Public Safety Committee on Oct. 4th, 2022

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

Mr. Shipley, I can assure you there's nothing political about the approach we've taken in this bill. We've put forward what we think are the best and most practical solutions to stop the alarming trends around the increase of gun violence. We've looked at the data, and the data says unequivocally that gun crime is going up, that handgun crime is going up. My response to you is that the status quo is not working.

The most important thing I can convey to you, Mr. Shipley, is that I respect the work that you are doing. I know you bring different views from your community, but let's try to solve the problem together.

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

Thank you for that, Minister. We both agree there's an issue. We're perhaps disagreeing as to where the situation lies when you talked about the root cause earlier.

I do have to ask. I wrote this down as you were speaking at the beginning. You said a very interesting phrase. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to quote you. You said this bill will stop gun violence once and for all.

Do you really believe that?

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

That is the goal, but I want to be clear that Bill C-21 by itself won't accomplish that. We also have to invest in law enforcement. We also have to make sure we stop illegal trafficking. We also have to put into place preventive strategies, including the building safer communities fund.

If we do those three things together, then I think we can finally reverse the trend on gun violence and put an end to it.

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

I'll give my remaining time over to my colleague.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Minister, thank you for being here.

In your opening remarks, you talked about the gun confiscation program. You're calling it a gun buyback program. Even before it's gotten off the ground, it's already facing headwinds with the Province of Alberta and the Province of Saskatchewan. They are now saying they will opt out of it.

Given our constitutional structure of federal and provincial jurisdictions, clearly, for this program to be successful, you need to work with the provinces and get their co-operation. Do you have a plan B in place if Alberta and Saskatchewan are not coming on side?

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

I'm focused on plan A, and I want to assure you that we do collaborate with our provincial and territorial partners, including Alberta. I just issued a joint statement with my counterpart there to bring back the Siksika police service, which is a public safety priority. It's a priority that will help advance reconciliation. There are very important priorities on which we are collaborating.

I will come back to Ms. Dancho's question at the outset, which is an important one, that in the view of this government, advancing a fair buyback program, which will compensate law-abiding gun owners for the assault-style rifles that they originally purchased lawfully, is consistent with keeping our communities safe. We will always be collaborative with our provincial and territorial partners. My door will always be open to working with them in a wide variety of priorities to achieve that goal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Van Popta.

The last question slot in this panel will be to Mr. Chiang. Mr. Chiang, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for joining us today. Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

As a former police officer, I'm aware of the many challenges law enforcement faces in addressing firearm trafficking and firearm smuggling.

Minister, could you please tell this committee how Bill C-21 will support law enforcement and provide additional tools to them?

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

An example that I think highlights our response to organized crime in Bill C-21 are the more severe criminal sentences and maximum sentences for those who illegally traffic guns. These sentences are going from 10 years to 14 years.

You're a former police officer. I'm a former Crown attorney. I still read the Criminal Code. The last time I checked, the 14-year maximum sentence is the last stop before you get to life sentence, so that is a very strong and unambiguous signal to illegal gun traffickers that if you're in the business of trying to get illegal guns into communities, you face the prospect of serving significant time.

Second, we propose to offer new surveillance and wiretap powers to police whereby firearms offences under the Criminal Code become eligible for that particular investigative technique. It's one that will, I believe, help to disrupt illegal supply chains around firearms, both internationally and within our borders.

Those are two concrete examples in Bill C-21 that I think will help us tackle organized crime and the illegal trafficking of guns when the bill becomes law.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

In regard to authorizing wiretapping for the firearm offences, can you discuss how these new wiretapping measures will help support enforcement agencies in making our communities safer?

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

I think the simplest way to explain it is that part VI of the Criminal Code designates a certain number of offences for which police can apply for a wiretap. This bill proposes to expand that list to include some additional firearms offences, which will give them greater capacity to hopefully disrupt the efforts of organized crime when it comes to trafficking or illegally possessing guns.

It's an important tool. It's not a tool of first resort. There are a number of steps that law enforcement has to demonstrate to a judge before a wiretap is authorized, including investigative necessity, but I think that this is another concrete way in which we can tackle organized crime. We often hear about the challenges of illegal guns at our borders or being trafficked in our communities. This is a very concrete additional measure that we can offer law enforcement to help reverse those trends and to bring those who are responsible for terrorizing our communities to justice.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for that answer.

Can you also discuss some of the challenges that Canada faces related to an increased number of handguns in the country year over year, and can you tell this committee why it is so important that we set a cap on the number of handguns in this country to protect Canadians?

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

Mr. Chiang, as somebody who lives in a city that's beset by handgun violence, as somebody who works with colleagues from across the country who have seen far too many lives lost, including law enforcement.... I was just at a funeral for an officer who lost their life in the Toronto Police Service.

The challenges are significant and they're really complex. I'm in no way trying to gloss over or simplify the complexity of that problem, but in Bill C-21 the government has made a best effort to try to put forward, for this committee and Parliament's consideration, a comprehensive legislative strategy that aims to reverse the trend around handgun violence, around organized crime, and around domestic violence and the presence of guns.

