Public Safety Committee on Nov. 24th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 50 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

We will start by acknowledging that we are meeting on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021, members are attending in person in the room or remotely using the Zoom application. I'll note that we have until 1:30 p.m., if it is the will of the committee to meet until that time. Of course, everyone has the ability to move adjournment earlier, if there is a will to do so.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, June 23, 2022, the committee is resuming consideration of Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments with regard to firearms.

I would like to welcome back the officials who are with us today. They are available for technical questions regarding the bill. From the Department of Justice, we have Marianne Breese, counsel, Public Safety Canada legal services; Paula Clarke, counsel, criminal law policy section; and Phaedra Glushek, counsel, criminal law policy section. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Rachel Mainville-Dale, acting director general, firearms policy.

Thank you for joining us today.

We will resume clause-by-clause. Amendment G-4 has been moved.

I recognize Mr. Chiang.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In our previous meeting, there was a great deal of discussion surrounding the list contained in G-46. Therefore, I'm seeking the unanimous consent of this committee to release the list of firearms contained in amendment G-46.

To be clear, I'm not moving the amendment. I'm simply seeking the consent of the members of this committee to release the list contained therein, which includes all firearms contained in the definition we are discussing at this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Chiang.

Is it the will of the committee to do so? Is anyone opposed?

Yes, Mr. Lloyd.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, something that Mr. Chiang said was somewhat confusing. He said he's not moving a motion, but he's seeking unanimous consent. Would he have to move a motion on this before seeking unanimous consent?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

He's not moving G-46. He's just asking for the consent of the committee to release it publicly.

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

But does he have to move a motion to ask the committee for unanimous consent to release this publicly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Strictly, no; it's his motion. It's his privilege at stake here. He's willing to give it up.

He has moved for unanimous consent, so that is the vote on the floor for us right now.

Is there any dissent?

Go ahead, Ms. Dancho.

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

It's a question of clarification. If they're not moving it but they're introducing it for discussion, does that mean we can't say, for instance, “I move to remove X hunting rifle from this list”?

I just want to be clear on what our powers are. If we can discuss it now but it isn't technically moved, can we not amend it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We cannot amend it until it's moved. It can't be moved until later on in the bill. It is not being moved at this time.

There's a lot of concern about what's actually in the list and so forth. I know you guys are rightly concerned about that, and you were asking the officials about it. It puts the officials pretty much in a box. They can't really tell you anything. Mr. Chiang is releasing his privilege, but he's asking for the consent of the committee to do that.

Once again, I'll ask if there's any opposition to Mr. Chiang's unanimous consent motion.

(Motion agreed to)

The contents of motion G-46 are now publicly accessible.

I would also note that in the version of the motion that had been previously distributed to the committee, somewhere around page 417—it's going to be really good bedside reading—the formatting went awry. The clerk has arranged for a reprint of it. It will have been distributed to all the members at this point.

That being the case, I believe Ms. Damoff is next.

Go ahead, please.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

I believe it's Mr. Lloyd, followed by Ms. Dancho.

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

Mr. Chair, it will be Ms. Dancho.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Ms. Dancho.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate that the Liberals have finally put some words on the record regarding their objectives. I have a couple of things to say.

There's a lot to unpack from what Ms. Damoff said. She seemed to be equating the vile killer at École Polytechnique with hunters, and blaming hunters for the deaths of 14 people. Perhaps she can clarify whether she's blaming hunters who have legitimate hunting rifles.

Is that what you're saying, Ms. Damoff?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You may answer, if you wish, Ms. Damoff.

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

Then I'd like to respond.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

After a brief answer, we'll go to Mr. Lloyd and then Mr. Fortin.

Go ahead, Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I am absolutely not equating hunters with the perpetrator of that shooting. However, the weapon that was used in that shooting and others are included in this legislation and in this amendment. They are weapons that are not needed by hunters. They are weapons that are designed for the battlefield.

There are still firearms that will be available for hunters, but I think it needs to be made clear—people seem to like to deny this fact—that the firearms used, the weapons used, at École Polytechnique were legally obtained.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Ms. Dancho.

