Public Safety Committee on Dec. 13th, 2022

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

He point-of-ordered himself.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Mr. Motz.

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

Why are we discussing this motion for about the seventh meeting now? It's because of the mess of the Liberals' trying to pull a fast one on Canadians.

Let's back up just a little bit.

Why did we have this done, and how did Bill C-21 get to this place? It was discussed in the House, and it was debated as a handgun freeze. It was debated as a need to involve the improvement of red flag laws. We saw that it was going to impact sport shooters and many other communities. That was the intent behind what the government said they were trying to do.

When the bill came here, again many people debated it, and all parties were able to debate this bill in the House. None of us were under the impression that it was anything more that what was presented to the House and to Canadians. Then, at the eleventh and a half hour, during clause-by-clause, the Liberals tried to pull a fast one on Canadians. They tried to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Motz, I will interrupt.

I know everybody has a lot on their chest that they want to get off, but we have less than an hour to finish this off; otherwise, we're going to have to meet and settle it on Thursday, probably.

I would urge everyone to stick to the amendments: not to how we got here or the shortcomings of the bill but whether or not we should meet to discuss having more witnesses, how many meetings that should be and whether we should travel.

I will certainly give you as much latitude as I have given everyone else, but I would encourage everyone to focus on the matter at hand to help us get through this.

Go ahead, Mr. Motz.

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

Thank you, Chair.

As I said, we are here because of the Liberals not following, as was already indicated, due process. They're bringing a significant amendment to a bill that was already contentious to many Canadians. They've now added a whole new scheme to this bill.

I firmly believe that the Liberals did not decide to throw this amendment in at the last minute. I believe very strongly that when Minister Mendicino made these comments back in May, there were already conversations and already plans in the works to try to manipulate and pull a fast one on Canadians, and now, because of the enormous response from Canadians and from the opposition, they're trying to backtrack and save face. This is a complete sham, to be honest with you.

Firearms have dominated a lot of my email correspondence over the last several weeks. I think we're above 6,000 already. I have not had one in favour of what this government has tried to do—not one. In fact, the majority of the phone calls we've received and the thousands of emails we've received have suggested many things, most of which I can't repeat here. The ones I can repeat are asking this: If the government is so intent on going after hunters, why don't they propose a stand-alone bill? Pull this right from Bill C-21. Let's have the conversation about what Bill C-21 was intended to do, which was to deal with handguns, and let's go back to it.

As Mr. MacGregor indicated in his subamendment, and I agree, we need a substantial number of meetings. I don't want it to be prescribed and remain at eight. Ms. Dancho in her amendment to this bill proposed 20. If the government doesn't have the good common sense to pull this amendment on their own, then the committee has to do the consultative work this government failed to do.

As a result, I don't think eight meetings will suffice either. There are multiple groups from across this country—hunting and sporting groups, industry, indigenous Canadians, you name it—and we're not going to get them all in eight meetings, which will only be 16 hours. Even with two different groups per hour, that won't be a significant number of groups. We'll be able to hear only about 30 groups speak. I think we'll just be scratching the surface.

There's a reason why Canadians don't trust this government. There are many reasons, actually, but this is just another example of trying to manipulate or pull a fast one—or whatever name you want to call it—to get Canadians to buy into something that is their ideological agenda.

Again, I will have more to say on this as we get to the regular amendment. Suffice it to say that while I agree that we need more than two meetings—many more—I am certainly not favourable to trying to get everybody in within a process of eight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Before I go to Mr. Shipley, let me stress to everyone that we really need to stick to the amendments and the subamendments in our discussion so that we can vote. The question on the table is whether or not we should accept Mr. MacGregor's subamendment. I hope we can address that directly. As soon as there is no discussion on the subamendment, we can vote on that. Then we can go back to the amendment and carry on that discussion.

Go ahead, Mr. Shipley.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I did have many notes here, but seeing as how you're being very cognizant of the clock today, I will be also, even though not everybody here has been. I'm definitely not one for overspeaking my turn in here, and I think everybody would agree with that.

I just have a few quick things to say. I came into this a little excited. This was going to be my first clause-by-clause review. That excitement has been been somewhat removed from me. We've gotten bogged down in a quagmire here, quite frankly. We're now in our seventh meeting. We've had six and we really haven't accomplished a lot.

I'm just going to cut to the chase. I have a lot of notes here, but I know we want to move on. We're going to try to get this thing moving. The only thing I'm going to say is this.

I have heard the term “misinformation” so much lately; it's crazy. Every time someone says something anywhere now, it's just misinformation. You're saying misinformation. You're spewing misinformation. Everything is misinformation.

So let's go to the heart of it. Let's have these meetings. Let's stop the misinformation. Let's go out there and get the real factual information from the people who are using these hunting rifles that an attempt is being made to ban here. Let's stop with the misinformation.

You use that phrase a lot, Mr. Noormohamed, but let's go out there and get the facts. I don't think we can do that in two meetings. There are a lot of facts out there. Every side will want to get the facts. Let's go get them.

