Thank you for the question.
I would say it is difficult to find that centre ground, apparently. This is the public safety committee, so almost by its title we feel like this starts with public safety as the primary goal of any of the initiatives here. We would say that reasonable use should be paired very closely with what is required, recognizing that ever more powerful guns, if not used properly, have a lethal impact on victims, which is what happened in our case.
We would say that you should proceed cautiously. We should be adding firearms not with enthusiasm for more power and more capability, but very cautiously and with a view that it's going to be impossible to screen out every person who might abuse their privilege. Therefore, we need to make sure that the weapons are part of the mitigation strategy we have.
As victims and as the general public, we are stakeholders in this discussion as much as anybody else who uses those weapons. That's where you have to find that balance. We would say that now it's apparent to us that the balance is out of whack a little bit. We believe that G-4, and Bill C-21 overall, are an attempt to bring that into line. We hope this committee finds satisfactory middle ground to accomplish that.