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

Thank you for the clarification.

We're having a debate about the fact that hunters have hunting rifles that have hurt people. What concerns me is that the Liberals are able to use that argument for every firearm. I believe they're introducing this argument so they can have the ability to carry it forward for banning every single firearm model in this country.

One that's on the long list they just now formally introduced and that we can now talk about is a model of .22 rifle. A .22 rifle is used for hunting birds or small rodents. This is possibly one of the most common styles of firearms. Anyone who has any knowledge whatsoever about hunting rifles, whether they're a hunter or not, knows that to put a .22 on the banned list and call it a military weapon is very deeply misinformed.

We're reviewing this list in detail, because there are so many firearms on here that are very commonplace. Ms. Damoff mentions the SKS. That is one of the most commonplace hunting rifles and is particularly popular in the indigenous community. She likened it to a weapon of war, like a fully automatic AK-47. The SKS is not that. It's disinformation to insinuate that it is. Fully automatic weapons, which are weapons of war, have been fully banned in this country since the 1970s.

I feel there is significant disinformation being spread. Equating hunting rifles, which have been used for over a century in this country, with weapons of war is straight-up lying. It's very insulting to insinuate that hunters in this country have weapons of war when they're perfectly legitimate tools that hunters have been using for well over a century—and much longer, in fact, particularly if you're talking about indigenous hunters, who have been hunting on this land for quite some time.

I'm not a firearms expert, though I would say that I know significantly more than Ms. Damoff about hunting. I have a lot of respect for hunters, coming from a hunting family. For her to say which rifles are good for hunting when she has no knowledge of hunting whatsoever, or respect for hunters, is something I find particularly offensive.

We have been fielding hundreds of calls in the last number of days. The definition provided in this amendment casts a very wide and significant net. It's the most significant hunting rifle ban in the history of Canada. That's what's being done here, in the most underhanded way. If the Liberals had any integrity, they would have brought this forward in the original bill. Then it could have been debated in the House. However, of course they did not do that. There could have been expert testimony brought forward during the witness testimony phase, but they did not do that. Why did they not do that? Did they not want to face proper public scrutiny? That's what this seems to be about. This isn't about safety.

This is coming in light of new statistics that showing under the Liberal government, there's been a 92% increase in gang-related homicides in this country. There's been a 92% increase since Prime Minister Trudeau took office. There's been a 32% increase in violent crime, which equates to 124,000 more violent crimes last year than in 2015—crimes such as rape, assault, stabbing and shooting.

We know that with the firearm problem in this country, the vast majority of the issue, which is growing and of the utmost concern, is about the handguns that are being smuggled in illegally from the United States and being used by gangsters, gangs and criminals to hurt Canadians, particularly in our big major cities like Toronto and Montreal. Winnipeg is also experiencing this. We have a real and legitimate issue on our hands. We also know that there are 3-D-printed guns. We can't talk about it, but we know that in the debate in the days to come, various amendments may address that. We can have that debate when it happens. Unfortunately, we couldn't have that debate in the House.

I think the problem is that we are seeing a government that brings in successive soft on crime policies. We can talk about the bail reform from 2017 that contributed to the revolving door of criminals going in and out of jail. That's coming home to roost now, five years in. We can talk about Bill C-5, which was recently passed. The Liberals talk about gun crime, but they removed mandatory jail time for serious gun crimes. Firing a gun with the intent to hit someone with a bullet no longer means mandatory prison time.

They have no integrity when they come here and talk about wanting to keep Canadians safe from gun violence, because under Bill C-5, they are now allowing people who try to shoot other people.... They may not have to go to jail. They can serve house arrest from the comfort of their home.

It's very frustrating for me to hear Liberals attacking hunters, as I'm from a hunting community and have a hunting background and I care legitimately about solving the issue of violent crime involving illegally possessed firearms in this country. Again, for seven years we heard this Liberal government—the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety, members of this committee—talk about how this isn't about hunters. We heard it today. However, on this list there are so many models of commonplace hunting rifles.

