Public Safety Committee on Nov. 24th, 2022

[Paula Clarke]

The way a variant is interpreted is based on a plain-language interpretation of the meaning, which is then applied by technical experts as they examine a firearm to see if it comes from the same family as a firearm that is already prohibited pursuant to the regulations. There is no definition in the—

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

There is no definition in legislation.

[Paula Clarke]

No.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Yet it's used throughout the firearms reference table.

[Paula Clarke]

Yes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

You said it was common.... What was the term you used? It wasn't common knowledge—

[Paula Clarke]

It was the common uses of the term.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

How did we get from a designed firearm, manufactured the way it is, to its being all of a sudden on this prohibited list? How do you get a variant of that? Is it from a manufacturer, or is it from individuals themselves doing the variant? How would that look?

[Paula Clarke]

This technical question is outside my lane. That's a question that's best directed to the Canadian firearms program. What I can tell you is that they do look at a range of factors when making their technical determination, including manufacturing information and marketing.

Again, I would indicate that this question should be answered by the Canadian firearms program.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

That's fair enough.

From your earlier testimony, and the way this act reads and what this government's history has been, of the 500-plus firearms that are listed in government amendment 46, what you're telling me, basically, is that all the variants, every possible variant known to mankind now or into the future, will be prohibited in terms of anything related to those 500 firearms here. This list is not exhaustive. Am I correct in saying that?

Right now this is an exhaustive list, but that doesn't mean the government can't continue to keep adding firearms to this, as they've done with the order in council. Is that correct?

[Paula Clarke]

The list is exhaustive to the best of the knowledge of the Canadian firearms program. The term “variant” would capture any firearms produced by manufacturers in the future that would be essentially from the same family as the firearms currently prohibited. That is to prevent manufacturers from changing the name of a firearm that is essentially the same as a firearm that's prohibited.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

What that effectively does in legislation is this. Of the 500-plus firearms listed in this particular amendment, which the Liberals are adding now to the already couple of thousand firearms that are prohibited under the order in council, every possible variant moving forward is automatically prohibited. You used the word “manufacturers”, so this is mostly related to manufacturers.

Hunting rifles and that whole industry, that whole practice as we now know it, will basically end under this legislation if it passes. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

[Paula Clarke]

I can answer legal questions.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Yes, please do.

[Paula Clarke]

The proposed schedule—the firearms that are listed—that you have in front of you, schedule 1, lists all of the firearms that are currently prohibited in the regulations. Added to those are all of the known variants. Those were included for transparency, so that when Canadians look at the schedule, they will know what firearms are prohibited based on the best knowledge of the Canadian firearms program.

That's what's been done so far with respect to variants. Moving forward, in the future, should a manufacturer choose to produce a firearm that is essentially, for all intents and purposes, the same firearm that is prohibited in the schedule, that would be captured by the term “variant”, and then that firearm would be prohibited. That's to ensure that manufacturers are not able to manufacture a firearm that is essentially the same as a prohibited firearm.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

The bottom line here again—and I'll use the term, and this is not necessarily a question, to give you a break, but a statement—is that the government is not looking at the function of a firearm. It's looking at what it looks like. I guess a case in point about why we ask about the variant is that the Mossberg 715T. It's a .22 calibre rifle. It's identical in structure and operation to the Mossberg 702 rifle. The one difference is that, where the Mossberg 702 has a traditional wood-looking stock on the exterior, the 715T has a plastic shell that's designed to look like an AR-15. We've effectively said that this government is classifying firearms by how they look. If they look scary, we're going to make sure that we prohibit them. That was a lot of what the order in council was about, and it certainly is something that causes consternation now.

What's interesting is that, on Tuesday when this was released to the public by the fact that the motion was made here at committee, there were a significant number of people from around the country who went out and shared the concerns of the public. I know that my phone calls and my emails have certainly picked up about this issue. The Canadian public feels deceived. We had many ministers and members of the government speak in Parliament, at this committee, and elsewhere about how they're not going after hunters and sport shooters, how they're not going after any of these, how there would be no impact on them, how they're trying to make the public safe and how they're trying to deal with gangs and criminals. I don't know how many gang members are worried about this legislation. We don't seem to be focusing any attention on what gangs are doing.

