Public Safety Committee on March 10th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone, to meeting number 60 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 June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking. The chair takes particular note of that, because the chair fails to do this all the time. For interpretation, those on Zoom have the choice at the bottom of their screens of “floor”, “English” or “French”. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Friday, February 3, 2023, the committee resumes its study of the effects of the withdrawn amendments G-4 and G-46 to Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments regarding firearms.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

We have two panels of witnesses today. In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning connection tests for witnesses, I am informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

For the first hour, we have, from Alberta's Chief Firearms Office, Dr. Teri Bryant, chief firearms officer; from the National Association of Women and the Law, Suzanne Zaccour, head of feminist law reform; from the Ending Violence Association of Canada, Erin Whitmore, executive director; and from Danforth Families for Safe Communities, Ken Price and Noor Samiei, who are members.

Welcome to all. I will give each group up to five minutes for an opening statement, and then we will proceed with rounds of questions.

I will now invite Dr. Bryant to make an opening statement.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Dr. Teri Bryant, Chief Firearms Officer, Alberta Chief Firearms Office]

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having me today.

As Alberta's chief firearms officer, I have a dual mandate to supervise Firearms Act licensing in Alberta, as other CFOs do, but also to work relentlessly for a more principled firearms program in Canada.

Since assuming this role, I have made safety number one. This means rejecting trendy solutions and focusing on the work that will truly make a difference. Part of that work is ensuring that responsible, law-abiding firearms owners in Alberta understand all the laws and regulations they face.

I, therefore, regularly engage with members of Alberta's vibrant firearms community. In 2021-22 alone, I attended well over 50 events and met with thousands of Albertans. Time and again, I hear that confidence in Canada's firearms control system has eroded. That confidence is an essential element in building safer communities. If we want people to go beyond legal minimums and proactively contribute to public safety, they must feel heard and respected.

Even after the withdrawal of G-4 and G-46, Bill C-21 continues to undermine confidence in our firearms control system while contributing nothing to reducing the violent misuse of firearms. Bill C-21 is built on a fundamentally flawed premise. Prohibiting specific types of firearms is not an effective way of improving public safety. It will waste billions of taxpayer dollars that could have been used on more effective approaches, such as the enforcement of firearms prohibition orders, reinforcing the border or combatting the drug trade and gang activity.

The ban on most handgun transfers and the order in council prohibitions of May 2020 have had a devastating impact on the assets of hundreds of thousands of Canadians. With strokes of a pen, billions of dollars' worth of legally acquired property was rendered unsaleable.

The scope of Bill C-21 is absurdly broad. The ban on handgun transfers includes even single-shot muzzleloading flintlocks and percussion revolvers and pistols, as well as precious historical artifacts and family heirlooms.

The loss of the sales of handguns and, potentially, almost all popular modern rifle designs threatens the survival of many multi-generational family firearms businesses. Gun shows, which are often a major social event and economic contributor in struggling small communities, are also being hard hit. The survival of many long-established reputable shooting sports has been threatened. The competitions put on by these organizations bring visitors that support the economic viability of small communities. Without new entrants, these sports will atrophy and die.

Over time, Bill C-21's prohibitions will also undermine the economic viability of the shooting ranges Canadians rely on for a safe, well-regulated place to shoot. These ranges are not only where hunters go to sight in their hunting rifles, but also where police and others who require firearms for their jobs go to train.

Many things could have been done to lessen the collateral damage of Bill C-21. The firearms targeted for prohibition could have been made restricted and their numbers capped, or if these guns are prohibited, the cost to the taxpayer and the impact on property rights could be reduced by grandfathering them and allowing full transferability among licensed Canadians. Shooting sports could have been safeguarded by allowing the chief firearms officer of each province to designate which sport shooting organizations in his or her province can write letters allowing carefully vetted individuals access to sporting exemptions.

Provisions could also have been included to address the real issues around illegal firearms; 3-D printing alone could easily supply the entire demand for illegal firearms across Canada before long. Regulating 3-D printing without destroying new industries like video game development will require new and smarter approaches.

