Public Safety Committee on Feb. 17th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We are now moving on to the next speaker.

Mr. Hipwell, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Matthew Hipwell, President, Wolverine Supplies, As an Individual]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before all of you regarding Bill C-21 and the amendments G-4 and G-46.

I'd like to go back a little bit in time. I'm an immigrant to Canada. I moved here in early 1982 with my parents and grew up in the Virden area. I've always been a Manitoba resident, primarily in the rural area.

I grew up in a shooting family, a hunting family. That involved competitive pistol shooting at a younger age and all the way through. It has led me to compete and shoot across western Canada. I've represented Manitoba in the sport of biathlon at the Canada Winter Games.

Shooting has always been a part of my life, my family's life, and now my own family's life. Following college, I spent a short stint in the Canadian Armed Forces. Then I spent the first part of my career with the RCMP. I spent 16 years in the RCMP across Manitoba. That included uniform policing and plainclothes policing in the drug unit, where I encountered various firearms in drug-related offences, firearms in different communities, depending on the type of policing work that I came across.

I specialized during my career in the emergency response team. Obviously, that deals with high-risk situations where you're dealing with people who are armed and barricaded and all types of other violent offences, firearms included but not necessarily just firearms.

On the training side, as part of that, I became a use-of-force instructor and a firearms instructor. That led me to teach various police officers across the country in pistol, shotgun and rifle use and patrol carbine use, and I was even a guest instructor at the Canadian Police College on search warrant execution.

Following a transfer and a relocation to western Manitoba, I was approached by my family, my parents, to take over Wolverine Supplies, and that brings me to today. Wolverine Supplies is a rural business. We're located in the country. We're not actually even in the community of Virden itself. We have approximately 18 employees and we service Canadian sport shooters, hunters, and the law enforcement and military market from coast to coast with products to suit their needs.

When we talk about Bill C-21 and the impact on our business, it has not made business a simple process. To go back to the OIC, we had over 15 firearms listed. Then, FRT changes by the RCMP in the months to follow added more firearms to the list. Now, our industry is dealing with the ramifications of Bill C-21, the freeze on handgun transfers, in addition to the amendments that were just recently tabled and then removed.

That doesn't even begin to.... In business, you're dealing with your regular business issues, from supply and demand to product shortages, costs of shipping, overhead, staff—your typical business practices. Now, we're wondering what the government is going to do next. Instead of improving the firearms industry, it seems that we're second-guessing. I don't believe it's doing anything to enhance Canadians' public safety at this time.

The government has increased the uncertainty to the businesses across the country, which are forever wondering if their products will be available to sell to their customers, what will happen next, what will be prohibited, what may not be prohibited, what's changing, and what they do with inventory. There are thousands of dollars.... When you talk about mental health and stress, this is just compounded when all that legitimate firearms businesses and owners are trying to do is follow the laws as they're written today.

In the meantime, we have incidents like the ones we heard of earlier where firearms are being smuggled into the country. Those are the ones primarily being found on the streets, and they are the sources of our crime today.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, sir.

We'll start our questioning now with Ms. Dancho.

You have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both witness groups for being here.

Thank you very much for being here with us.

Ms. Nadeau-Mercier and Mr. Bourget, you represent thousands of hunters and sport shooters. PolySeSouvient has accused Conservatives and people defending hunting of spreading disinformation. How would you reply to that?

[Martin Bourget]

These charges of disinformation are often related to firearms identification. We are directly addressing the vague definitions that cover a very large number of hunting firearms. That's where we see an enormous problem in terms of the information being presented to the committee.

For example, at a meeting between the Minister of Public Safety and the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs, we asked Mr. Mendicino a very specific question. We asked him whether the government, when it targets centrefire semi-automatic weapons with a detachable magazine, classifies them in terms of magazines available in Canada or higher-capacity magazines marketed in other countries.

Mr. Mendicino's press secretary sent us an email confirming that if a Browning-BAR or a Remington 742 Woodmaster were sold here with a 3‑round magazine, it would meet the definition and be legal, whereas one available in the United States with a 7-round or 10-round magazine would be illegal under the definition.

That's not disinformation, but rather data provided in response to questions we ask the people in government who implemented the provisions.

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

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Bourget, you've reviewed about a thousand firearms for manufacturers, have you not?

[Martin Bourget]

I would say that in the course of my video-making career that I've reviewed several hundred weapons.

