Public Safety Committee on Oct. 4th, 2022

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

You may be familiar with the Liberal long-gun registry from the 1990s. It was estimated to cost about $2 million annually to administer. I'm sure you're familiar with this. It ended up costing $1.2 billion.

The estimates from your government were that you may be spending $400 million to $600 million. Now estimates are saying perhaps upwards of $500 billion—or $5 billion, pardon me—

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

You didn't mean $500 billion.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

It's $5 billion.

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

Okay.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Well, you never know. Based on the Liberal track record, there are considerable questions to be asked about how much you're going to be spending on the confiscation regime.

Minister, I'm quite concerned about the recent news that your government will be redirecting police resources, which, as we outlined today in our conversation, are stretched quite thin. They are dealing with a 32% increase in violent crime since your government has been in office. You're planning to redirect RCMP resources, and possibly other police resources, to your confiscation regime.

Can you comment on that?

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

I think that's based on some false assumptions, which are that—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Then you won't be redirecting RCMP resources?

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

Again, could I just be permitted to answer your question, which is a thoughtful one?

Ensuring that police services, which operate within provincial boundaries, have the resources necessary to enforce laws to keep our communities safe is not mutually exclusive to buying back assault-style rifles. The reason is simple. Those guns were designed with one purpose in mind, and that is to kill, so we believe that by taking them out of our communities—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

You outlined that in your opening statement, Minister.

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

—with the buyback program, with fair compensation, we will be keeping our communities safer.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

If I may just conclude, I would urge you to reconsider redirecting police resources to your confiscation regime. I think it is reckless and will further endanger our communities, Minister.

Thank you, Chair.

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

We respectfully disagree about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Dancho.

We'll go now to Mr. Noormohamed.

Please go ahead. You have six minutes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here today.

Minister, I want to begin by thanking you for bringing this bill forward. Obviously our job as a committee is to take a good piece of legislation and make it better. What I'd love to be able to do today is just dig in with you on a couple of issues that I think are worthy of consideration.

The VPD—the Vancouver Police Department—presented to us during the course of our guns and gangs study, which I think was a very good piece of work done by this committee. One of the things that we learned about from them—and I've had the subsequent opportunity to dig in on it with them and other police forces—is ghost guns. The fact is that people can manufacture weapons at home using components that they can buy online or buy at local stores or, worse yet, they can use a 3-D printer to make their own weapons.

I'd love to know if you're willing to strengthen or open to strengthening the legislation in front of us to address ghost guns and how we can prevent them from becoming an even larger problem than they are, realizing that we may be dealing with a problem today that looks a certain way, but this is, in reality, in my view, the problem that we're going to be facing one, two or five years from now. Can we start to think about that more meaningfully?

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

Mr. Noormohamed, through the chair to you, your question is a very important one. It is about dealing with the advent of ghost guns, which are based on a new, cheap plastic technology. I have visited your community and I have met with both the mayor there and the chief of police, Chief Palmer, and they both identified the proliferation of ghost guns as an important priority for us to deal with.

I should tell you as well that I've had the chance to meet with our American counterparts, including at one of the headquarters of the FBI at Quantico, where I have seen this technology on display first-hand.

It is imperative that you study this issue. I believe it is one of the things that we are going to need to tackle, not only potentially through legislation but with additional resources. That's why the investments we put in place at the border, including the $321 million since last year alone, are equipping the CBSA, the RCMP and other law enforcement partners with the technology they need to intercept and detect this new type of ghost gun so that we can stop them before they get into our communities.

I think the short answer to your question is that of course I'm always very open to receiving any recommendations that you or others may have from this committee with regard to strengthening the bill.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you.

Just digging in a little bit further, again talking about component parts, one of the other elements that I think we will hopefully be digging into a little bit is this: How do we make sure that we think about regulating purchase of component parts, and I think, frankly, licensing for purchasing of specific component parts and ammunition? Is this something that you'd be willing to consider in the deliberations?

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

I know that splitting up the different components of a gun is one of the ways in which organized crime attempts to subvert detection at the border or at other places within our communities. It is one of the more technical aspects of the bill that you may wish to study and for which you may wish to put forward a recommendation.

