Mr. Chair, honourable members, hello.
My name is André Gélinas, and I am a retired detective sergeant. I worked for the information division of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal. I was asked to appear here today to share my expertise on different aspects of Bill C‑21.
Before addressing the subjects of interest, I would like to clarify a few things. My presence here is apolitical and nonpartisan. For the past two years, I have been a police reporter for various media outlets on television, in newspapers and on the radio. I am not a member of any lobby or pressure group. In the past year, I have met with federal members of Parliament from every party to share my expertise and provide support for some of their projects and initiatives.
In my humble opinion, Bill C‑21 fails to achieve the very noble goal of increasing public safety by ensuring effective and judicious arms control based on a pragmatic analysis of the situation.
The bill suggests that a freeze on the sale and importation of legal handguns for target practice by licence holders will have a substantial effect on the declining safety of major Canadian cities.
Moreover, by choosing to publicly announce the bill with pomp and circumstance in Montreal North, a borough that is particularly affected by street gangs, they are suggesting that there is a causal link between the violence in this neighbourhood and the handguns legally acquired and used for safe and closely supervised sports activities. This is not true. It's the result of lobbying based on an emotional and ideological analysis, certainly not on observations made by the police on the ground.
It's important for you, members of Parliament, to understand that this situation will definitely not have the desired or announced effect. An overwhelming majority of the handguns used by criminals and seized by police services after shootings and brutalities perpetrated by street gangs, criminal biker gangs and the Italian mafia were illegally acquired and originate in the United States, a country in which the sale of firearms is virtually unrestricted thanks to a constitutional right.
Only a considerable and real intensification of border controls and the right of police officers in certain indigenous territories to enforce the law could possibly help the situation. That's the only way for police services to ever solve the problem of the illegal firearms supply when demand is increasing on a daily basis. If these measures are not put in place right away, we will never be able to gain control of the situation, and there will always be more firearms entering the country than we can seize. It would be like trying to empty out the St. Lawrence River with a bucket.
This bill targets legal weapons that are used by Canadians who meet high levels of screening and training criteria imposed by the government under the supervision of the police services, when we know full well that the real problem is all the illegal handguns. No criminal worth his salt wants to procure a legal, and therefore traceable, handgun. It's simply not in their interest. We want to solve the problem of shootings, but we aren't targeting the right firearms. This bill will absolutely not have the effect it is meant to, and the situation will remain more or less the same or deteriorate if we do not adopt pragmatic solutions based on a proper analysis of the situation.
Moreover, the bill contains measures prescribing the reporting of concerns, flag laws, in order to ensure surveillance of firearm owners. That's great, and a step in the right direction. However, any police officer with any experience at all on the ground knows full well that this procedure has existed for decades. Reporting has always been part of the solution, along with preventive seizures and licence suspensions. In 1998, when I was a young constable, I preventively seized firearms during domestic violence calls. There is nothing new in this bill, and it contains absolutely no new procedures. In short, there is nothing new under the sun.
The bill also proposes creating a new offence: modifying magazines to exceed their legal capacity. This offence is useless, since simple possession of a high-capacity magazine is legal under the Criminal Code. No criminals specialize in modifying magazines. Users do it themselves. It is a very simple modification. This new offence is a solution to a nonexistent problem.
The bill also proposes raising the maximum penalty for people found guilty of firearms trafficking from 10 to 14 years. At first glance, this appears to be a good move, but no defendants have ever been sentenced to the current 10‑year maximum sentence for this offence. The measure will have no real effect. It is another example of an ineffective measure.
Then the bill proposes allowing the police to obtain an electronic surveillance warrant for new firearms possession offences in sections 92 and 95 of the Criminal Code. Once again, this is a good idea that will have no real effect. These crimes are always investigated because the firearms in question are related to other criminal offences that authorize the use of electronic surveillance.
Lastly, I would like to point out the negative effects of the bill on gun clubs and sport shooters. Jobs will be lost, and there will be no new generation of people practising the sport.
Thank you for your time. I am prepared to answer your questions.