Public Safety Committee on Nov. 24th, 2022

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. It's just a friendly point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Ms. Dancho, go ahead on your point of order.

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

Thank you, Chair.

We have experts here. We're very thankful that they are here, but they've been unable to answer a number of questions for us. Given many of the questions from Liberals and us and the Bloc, we've been restrained in our access to information. I'm just wondering if my honourable colleague would like to move an amendment to call for, I don't know, firearms program people who manage the firearms reference table and the schedules, or those who could more quickly provide that advice, such as those who drafted or crafted the list, for example.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Yes. I would be—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That would not be an amendment to this amendment.

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

No. I'm calling for a motion, perhaps.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We have a motion on the floor, so we can't move a separate amendment. I can certainly work with the clerk to see if we can arrange for someone from the—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Yes.

Maybe I would ask the witnesses, if some of the questions are unable to be answered, especially the technical ones that you're supposed to be here to answer....

I can't fault somebody for not knowing what they don't know, but I would highly suggest that you have somebody here, as my colleague Ms. Dancho has requested, who can fully answer some of these very technical questions.

[Paula Clarke]

Agreed. We're here to answer questions related to the motion and the legal aspects—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Are you going to make the move and have those witnesses, as requested, come and help testify, or—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Zimmer, that's really not up to the witnesses.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I will work with the clerk to see if we can invite someone from the Canadian firearms program to attend in future.

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

On a point of order along those lines, Chair, if you will, I think Ms. Dancho's point is well taken about the questions from both sides.

In fairness to our witnesses, they were given information. They don't necessarily understand “why”. That's not their role. If we could have technical experts from the Canadian firearms program join this group at our next meeting, that would be ideal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I believe I just said we would seek to do that.

Mr. Zimmer, carry on.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll go on to my questions. I have many more.

This is kind of the same question, but here we go. I'm sure that the way magazines in firearms interoperate is based on the size of the magazine port. Being a firearms owner myself, I know this is the case. In other words, could a firearm that has a magazine port of a certain size in theory accept any magazine that is the same size, including the ones not pinned or otherwise limited per Canadian law?

[Paula Clarke]

There's no prohibition in the Criminal Code for using a firearm that's not prohibited. For using a cartridge magazine that's non-prohibited, there are no restrictions on how these magazine cartridges are used in other firearms.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I'm going to get into a question about variants. It's kind of on the same topic, but maybe it will become more clear.

The reason I ask is that it appears that the limit of five cartridges is redundant if the third part of the test simply bans firearms with detachable magazines, because there could be, at any time or place, a magazine that is larger than five rounds that fits the magazine port. That's the premise of what we're asking. There were similar questions asked about Butler Creek magazines a few years ago in terms of other similar magazines. Butler Creek magazines were prohibited, but these other particular and almost identical magazines were not.

It's a very confusing situation for firearms owners.

[Paula Clarke]

It is. The way cartridge magazines are determined to be prohibited or not is based on the firearm for which they were designed.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Yes, I hear that.

[Paula Clarke]

Sometimes there are dual-use magazines, or there will be a magazine that's designed for a rifle but that can be used in a handgun. It depends on the firearm the magazine was designed for.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I'll go to my next question.

We've established what proposed paragraph (1.2)(g) would do; namely, it would ban firearms that discharge centre-fire ammunition, that do so in a semi-automatic manner and that have a detachable magazine.

I'm going to ask you another question.

Are you familiar with the firearms reference table?

[Paula Clarke]

I am.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

For those who are not, the firearms reference table is a database maintained by the RCMP in the Canadian firearms program and firearms verifiers, which outlines the details of all types of firearms that have been imported into Canada or have been built in Canada. It includes details like the three-part test for the gun ban in proposed paragraph (1.2)(g), on ammunition-type action and magazine design.

Have you run a report on the FRT to determine the number of models of firearms that will be impacted by proposed paragraph (1.2)(g)?

[Paula Clarke]

That is a question that is best answered by the Canadian firearms program.