Public Safety Committee on May 8th, 2018

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I'm sorry...?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Continuous eligibility requirements: do you know what that means, when I speak about it?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Yes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Every day, every licensed firearms owner in Canada is flagged and their names are run to see whether or not they should be allowed to have their licence.

Would you agree with my assertion?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

It's a continuous process of examination.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Yes, every day.

Given that, in moving the requirements to 10 years from five years, what evidence does your department have that the continuous eligibility process will pick up something that would alert them to domestic violence? For example, when Bill C-42 was passed, there was a clause in that bill that strengthened the provision and cracked down on people committing domestic violence.

Is there anything in your bill that's going to crack down on people who commit domestic violence?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

There are other legislative measures and a very extensive funding package, which we're implementing right now, on gender-based violence.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Are you talking about Bill C-75, because the provisions—

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

No, it's far beyond that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Calkins, your time is up.

There is a motion before us. The motion is relevant to the current debate and the bill that is before us, so at this point, we have to debate the motion.

Mr. Calkins, do you want to present your motion again?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I already presented my motion, Mr. Chair. I believe there is a significant lack of understanding of what actually happens in the law-abiding firearms community. I think the information campaign that resulted in the current government's proposing its legislative package is based on a lot of misinformation.

I think one of the best ways we can deal with that is for all of the regular members of this committee to spend a little bit of time at a range. I think it would do us all a little bit of good. I think it would be a good time, a fun time, and an informative time for the members of the committee.

If we're going to pass legislation or pretend to know what we're talking about, I think it behooves the committee members, Mr. Chair, to visit a range. Let's do something locally. It doesn't have to take a lot of time outside the normal hours of this committee. I don't think it's an onerous requirement at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Spengemann.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, while I'm very interested in the motion and interested in visiting a range, at this point I'm more interested in hearing Mr. Goodale, so I move to adjourn debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

The question is on the motion to adjourn debate.

(Motion agreed to)

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I saw Mr. Motz vote in the most reasonable manner.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Spengemann, you have the last few moments.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

Minister Goodale, thank you for being here with your team.

This legislation can be looked at through a number of lenses. My colleague Ms. Damoff explored with you the gender lens. I would like to take the remaining time to ask you about two additional lenses, one of them that of young people, particularly young people at risk. I'd invite you to elaborate a bit more about the wider circle and the initiatives you've already mentioned with respect to gangs and violence, and also potentially the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, and how at-risk youth intersect with this legislation.

As to the second, time permitting, I would like to hear your perspective on what we've heard from indigenous stakeholders, particularly those folks who use firearms for hunting for food, but also for business—for guiding, for activities in the north that are centred on the firearm basically as an economic resource.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Spengemann, you've touched on important dimensions here.

I believe our provisions with respect to background checks will be helpful in relation to the issues you have raised. The Canada Centre for Community Engagement is not directly related to this initiative, but it runs on a parallel track, trying to ensure that people who are at risk of going down a wrong path in life can have that identified at an early stage and an intervention can be prepared that will assist them.

We held the guns and gangs summit here in Ottawa a couple of months ago. It was a very well attended summit. Something in the order of 200 people were there, representing all perspectives, from those who you would say were on the pro-firearms side and those who were on the anti-firearms side, and many people between those two points of view. Law enforcement was very much present, but also groups and organizations representing young people wanting to ensure their communities were safe.

They made many suggestions on how to prevent engagement with gangs, how to intervene with gang organizations to help young people escape that negative lifestyle, how police can organize themselves and interrelate to one another in integrated units so they can be more effective in combatting gang activity. To support all those very worthwhile ideas, we've made a commitment to invest up to $100 million per year working with the provinces, municipalities—major city governments like Toronto, for example, and others across the country—law enforcement agencies, non-governmental community organizations to develop the intervention plans that will be most effective in the local communities in stopping or at least substantially reducing the negative, dangerous behaviour that's involved with gangs, especially when they also have guns.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Minister, what have indigenous stakeholders told us about the legislation?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

The support is good. They want to ensure that some of their cultural practices with respect to firearms are recognized and accommodated. We've had conversations with the Assembly of First Nations as to how we might see that accommodation accomplished, while still maintaining the public safety purposes, but doing so in a manner that is culturally respectful.

Another initiative that we need to complete is the inclusion of indigenous people on the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee. An indigenous person was originally included in the membership of that committee, but they had to withdraw and we're now actively seeking a replacement for that person to complete the complement on the CFAC.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Spengemann.

Thank you, Minister, for starting us off on the study of Bill C-71.

We'll give the minister a few minutes to leave and then reconvene with the officials.

We'll suspend for two to three minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Let's reconvene.

We have two new additions. Renée Gobeil and Rob O'Reilly, welcome.

I'm assuming you have no statement, so we will recommence with questioning.

First up is Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity.

Thank you to our witnesses for being with us today.

I want to pick up on the line of questioning that we heard in the first panel, around the bill having no explicit reference to gangs or crime. I forget the exact language that was used. In my experience there are plenty of examples of legislation that have an impact on certain people or certain things without using that exact term or phrase.

I want to go over a couple of examples. When it comes to the ability to trace firearms, in your opinion, is this going to help investigate crimes committed by criminals and gangs?

Mr. Koops.

[Randall Koops]

The bill proposes that police would be provided with an additional tool in their tool kit to undertake the forensic tracing of firearms, specifically knowing at the point of sale the purchaser of the firearm.