Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

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

Yes, Mr. Chair.

I was just wondering if we could extend the meeting by an additional 15 minutes so that the important witnesses we have, who have been so patient, could get the full hour before the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

What's the view of the committee to extend to about an hour from now to accommodate the next panel of witnesses? Do we have consensus that we'll do this?

I see that we do.

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, some members in the room would like to speak to it.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Speak to whether or not we can extend the meeting by 15 minutes...?

Colleagues, we have witnesses who are waiting to give testimony, so let's try to accommodate that, but—

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

Agreed, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

—go ahead. I'm not going to stop people from a point of order.

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

Agreed, Mr. Chair.

We had agreed prior to the meeting that we would extend until 1:30. I think we should stick with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Okay.

Then let's do that and take a very short suspension, Clerk. I'll be standing by for a word from you when we can resume.

We now have a suspension. We'll see you in a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

I call this meeting back to order.

With us this second hour by video conference we have the Centre culturel islamique de Québec, Mr. Boufeldja Benabdallah, the spokesperson; the Coalition for Gun Control, Wendy Cukier, the president; One By One Movement, Marcell Wilson, the founder; and PolySeSouvient, Heidi Rathjen, the coordinator.

We have up to five minutes for opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions to the extent that our time allows. Witnesses may choose to share their time with other witnesses if they wish. Welcome to you all.

I now invite Ms. Rathjen to make an opening statement of up to five minutes. Please proceed.

[Heidi Rathjen, Coordinator, PolySeSouvient]

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to testify before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Gun control is just one of many measures to reduce gun violence. There are different gun control measures that aim to prevent different types of crime, in all sorts of very different contexts. But since our group is made up of victims of mass shootings, our primary goal is to prevent similar tragedies.

The majority of mass killings are committed with legal weapons, mostly assault weapons, but also handguns. This is why we call for a ban on assault weapons and handguns, as well as a ban on high-capacity magazines.

And, given that the massacre at the École Polytechnique was linked to pure misogyny, and that mass shootings are closely associated with domestic violence, we also seek to keep guns away from violent spouses. Over two thirds of the mass shootings in the United States were perpetrated by aggressors that had a history of violence. That is why we are also calling for significant improvements in firearms licensing.

I will now touch on three areas that we feel need to be addressed.

The first is large-capacity magazines. The law passed in 1991 limited the number of cartridges in magazines to five for long guns and 10 for handguns, with some exceptions. Unfortunately, since then these exceptions, combined with new interpretations of the law and changes in the market, have accentuated major flaws in the laws and regulations.

Here are only two examples. First, the law allows magazines designed for more than the legal limit to be sold as long as a device blocks their number at the legal limit. However, according to the RCMP, these modifiable magazines are readily restorable to their full capacity. Many recent mass shooters legally purchased modifiable magazines and illegally converted them to their full capacity, including Justin Bourque, Richard Bain, Alexandre Bissonnette and Matthew Vincent Raymond.

The second is that the Conservative government in 2011 introduced a new interpretation of the 1991 law: If a magazine is not specifically designed for a gun in which it fits, it is exempted from the legal limits. There is zero public safety rationale behind this. In fact, the coroner who investigated the 2006 Dawson shooting said this loophole allowed the shooter to use a 10-bullet magazine for his restricted long gun, the Beretta Cx4 Storm, instead of a five-bullet one, suggesting that this could have made a difference.

The risks created by these flaws are as obvious as the urgency to fix them.

The second point I want to talk about is the verification of the validity of a potential buyer's licence. In 2015, the Liberals promised to reinstate the mandatory verification of a potential buyer's licence by the RCMP before the transfer of a non-restricted firearm. In 2018, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-71. The measure in the bill is described in official documents as follows:

C-71 provides that vendors must verify the firearms licence of the buyer, by contacting the Registrar of Firearms before transferring a non-restricted firearm. The Registrar would check the licence number in the Canadian Firearms Information System and issue a reference number if the licence is valid.

