Evidence of meeting #119 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 licence.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Before you consider suspending, I was hoping the officials could explain the benefit of having this wording as opposed to specifying a specific peace bond.
11:15 a.m.
Paula Clarke Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
What the proposed amendment would do is capture all court orders that relate to no contact with a person or prohibiting a person from attending a specific place when it relates to a history of violence, attempted violence, threatened violence, or threatening conduct. The original motion had restricted it just to peace bonds. There are other types of court orders that could apply. There are peace bonds beyond domestic violence. For example, there are specific peace bonds that would relate to child sex offences, to terrorism offences, and criminal organization offences. There are also common law peace bonds which would be captured by the current wording. Also, there are probation peace bonds or recognizance orders that would be issued for probation as well as for bail.
The current wording would also exclude other extraneous kinds of recognizance such as recognizance during a trial to avoid contact with the witness. It would also exclude a probation order that would prohibit contact with certain individuals, for example, with youthful offenders who may be prohibited from having contact with individuals who have displayed criminal behaviour. As well, for a person who perhaps has drug or alcohol problems, their probation order may have a condition that they do not attend a certain bar; for instance, they don't go to the Legion. These are types of peace bonds or no contact orders that would be excluded in this given language.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Sorry.
Actually, I undertook to Mr. Motz to suspend while he consults.
Have you consulted sufficiently or do you want me to suspend?
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I'm listening now. Can we suspend for two or three minutes?
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We're back.
Before we proceed further, the best way to handle this is to make sure we are all talking to the same consensus amendment to the amendment, given the informality of our conversations. Normally, I would expect someone other than Ms. Damoff to move the amendment to her amendment, but given the informality, I'm going to ask the legislative clerk to read it so that we are all talking about the same thing.
11:25 a.m.
Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
At (d), instead of
“il lui a déjà été interdit”.
it would now read
“il lui est ou lui a été interdit”.
The other changes were two lines below. We would replace
“d'avoir des contacts” by “de communiquer”.
Then at the second line of (f), we would replace
“préjudice” by “dommage”.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Is that understood by everyone? Okay.
Now that we understand what it is, and Ms. Damoff has asked questions of the officials, I am prepared to open up the debate at this point.
Mr. Motz.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to Ms. Damoff for at least attempting to clarify some language around some of what we heard at committee from some of our witnesses.
Before I get into some of this language, I want to make sure that we're all aware of what subsection 5(2) of the Firearms Act actually says. Subsection 5(2) says:
(2) In determining whether a person is eligible to hold a licence under subsection (1)
—which is “a firearm, a cross-bow, a prohibited weapon, a restricted weapon, a prohibited device, ammunition or prohibited ammunition”. It continues:
a chief firearms officer or, on a reference under section 74, a provincial court judge shall have regard to whether the person, within the previous five years,
(a) has been convicted or discharged under section 730 of the Criminal Code of
(i) an offence in the commission of which violence against another person was used, threatened or attempted,
(ii) an offence under this Act or Part III of the Criminal Code,
That is a gun crime. It goes on to say:
(iii) an offence under section 264 of the Criminal Code (criminal harassment) or,
(iv) an offence relating to the contravention of subsection 5(1) or (2), 6(1) or (2) or 7(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
If I remember right, those have to do with trafficking offences and production.
It goes on to say:
(b) has been treated for a mental illness, whether in a hospital, mental institute, psychiatric clinic or otherwise and whether or not the person was confined to such a hospital, institute or clinic, that was associated with violence or threatened or attempted violence on the part of the person against any person; or (c) has a history of behaviour that includes violence or threatened or attempted violence on the part of the person against any person.
That's pretty encompassing already. It provides a significant amount of strength to prevent an individual who has a history from even obtaining a PAL, which is what we're trying to prevent from happening here. If they already have a licence, a court order or the CFO can actually have that licence revoked and the firearm seized.
I'll look first to your change to (c). You've added “threatening conduct” as an amendment to (c). While I move through this, I can ask the officials about these one at a time.
I don't recall hearing a term like “threatening conduct” in law, criminally. Is there something that applies greater certainty to the other language that is already there, or is this redundant?
