Thanks, Chair.
First, I want to get on the record that the Canadian Shooting Sports Association sent an email on Tuesday night that included a reference to the wording of the amendments that were submitted to the clerk and that have not yet been moved. As members know, these are supposed to be confidential until moved. This is a breach of parliamentary privilege. I have sent a message to the Speaker asking him to look into it. I just want members to know that our privilege was breached by these amendments being leaked. They have been shared publicly.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to make some comments on what happened on Tuesday. I listened to the Conservatives ramble on here, and I want to set the record straight. First, I want to make it clear that we are not going after hunters. We're looking to remove from our society weapons that were designed for the battlefield. This is something the U.K. did in 1988 in outlawing semi-automatic weapons. Australia restricted ownership of semi-automatic weapons in 1996, and New Zealand did so in 2019.
The amendment is not a back door, as has been suggested. It will codify in the Criminal Code assault weapons that were banned in 2020, and will make a clear definition for the specifications of these guns, which were designed for war. We're adding them to the Criminal Code to make sure that any future government will have to amend the Criminal Code to make these military-style assault weapons available again.
Right now, as they are listed through order in council, any government could add or remove firearms as they see fit. Now the list is public thanks to my colleague's motion this morning. The amendment that proposes paragraph 84(1.2)(g) is forward-looking. It provides an evergreen definition in the Criminal Code to ensure that new makes and models of assault-style firearms are unable to enter the Canadian market.
The reason we need this amendment is to ensure that gun manufacturers can't tweak designs of prohibited weapons and have them available in Canada again. Codification and clear definitions in the Criminal Code will ensure that manufacturers can't try to game the system to continue to sell weapons that by any other name would be prohibited. This also provides clarity. The Conservatives like to say that we ban guns because they look scary, which is not the case, but now we're providing a very clear definition not on the look of a weapon but on its very specific design specification.
Let's get into some specifics here. A firearm capable of discharging a projectile with a muzzle energy exceeding 10,000 joules is a high-calibre sniper rifle. A firearm with a bore diameter of 20 millimetres or greater is a grenade-launcher. Hunters will still have firearms available to them to hunt. To say otherwise, as the Conservatives have been doing, is untrue. What will not be available are weapons designed for the battlefield. We're putting a clear definition in the Criminal Code for weapons that have no place in our society.
Let me remind the committee that we're less than two weeks away from December 6, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, the anniversary of the day on which a law-abiding gun owner with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle separated the men from the women and slaughtered 14 women and injured 14 others at École Polytechnique.
The gun lobby, when they were here, dismissed this attack as an outlier event. Sadly, it's not. The Quebec City mosque shooter had legally obtained weapons when he perpetrated an act of hate and opened fire, killing six and seriously injuring five others. In the Dawson College shooting, the perpetrator had a restricted firearms licence and legally obtained a semi-automatic weapon that killed one person and injured 19. My colleague Mr. Chiang mentioned the SKS that was used on two police officers in Ontario just a couple of weeks ago.
That's why since 2020 we have been taking action to ban these military-style assault weapons. That's why government amendment G-4 is essential in fulfilling our commitment to banning all military-style assault weapons. Now it's up to the Conservatives to justify why these weapons designed for war should be legal again.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.