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

In your expert opinion, what would be the impact of amendments G‑4 and G‑46 on hunting guns? Could you give me a few examples?

[Martin Bourget]

There are major repercussions arising out of the poor cohesion in the definitions and the lists, and we quickly saw how incompatible these definitions were and the poor information that went into developing this infamous list.

The problem in these definitions and lists, at least in the state they were in before being abandoned, was the number of weapons. There were thousands of them. I don't think the definition for the five or more cartridge magazine that I mentioned to correct the existing information was something the committee was familiar with, given Mr. Mendicino's response. Several of the unknown, unwritten and confused criteria used in the definitions on the list included a very large number of hunting guns.

I will let Ms. Nadeau-Mercier comment on the impact of these amendments afterwards.

In our hunting and fishing activities, as ecosystem stakeholders, we are involved in a number of government management programs. This seriously restricts access to weapons that could be described as "accessible weapons" in the marketplace, given what's excluded. We' re talking about lengthy lists, including common weapons that are widely used.

I'll give you an example. If a single parent mother participated in the buyback program for a weapon she had inherited from her father or grandfather, and which is unfortunately excluded by the system, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that she'd have a great deal of trouble acquiring a new weapon. We've seen a summary of the suggested amounts to be used in the buyback programs, for what remains available under the definitions and lists. At the moment, Canada has a major firearms and ammunition supply problem. Owing to the amount of money it would cost to acquire a new weapon, the person in question would probably give up hunting venison for her family.

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

Thank you, Mr. Bourget.

I also have a question for Ms. Nadeau-Mercier.

You're the head of a community of 20,000 women who are members of the Filles de bois group.

[Kate Nadeau-Mercier]

I am.

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

Can you tell me about the repercussions these amendments would have on your group?

[Kate Nadeau-Mercier]

These women are very much aware of the issue. They are seriously involved in hunting now, particularly in recent years. In Quebec, 24% of women are hunting, which is a significant figure. Barely a few years ago, it was 7% to 8% of women. The pandemic probably contributed to this growth, and we have certainly seen an increase in membership.

We haven't yet seen the new numbers from the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs, but it had a huge impact on these women. Very often, they inherited the firearms or received them from friends or from their spouse. This meant that they were limited to using certain types of weapons. When they's found that the firearms had been made illegal by the amendments, it generated a lot of concern and anxiety.

All kinds of questions came up and women began to get involved in the issue.

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

Thank you very much.

I have 30 seconds of speaking time left. Do you have any other comments to make about the amendments?

[Martin Bourget]

Definitely.

Given the nature of our hunting activities, people ask a lot of questions about us, and that's only to be expected. We will definitely return to this in the round of questions, but it's important not to forget about sport shooting weapons and collectible weapons, which are also covered by these amendments. All legitimate gun owners in Canada feel stigmatized by the implementation of these measures, which are inconsistent. At least that's what we found when we read the lists and definitions given in amendments G‑4 and G‑46.

It's not just hunters, but a whole community. When Myriam Bédard stood on the podium as a Canadian Olympic athlete, this kind of amendment would have been very poorly received when we and the media were celebrating our Canadian pride. Our sport shooters were also stigmatized. We mustn't forget that.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Bourget.

Thank you, Ms. Dancho.

We'll go now to Ms. Damoff for six minutes, please.

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

It's Mr. Noormohamed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry, Mr. Noormohamed. You can have the same six minutes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of you for being here with us.

Mr. Hipwell, I'd like to start with you.

One thing we are really trying to do—though some have spoken to the contrary—is strike a balance here between what is important in terms of protecting victims and communities and making sure our communities remain safe, and ensuring that indigenous communities, hunters, farmers and northern Canadians are not adversely or materially impacted and prevented from being able to go hunting or protect their farms and so on.

I want to touch on a couple of things. In your previous testimony, you said that you don't believe that registering firearms reduces crime. Do you believe that any type of gun legislation or registering of guns is helpful, or do you think that we should just not be in the business of registering or legislating which guns should be on the street?

[Matthew Hipwell]

Good morning.

When did I say that registering firearms would not make Canadians safer? I don't believe I said that this morning. Is that correct?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

No, it was in your previous testimony.

[Matthew Hipwell]

What previous testimony was that?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

It was your testimony from 2018, sir.

[Matthew Hipwell]

I didn't realize that we were having a discussion about that this morning.