Take anything made by Remington, for example. Remington, Browning, Winchester and Benelli are firearm companies that specifically design hunting rifles. They cater to hunters. They don't cater to what Ms. Damoff called weapons of war. A Winchester gun is a hunting rifle. Many of those are being banned. Also, the back door permits all variants of them, so variants that aren't semi-automatic could be easily added. Many hunters own semi-automatic rifles—again, that's a very common, legitimate hunting rifle model—and many of them also own non-semi-automatic ones that are from Winchester or Remington. This allows a back door, but as she said, the Liberals are just coming for semi-automatics.

There is no buyback, by the way. There is no opportunity for anyone to be compensated for these very expensive hunting tools and farming tools. The Liberals are saying they're just coming for some of them right now, but the back door means they could come for all the variants as well.

I think the problem here is that the Liberal Party has lost all ability to be trusted by hunters. First it was the OIC. They said they were not coming for hunters. Then it was the handgun freeze. “Who needs a handgun?” That was their argument. Now it's legitimate hunting rifles. Again, if you get a group of hunters together, you'll see probably about half of them have some form of semi-automatic hunting rifle. It's very, very common. This is commonplace, to speak nothing of the heritage of many of these models.

I'll share an example with you. My grandfather recently died. He had a very difficult last few months in palliative care at home during the pandemic. In his dying months, he came to us with one of his firearms, for which he had saved up for a very long time when he was a young man. It would have been in the fifties. This firearm was probably his most prized possession, and it looked to be in mint condition despite being 70 years old. He bestowed it to my father.

So many Canadian families have the very same special cultural experience with passing down an heirloom firearm, whether it is semi-automatic or not. Again, these are so commonplace. Millions of Canadian families will have had this experience with their grandfathers, their uncles or their fathers. These are family heirlooms as much as they are tools.

What this government is saying right now, given what they're doing so underhandedly and with no integrity, is that you can't have that anymore, and they're not even going to pay you for it. There's no democratic debate, and there's a sneaky amendment here at the end stage of the committee process with no regard for what this does to Canadian culture. Hunting has been a part of it since long before the Europeans got here. Then firearms were introduced, and since then, firearms have been a thriving part of the hunting community in this country among both indigenous and non-indigenous people. As I mentioned, the SKS is a very popular hunting rifle in the indigenous community. I'm very interested to see what they think about this.

We have this experience that I feel is being completely spat on: Well, too bad for you; we don't care that this is part of your cultural identity as Canadians. We don't care that this is part of the freedoms you enjoy. We're taking them from you and you don't get a say in it. In fact, we're building the legislation in a way that's so broad we can take all your hunting rifles.

As I've said, based on the commentary and arguments the Liberals are making, you could apply this to any firearm. They are now establishing an argument to ban every single lawfully owned firearm in this country. I'd love to hear them actually deny that, because they have yet to do so. It's very clear. They said they would never come for hunters, and now they have. There is no more trust between anyone who has any sort of hunting background and this Liberal government given what it has done here.

I was actually personally shocked. I was naive enough to believe they wouldn't come for hunting rifles, but they are now. It's incredibly significant. There are even shotguns on here. Shotguns for hunting birds are being prohibited.

There's something that has been missing in this conversation, which really just started a couple of days ago. We haven't had a lot of time to talk about it. This bill has been on the floor for six months, and we're just now learning what the real intentions are here.

Something that hasn't been talked about is the raw utility of certain models of hunting rifles. I'm going to take Churchill, Manitoba, as an example, the polar bear capital of the world. We know polar bears actively hunt human beings. Polar bears are extremely dangerous wildlife in Canada. We are very proud of them, but they're very dangerous. The fact is that if you come across a polar bear, a cougar, an angry grizzly bear or a pack of wolves, for example, you'd better hope that you have a semi-automatic hunting rifle. It is your best defence against Canadian wildlife, which hunters come across often.