The fact that Bill C-21 does not include any such damage reduction measures reinforces the conclusion that the goal of this bill is demonstratively not about public safety, but an attempt to destroy long-established communities of law-abiding firearms owners across the country by targeting their property. These are the people who perform a vital public service by socializing new firearms owners into responsible firearms use. They are the allies, not the enemies of public safety.

I urge you to recommend the withdrawal of Bill C-21 in its entirety, or to at least allow amendments to reduce its collateral damage. Strengthening public safety is hard enough. Please don't allow Bill C-21 to make it harder.

Thank you. I'm happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Bryant.

I now invite Ms. Whitmore and Ms. Zaccour to make an opening statement.

Please go ahead for five minutes.

[Dr. Erin Whitmore, Executive Director, Ending Violence Association of Canada, National Association of Women and the Law]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee for this opportunity to speak with you today.

I'm Erin Whitmore, the executive director of the Ending Violence Association of Canada, a national non-profit organization that works closely with provincial and territorial organizations that support survivors of gender-based violence, including sexual assault centres, shelters and community-based services.

I am co-presenting today with my colleague, Suzanne Zaccour, head of feminist law reform with the National Association of Women and the Law. Both of our organizations are participating today as representatives of #Women4GunControl or #FemmesContreLesViolencesArmées, a coalition of over 30 women's and feminist organizations from all regions across the country calling for a ban on assault-style firearms.

This week, for International Women’s Day, we released an open letter to all party leaders and members of this committee urging that a permanent and comprehensive ban on assault-style firearms be enshrined in the Criminal Code. We want to take this opportunity to remind the committee of the significance of Bill C-21 and its amendments to our collective efforts to minimize and prevent the harms caused by guns in situations of family, domestic and sexual violence. Banning assault-style firearms will increase community safety and reduce gender-based violence.

However, we are concerned that the opportunity before this committee to strengthen public safety and to prevent firearm-related violence—including femicide, family violence and mass shootings—is being lost in the current climate of emotional and partisan debate.

As representatives of organizations that work closely with survivors of all forms of gender-based violence, we see first-hand that gun violence takes many forms and plays out in distinct ways in the lives of women and children. Gun violence against women and girls can and does include femicide, but guns are also used as tools to threaten, intimidate, control, terrorize and physically assault women and girls. The use of a gun is one of the many tactics by some abusers to make it increasingly difficult and extremely dangerous for a woman to not comply with an abuser’s demands or to leave the situation.

Statistics Canada data show that in 2021 almost one-quarter of the 197 women homicide victims were killed by shooting, and women accounted for 84% of the 803 victims of firearm-related intimate partner violence.

In the dynamics of an abusive intimate partner relationship, we know that the presence of any make or model of gun is a significant risk factor for more severe forms of violence and death. When that gun is an assault-style firearm—that is, a firearm designed for military or tactical use with the capacity to inflict significant lethality and harm—the potential of these individual acts of violence to escalate to mass shootings involving the broader community, and targeting women in particular, has already been demonstrated too many times.

In today's climate of increased anti-feminist sentiment and other forms of hate and racism, which have fuelled previous mass shootings, the need for a ban on assault-style firearms has never been more pressing. The risks are simply too great to ignore.

Provisions in other parts of the bill make important interventions that have the potential to better protect those at risk or currently experiencing family and domestic violence. The National Association of Women and the Law has previously submitted a brief to this committee, endorsed by 14 organizations, with recommendations to further strengthen these aspects of the bill.

Today, in solidarity with 32 women's and feminist organizations, we want to make clear that inclusion of the amendments that define and permanently ban assault-style weapons is an equally crucial step in mitigating current and future harm in the lives of women, children and communities.

Bill C-21 alone will not end gender-based violence. Greater investments in prevention measures are needed and are just as pressing as this current legislation. However, we are at a critical moment in choosing what steps we are willing to take as a country to ensure that we are doing all that we can to prioritize women's right to live safely without the threat and fear of gun violence.

On behalf of 32 organizations who have joined the #Women4GunControl coalition, we urge the committee and government to move forward with this legislation, including an evergreen definition and a permanent ban on assault-style firearms.

Gender-based violence involving guns is a terrifying and deadly problem in Canada. In supporting legislation that includes an evergreen definition and a permanent ban on assault-style firearms, members of this committee will be acting to reduce gun violence and save lives as the 32 organizations that have joined the #Women4GunControl coalition and a strong majority of Canadians want you to do.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

I will now invite Mr. Price and Ms. Samiei to make an opening statement.