I know Ms. Dancho mentioned earlier the billions of dollars that this particular bill will actually cost if the government considers any confiscation plan whatsoever. I don't think it will. I think it'll just ram this through and screw the public. Forget the Canadian Bill of Rights. It will take property, make it illegal and, in that way, circumvent any responsibility it has to compensate people for this.

However, just think of what that would do. If we had even $1 billion that we would give to legitimate programs that make a difference on.... Kids get involved in gangs. My friend Marcell Wilson from the One by One Movement, who we had here in committee on.... They're making huge inroads in the Toronto area.

The porous areas of our border, law enforcement knows right now, are the main vehicles by which smuggled firearms enter this country. We need to have those resources deployed there to deal with the smuggled firearms out of the U.S. and to deal with kids' getting involved in gangs in the first place.

You know, a couple years back, the now Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino and I were on—and, Pam, I'm sure you'll love this—Political Blind Date. I know it's an odd couple, but Marco and I were on a blind date together. I'm not too proud to say it, but he's actually not a bad guy if you get rid of his politics. Anyway, the idea was that TVO did this particular program, and we talked about firearms. I had the privilege of having Marco out in my riding in Medicine Hat, Alberta. We went to a certified firearms instructor, and he provided an abbreviated lesson on what firearms are about, how safe the industry is, what rigour people have to go through to get a PAL, and how much increased that rigour is when you get to an RPAL, a restricted possession and acquisition licence. I have both, by the way.

Marco went through this, and even during our presentation, the firearm instructor had students handle firearms so they would have familiarity with them. Marco refused to participate, and that was his choice.

Then we went out to a gun range, the Medicine Hat Rifle and Revolver Club, a great club in Medicine Hat run by a great group of people. We had some people from industry, some hunters there. We had some gun shops there and we had some individuals who participate in various sport-shooting disciplines there. The idea was to show Marco Mendicino what rigour they go through for safety on the range. It was great.

Then I had the privilege of going down and seeing Marco in his riding. We went down to a number of different areas. Lawrence Heights was one of them. We played a little basketball with some street kids and we had a great time.

There was one thing that really struck me. We went to a housing project where a young mom recounted the story of her two young daughters. I believe they are both under the age of eight, and they were shot in a gang shooting. Thankfully, they were not killed, but I'm sure they will both have trauma for a lifetime.

I asked this lady what we, as legislators in Parliament, should be doing to make a difference for public safety in this country, seeing as she and her family were front and centre in being victims of this. Unfortunately, this particular dialogue wasn't aired. They still have it on their tapes, but it didn't air, which I'm not surprised about. She said, “You know, the gang bangers in this city are not afraid of law enforcement. They are not afraid of the law. Nothing happens to them.” I said, “So how do we change that?” Marco was getting very nervous by this stage. She said, “There needs to be serious accountability by those people in this country who use firearms in the commission of an offence, and there is not. There is no accountability for them.”

I find it rather disconcerting that, again, we have a bill in front of us that does little. It's like lipstick on a pig. It looks as though it does something beautiful, but it actually makes no difference to public safety.

That's not your fault. You have to do the dance to the music that your masters play, and I get that. However, as I said on Tuesday, I'm very concerned about what this will do to an industry that contributes, as has been indicated by my colleagues, significant dollars, billions of dollars, to our GDP and that impacts the lives, careers and businesses of a multitude of Canadians, tens of thousands of Canadians. Millions of Canadians who have the exact firearms that the government is trying to prohibit here, which have now become worthless, will overnight be turned into administrative criminals.

That's what they should be called. They will become administrative criminals. Why? They didn't commit an offence. They didn't go out and harm anybody. They are not a risk to anybody, not at all. It's because, on a piece of paper, somebody said they didn't agree that these firearms should be owned by anyone. They can't find any evidence to show that the 514 firearms and their variants listed are a danger to the public. Guns aren't a danger to the public. People are. The people's use of them is. That's what we have to try to do.

I would be joining government in supporting any legislation that we could work together on that would say that we have a problem with gangs, we have a problem with smuggled firearms, we have a problem with reduced sentencing, and gun crimes aren't taken seriously. We have a revolving-door justice system that keeps people out of jail more than it keeps them in.

