Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I am just going to speak briefly, because I think this is fundamentally important to pass. The bill, particularly the provisions related to ghost guns and cracking down on criminals, is something we need to move forward on.
Ms. Dancho referenced the delay. She's quite right. There has been a delay on the government side for the last few months. That being said, now that we're moving forward again, I believe we need to move forward in an effective way. Here's why: We know to what extent ghost guns are appearing right across this country. In the United States, the Biden administration has cracked down on ghost guns. United States law enforcement has seized over 20,000 illegally manufactured, untraceable ghost guns in the past year.
As you'll recall, we had the Department of Justice before us. Up until that last week, when we asked them to start compiling the figures, they actually didn't have figures that they could share with us. Presumably, the increase in Canada has been as dramatic as it has been in the United States. Certainly, anecdotally in our region of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, we're seeing a remarkable, tragic increase in the number of ghost guns. Right across the country, in certain jurisdictions it's up to 10 times, even 40 times, the number of seized ghost guns—untraceable weapons.
The reality of cracking down on criminals means adopting this amendment. There are many amendments to come to deal with ghost guns. I think we're all aware, all four parties around the table, of the risk that comes from not taking action to close the loopholes that exist currently in the law on ghost guns. Certainly law enforcement has signalled this to us as well.
I'm hoping that we would rapidly pass this amendment. Thank you.