the bill that changes the criteria that already exists in the Firearms Act in section 5 about the overriding public interest purpose of who is eligible to be licensed, and in subsection 5(2) about what is being considered. The only change is from a mandatory five-year consideration to a lifetime consideration.

So that does not change the criteria, including those related to crime and mental health.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

Do you think it makes sense to go that far back and look at an individual's entire life? Doing that for someone who is 18 is not the same as for a person who is 40. To what extent can you look into a person's mental health history over a period of 40 years? Do you think it makes sense to go that far back? A person might have made a mistake at the age of 12, but can you then say the person has a mental health problem now at the age of 40? Do you think that makes any sense?

[Randall Koops]

The criteria in the current act are very specific. It is not just for individuals who may have had mental health problems.

It's very specific, concerning those who are “treated for a mental illness, whether in a hospital, mental institute, psychiatric clinic or otherwise...that was associated with violence or threatened or attempted violence on the part of the person”.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

Have you assessed the impact of this provision on members of the police and the military? We know that some members of the military and police have had mental health problems as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. If the law is applied, will hundreds of members of the police and military be fired? Was this provision intended for them?

[Randall Koops]

Again, the criteria as presented in the act don't specifically say that a single instance of mental illness does not permit someone to ever own a firearm. It's simply one of the things that has to be considered in the context of whether they are eligible.

As for serving members of the Canadian Forces or police officers, they are not covered by the legislation because it governs the civilian use of firearms.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Law-abiding farmers and hunters are worried because there is a tendency to say that they are criminals, or at least that is how they feel. Yet these people use firearms quite legitimately. There are also firearms vendors who told us that they have already implemented measures to control the sale of their products.

What will the new provisions change for these people?

[Randall Koops]

For the average owner of a non-restricted firearm, very little changes. The bill does not re-establish a registry. It does not change there being no requirement for an authorization to transport for a non-restricted firearm, and there's no change to what persons can own as a non-restricted firearm.

For the average person using firearms in pursuit of hunting and the like, the bill does not change anything in relation to their legal use of firearms.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have half a minute.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Quebec has its own law and last January it created a new firearms registry. The difficulty in Quebec is the sale of firearms between owners in Ontario or other provinces and those in Quebec, who are then required to register those firearms. Everyone says it is not a registry, but the information will be recorded by the vendors, and if the vendors close shop, the government will have a database.

Does Quebec need Bill C-71 for its own registry to be effective?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, the time has run out. You're going to have to circle back in on that question.

Again, officials are always leery about expressing their opinions.

Before I go to Mr. Dubé for seven minutes, I just want to say that I'm going to restrict the last five minutes to committee business. We can pursue the report in the subcommittee.

Mr. Dubé.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There is a situation...and I have only some of the numbers from Ontario about fake or compromised possession and acquisition licences. To your knowledge, does this at all contribute to the obtention of firearms or ammunition by gangs and other criminal elements?

[Randall Koops]

I'm not aware....

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Is this the kind of situation that can be addressed through the mandatory verification when there are second-hand transactions involving firearms as stipulated in the bill?

[Randall Koops]

Bill C-71 would impose on the vendor the obligation to check that a licence remains valid. There also remains in the Firearms Act the offence of acquiring a firearm without the proper valid licence to do so. Bill C-71 doesn't touch that.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Is there going to be a system in place? There obviously will be an additional burden on the—I don't particularly care for this term, but for lack of a better one—bureaucracy, as folks go through those verifications. What's been put in place to streamline that, to make it as easy as possible for anyone doing a verification?

[Rob O'Reilly]

As you may know, the Canadian firearms program does have a regime in place right now to register restricted and prohibited firearms. That system inherently has a licence verification aspect attached to it, because if anyone is attempting to register a firearm, obviously they have to ensure that the licence is valid. The program does have the mechanism in place already to perform this function.

Currently, although it is not mandatory under the law, we do licence verification. In terms of any individual wishing to sell a firearm, or a business, and there are many businesses that as a matter of practice have instituted a certain form of mandatory licence verification. Businesses have a portal right now called “business web services” so that they can do that licence verification, and individuals or businesses can avail themselves of our 1-800 number to do licence verification. We are well equipped to manage that in the future.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Do you anticipate an increase in the use of these portals and programs with the changes in Bill C-71?

[Rob O'Reilly]

Yes, certainly. With Bill C-71, we would therefore be doing licence verification for non-restricted firearms. We don't have concrete numbers as to how many non-restricted firearms are currently being acquired, because there are no means to be able to record that.

However, as mentioned by the minister, we will not only have our telephone services, which are currently available nationally, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, but we will be implementing a web portal that will facilitate licence verification as well. If there is a need to provide additional services on the weekend, we will scale up to be able to meet that demand.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Similarly, but as regards authorizations to transport since they have been issued automatically since the former Bill C-42 was adopted, the number of applications to transport could spike as soon as the bill is passed.

Have you considered that possibility? If that happens, how do you intend to deal with it?

[Rob O'Reilly]

No, we don't. As mentioned, prior to Bill C-42 coming into effect in 2015, the program was issuing authorization to transport, for all purposes, what we would call single purpose ATTs. In essence, this is a return to a practice that we are well versed and practised in providing. Although it will create an increased number, as mentioned earlier to Mr. Fraser, roughly 96% of all authorizations to transport that we've historically issued were for the two purposes that remain automatic. The other roughly 4.5% don't represent a significant amount of authorizations to transport and we will be able to manage those.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Once the bill is passed, will the authorizations that were automatically issued under the current act be rescinded? If so, will people have to apply or will there be a grandfather clause?

[Rob O'Reilly]

If Bill C-71 is passed as written, individuals who currently have authorizations to transport for five or six conditions on their licence would have those additional authorizations rescinded, or revoked. I'm not sure exactly what the term is. Their licence would continue to have the two authorizations to transport only.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

In that particular context, is there anticipation that, with the revocation, there would be a large number of requests immediately following the adoption of legislation beyond the long-term points that were being made in regard to Mr. Fraser's question?