I remember when I started policing in 1980—that's probably before you were born, Paul—we had a thing called the Bail Reform Act that actually did something. It was called reverse onus. Paul would remember that. If I charged somebody with a criminal offence, and that person was able to get out on bail, they had conditions and those laid out a whole series of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Motz, this is all very interesting, but you're wandering around. Could we get back to G-4?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Absolutely.

What the Bail Reform Act did back then was provide that a criminal be accountable. If they were released on a condition, whatever that might be, and they reoffended, the onus was then on that criminal to show why they should be released. Now that whole system seems to have shifted so that the criminals no longer have to show why they shouldn't remain in custody if they reoffend. It's up to the Crown—the police—as to why that individual should remain in custody. It's gone backwards.

When we get in government, I'm anxious to see you ladies working to try to change some of those things, so stay tuned for that. That's something I look forward to.

Anyway, I will cede my remaining time to Mr. Shipley.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

You don't have time to cede.

I will recognize Mr. Noormohamed, followed by Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Noormohamed, please go ahead.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's a lot to unpack from this filibuster that we were promised we would not have to sit through, because we were told by our Conservative friends that they intended to move forward on this and not delay it unreasonably. It's good to know where we are.

I want to begin at the very beginning, in fact, with what Ms. Damoff said at the beginning. On January 29, we're going to be marking the anniversary of the shooting at the Quebec City mosque. I want to remind everyone that the weapon that was used for the heinous murders committed there was acquired legally. Despite those who may believe that's it's okay to consider these things outliers and that we shouldn't legislate to stop outlier events, that attack and others like it have caused irreparable damage to communities, not just in Quebec City but Muslim communities across this country. When we do talk about the impact of firearms violence, we can't forget why this legislation is so very important.

Ms. Dancho spoke about her grandfather, and I want to express my condolences to her. I was very close to my grandfather. These are important memories for us to hold on to.

I want to share something that my grandfather taught me, as somebody who was very lucky to have come to this country. He said that the beauty of Canada is that Canada evolves. Canada is a dynamic country, and Canada's evolution as a country has made it better. When Ms. Dancho talks about Canadian culture, I think it's very important to know that Canadian culture evolves over time, as we embrace the richness of its diversity, as we embrace the richness of the diversity that we learn from indigenous communities in this country, from those who have been here since Mr. Lloyd's family came from the 13 colonies, and from when my family came 50 years ago.

When we talk about the evolution of this country, let us remember that there was a time in this country when women couldn't vote, when indigenous people couldn't vote, when indigenous people needed passes to come off reserves, when we imposed head taxes, when same-sex marriage was not allowed and when racial segregation was the order of the day. I think it's really important for us to understand the importance of evolving, and that we learn from the past to make a better future.

In my opinion, this legislation and this amendment do that. The beauty of our legislative process, Mr. Chair, is that, if the Conservatives think this is a terrible amendment, they have the ability in this minority Parliament to work with two other parties to defeat this amendment. That is their right. That is the beauty of this parliamentary process. It is not to hold up the will of Canadians. It is their opportunity to work with other parties to defeat this amendment if they don't like it, but my goodness, Mr. Chair, we are here to try to save lives. We are here to try to do what is right. We are not here to take away weapons from hunters who use the weapons that, as Ms. Damoff rightly stated, are available for the purpose of hunting.

This may be a surprise to many on the Conservative side, but there are hunters who support this legislation. There are those of us who may not be gun owners who understand that, for those gun owners for whom this is important, their rights are important as well.

What this bill does is very different from what the Conservatives are asserting it's doing. I also want to note the glee with which Conservative staffers were literally bouncing around in the hallways thanking people for how much fodder this was going to create for fundraising opportunities. I am surprised and disappointed that the party that purports to be in support of law and order would use a debate around keeping Canadians safe as an opportunity to raise money. I think we should all take a good, long look and reflect on what that actually says about the nature of the conversation here.

Mr. Lloyd rightly spoke about the importance of freedoms, but it's very striking to me that, when Mr. Lloyd spoke about being a Canadian patriot and about rejecting revolution, I didn't see him speaking about rejecting the convoy, rejecting his colleagues who were there—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Chair, this is a direct response to what Mr. Lloyd said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Lloyd is recognized on a point of order.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I don't see any relevance to this, Mr. Chair. This isn't related to the amendment at all. Now he's talking about the convoy.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

If I might be allowed to finish, Mr. Chair, you'll see where I'm going with this.