I did want to note that there have been no consultations through this committee process on this forward-looking clause. Had there been, we may have gotten more clarity on what exactly this means.
Again, it seems that there's a trick being pulled here because it just doesn't add up at all. There were no consultations done on this. When we were at G-4 and G-46, the government conceded that, because they were so significant as the largest hunting rifle ban in history, we were going to have eight consultation meetings as a result.
Now here we have a new definition, Mr. Chair, and no consultation on it that the committee gets to do. It just seems very strange.
The NDP did view this as out of scope before and the Bloc was open to that. It is just odd that we needed so much consultation on the prior one. Now we have a new one, yet we're not allowed to consult and we're being criticized for asking an hour's worth of questions on something that may be very significant. I'm not really clear on that.
Secondly, I appreciate that Ms. Damoff mentioned a poll, but for the government's own consultation, when I asked for an information request on public consultations on Bill C-21, they provided us information on a $200,000 consultation. Of the 133,369 people who were consulted through that, 77% of them responded that nothing more was needed to limit access to so-called assault weapons and 81% said no to limiting more access to handguns.
This is $200,000 and almost 200,000 people consulted, and the evidence was quite clear from their response. It doesn't really add up with that one poll that probably polled about 1,500 people, maybe 400 even.... Just to be clear, the government's own evidence was not in favour of this from a public opinion side.
Lastly on that, Mr. Chair, we know that when the government says “assault-style”, they really mean hunting rifles. That was established in G-4 and G-46, which was why, it seems, the government withdrew them. It was established by hunting associations across the country. We have talked about a number of hunting rifles that are commonly used. The SKS, for example, is very commonly used as a hunting rifle in indigenous communities and others. It's just a bit frustrating in that regard.
It's not clear on capacity. I recognize that's been informed now. It's clear now. It's not in the bill, but magazine capacity does impact a lot of these firearms and it's disappointing we don't really get to ask any questions about that.
Also, I will ask a question on the firearms advisory committee.
Is this new firearms advisory committee included in the bill? When asked about banning the SKS, the minister said that they were referring it to this firearms advisory committee. Is that in the bill? Is that being brought forward through this bill?
That is for the officials.