Thankfully, they have tools to protect themselves and their families, who they're hunting with. Thankfully, indigenous communities have tools to protect themselves. Thankfully, northern indigenous communities have tools to protect themselves. To say these are weapons of war, when they've been used as tools for hunting and protection against wild animals and to protect livestock, is disinformation. It is straight up lies. It is discounting the utility of firearms in this country that have been around for centuries.

We can also talk about wild boars, the very invasive and dangerous species that's spreading into southern Saskatchewan and Alberta. They breed very quicky and they're very sneaky. They can sneak up on you. Their tusks are deadly and they're very fast. If you are charged by a pack of wild boars, you'd better hope you have a semi-automatic hunting rifle with you. You'd better hope that you're able to defend your livestock, your farm dogs and your kids who are with you. Again, there is a utility factor in this that's being completely discounted.

The argument could be made that banning these versions of hunting rifles also puts hunters, farmers and those who live in rural and northern communities at risk. That should have been included. We could have had that robust debate in the House, with expert testimony, had we been given the opportunity, but now we have to do this in some filibuster because the Liberals are introducing this in an underhanded way.

I feel that if they were able to stand on their arguments, they would have welcomed this through the House and through witnesses, but they know what they're doing. This is hunting rifles now, hundreds of models of hunting rifles.

When we have a Liberal government in power, it seems to, as I've said before, look down its nose at rural Canadians, eastern rural Canadians and northern Canadians, shaming them for the way they live, shaming them for generations of hunting heritage that we in the Conservative Party are proud of.

Part of our Canadian identity is hunting, but now we have a government that is looking to ban hundreds of models of perfectly legitimate hunting rifles. They're calling them weapons of war. These are not AK-47s—fully automatic guns. Again, I am not a gun expert, but various Remingtons, Winchesters and, I believe, some models of .22s are in here, and those are wild chicken hunting guns. To call those weapons of war is a complete lie.

Again, we are fielding a lot of calls from people—from men, from women, from families who build their entire recreational life and all of their culture around hunting. Now they're just going to lose, what, half of their firearms?

I think what Ms. Damoff said is they can use other ones. Who is she to say that? She doesn't know anything about hunting. She doesn't respect us. I feel deeply disrespected by those comments. This is someone who does not respect hunters or the deep hunting culture we have in this country telling us what we need for hunting, for protecting our livestock and for protecting our families when we go for a walk in the Canadian wilderness. How could she possibly know what we need? It's very superior, condescending and paternalistic. Part of the reason that people get so fired up and don't trust this government is comments like that. How would they know what we need when they know nothing about how we live?

We have a lot of different perspectives that would like to come forward. We have technical questions. I appreciate that we're now able to talk about the list. There are a lot of technical issues with that list.

I will soon turn it over to my colleagues on the speaking list, but I will just underline that this attack on hunters and the hunting community is completely unprecedented in Canadian history. If you want to talk about war, this is a declaration of war on Canadian hunters by the Liberal government. They're laughing, but that's how it feels. We feel that this is an all-out assault on how we live our lives. They are taking something from us with no democratic debate and barely any oversight. We have to filibuster just to get a word in edgewise about how this is going to impact people, because we were not allowed that opportunity in the House of Commons. We were not allowed that opportunity with expert witnesses.

They are attacking centuries-old heritage in this country, and they're scoffing and laughing as if it means nothing to them. It means something to us. It means something to me. It means something to me on a very personal and deep level, and to be very honest, this feels like a personal attack. I'm not an avid sportsman, but I did grow up in a hunting family. All the people I grew up with had firearms; it was very common. To see this kind of disrespect when we have done nothing wrong and when we have a 92% increase in gang-related homicides, and to see them coming for people like me and people like my family, speaks to misplaced priorities.

As I mentioned, there is no buyback in here. Unlike the OIC—and we have debated that issue at length—the Liberals are not providing even a penny to these folks. It's just “They're banned. You can't use them anymore. Too bad for you.” That's what we're looking at right now. If they do come back and change their minds and decide to have a buyback, right now some of the estimates are showing the OIC and the weapons ban will cost $5 billion. That will easily double given the hundreds of perfectly legitimate hunting rifles that would be banned. We're talking about probably at least $10 billion.

