Evidence of meeting #67 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Philippe Méla  Legislative Clerk
Rachel Mainville-Dale  Acting Director General, Firearms Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Sandro Giammaria  Counsel, Department of Justice
Phaedra Glushek  Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Rob Mackinnon  Director, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Kellie Paquette  Director General, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Pascale Bourassa  Acting Director General, Directorate of Security and Safeguards, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

8 p.m.

Acting Director General, Firearms Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Rachel Mainville-Dale

Currently, the government is seeking to, when it talks about adding a new.... It would amend the act to add a new section after section 69, and a yellow flag. Currently, in terms of registration certificates, it talks about refusing to issue registration certifications.

In this case, it would allow a CFO to suspend somebody's licence if they have reasonable grounds, and there is debate as to what those words will be. The bill states, if they “suspect, on the basis of information that they have collected...that the holder of a licence is no longer eligible to hold the licence”.

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you.

Are there any further interventions on this amendment?

Let us conduct a vote on BQ-11. Do we have it on division?

I'm not sure what takes priority.

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK

No, it's not about priorities.

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

We have a request on division and generally accepting....

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK

No, that's not how the Standing Orders work. We should be on—

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

That was my question.

We'll have a recorded division, please.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

BQ-11 carries. NDP-5, therefore, cannot be moved.

I spoke earlier of PV-2 and NDP-3 and so on. That was totally erroneous. It was text that was copied from somewhere else.

We will carry on now to NDP-6.

8:05 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am going to move NDP-6.

What it basically does is amend the part in clause 34 that allows the suspension of holders' authorization for a period of up to 30 days. This would allow that suspension to be beyond 30 days if that is what is required.

It's a relatively simple protection. It's an additional ability to ensure in this case that there is an ability of the system and the chief firearms officer to respond. In the case where there are reasonable grounds to suspect, the chief firearms officer could suspend beyond that 30-day period.

I raise this. We're getting into some very important pieces over the next hour or two, and I wanted to ask my Conservative colleagues.... I don't think the idea of slowing things down is appropriate for these sections. We need to have appropriate conversation, and certainly by UC we can extend time, but the normal path that we take is to move forward. If the parties have clearly indicated it, we allow it on division and we pass to the next amendment. I would suggest that we really need to focus to get through these crucial amendments over the course of the next hour or two.

I wanted to flag that with you, Mr. Chair.

I move my amendment.

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

We'll go to Ms. Damoff, please.

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON

Thank you, Chair.

While I think my honourable colleague's amendment is.... I know his intentions are good with this amendment. However removing the period of 30 days leaves it open-ended.

The next clause to discuss deals with licence revocation.

The 30 days is appropriate for this section of the act in order to just.... We feel that the amendment to this goes a bit too far, so we won't be able to support it, while I understand the intent.

I will say that I agree with my honourable colleague that the next section.... We have about 20 amendments here that are dealing with intimate partner violence, and I hope that we will keep our comments focused on the important amendments that we have before us.

Thank you, Chair.

May 11th, 2023 / 8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK

I have a point of order on that.

The change—

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Please wait until you are recognized.

We have Mr. Tochor on a point of order.

What is it?

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK

The programming motion said that we had five minutes per clause, so any deviation from that is not....

The Conservatives have five minutes on each clause, regardless of the other members wanting to group them together. We will have five minutes per clause, as prescribed in the programming motion.

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

You have up to five minutes per clause—yes, that's true—and up to five minutes per amendment. That is also true. It doesn't mean you have to use them and, of course, the more time we spend doing this, the less time we have to debate other items that we will meet going forward.

After midnight, there's no more debate, and things just get voted on.

If there are things that you want to have serious debate on between now and midnight, we need to be able to get to them, so I would advise all members to use the time that is allotted to them very judiciously.

Mr. Perkins, go ahead.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For the officials, just so I'm clear, I share the concern that Ms. Damoff had about the unlimited nature of this.

If this were to pass, do you think it could withstand a legal challenge, such that you could have a suspension of a licence indefinitely with no actual—

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

I would suggest that this calls for some conclusions, some speculation, and that's not what our officials are here for.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

I would think that the officials are experts on...because I get this on other bills from departmental officials, whether something actually is legal or not—

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

They may answer. I'm just cautioning you that they might not.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

I appreciate that, thank you.

8:10 p.m.

Acting Director General, Firearms Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Rachel Mainville-Dale

I am not a lawyer, and we cannot provide advice on whether something is meant to withstand a legal challenge.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Maybe I could take it another way.

Why did the government choose 30 days?

8:10 p.m.

Acting Director General, Firearms Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Rachel Mainville-Dale

The 30-day period was meant to.... The government intended to have a defined suspension period in which an investigation or a determination would be made by a chief firearms officer in terms of whether further action was necessary, so as to provide some certainty and not have it last indefinitely.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

I appreciate that. Thank you.

That's adequate time for you to do the investigation into the complaint, if I'm hearing you correctly. Is that based on any sense of the volume of complaints that you might get through this process? Obviously, everything has a limit on resources.

8:10 p.m.

Director General, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Kellie Paquette

Right now we have an administrative tool at our disposal. It's not a legal one, but we can put a licence under review currently to investigate an incident or a complaint. We used the timeline that generally we take for these types of reviews and applied it to this.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

It's based on your existing experience.