11:30 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
If I could just have a moment....
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Yes. Is it a defined term in the courts or in the code? I don't ever remember seeing that.
11:30 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Yes. It's used in paragraph 264(2)(d), which is the criminal harassment provision.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Yes, but we already have subsection 5(2) where it talks specifically about 264, not separating it out, but all of 264.
11:30 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Right. I'm just saying that the term “threatening conduct” has been used in the Criminal Code and is contained within the criminal harassment provision.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay. That's already covered in 5(2). Then that addition would be redundant because it's covered off. The CFO has to consider that anyway. To have language like that, which is already covered in all of 264 in the code under criminal harassment, would be a moot point.
11:30 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
It wouldn't be a moot point because in 5(2) it refers to an offence, a conviction. In 5(2) you have to be convicted of criminal harassment. In the proposed motion you just have to have a history of behaviour. It does not need to be a conviction. There could be allegations. There could be police reports. There could be other types of evidence that may be considered or may not be considered.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Given what's classified here as threatening conduct is in 264 already, I don't understand how this strengthens (c) if (c) already exists in the Firearms Act.
We're talking about it includes violence, or threatened or attempted violence on the part of a person or any other person.
11:30 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Threatening conduct is a broader concept. What's laid out before is attempted violence, threat of violence, violence actually used against a person. Threatening conduct can include threats against animals, threats against property, threats against other things that the victim may be interested in. It does encompass a broader range of conduct than what's set out in paragraph 264(2)(d).
If you look at criminal harassment, it is not limited to just threatening conduct. It's also limited to unwanted communications, unwanted repeated communications, besetting a person, so waiting outside of their house or following them.
Criminal harassment is a broader concept than just threatening conduct. Threatening conduct is a broader concept than just attempted violence, violence or threatened violence.
The distinction between this motion and what's contained in subsection 5(2) of the Firearms Act, is that there does not need to be a conviction for criminal harassment. It is broader and it is definitely different. It's more expansive behaviour than violence, threatened or attempted.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay.
You're asking a CFO to weigh in on an extremely broad concept that actually might be misinterpreted.
Do you think this opens up more opportunity for those who unknowingly...they don't have any of this, but the fact that they hunt is threatening to an animal.
11:35 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
No, it has to be to any person.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
No, you just finished telling me that.... There are those in society who think about those who hunt, that it's cruelty of animals.
11:35 a.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
The CFO has the discretion to make a reasonable decision about what would constitute threatening conduct. It would be within the discretion of the CFO to decide if hunting an animal would be threatening conduct.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay, that's good.
The other issue I have with this is in the new amended paragraph (d). We see that we're talking about “is or was previously prohibited by an order—made in the interests of the safety and security of any person—from communicating with an identified person or from being at a specific place or within a specific distance of that place”.
I appreciate the wording here is made in the interests of security and safety of another person, which would eliminate someone getting a peace bond for shoplifting and they can't go to the mall, that sort of thing. I'm wondering whether “was previously prohibited by an order” is so incredibly broad that if someone has a complaint made against them and in the [Technical difficulty—Editor] bail hearing, that individual has a condition placed on their bail that would fall under this, and then they're found to be not guilty, this would prohibit them potentially from ever acquiring a PAL, or potentially they could lose a PAL down the road.
I'm wondering how that would possibly be interpreted. There are frivolous and vexatious complaints made that, yes, the CFO then has discretion to go and ask for police reports, but in the interim that individual could be flagged that he has a PAL; the CFO could come and seize his firearms, or the police could, obviously, while he's waiting. That could have significant long-term impacts on whether he gets his PAL back or his firearms back on a frivolous and vexatious complaint.
With “previously prohibited by an order”, I know we're trying to capture those who have committed a violent offence, and are convicted of a violent offence, and they had an order at one point in time, and we don't want them to be a risk to public safety. We get it. We support the whole idea of preventing those who should not have a firearm, should not have access to a firearm, should not have access to a PAL, from getting one, but I'm wondering whether this is so broad that it's reaching beyond what we are interpreting or expecting this act to be like.