Do you know how much good $10 billion could do if we actually targeted the problem, the 92% increase in gang-related homicides since Prime Minister Trudeau became the Prime Minister? The 32% increase in violent crime is notably focused in our urban cities and on our porous border, which is letting gangsters and criminal elements smuggle handguns and already prohibited weapons from the U.S. into our cities so they can use them in their drug rings to hurt Canadians. Do you know how much $10 billion could do to stop that issue and their terrorizing of our urban cities? I think quite a bit. Ten billion dollars spent on hunters and people in rural Canada is not going to do a darned thing for that.

Given the gang activity, the criminals who are smuggling in those prohibited weapons from the U.S. are laughing at this. They're laughing right along with the Liberals because it's not going to make one modicum of difference to their lives. It will do nothing to impact them, but it will do everything to impact rural Canada and the culture that we hold very dear. This is just the beginning.

Again, we're just learning about this. We're trying to wrap our heads around the significance of it, but it is a fact that this bill comes after hundreds of thousands of hunters who are trained, tested and vetted and who are just as legitimate as any Liberal member here and just as patriotic. They love this country and they love the freedoms that it has provided them.

This is just the beginning of what we're doing. We will stand up for our hunting community. I will stand up for my family, for where I grew up. This is an all-out assault by the Liberals on the hunters in this country, and I look forward to the discussion we will have today and in the coming days. I look forward to hearing the thoughts of the millions of hunters in this community, because as I'm hearing right now, the anxiety is extremely high, the upset is extremely high and the devastation of families is extremely high, and we're only a few days into this.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Dancho.

On my list I have Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Motz, but I think I missed Mr. Fortin earlier, so if it's okay with you guys, I'll recognize Mr. Fortin first. Then it will be Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Motz, Mr. Noormohamed and Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Fortin, you have the floor.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to address this important Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I'm here to replace my colleague Kristina Michaud, who is on an overseas mission.

The Bloc Québécois believes that Bill C‑21 is important. Like Ms. Michaud, I have had the opportunity on several occasions to talk about the importance of working effectively to prevent, among other things, shootings like those that took place in Montreal in recent months from happening in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.

I think a lot of work needs to be done to counter the entry of illegal guns, the black market. We've talked about this a number of times. I have often criticized and continue to criticize the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice for their laxity when it comes to illegal weapons. In that sense, I think my view is consistent with that of my Conservative Party colleagues.

That said, I would like to return to Bill C‑21. We have spoken on several occasions to ask for a clear definition of the weapons we want banned. That was part of the Bloc Québécois platform during the last election campaign. It's virtually impossible to understand if the definition isn't clear, and we certainly don't want people to be confused about the legality of a weapon. They need to know which weapons are legal and which are not.

I almost get the impression that the definition in G‑4 was written by the Bloc Québécois. I know that's not the case, since it's a government proposal, but I must say that it meets the Bloc's expectations. Now, it remains to be seen whether the definition is satisfactory.

Obviously, we are always willing to discuss, but we must take the opinions of experts into account. We have to make sure that we're working properly. I agree with my colleagues in the Conservative Party that there needs to be a clear and meaningful description of the weapons that need to be banned.

We must give a clear definition of these weapons that we want to ban in order to stop their proliferation in Quebec and in Canada. Many Canadians suffer the dramatic consequences of the use of these weapons.

The Bloc Québécois intends to vote in favour of G‑4. We support all efforts to put an end to the unfortunate shootings and misuse of firearms throughout Quebec and Canada.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

We'll go now to Mr. Lloyd, and then we will have Mr. Noormohamed, followed by Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Lloyd, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming. I will have some technical questions for you, as I did yesterday.

Following up on the initial statement of my colleague Ms. Dancho, I really feel as though a red line has been crossed in this country with this amendment.