As I said, I did have many other notes here, but I know we're being aware of time, so I will cede my time. That's all I'll be saying today. I'm in favour of more meetings. We have to get the facts on this and move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like us to come to a decision on the motion before the end of the meeting.

Each party expressed their opinion on the number of meetings. We must acknowledge that we’ve been stuck on amendment G‑4 for six meetings. It’s rather exceptional to call witnesses back in, but the amendment that was tabled was also rather exceptional, and it seemed like a reasonable solution to me.

For the Conservatives to say it’s reasonable to hold 20 meetings, including four hours with the minister, and travel from one end of Canada to the other, seems a little over the top to me. It was the government’s job to hold cross-country consultations before tabling the bill. It’s not necessarily ours.

It is indeed necessary to hear from people who will experience the potential impacts of amendment G‑4. I think it’s reasonable to hold two additional meetings to hear them. I understood that the Conservatives did not want to accept eight meetings, as proposed by our NDP colleague. I propose that we vote on this subamendment and on the other. That’s what Mr. Motz just said.

I propose that we pass the motion and make a decision before the end of this meeting. I therefore request a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We can't vote until no one wishes to speak to the subamendment. We can't call the question, as it were.

We go now to Ms. Dancho and then Mr. Lloyd, on the subamendment.

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

Thank you very much.

I appreciate Mr. MacGregor's remarks very much. On this week four, it's nice to hear from him. Mr. MacGregor is quite level-headed but I've never seen him so fired up. I did appreciate the passion in his remarks. It's certainly how I've been feeling. I think that's been evident over the last number of weeks, and this is obviously a very personal issue to many of us who have this experience in our communities and the like. I appreciate the passion coming out of this committee, and frankly from all sides. It's an important issue to debate and talk about.

In response to Ms. Michaud, I take her point, but the government hasn't done the consultation. That's the problem. That is why we're suggesting and we put forward an idea that since they haven't done their homework—they don't want to go across the country and they don't want to talk to northern Canadians, rural Canadians or indigenous Canadians—then we will do the work.

I won't repeat all of Mr. MacGregor's remarks, but he made a very clear argument, as we have done, that we're only in this mess because the Liberals brought this forward in the eleventh hour. We wouldn't be here in this extraordinary circumstance had they not done that.

That's why we proposed 20 meetings. Included in that would be travel to rural and northern indigenous and non-indigenous communities. I think it's more than reasonable. Again, if it were up to me, there would be 50 meetings. That's what the government should have done, at a minimum, before they launched this on the committee at the eleventh hour.

Just to speak to the subamendment quickly, because I know we're running out of time, I would say that eight meetings is okay. I was hoping that perhaps we could meet in the middle, but I know I can't amend a subamendment. I'm not overly keen on eight. I would have said maybe 12 would have been more reasonable, but I don't believe I can amend a subamendment. I think that eight, with the minister included in that, means only seven, and I just don't feel that's enough, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Dancho.

Go ahead, Mr. Lloyd.

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

I'll make this brief.

I really appreciate Mr. MacGregor for bringing up this subamendment, and I am hearing the concerns from Madame Michaud very clearly.

I think I could accept eight meetings, but, if we're going to be travelling, we have to understand that they aren't going to be the two-hour meetings that we usually have here in Ottawa. If we're going to go to a place like Whitehorse, we'd be having a meeting substantially longer than two hours, because we need to have an opportunity for witnesses to be heard if people are going to be coming in from the community.

We need at least eight meetings. If the committee finds, at the end of seven meetings, that we feel that we've left out important groups and that we need a couple of additional meetings, then I think we're leaving that open in this amendment by saying “at least eight” and we can add to those meetings at a later date.

I hope, with the understanding that they'll be longer than two hours, that “at least eight” is acceptable and that, if needed, we could add additional ones if the committee wants.

I'm going to end my remarks there, and I hope we can get the committee's support for this, because it is important to get consultation on this, and I think it helps rebuild trust with Canadians.

Thank you.

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

Can I do a quick point of order, just for clarification?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Ms. Dancho, on a point of order.

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

Perhaps the clerk can answer this. If we do go to Yellowknife or somewhere, would it be a two-hour meeting, as I'm thinking it would be, or would it be all day? That does change things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Well, that's an open question.

It should also be noted that we wouldn't be able to travel before April.

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

Anything's possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I think that's something....

Go ahead on a point of order.

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

I understand that committee travel has been finalized for prior to March 31, I believe, but I think that if we have consent from the whips of all parties, we could bring forward emergency funding to support a trip.

When the decision on committee travel was made, back in October, we had no idea that this amendment was coming. For the government to drop an amendment at this late stage, and then say, “too bad, so sad, you can't travel to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I think we're going beyond a point of order here.

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

I just wanted to make a point of order that, with the agreement of the whips of all parties, we could travel before March 31.

Thank you.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We have Mr. MacGregor on a point of order.