Thank you, Chair.
I certainly echo the comments of my colleague Ms. Dancho. The whole idea behind the premise of Bill C-21, the Liberals told the public, was public safety: It was all about public safety.
When the bill was debated on second reading to first come to this committee, nowhere did the government have this in any of their conversations. They've tried to assure Canadians now for a number of years that their attack on firearms and firearm owners in this country is legitimate and is only for public safety, when we've all seen—and clearly see—it has nothing to do with public safety.
To go back to the point I made earlier, this particular bill, when debated in the House, included none of this.
It included none of this. This is brought in at the 11th hour because the Liberals knew that if this were to be debated in the Canadian public, which this impacts, it would be shot down. Witnesses would come by the dozens and would speak against it.
Now I will challenge Ms. Dancho's comment. This doesn't affect hundreds of thousands: This affects millions of Canadians and millions of firearms. There are millions of Canadians who hunt and sport shoot. What I would like to do for some time is to go to our legislators here in the room and ask some questions.
Can you tell me the intent behind this? I'll start with item (g) here, proposed paragraph 1(1.2)(g):
a firearm that is a rifle or shotgun, that is capable of discharging centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner and that is designed to accept a detachable cartridge magazine with a capacity greater than five cartridges of the type for which the firearm was originally designed.
Okay. As I read that, having grown up with firearms, I'd say that many firearms that are semi-automatic can't accept magazines that are different from the five-round mags; we know that anything above in this category is a prohibited device. You can't have a magazine in this category that you're talking about with a magazine greater than five rounds, but for firearms, by their simple design, can a magazine be available that has more than five? Sure. Does it fit that firearm? Sure it does, and that's already a prohibited device, as listed in the code already.
Why this is there shows me only one thing: Any firearm that is capable of receiving a magazine greater than five rounds is now going to be a prohibited device. Please tell me that isn't so. If the language that you've written here is wrong, then let's change it.
Go ahead, Ms. Clarke.