In this country, we don't have a Second Amendment—and I think that is appropriate—but we do have a social contract that has existed for decades and for generations. It is a social contract between the Government of Canada and society, and part of that society is law-abiding firearms owners. For generations, Canadians have accepted that regulation is an important part of cultivating a responsible firearms culture in this country and a very important firearms safety culture. Over generations, in response to exceptional instances and, in many cases, horrible tragedies, governments of all political persuasions have seen fit to put forward amendments and legislation to close gaps to try to prevent tragedies from happening.

However, whenever those laws were passed, there was always an understanding that there was no intention to target law-abiding firearms owners—hunters, farmers, sport shooters and gun collectors. There was always a great deal of deference put into legislative drafting, into having witnesses come and into creating legislation that ensured the social contract with firearms owners, with indigenous people and with hunters was preserved and protected.

I think one great example of that—and this is going to be a technical question I'll ask, so I'll put it on your radar—is section 117.15 of the Criminal Code. Section 117.15 of the Criminal Code gives the Governor in Council the ability to regulate firearms. A subsection of that was passed in 1995, nearly 30 years ago, so it isn't a recent law but an old law. It says:

(2) In making regulations, the Governor in Council may not prescribe any thing to be a prohibited firearm, a restricted firearm, a prohibited weapon, a restricted weapon, a prohibited device or prohibited ammunition if, in the opinion of the Governor in Council, the thing to be prescribed is reasonable for use in Canada for hunting or sporting purposes.

It is the law of the land in this country—and it hasn't been changed since 1995—that when the Governor in Council is in the process of changing the classification of a firearm to make it restricted or prohibited, they must consider whether that firearm could be reasonably used for a hunting or sporting purpose.

I am concerned and will ask this as a direct question to the witnesses: How does amendment G‑4 interact with that provision of the Criminal Code? I think that's a very important question we have to answer today because, as I said, a red line has been crossed. As much as I appreciate the opening statement from my Liberal colleague, who said that it was not the Liberals' intention to target hunters in any way, a number of shotguns and rifles have been explicitly named in amendment G‑46 that I think any reasonable person would see as hunting or sporting firearms. I think that's quite apparent.

For this government to put forward this amendment without giving any thought to the law of the land really draws a lot of concern for me. One of these hunting and sporting rifles is the Benelli M3. It has a wooden stock and doesn't have a detachable magazine. That's interesting because proposed paragraph (g) of this amendment, which we talked about on Tuesday as the evergreen definition, talks about any semi-automatic rifle or shotgun with a detachable magazine that has the capacity to carry more than five rounds.

It's been long accepted—this is part of the social contract that I talked about—that we do not want high-capacity magazines in Canada, so there has always been a limit on centrefire ammunition: You cannot have a magazine that exceeds five rounds. Well, in Canada, we also don't have a huge firearms industry, and most hunting and sporting rifles and shotguns are manufactured in other countries. Other countries don't have this five-round magazine rule, so even though in Canada you are not allowed to have a magazine that exceeds five rounds, all the firearms that are being banned were originally designed, for the most part, as far as I know, to potentially carry six, seven or even more rounds.

In Canada, we currently have a ban. It's a criminal offence to have a prohibited magazine. It's a prohibited magazine if it carries more than five rounds. That has been a largely effective policy, and it has been accepted in this country for many years. We can use these rifles that carry more rounds, but a law-abiding person would immediately cease to be law-abiding if.... No hunter would want to use any magazine that has a capacity higher than five rounds.

However, now the government is saying they're going to approach this from the other end. They're not just going to ban magazines that can carry more than five rounds. They're going to ban any gun that could carry a magazine that has more than five rounds. In the process of adding that amendment, they're capturing an immense number of firearms, many of which are used for hunting and sporting purposes. This is why I say a red line has been crossed.

Are they banning all hunting and sporting shotguns and rifles? Certainly they're not, but that's exactly how this starts. This Liberal government will take incremental steps forward. However, I would submit that this is not an incremental step; this is a massive step. It's a step that was not talked about in the last number of federal elections in specific terms.