Please go ahead for five minutes.

[Noor Samiei, Member, Danforth Families for Safe Communities]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, on July 22, 2018, what started off as a night of excitement in celebrating my 18th birthday ended in sheer horror and misery. It has been almost five years since the Danforth shooting, and I still struggle to find the words to speak about what my friends and I experienced that night.

We were robbed of our innocence that day. We lost our sense of safety, security, trust and faith in society, but the most painful part of all was losing our best friend: Reese Fallon.

We didn't only lose Reese that day. We lost all the precious moments and milestones of life that she looked forward to the most. Reese will never be able to get married, have kids or live out her dream of being a nurse. Everything was taken from her in a matter of minutes, and all we were doing was eating ice cream out on a summer night.

Another precious life lost that evening was that of 10-year-old Julianna Kozis. While I did not know Julianna personally, her family shared stories of her pure, kind and loving heart. Julianna's legacy is kept alive through the kindness she embodied in life.

While this was an uncontrollable event, the only control we have is fighting for change. Today, I sit alongside Ken Price, Claire Smith, Samantha Price and Ali Demircan, all members of Danforth Families for Safe Communities.

No one ever deserves to experience what we went through that night. This is why legislation is vital and crucial. I don't want any more thoughts and prayers. I want policy and action. We hold a responsibility to ensure that no one experiences the pain and sorrow that we do.

Unfortunately, we learned the grave effects of a mass shooting. The Danforth shooting has left an everlasting impact on Reese's and Julianna's friends, family and community as a whole. To those who have tried to minimize this grief to defend their position, just know that gun violence is felt widely, deeply and profoundly, and it does not just simply go away.

[Ken Price, Member, Danforth Families for Safe Communities]

Our presence here today is a reminder of what happens when guns are used for violent ends. Knowing what we have experienced, we're here to urge you to put safety at the centre of your decision-making. There is evidence of a proliferation of powerful, rapid-fire, quick-loading weapons, and these have been used for violence among the citizens that this government must help to protect.

We recognize other stakeholders in this debate. Hunting, warding off pests on farms and most sport shooting are legitimate activities, but “reasonable for use” is the key phrase in the law guiding the availability and classification of firearms for private owners. Recognizing the lethal power of all guns, that should mean asking first why a particular gun is needed to accommodate an activity, not just letting industry and enthusiasm push new weapons into the mix. Permit firearms cautiously, because, as has been noted, any gun can be a weapon, and the more powerful, the more lethal.

The government has taken steps in the past in the law to protect the public from categories of weapons. The risk outweighed the utility, and we must now recognize and mitigate the unacceptable risks we face in current times, enabled by modern handguns and assault-style rifles.

We support Bill C-21. It is wide-reaching and is not just about gun bans, because addressing gun violence needs a multi-faceted approach. Bill C-21 does modernize gun control to reflect that in the last 25 years or so we added a bunch of assault-style rifles and allowed a million handguns into the hands of private owners, and that even with higher levels of training and scrutiny for those we restricted, and sometimes because we didn't restrict them, the availability of these guns has contributed to poorer public safety outcomes.

We have followed the debate on Bill C-21. We think the legislation could be improved in some areas, and we've made prior comments on that, but as G-4 and G-46 have been debated, we support the idea of a legally enshrined definition of what an assault-style rifle is, and a lawful ceiling would be clearer for stakeholders. Relying solely on the Governor in Council has led to obvious inconsistency and has permitted a proliferation of guns used in some of the most notorious shootings in Canada.

What the latest StatsCan report on gun violence in 2021 said to us is that, while we dither, more preventable deaths have occurred. The problem is still significant. It is national and it is more profound than in countries worth benchmarking. Let's get G-4 and G-46 and other amendments into the bill, and let's get Bill C-21 passed.

Time is of the essence. Thank you for your attention to this complex and important issue, and thank you for including us today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thanks to all of you for your opening remarks.

We'll start our questioning now with Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. Lloyd, please go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for coming here today.

My first question is for the National Association of Women and the Law.

