Evidence of meeting #116 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was firearm.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Supt Gordon Sneddon
Everybody is short. I manage the gun and gang task force and the drug squad in Toronto. It's really the practical application of the law as it relates to policing.
Back to your question.
From our perspective, that makes complete sense. It also makes complete sense to us as to why would you limit this background check to five years. Why would you not look at the person's overall—
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Should the ATT be extended or not between your home and a specific gun range as it was prior to the gun registry back between 1977...?
Supt Gordon Sneddon
The concern we had as a policing community when the change was made to extend the ATTs and the opportunities to transport was it allowed greater opportunity for abuse. I recognize that most gun owners are in fact lawful, but there is an element of them out there who are not law-abiding, the same as the—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We'll have to leave it there.
Thank you, Ms. Damoff.
Mr. Motz, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Friedman, do you see anything in this bill that actually improves public safety?
Criminal Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
No. It's as simple as that. I'll tell you why.
Let's pick up on the very last thing this committee just heard about: the authorization to transport. Somebody who's in the business of applying for an authorization to transport is licensed, which means that they have been more heavily screened than probably any person in this room. Government security clearances don't touch on the daily screening through the Canadian firearms program that possession and acquisition licence holders are subject to. As a sports shooter, as a hunter myself, I get a background check every day. I don't know how many people in this room could say that—maybe some of the people at this table.
You have a pre-screened population for legality. Take a look at the authorization to transport. Think about it this way. It's a piece of paper, okay? It's not a lock. It's not a tracking device. The previous amendments under the prior government made perfect sense. They recognized that restricted firearms, when owned responsibly and legally, are used in legal and non public safety threatening activities all the time. It allowed for that instead of overburdening the system. That's what we're talking about. Every decision Parliament makes costs money; all these resources that the police use can be redirected away from true public safety concerns.
On the authorization to transport, I can't even imagine from anecdotal evidence.... I recall when the last amendments were being suggested under the previous government that Justin Trudeau, now our Prime Minister, said, “Well, this is going to allow people to take their gun to Tim Hortons.” It was curious. Even in the language used today, I heard about “carrying” restricted firearms. Let's be clear: restricted firearms and prohibited firearms can't be carried. They can't be carried by anyone except the police officers that we trust to do it and a tiny subset of trappers and people living out in wilderness areas who get the most difficult to obtain public safety permits in our country.
Nobody is carrying restricted or prohibited firearms. They're either transporting them—and if they're transporting them, they're locked with a trigger lock in a box that is locked in their vehicle—or they're using them at a range. The moment you hear someone talking about carrying restricted or prohibited firearms, you know the entire premise of the discussion isn't based on the evidence.
That's my concern. I look at this bill and I don't see a targeting of public safety. I see a targeting of the licensed, law-abiding firearm owner population.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you. I'm sure if I let you that you would find a lot more holes in this legislation, but I want to move on to a different question for you, sir.
I know that you represent the Canadian Criminal Lawyers' Association. I have to say that in my previous life it was not a group that I particularly trusted.
Criminal Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
First of all, when you say “hug-a-thug”, those are some of my clients, so let's all—
Criminal Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
They're alleged thugs, okay?
I see a fundamental consistency, actually, between Bill C-71 and Bill C-75.
I have to tell you that a lot of defence lawyers were excited when the new government took office, because we were promised—what was that phrase again?—evidence-based decision-making. We were promised that empirical criteria would be used to reform criminal law. We were promised that it was going to be a brand new era.
I look at Bill C-71 and I look at Bill C-75, and I ask, where's the data? Instead what I see is the most regressive of thinking. We're not here to talk about Bill C-75. I could talk about Bill C-71 for a long time, so imagine what we could discuss when it comes to Bill C-75. Where did objective, evidence-based decision-making go? It's a profound concern to the Criminal Lawyers' Association.
We may be strange bedfellows, but we're all interested in one thing: a fair and just society where individuals are not deprived of their liberty without all of the protections that we take for granted as a society. That's what the Criminal Lawyers' Association wants. That's what parliamentarians want.
That's my fundamental question. How can we create more criminal law legislation that further increases the risk that individuals will be unjustly penalized when there's no data to support it? We see it in Bill C-71. We see it as well in Bill C-75.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you.
Mr. Mauser, I'll get to you in the next round, but for the brief time that I have left I want to applaud your comment that Canada doesn't have a gun problem, it has a gang problem. We know that and the evidence is very clear, and I appreciate your approach of using evidence to make decisions as opposed to rhetoric.
I know I don't have a lot of time and I will leave my questions for you to the next round.
Liberal
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you all for being here.
Mr. Mansour, I want to ask you some questions about how you characterize the RCMP classification. You used the phrase, circumventing our democratic process, and I'm just wondering about that, because the process that was actually in place was a Governor in Council recommendation. In other words, if that process existed, no one around this table who are elected MPs would actually have any say on that type of regulation.
Also, according to the information that I have, and perhaps I'm mistaken, there are 180,000 firearms that are classified in the reference table, something along those lines. That might not be exact but I'll use it for discussion purposes.
I'm wondering, given that the RCMP can make mistakes, what reason we would have to trust the cabinet to make those types of decisions, particularly when the cabinet of the day might be less ideologically friendly to some of the goals that seem to be attained.
Criminal Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
For one thing, voters have recourse when it comes to cabinet. Voters have no recourse when it comes to the RCMP, and so you have decisions being made that instantly transform an individual from law-abiding to non-law-abiding, with no recourse.
Let's look at how that's going to be challenged. One, you can be charged with a criminal offence. You will spend an incredible amount of money trying to challenge that and in the end, if it's a meritorious challenge—
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
I apologize for interrupting, but I just want to note that we had officials from the department here who said there is the ability to grandfather. If the RCMP changes the classification, would there not then be the ability to grandfather, to protect those same individuals from the type of situation you're talking about?
Criminal Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
If they choose to use that provision. That's still within their discretion to actually use the grandfathering provision, and that would only be for that small subset of people who at that moment possess them.
The current grandfathering provision that's being put into this legislation has a small subset. It can't be passed on. The next person can't pass it on. The moment that person passes away or decides to no longer own it, that firearm must go to somebody else who is currently grandfathered, or it has to be destroyed or go to a policing agency to be destroyed.
The problem, what I was getting at, is you can't challenge these decisions. These instantly become criminal conduct or you're at least liable for criminal conduct, and might be stopped and charged with a criminal offence, and the moment you are charged, regardless of what the result is, your life will have changed for the worse. You'll have the stigma of a criminal offence, a firearms criminal offence, and the cost and the time that it takes to defend you. Even if you ultimately win, you have to go through that process, and in many cases you have lost your job and have the stigma of that offence, and that's a problem.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
This, again, is assuming that they don't use what are called deeming provisions that are now grandfathered.