The government has used very ambiguous terms, such as “military-style assault weapon” or “assault weapon”. I actually agree somewhat with my Bloc colleague, who said we all want a strong definition. However, at no time was there consultation with the public, nor was there an election platform stating that the definition of an assault weapon or a military-style assault weapon would include semi-automatic or centrefire shotguns and rifles. That was never contemplated. That was not something we talked about at this committee. It was also not in the original Bill C-21. It's not something we knew about, so we didn't know to ask witnesses about it and we didn't bring specific witnesses for it.

In a way, although this bill has a number of steps in the democratic process to go through before it potentially passes into law, the addition of this amendment at this stage impugns our democracy. It removed our ability at second reading, which took place and had a second reading debate and second reading vote, and at the committee stage in the House of Commons.... It has precluded our ability to bring in witnesses and experts to talk about this issue so we can debate it. It was just table-dropped as an amendment after we completed our vigorous study, a study that I would submit did not go very well for the government.

I think Bill C-21 was very poorly drafted. It was not well thought out. A number of the well-intentioned things the government put in it were later found to be extremely flawed. Witnesses from across the political spectrum noted that these things were flawed. I won't get into those specifics, but it became increasingly clear as we got to the end of the process that this bill would have to be amended significantly. When the government recognized that these significant amendments were likely coming, it chose to table-drop massive new amendments that, in the words of one lawyer, amount to the most significant revision to the Firearms Act since the Firearms Act was passed in 1995. This is the most significant revision to the Firearms Act in the history of the Firearms Act, and it's not even being debated as its own stand-alone motion. It's being debated as an amendment during the clause-by-clause stage at committee. This is not how our democracy is supposed to work.

If this bill makes it to the Senate, there will be an opportunity for senators to look into it. However, the Liberal government, because of this last-minute, Trojan-Horse manoeuvre, has precluded my right as a parliamentarian and my privilege as a member of the House of Commons to study this bill and to debate it on its merits.

I'm stuck here at the clause-by-clause stage, when the train is already leaving the station, trying to get answers about what this is going to do. I think that raises some very serious implications for the legitimacy and the credibility of this legislation, the credibility of this amendment. I understand that some colleagues will say that they want.... In other parties, they want to vote for this, but surely they can recognize that it is a very bad precedent to set to allow any party or any government to add an amendment that was not conceived of in the original legislation, that was not discussed at all in the witness testimony and that was not brought forward until this late stage in the process.

I'll move on from that and get back to the social contract. Canada is not the United States of America, and I think that is a great thing. My family left the United States—well, the 13 colonies—in 1783. We fled from upstate New York together with our brothers and sisters in the Six Nations, the Mohawk nations. We left the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York to move to the Belleville region of Ontario. We were United Empire Loyalists, and we came to this country because we rejected the political ideology of the American revolution. We're friends with the Americans. They're our allies. We share many common values, but Canada was founded.... One of the founding peoples of this nation were the Loyalists, who came from the 13 colonies as refugees to this country with the indigenous peoples of upstate New York and other places, and with the members of the francophone Quebec nation who also.... There were entreaties from the United States to ask the Quebec nation to join in the revolution, and it rejected the revolution.

This country was founded as a rejection of the revolution. I think that is a great thing because I am a Canadian patriot. I believe in this country. I believe in the reasons for which this country was founded. I believe that we are a distinct society. We are distinct from the United States. That's why it actually offended me.... I do respect my colleague, Mr. Chiang, and his service in the police service, but it did offend me as a Canadian—when he moved this amendment and cited a Californian law—that we need to be implementing Californian, American-style laws in this country. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I can bet that the murder rate in the state of California by firearms is far greater than the murder rate in this country. That's something I'm very proud of in this country. We're a safer country. We're by no means a perfect country, but we are a country that has better firearms laws than any state in the United States. For this Liberal member to come forward and cite an American law in the American context as a reason to pass a new law in Canada.... I think that's wrong because we are Canadians. We have our own way. We are distinct. We do not need American-style laws in this country. We do not need American divisive political rhetoric in this country.