In your email or letter that you sent to us on March 7, you said that the presence of firearms in a household where there is intimate partner violence significantly increases the risk that women will be killed. At face value I accept that argument. However, there is no evidence to suggest that merely owning a firearm makes somebody more likely to commit an act of intimate personal violence. Isn't that correct? Is there any evidence? I don't see any compelling evidence to suggest that.

[Suzanne Zaccour, Head of Feminist Law Reform, National Association of Women and the Law]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to answer the question.

It's important to know that intimate partner violence is often not reported. It's often invisible. Coercive control is not necessarily even criminalized. It's not that simple to say that it's only where there is intimate partner violence that a gun is dangerous, because it is difficult or perhaps impossible to know in advance in which families there will be intimate partner violence and—

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

I appreciate that, and I really appreciate what you said about preventative, because we know in cases where there is femicide, you wouldn't say that's the first thing that happens. There are lots of warning signs that lead up to that happening. Isn't that true? This isn't something that just happens and there were no warning signs leading up to it. This is something where there is a long trail of events leading up to these things oftentimes. Isn't that correct?

[Dr. Erin Whitmore]

I can answer that question. Thank you for that.

Certainly in some cases there are warning signs, but unfortunately, we really are lacking in strong data to fully understand the intersection of intimate partner violence and firearms in women's lives. The evidence we do have, though, indicates that there is an increased risk for extreme forms of violence and death. For the members of our coalition, this is enough evidence to support the implementation of this legislation.

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

Thank you for that.

My next question is for Dr. Bryant.

We already have a classification system in Canada. We have non-restricted. We have restricted. There are prohibited firearms.

Isn't it true, Dr. Bryant, that every single firearm that is used by civilians in Canada has to be approved by the RCMP? Isn't that correct, Dr. Bryant?

[Dr. Teri Bryant]

I believe so, yes.

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

For some people to say that these firearms, semi-automatic hunting rifles and shotguns, are not legitimate for civilian use, the RCMP has approved these for legitimate civilian use. Is that correct?

[Dr. Teri Bryant]

In fact, in the case of many restricted firearms, the individual was specifically authorized to require that specific firearm for a sporting purpose.

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

That's interesting.

Dr. Bryant, I believe we already have an evergreen definition in Canada. As we said, we have non-restricted. We have restricted. We have prohibited. These are based on the functional capabilities of the firearms—wouldn't you say? It's not based upon how the firearm looks. It's based on what the firearm is capable of. Isn't that correct?

[Dr. Teri Bryant]

There is certainly an element of that, although I think there are a great many logical inconsistencies in the way we have categorized, particularly the definition between, for example, restricted and prohibited firearms. Many of those are more a matter of historical accident and political compromises than any actual intent.

There are firearms that are completely useless for any violent purpose but are categorized in the highest category. What I am saying is that, in general, there are many things that are put into the higher categories that probably shouldn't be there.

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

Would you say in your experience that, when the RCMP is reviewing a firearm to be classified in Canada, in almost all cases they probably err on the side of being more restrictive or less restrictive in their classification of those firearms?

[Dr. Teri Bryant]

I would say overall it's much more restrictive.

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

Okay.

When we're talking about the evergreen definition that the Liberals put forward in the amendments we're discussing today, semi-automatic centrefire rifles and shotguns that have the capability of accepting a magazine over five cartridges for the type that the gun was originally designed for, in your vast experience with firearms, this amendment would cover a wide variety of commonly used hunting rifles and shotguns. Isn't that correct?

[Dr. Teri Bryant]

I believe so, yes. In fact, for people who want an example, I have a model 1907 Winchester that was designed in 1907 and produced from 1907 on. It had a five-shot capacity, but later some magazines were made that did have higher capacities. This gun, which was explicitly designed for medium game shooting, like deer, well over a hundred years ago, could well be covered.

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

Do you think that, as some people have said, concerns about these Liberal amendments and their impact on hunting rifles and shotguns were an act of blatant disinformation? Was it disinformation to say that these amendments would ban legitimately used hunting rifles and shotguns?

[Dr. Teri Bryant]

I do not believe that it was disinformation to state that. I believe it was simply a matter of fact. Many firearms I know—I, personally, have friends who have used them for deer hunting for many years—would be covered.

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

Thank you.