Public Safety Committee on March 1st, 2022

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

First, Mr. Shipley, I'd be happy to visit you and your community at the earliest opportunity.

The decisions made around which guns to prohibit and which ones we should not is based on a variety of factors, including, as I mentioned, deadly force, the length of the barrel, the calibre of ammunition that a gun can hold, the number of rounds in a cartridge and the like, and whether or not it can be discharged within a certain period of time. My point to you is that those are the types of objective criteria that go into the decision as to which guns we deem too deadly, such that they require prohibition. You may want to also ask the commissioner of firearms, who's also the commissioner of the RCMP, who is a far greater expert, I think you would agree, than either you or me. Those are the types of criteria that are applied. It's not a “fixed point in time” decision. I'm sure experts continue to look at those criteria in a way that is consistent with the policy decisions that we, as Parliament, make, and which the government puts forward to Parliament for its approval.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you for that.

Just to follow up, all those criteria you mentioned—and I am not an expert in firearms—were the exact same, the calibre, the length, everything. One said “plastic” on it and one had “wood”, but I'll leave it there. When you come up, we'll look into that and we'll get that answered ourselves. We can look into that.

I do have another question. Over this study we have heard some great witnesses and some heartbreaking testimony.

One of the people we heard from was Dr. Caillin Langmann. He is an accomplished academic and physician who has written three different peer-reviewed journal articles. All of his articles employ different statistical models and all of them analyze the relationship between firearm legislation and regulations and homicides and suicides.

All of them have come back with the same conclusion, that firearm legislation—which includes buybacks and bans—does not lower overall homicide and suicide rates. Instead, focusing on mental health issues, drug abuse, socioeconomic factors and other systematic factors reduce homicide rates and suicide rates.

Minister, could you tell me then what is different between Dr. Langmann and perhaps you and your government and procedures in going about this with the buybacks and banning of firearms?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

I'm sorry, Minister, but you you have 15 seconds left.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

It's like I said to Ms. Dancho: We have to take both strategies and put them into effect. From our point of view, we need to take more action to strengthen gun controls for those guns that are deadly, and we also have to address some of the root causes you have mentioned around mental health issues and others that lead to gun violence and gun tragedies. We will pursue both.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Damoff, the floor is yours for the next five minutes or so.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair. It is absolutely wonderful having you here in person. Thank you.

I just want to follow up a little bit on my colleague's question about Dr. Langmann, because I recall asking him a question when he was here, and none of his research goes past 2016. He has not done research on Bill C-71, the extended background checks. I know that the Doctors For Protection From Guns disputes his research. I'm just putting that on the record.

I have a question for Commissioner Lucki.

Commissioner, we had Evelyn Fox here as a witness. She lost her child to gun violence and she indicated that, when people apply for their firearms licences, only 10% of references are checked. She is not the first person I've heard say that when people are applying for their firearms licence, the background checks are not necessarily followed up on. Commissioner, could speak to that, please?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

First of all, new firearms licence applicants are searched against police and court data bases in order to assist a chief firearms officer in determining an individual's eligibility to hold a firearms licence. Then the firearms license holders are also under continuous eligibility screening, and the chief firearms officers are advised by police and by courts of occurrences that may affect the individual's eligibility to continue to hold a firearms licence.

That continuous eligibility process enables new, relevant occurrences to be entered into police or court records management systems and to be paired with those who hold a firearms licence, so any potential matches are sent to the chief firearms officer of jurisdiction for further investigation, and most of those decisions to hold or to continue to hold a firearms licence are based on—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Commissioner, I really have limited time and I want to ask CBSA something too, but what about the references? People give their partner of the previous two years as well as references. I'm specifically asking about those. Should we be requiring more checks on those?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

They are collected only on the initial application and not the renewal, and they are based on threat, or, if a file is flagged, then they can follow up and do the reference checks.

Obviously if we could do all the reference checks of every single licence, that might give a better picture, but we would never have the resources to do that type of in-depth check on all such licences.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay, thank you, Commissioner.

My next question is for the CBSA.

When the union appeared here, they were talking about an issue with rail. I know we legislated that passenger rail would now go through pre-screening, so they wouldn't be referring to that. It wouldn't be travel like on the Rocky Mountaineer. There are three locations across Canada where passenger rail is now allowed between Canada and the U.S., but I'm just wondering, when it comes to cargo, they seemed to feel that guns were being smuggled on cargo rail.