Do you know what? I think, frankly, it does.... I'm a big fan of George Grant and his work Lament for a Nation. We have seen in his book that one of the theses is that the Liberal Party of Canada has always found political power by importing American cultural debates into this country. They are breaking the social contract. This has eroded the social contract in this country, and I'm going to say why this is super dangerous for our country, and why the result of the social contract being broken is so dangerous.

However, first off, why is this Liberal government breaking the social contract with hunters and law-abiding gun owners? Is it because of public safety? No, because we've seen from the witnesses, from police and from people who are working in our inner cities, that these firearms—and we're talking about handguns and about fully automatic firearms that are heavily restricted or illegal in this country—are being smuggled in from the United States, a country with far different gun laws than we have, and they are being used to commit crimes on our streets. These are not law-abiding hunters and sport shooters.

They're not using many of the firearms that the government has listed in G-46, like a Benelli M3 shotgun. It wouldn't be used by people who are committing crimes on our streets. For the government to list that is a clear violation of our social contract.

Why are they doing that? It's because they have recognized that this is a divisive political issue that they can use to divide Canadians between rural and urban, and divide between Canadians who own firearms and Canadians who don't know much about firearms, who don't own firearms and who are afraid of firearms. They've recognized that this is a way to divide Canadians for their own political success. I think that's wrong, because we are eroding something that is very fundamental about our country.

What is very fundamental to our identity as Canadians is that we have a social contract. Firearms owners do not have explicit rights written into the Constitution of this country, but this country respects the rights of law-abiding firearms owners who follow the law, who go through the process, who get vetted by the Canadian firearms program and the RCMP, and who could have their guns taken at any time by the police, even without a warrant. If anyone calls into a police station with a claim that somebody is a threat to themselves or to others, the police have the power to act.

That's something that doesn't exist in the United States. It exists in Canada, and I think that's a positive thing. Speaking as someone who comes from a family of gun owners, we never had to be worried that our government was going to pass legislation that discriminated against us. We knew that, as long as we followed all these rules, these reasonable rules that have been accepted for generations and decades in this country, we would be respected by our government. It's only under this Liberal government that this social contract has been violated, and not for public safety reasons, which I think we could look into, but for purely political division reasons. It's purely for their own political gain.

I think that's shame on the Liberal Party of Canada. I know they have lots of members who live in rural areas who probably own firearms and probably are concerned about this legislation. I don't know how much consultation they did on this within their own caucus. I won't speculate on that. I don't know. It's just so shocking to me that they would cross this red line and that they would delve into the area of shotguns and rifles.

Moving on, I see that the government.... Actually, it was one of my questions. When I first saw this list of guns, the 310 pages or so, and G-46 came out, I was just really curious as to why the government was putting this list as an amendment to Bill C-21. In looking at the list of guns, it quickly became apparent that a lot of these guns had just been copied and pasted from the May 2020 order in council. We have since discovered, based on testimony yesterday, that somewhere between 300 and 400 additional firearms have been added to the May 2020 list. Why would this Liberal government need to pass this as an amendment? If these firearms are a threat to public safety, they could have the authority....

I guess I'll ask a quick question here: Does the government have the authority to add these firearms to the banned list using an OIC immediately?

[Paula Clarke, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

I'll start from first principles. The government has the ability to prohibit firearms through two means. The first means is through the power of prescription, which is set out in section 117.15 and also set out in the definition of prohibited firearms. The second way is through legislation, which is what is being proposed here today.

In terms of what you mentioned earlier, I will proactively respond to your question about the limitation on the Governor in Council when prescribing a firearm by order in council. The Governor in Council must be of the view that the firearm is not reasonable for hunting and sporting purposes. Going back to the May 1 OIC, the regulatory impact analysis statement stated throughout it a number of times that the Governor in Council was of the view that these firearms posed too great a public safety risk to not be prohibited, to remain non-restricted or restricted.

Going back to your original question, yes, the government could prohibit the additional firearms that are listed by regulation, but what is being proposed is that those firearms be prohibited here today through motions that would amend legislation.