Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As regards amendment CPC-38, section 101 of the Criminal Code is very clear: it is already an indictable offence to sell a firearm to someone who does not hold a licence.
As the Criminal Lawyers' Association has said, this provision merely adds a criminal liability threat if two individuals authorized both to possess and acquire firearms fail to inform the government of their lawful transactions.
What additional safeguard will this provision achieve for Canadians? Does someone think that gangs that buy illegal firearms concealed in trunks of cars will stop to get a reference number before conducting the transactions? That's absurd.
Perhaps it's more like the statement made in the House of Commons by Mr. Holland, who said that people who had authorizations to transport were thugs who travel around a million places. I know that Mr. Holland got a lot of coverage in the firearms community following that comment, and I accept his statement that there was some misunderstanding.
However, let's be clear: the only people with firearms who can be called thugs are those who don't have licences to acquire firearms, and absolutely nothing in the bill concerns them, despite what the experts in the Prime Minister's cabinet may tell us.
That's why this is amendment is so important. Instead of devoting government resources to telling law-abiding firearms owners what they already know, namely that they are law-abiding firearms owners, we could use those resources to target thugs and criminals.