I'm wondering if the CBSA or the RCMP would be able to comment on whether that's an issue and whether we should be looking at more screening on cargo that's brought in by rail.

[John Ossowski, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you for the question.

First of all, I would say that the approach we take is very much dependent on the mode; for rail mode, we rely on advance commercial information. As well, with the rail lines that are trusted traders, the actual materials are considered to be in bond until they arrive in the country. We have insights into how they maintain the security of the conveyances.

Just to put it into perspective, between two and two and a half million rail cars come into the country every year. When I look at that risk level compared with the traveller regime or other sorts of modes, and given the data and the risk profile, rail is not something that we think is as big a risk as the union conveyed.

Quite frankly, when we do interventions, we don't actually stop at the border. The intervention would happen at the first point where we could do it safely. It very much depends on the goods being conveyed.

What we would like to do is to start working upstream where the rail cars are assembled in the United States, using the intelligence approach that we're focusing on right now, to make sure we're targeting the right train before it gets into the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

I'd now like to ask Ms. Michaud to take the floor for two and a half minutes.

It's all yours.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister Mendicino, we were talking about military‑style assault weapons and the buyback program. I was pleased to see your government commit to making it mandatory. This wasn't the case in the now defunct Bill C‑21, which proposed to make this program optional.

Thank you for your openness to our proposal to define a firearm in the Criminal Code. I look forward to our discussions on this issue. The Bloc Québécois has been proposing this for quite some time. I'm glad to see the NDP agreeing with us. I think that this could be a good solution.

I'd like to address the handgun ban. In the past few months, your government has suddenly decided that banning handguns is no longer within its jurisdiction. It kicked the issue to the municipalities. We can see that this move was counterproductive. In my constituency alone, there are 56 municipalities. If there were different regulations for each municipality, that would be unmanageable. The idea was to transfer the issue to the provinces, but none of them took the leap and decided to ban handguns.

Don't you think that it would be more productive and effective for the federal government to take this on, since it has the duty to do so, and to develop a federal measure to ban handguns?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Ms. Michaud, I share your concerns about the handgun issue.

I know that, in recent months, the situation has been very difficult for Montreal communities. Several tragedies have occurred. A number of people have died, and that's unacceptable.

That's one reason why the federal government, through my department, has taken concrete action. For example, it has provided funding to Quebec and added resources to help the province. I just announced another program for Montreal last week. It's another example of the government taking action for Montreal and your province.

Regarding the issue of the handgun regulations, I've been working, and I'm always ready to work, with my counterpart in Quebec, Minister Geneviève Guilbault. We spoke last week about solutions so that the province can put in place provincial regulations while complying with federal jurisdiction over firearms and handguns.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Now it's over to Mr. MacGregor.

Sir, you have that two-and-a-half-minute slot, and I'm sure you'll be judicious and effective.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

You know I am, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

Minister, we had some testimony at the beginning of this committee meeting about the desire of your government—and I share that desire—to get rid of mandatory minimums. Can you just be very clear, based on your experience as a Crown prosecutor, that there will still exist provisions in the Criminal Code to allow judges to modify the potential sentence based on the severity of the crime?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

The short answer is yes. There are a number of principles set out in the Criminal Code that allow judges to take into account aggravating factors.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I believe it's section 718.2.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Yes, section 718.2.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

It's under principles of sentencing.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

That's very precise.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

It's very important to get that on the record, because the narrative out there seems to imply that people who are before a court and are being charged with a serious crime are just going to walk away, and I think that is very clearly false.

For my next round, I note that you had an exchange earlier regarding high-capacity magazines. I know it is within your mandate letter to ban the sale or transfer, and also to require permanent alteration.

I wonder why it wouldn't be simpler to take the route of just banning high-capacity magazines outright, because there will always be the danger that someone with the technical know-how is going to allow them to hold more than the legal limit.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I share the same concern. I just want to assure you that we are looking at cartridges and taking a look at magazines. We are looking very carefully, as we did in the last session, at creating new laws to prohibit the alteration of magazines which would allow for a greater number than is permissible.

To be precise, we're open to working with you and others on that question. We will also take the advice that we're getting from the commissioner of firearms and other experts on how best to proceed. However, as you say, there's a very clear requirement within my mandate that we look at this issue very carefully and that we proceed with legislative reform where we can, and where there are other ideas, we will listen very carefully and take the advice of experts on that.