Public Safety Committee on May 10th, 2023

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Other than ghost guns, can you tell me what other types of illegal, unlawful...or unlawful manufacturing there are?

[Rachel Mainville-Dale]

If you've unlawfully manufactured a firearm, it's essentially a ghost gun. It's one that's untraceable, unmarked, unserialized.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Are there any further interventions?

We shall have a recorded division.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you.

(On clause 15)

As a change of pace, we go now to an NDP amendment.

NDP-1 is next on my list. It's under the name of Mr. MacGregor, or Mr. Julian, if you will.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I won't take too much time on this, because members of the committee have had this amendment in their hands for over six months. It was tabled on November 8, 2022, and I'm assuming all members of the committee have done their homework, since they have had six months to look at this amendment and ask questions about it. It comes following the briefing from the National Association of Women and the Law regarding the issue of protection orders.

You will recall, Mr. Chair—although I wasn't a member of the committee at the time; Mr. MacGregor was—that the National Association of Women and the Law said that protection orders can be given different names and take different forms. Because of that, they wanted to make sure there was a common definition. They recommended the following definition for protection orders, and you'll see listed there that a protection order means:

a probation order, an interim order, an order to enter into a recognizance to keep the peace, an injunction, or any other order made by any court in the interests of the safety and security of a person. It includes an order prohibiting a person from

Then there are six subclauses basically dealing with stalking, harassment and violence:

a) being in physical proximity to an identified person or following an identified person from place to place;

b) communicating with an identified person, either directly or indirectly;

c) being at a specified place or within a specified distance of that place;

(d) engaging in harassing or threatening conduct directed at an identified person;

(e) occupying a family home or a residence; or

(f) engaging in family violence.

I think their brief was clear. Their recommendations were clear.

Members of the committee have had it in their hands for six months, and so I move that amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

We'll go to Ms. Damoff and then Madam Michaud.

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

Chair, I would like to move a subamendment to NDP-1.

I completely agree with the content of the amendment. The problem is that for things like probation orders, interim orders, protection orders, all of these definitions are not defined in federal law. They're provincial. The reason the original bill didn't include a prescribed definition was that there still needs to be consultation with provinces, territories and indigenous stakeholders. The subamendment that I'm going to propose—and I'll read it to you in just one second—still contains the list of items (a) through (f), which are very important and would set a minimum standard that we're looking for.

If colleagues can look at the amendment before them, it would delete, after the word “means”, so “protection order means”, until the end, and would be replaced by “protection order means any order made by a Court in the interest of the safety and security of a person; this includes, but is not limited to”, and then it's the list.

I think it contains the intent of what Mr. Julian has put forward for us, which is a very important amendment to this bill to improve the safety of mostly women but also anyone who requires a protection order. It just gives flexibility to consult with provinces, territories, indigenous stakeholders, but, importantly, what his amendment is doing is setting that minimum standard that we can't go below.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff. Do you have that in writing?

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

In writing, no. Do you need it in writing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes.

Let's suspend for a couple of minutes and we'll sort that out. Our legislative clerk needs to see that in writing.

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

I don't have to put it—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We're going to bring this chaos back to order. We're going to try.

Ms. Damoff is going to read the subamendment slowly. She has sent the information to the clerk and to the translators. We can't distribute it on paper unless it's been translated, but she can read it orally and the translators will translate. Hopefully, someone can transcribe that for our French-speaking colleagues.

Ms. Damoff, I would invite you to read it once again.

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

Sure, thanks.

It starts with “protection order means”. The remainder of that paragraph will be deleted, to be replaced with “any order made by a Court in the interest of the safety and security of a person; this includes, but is not limited to:”.

That's the end of the amendment. Then the remainder is the same from (a) on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You're done with your intervention.

Ms. Michaud, do you have something to add?

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Honestly, it’s not just one word being added or changed. It’s nice to have it in writing, and in both official languages. Let me put it another way. If I presented an amendment in French of only a few lines, my colleagues, most of whom are English-speaking, would ask me to provide it in writing in English as well.

I don’t know if it’s possible to get it in writing on short notice. I’m in favour of the subamendment, but I just want to make sure we have the right words and have them in writing in front of us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

I understand. Strictly speaking, a motion that is moved orally does not have to be translated in advance. It's always better if we do.

Hopefully, as this was read by Ms. Damoff, the translators were able to translate it. Somebody, I believe, was going to write it down in French. I'm hoping that happened. We'll check before we carry on.

Mr. Julian, go ahead, if you wish.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Chair, I support the subamendment.

Ms. Michaud’s concerns are legitimate. The way I see it is that this summarizes the first paragraph by keeping only the basic elements, which is an “order […] made by any court for the safety of any person […]”, and that it is not limited to the elements made by an order.

I understand the meaning, and I agree that it narrows the scope of the first paragraph. Ideally, we will have the precise wording in both official languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Chair, may I say something?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Just a moment, please.

My understanding was that somebody was going to write this down in French as it was given.

We don't know if it was?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Chair, I suggest we set this aside until it is and we can keep going on something else. Or, are we going to wait for two minutes—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We can only go back by unanimous consent. We can't actually carry on unless we do this now.

I wonder if we could get the clerks—

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Chair…

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

If we read it one more time, perhaps you guys could transcribe it or you could do the translation. Is that possible?

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Chair.