Public Safety Committee on May 11th, 2023

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I want to ask one question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Your time's up. In that case, we'll call a vote on that. I assume we want a recorded division.

(Clause 32 agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(On clause 33)

Is there discussion?

I have Mr. Perkins, followed by Mr. Shipley.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the previous clause, it was mentioned that the commissioner of firearms is the commissioner of the RCMP. Is that correct?

[Rachel Mainville-Dale]

Yes.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

In the testimony of the recently retired commissioner of the RCMP before the Mass Casualty Commission in Nova Scotia, when asked about her knowledge as the chief commissioner for firearms, she said she didn't know the difference between prohibited and restricted firearms and that she hated to admit that.

Is the current commissioner—I believe it's an acting commissioner—of the RCMP familiar with the difference between prohibited and restricted?

If you don't know the difference between prohibited and restricted as commissioner of the RCMP, how do you carry out your duties?

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

Chair, this has nothing to do with clause 33. Officials are not here to talk about the commissioner of the RCMP. We're talking about a bill that's before us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I take your point. I believe it's a valid point on relevance. I would urge the member to—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

The relevance is that this is giving specific powers to the commission—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Please don't interrupt the chair.

I would urge the member to stick to the thing. I assume you are going to get to it at some early point.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I did. I finished it. The commissioner of the RCMP is given specific, additional powers under this clause. I want to understand if the commissioner, in exercising those powers, is required to know the difference between prohibited and restricted, since the previous one admitted she didn't.

Read the testimony.

[Rachel Mainville-Dale]

Clause 33 proposes a few changes. It proposes to replace the heading to add the words “and Suspension”, as well as require a CFO to refuse a licence to individuals who are not eligible. It allows the CFOs—the chief firearms officers—to refuse an authorization to carry or an authorization to transport for sufficient reason.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Shipley.

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

Thank you, Chair. I was waiting for my light there.

This clause states, “for any good and sufficient reason”. Could the officials give some concrete examples of what a “good” or “sufficient” reason is? Can you clarify that, please?

[Kellie Paquette]

There are many examples, but the one that comes to mind is if there's a suspicion of...I'm sorry...if something is flagged to the CFO because there might be straw purchasing involved, like multiple purchases of firearms. To allow the time necessary to do an investigation, this is something that would be used to make sure they have the time to stop any further purchases and allow for an investigation to be done.

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

Thank you for taking your time on that, because these answers are important. We want to get it right the first time.

You mentioned when “something is flagged”. The word “something” is a little vague. I'm sorry. Can you explain to me what you mean by “something is flagged”?

[Kellie Paquette]

Yes. That's okay.

There are various forms of flags that come in. Someone could call. A business could call in this situation. It could be a flag from police. Maybe they got stopped. Maybe there was something in the description of that incident—the flag that they had multiple firearms. It could come in various forms.

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

Thank you.

The other thing you mentioned in that answer was “multiple purchases”. I wasn't clear on that. Someone can't purchase multiple...at the same time, or over a length of time. When does that start to get flagged, or nullified, if that's the right term?

[Kellie Paquette]

I'm just using it as an example. There's not a maximum today.

If I'm going into the business, and I've gone there, I don't know, every week for a month and I'm buying a couple of firearms each time, then that business may flag that. They may call the chief firearms officer and say, this person seems to be coming in a lot and buying more than I've seen, or it could be an association of businesses and they've seen Kellie Paquette go to all these various stores. That kind of information will drive something like this, to trigger an investigation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I think I'm going to have to cut you off there, Mr. Shipley.

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

I was just going to say thanks, because that was good information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Okay, that's good.

Is there any further discussion on clause 33?

(Clause 33 agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(On clause 34)

We will start with CPC-19. I would note that if CPC-19 is adopted, NDP-4 cannot be moved, due to a line conflict.

Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be voting against CPC-19. I do agree with the spirit of the motion that the CPC has offered. I think NDP-4 goes in the same direction, so in spirit we're aligned. I just feel—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry, Mr. Julian, but I'm ahead of myself. I didn't give a chance for the motion to be moved.

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

Absolutely.