Public Safety Committee on May 24th, 2018

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

With an interest in protecting Canadians by keeping firearms away from those who are dangerous, sir, do you see any provisions in this legislation that will do just that? Are there provisions to keep firearms out of the hands of gangs, criminals, those among us who are violent, and that will actually do what this bill purports to do, which is to protect public safety, to increase public safety?

Do you see anything here that will protect public safety?

[Rod Giltaca]

There's nothing in the bill that will affect the behaviour of criminals. The only measures we see in the bill are measures to affect the behaviour of licence-holders. That's a concern because we all want a safer Canada and if there was something in the bill that would help that, we would be for it.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Bernardo, you spoke briefly—or one of you did—about the new licence verification process. It simply means to check the validity of a purchaser's licence. Why does each specific transaction for each specific firearm require its own specific verification number, and why would that number expire?

[Tony Bernardo]

This is very significant, Mr. Motz. Thank you for asking this because, you see, the licence verification requires that it happen for each firearm. If I'm selling you a firearm, we go through this licence verification thing. If I'm selling you three at the same time, we have to do it three times. Does this start to smell like a registry? It is. It's a registry of the activity of firearms owners because, quite frankly, it doesn't really matter what non-restrictive firearm you have as much as it matters how many you have. This is exactly what this is about. If it's only a simple licence verification and I sell a firearm to my friend Mr. Giltaca here, I should only have to put in his licence number to make sure it's okay, but now we put in both and then get a government approval to do the transaction, which is recorded. However, if I sell him three guns, we have to do three at the same time. That's not a licence verification. Sorry.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I guess I have two full questions. You've expressed very definitive concerns with the RCMP, its classification, and the mistakes that have been made in the past. I'm sure the members of both of your associations are concerned about unelected individuals being responsible for taking property away, or for prohibiting and changing things without really any oversight or any repercussions for that. Given the concerns you've raised, how would you suggest that the classification process be managed and properly focused now to deal this with moving forward? If we're not doing it right in this bill, how would you suggest we do it? I'll ask both organizations to comment on that.

I'll start with you, sir.

[Tony Bernardo]

Okay. I would suggest a panel of experts, not just the RCMP. The RCMP has a vested interest in doing what it does, but there are other expert opinions, and many of them are more expert than the RCMP by a considerable margin. They should have input into this process. Then when a decision is made, people act on that decision. They act in good faith that the government has advised them correctly. There needs to be some kind of protection for those people.

[Rod Giltaca]

And the law itself has to be far more clear around how firearms are classified. Right now, the laws are an absolute mess, especially with the use of undefined terms like “variant”—we know that that's an issue—“easily converted”, or “converted full autos”. These are excuses to prohibit almost anything. The law itself has to be gone through and clarified in such a way that there isn't ambiguity. The ambiguity is the real problem.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

We've heard from our Liberal colleagues that this bill is in no way a long-gun registry or that in no way will we ever get to that ever again. However, it requires as condition of a business licence, as we know, the maintenance of certain personal information—they kept that without being codified to—information very similar to what was required to be kept in the long-gun registry. Can you explain how this requirement to keep information will interface with section 102 of the Firearms Act, and will government inspectors be able to examine and copy the backdoor gun register data?

[Tony Bernardo]

The answer is clearly yes. Section 102 of the existing Firearms Act gives the inspector access to any record to copy or duplicate, access to electronic records, everything. An inspector could walk into a gun store right now today and say, “I want all your records.” This doesn't change that. There's no amendment to section 102 in this, so inspectors would still be able to do the same thing.

The other thing that should be considered, too, is that right now the records belong to the dealer. As of the passage of Bill C-71, the records belong to the government. Even though the ministry of public safety is saying that, no, they don't, I will challenge that because when the gun store closes or if the owner dies, all the records are forfeited to the federal government. All the fields that have to be filled out are mandated by the federal government. No mistake, these are federal records.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Dubé, you have seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you all for being here today.

At any rate, we were just talking about the shopkeeper records. I'm wondering about this notion that the records will go back to the federal government in the event that the person dies, the business goes bankrupt, or whatever scenario we can see—and perhaps we'll hear from both organizations on this. My understanding is that's currently the law in the U.S. Not only that, in the U.S., I believe they keep the records indefinitely, whereas C-71 is a 20-year period.

I don't know how familiar you are with the situation in the U.S., but is that the case in the U.S. as well?

[Tony Bernardo]

Yes it is. Are we now going to model our gun laws after the U.S.?

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

No, not at all, I'm just—

[Tony Bernardo]

Because clearly, they have some that aren't working, so let's flip this back around.

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

I'm certainly not purporting we model our laws after them, I'm just wondering, when we're talking about handing over that type of information, it being portrayed as a backdoor registry, I somehow feel that Americans don't believe...do they believe that's some kind of registry for them?

[Tony Bernardo]

Yes, they do. When they go to a store, and they have to do the ATF forms and the waiting periods and everything that most people don't know they have to do, yes, they view it as a registry, that ATF is collecting this data, which of course, they are.

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

My assumption and a layperson's assumption, and so I look to you folks.... I've heard the minister say this, and I'm assuming it's correct to say that most reputable businesses would engage in this practice already.

[Tony Bernardo]

Absolutely. Of course they do warranties and things like that, but those records belong to the business, not the federal government. That's the difference.

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

Okay, and given that it would have to be obtained via warrant, what's the difference between—

[Tony Bernardo]

It doesn't have to be a warrant. I just explained that section 102 allows a chief firearms officer inspector access to the records anytime, 24-7. They can walk in the store and say, “Let me see the records.”

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

For the purposes of ensuring that the records are being kept—

[Tony Bernardo]

For the purposes of whatever they want. There are no purposes defined. They walk in and say, “We're photocopying every single record you have. We're taking your computer with us.” They can do that now.

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

My understanding is, according to the Firearms Act, the CFO already has that power, is that correct?

[Tony Bernardo]

That's what I'm saying, yes. They can do that. There's no—

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

If the CFO already has that power—