It is part of a much broader strategy that also looks to give additional resources to law enforcement to stop illegal trafficking at the border and to prevent gun crime from occurring in the first place. If we do this work together and if we remain focused, then I truly believe we can reverse the trends around the increases in gun violence and eradicate it once and for all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Chiang.

Thank you, Minister and, of course, Deputy Minister. I understand that you both have to leave at this point.

That concludes this portion of the meeting. We will suspend for five minutes and ask the remaining officials to remain.

Thank you. We are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Welcome to the witnesses. Thanks for staying.

We will carry on with the questions. We will start with Tako Van Popta.

Monsieur, go ahead for six minutes.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here to answer our questions.

We heard the minister say that there would be additional financial resources for the Canada Border Services Agency to stop the illegal importation of handguns.

My question is to Mr. Gaspar of the Canada Border Services Agency.

We just completed a study on guns and gangs. We heard from a lot of witnesses, including witnesses from the Canada Border Services Agency. One of the issues we heard from them was that there's a shortage of human resources, a shortage of people to do the work.

My riding is Langley—Aldergrove, and there's a land border crossing at Aldergrove. I meet with a lot of people who work for the Canada Border Services Agency, and they confirm the shortage of human resources.

When the minister said they have an additional $321 million, where will that go? Is that going to help you? What do you really need to do your job effectively?

[Fred Gaspar, Vice-President, Commercial and Trade Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the member and to the committee.

I think the minister made it very clear that there will be a range of solutions that ultimately are going to get us to where we want to go in terms of abating and addressing the scourge of gun violence. Those most recent investments in budget 2021 that the minister alluded to are really intended to address the intelligence side of our work.

Much of the CBSA's activity, the primary interactions with Canadians and Canadian businesses, is obviously quite visible on the ground, but in addition to that, there's a lot of work that happens in the background, both with regard to investigations, intelligence and networking with our international partners and with regard to ensuring that we're managing the border in a smart way in addition to an effective way.

Your point is well taken. There's certainly no doubt we could always use more resources. I don't think you're ever going to have an official come before the committee and say we have enough. The reality is that to do it smartly and to manage a modern border, we need to do it intelligently, and that's really what the most recent set of investments are intended to do.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Good. Thank you.

We had witnesses who pointed out to us the obvious, that the Canada-U.S. border is the longest undefended border in the world—8,000 kilometres—and our neighbour is the largest gun-manufacturing culture in the world.

How do you possibly stop all the inflow of illegal weapons coming across lakes, rivers, and unauthorized border crossings?

[Fred Gaspar]

That's a good point.

Again, as the minister indicated, a lot has been done, but a lot more needs to be done.

I think the simple way to answer the question—and I'll expand from there—is that it really is about layering our approaches and not fooling ourselves into thinking that perhaps there is, if I can borrow the expression, a magic bullet or a solution that can be pulled out of thin air.

That's why the initiative to tackle guns and gang violence in 2018 and the most recent investments are part of a multipronged approach, with investments in officers, investments in technology such as advanced X-ray equipment, and investments in new detector dog teams, along with enhancements to our intelligence and investigatory capacity.

As the minister underscored, we have started to see some results. Last year we had the highest number of firearms seized since we started down this path, but of course there's much more to do.

It's certainly a matter of debate when you seize more. Is it because there's more coming in or because you're getting better at it? I think it's a combination of both factors, but certainly there is no single approach to be taken. It's about making sure we're investing smartly and continuously and taking the broadest range of measures that can be taken.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Of course we'll never know how many guns being smuggled across are not being caught.

Evidence that we received from witnesses was that our data on the source of guns used in crime was very sparse. I was surprised to hear that Statistics Canada doesn't have any reporting system. This is probably a question for the law enforcement people with us here today, but for police agencies across the country there's no consistent requirement to report on the use of guns in crime.

We were surprised that the government came out with an outright handgun ban when we don't have data that would support the idea that an outright ban will keep Canadians any safer. Do you have any comments about that? We understand that 80% of handguns used in crime are smuggled in from the U.S. illegally by people who don't intend to ever register their guns.

[Deputy Commissioner Bryan Larkin, Deputy Commissioner, Specialized Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Through you, Mr. Chair, to the member, good afternoon.

I'll provide some national data around that aspect. Clearly there is work happening with uniform crime reporting. As we've heard, the crime severity index around the use of firearms in the commission of criminal offences is increasing, but one of the investment pieces the RCMP is significantly focused on is firearms tracing. We've had a significant investment in a national approach, and we are working with all of our municipal and provincial agencies across the country. However, from our firearms tracing unit, when we look nationally, 69% of the firearms traced in Canada in 2021 were domestically sourced, so they were either diverted, lost, or stolen.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'm just going to stop you right there. We had a witness who told us that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Van Popta, you have seven seconds.

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

I'm just going to point out that this doesn't include Ontario data, so we're working right now very closely with the Province of Ontario—

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

One of the problems, of course, is that we don't even have a definition of what is a crime gun, and that's why we have these conflicting pieces of evidence.