Public Safety Committee on May 11th, 2023

[Phaedra Glushek, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

Are you asking me whether we can add "ou toute?"

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

Instead of writing "ou une autre autorité compétente," should we write "ou toute autre autorité compétente?"

[Phaedra Glushek]

Yes, we could do that. If it is explained in the regulations, it is correct to write "toute autre autorité compétente."

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

If I understand correctly, that does not really change anything.

At the very end of the subsection, it reads "à une personne de," but I think the "de" is too much, since all the paragraphs start with "de" in the French version.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Did you wish to make an amendment? You're good. Okay.

Is there any other discussion on this amendment?

Seeing none, the clerk would like to read it back for the committee before we vote on it. Please go ahead, sir.

[Philippe Méla]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just made a few changes that Ms. Damoff is aware of. The amendment would read, in English:

protection order has the meaning assigned by the regulations

—I removed the semicolon and “ordonnance de protection” because it's already at the end—

but is intended to include any binding order made by the courts or other competent authority in the interest of the safety or security of a person;

The rest stays the same. I changed the “of” for “or”, because it was misspelled there, and then I just removed the reference to ordonnance de protection, because it's already at the end in the reference to the French version.

I did the same in French. It would read as follows:

Concerning "ordonnance de protection:"

S'entend au sens des règlements

I removed the words "ordonnance de protection."

mais vise à inclure toute ordonnance contraignante rendue par un tribunal ou une autre autorité compétente dans l'intérêt de la sécurité d'une personne; cela inclut, sans s'y limiter, les ordonnances qui interdisent à une personne:

I have removed the preposition "de."

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you. I think we can take that as the definitive version.

Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll call the vote.

(Subamendment agreed to)

Okay. That wraps up NDP-1 and its amendments.

Let us redo the vote on NDP-1 as amended by Ms. Damoff.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I'd like a recorded vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Absolutely.

(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 15 as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

Thank you.

I'll give the floor now to Mr. Ruff, who I believe will be asking for unanimous consent to take a look at his amendment, which pertains to clause 18, I believe.

Mr. Ruff.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Before I do that, though, I maybe I should have done this as a point of order. I just think, in recognition of the tragedy that happened this morning, and especially considering this committee, we should just take a moment to recognize Sergeant Eric Mueller and his family and the whole law enforcement community for what they do on a daily basis to keep our communities safe. My personal thanks to Mr. Chiang for his many years of service as a law enforcement officer.

It's terrible news when somebody makes the supreme sacrifice for their country and their community, so I would ask the indulgence of the committee just to take a quick moment of silence, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Absolutely. Is that the will of the committee?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

[A moment of silence observed]

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Ruff, for bringing that forward.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to seek the committee's unanimous consent for me to go back and move an amendment tied to clause 18, which we discussed at length last night. I think we were in agreement that it wasn't in the appropriate spot.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Do we have the unanimous consent of the committee?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

(On clause 18)

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks so much, Chair, and thanks so much to the committee members.

Everybody should have a hard copy. Basically the change now is going to happen in subclause 18(0.1).

I move that Bill C-21 in Clause 18, be amended by replacing line 1 on page 17 with the following:

Paragraph 19(1)(b) of the Act is amended by adding the following after subparagraph (iii):

(iii.1) wishes to transport the firearm to another individual or business who holds a licence authorizing that individual or business to possess prohibited firearms or restricted firearms for purposes of storage for the time necessary for the individual to address a mental illness or similar problem, or

Then it says at the bottom of that:

(1) Subsection 19(2.1) of the Act is replaced by

As I discussed last night with those committee members who were here, the purpose of this is to provide that clarity to the firearms community, so that they understand that if they're dealing with a mental health challenge, especially for veterans dealing with PTSD and others, they have an ability to have their firearm temporarily stored with another appropriately licensed individual. It's important they know that this is an option that's available to them and that it's quite clear to them. Then they can seek the help they need and not turn away from it.

As well, it provides initial clarity to our chief firearms officers across the country to know that this is an avenue, and from my discussions with the officials, especially within the firearms program, it would likely help them from a prioritization standpoint to address these types of requests when they come in.

I'll leave my comments at that for now, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Ruff.

Now we go to Ms. Damoff, followed by Mr. Julian and then Madam Michaud.

Ms. Damoff.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I have to say, it's a pleasure having you here at the committee, Mr. Ruff, and I want to thank you for bringing this forward.

I do have some questions for officials. I wonder if they could clarify for me, from a practical perspective, how this will work and how that person gets their firearm back because there's no requirement for.... If they have a mental illness, I'm assuming that the individual would determine on their own when they're competent to retrieve their firearm, but could you just go through the process of how this would work?

[Rob Mackinnon, Director, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

The individual would apply to the chief firearms officer for the authorization to transport for the purposes of temporary storage, as Mr. Ruff denoted, and the CFO would provide the time period that this firearm would not be in the possession of the individual who was originally in possession of it.

The CFO would determine when the firearm would need to be removed from the temporary storage through the issuance of another ATT to move it from temporary storage back to the individual who had the firearm registered—the handgun registered. At that point, the CFO would make a determination regarding that individual around whether they still have the eligibility to hold that type of firearm.

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

The amendment says that it would be stored for the time necessary for the individual to address a mental illness or similar problem.

The individual's not disclosing that to the chief firearms officer. Is that correct? They're just saying that they want to store the firearm, and then.... I guess the worry I've always had with this—and it's not that I'm not going to support it—is that you have someone making a self-determinations on when they should have a firearm in their possession. One of the things we talked about at length is the risk for someone who has depression or PTSD. The whole reason Mr. Ruff has brought this forward is so that they will seek help.

My concern around this is that you're self-determining when you have a mental illness and when you are healthy enough to get that firearm back. Am I correct in interpreting that?

[Kellie Paquette, Director General, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

My understanding of this amendment is that they would self-declare, so that would trigger an eligibility process for sure. A CFO would review the situation when the individual requested the firearm back.

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

In this amendment they don't have to self-declare. Is that right, or they do?