I would say that our overarching objective remains to stop gun violence, and that means taking a look at the various innovative technologies that are manifesting themselves, including through ghost guns and different components that can be assembled to then meet the definition of a prohibited, restricted or unrestricted firearm. It's so that we can keep our communities safe.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

I'm going to switch gears a bit and talk about airsoft guns. There are those who are opposed to this legislation and are using airsoft guns as an example of perhaps a lack of understanding of the sport and indeed of guns.

I think there are those who would try to convince people that the government thinks that airsoft guns kill people. I would submit that they don't, but that they can get people killed because, in difficult situations, if somebody has an airsoft gun that looks almost exactly like a particularly dangerous weapon, law enforcement may respond as though that is a weapon carrying a live round.

We obviously have those who are ardent supporters of airsoft as a sport, but who also don't want to be in positions where those weapons can get people killed. Do you see a way to address this issue without causing harm to the airsoft industry and to those who participate in it, and also do it in a way that makes sure law enforcement is not put in the unenviable situation of having to make a split-second decision when they see something that looks like it could be an assault rifle but is actually an airsoft gun?

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

First I want to indicate that I look forward to the committee's work on the issue of how we tackle what I think has been identified as a challenge by law enforcement. The challenge is around the industry's increasing ability to make airsoft guns look exactly like a real gun. There are others at this table, including Deputy Commissioner Larkin, who could probably give some additional testimony to that effect.

The object is really to be sure not that people can't participate safely in an industry, but rather to be sure that when law enforcement responds to a gun call, we are sure there will be no loss of life as a result of a gun that may look exactly like a real gun.

Indeed, this is something that has occurred, and we have seen a loss of life, including in my hometown of Scarborough not too long ago, when police showed up and a replica gun was mistaken for a real one. Sadly, somebody lost their life.

That is the intent behind these provisions. I know that the committee will be studying them very closely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Noormohamed.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us today, Minister. I very much appreciate it. However, I would have liked you to stay with us a bit longer because I have a lot of questions for you.

As you know, we currently have a serious problem in Canada's major cities. That's true of Montreal, where shots are fired every week. We often discuss this during oral question period.

In your view, Bill C‑21 will help stop gun trafficking, smuggling, organized crime and all that. Your argument's mainly based on a single measure set forth in Bill C‑21, the one that would increase maximum prison time from 10 to 14 years for those crimes.

I don't think that would really help matters at the border. As we know, many illegal weapons are smuggled across it.

Do you think Bill C‑21 should contain a more specific measure on this?

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

First of all, Ms. Michaud, thank you for your leadership on the ground. I know we're equally concerned about this problem. I agree with you entirely: too many lives are being lost and we have to put an stop to that.

As regards our actions at the border, there are some notable parts to our strategy.

First, there are resources. CBSA must continue hiring people because they're the ones who do the front-line work of arresting offenders and seizing firearms. Proof of the progress we've made is that we seized a record number of firearms last year.

Second, we have to keep working in close cooperation with Quebec and the United States. I've spoken several times with Secretary Mayorkas in order to enhance cooperation, the exchange of information…

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

Minister, allow me…

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

No, but this is important. Our strategy includes a number of elements in that area.

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

Yes, I understand that efforts have been made and that we're increasingly attempting to intercept weapons.

I want to discuss the William Rainville case. In March 2021, he smuggled 248 handgun bodies across the border in a hockey bag. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was granted day parole barely one year later.

I don't know how much that particular measure will actually deter offenders. We know that the strategies criminals use don't often involve sending a hardened criminal across the border with a hockey bag full of guns. Instead, the people selected for the job don't have criminal records or have only committed minor offences and therefore won't receive maximum sentences. So I don't get the impression this specific measure will really discourage people from continuing to smuggle illegal weapons across the border.

However, I should note that there are some good measures in the bill. You decided to legislate specifically on high-security nuclear sites and officers. The bill also grants the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness more power than the Minister of Integration, Refugees and Citizenship.

However, it's curious to see there's nothing in the bill on assault weapons, whereas your government amended regulations on assault weapons in May 2020. In the meantime, other types of weapons have come into the market that circumvent those regulations. In addition, certain guns were initially overlooked and weren't on the list.

Why didn't you take advantage of Bill C‑21 to plug that hole regarding assault weapons?