Running the licence number through the system is the only way to ensure that a licence is not counterfeit, stolen or revoked. A seller cannot check that themselves, and yet the regulations tabled last June require no such thing. According to the proposed regulations, once they check the photo on the buyer's licence, sellers will have to contact the RCMP to obtain a reference number authorizing the transfer. However, there is no obligation for a seller to provide any information whatsoever related to the buyer's licence to the RCMP, and there is no obligation stated anywhere in the laws and regulations that the RCMP has to run the licence number through the system.

This shocking loophole was confirmed to us in writing by Public Safety officials and to the Canadian press by a Public Safety spokesperson.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Please wrap up in the next 10 seconds. I'm sorry.

[Heidi Rathjen]

My last point is about revoking the licences of stalkers and domestic abusers. Currently in the United States, spouses or ex-spouses who are the subject of a restraining order are automatically prohibited from owning guns. This is not the case in Canada. We can do much better. Such prohibitions are discretionary now, but they should be mandatory, like in the United States. As we know, many of the men—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much. I'm sorry, but we're out of time.

Ms. Cukier, I now invite you to make an opening statement of up to five minutes. The floor is yours. Please proceed.

[Wendy Cukier, President, Coalition for Gun Control]

Thanks very much.

My name's Wendy Cukier. I'm the president of the Coalition for Gun Control, which is a network of 200 public safety community organizations and public health groups.

I am also the co-author of the book called The Global Gun Epidemic, with the past president of the American Public Health Association. I say that because I believe that a public health approach is the most appropriate way of looking at gun violence generally, and gang violence in particular.

When we think of gun violence, we can think of it as cancer. There are different forms. There's no one solution to all problems. If we're talking about domestic violence, if we're talking about suicide, if we're talking about mass shootings or if we're talking about gang violence, they all have a particular etiology or set of causes and solutions.

When we look at gang violence, I will say the following. I'm the head of the Diversity Institute and a full professor at Ryerson University. We've done a lot of work looking at the impact of disadvantage and inequality in Canada. There's no doubt that addressing the root causes of violence is absolutely critical. We know that certain youth are more at risk for gang violence [Technical difficulty—Editor] but that's not what I'm going to talk about today.

Today I'm going to talk about access to firearms, because while firearms do not cause violence, they increase lethality. The best example of this is a comparison between Canada, the United States, the U.K. and Australia. All of these countries have similar root causes. They all have inequality. They all have poverty. They all have racism. Canada, the U.K. and Australia have about the same rate per 100,000 of beatings, stabbings and other kinds of homicides. When it comes to gun violence, however, we see a profound difference. Last year, the U.K., which has twice as many people as Canada, had about 30 gun murders. Canada had 277, the highest number we've seen in many years.

The availability of firearms increases the likelihood that people will die. While it's true that when we look at the sources of guns that gangs use, we know that smuggling is part of the problem. We also know that the diversion of legal guns to illegal markets is a significant problem. Guns are diverted through theft, illegal sales and, in some instances, straw purchases. We saw in the last few days over 2,000 guns that were allegedly stolen recently. We've also seen a number of high-profile incidents like the Danforth shooting, where the gun that was used was from gang members and stolen in Saskatchewan.

There has been, over the last decade, a tremendous proliferation in the legal ownership of restricted weapons and handguns. There are now over a million legally owned in Canada by [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I want to underscore that we support the implementation of Bill C-71. We believe that licensing and tracking long guns is part of the solution and that we need a total ban on military assault weapons and that we need the buyback program.

Fundamentally, we need decisive action to stem the further proliferation of handguns in Canada. Part of that would be a ban on the import and sale of guns where the threat outweighs the utility. You don't use handguns for hunting. You don't need them for pest control on a farm. While arming for self-protection is apparently on the rise, it's not supported, for the most part, by Canadian law.

I want to reinforce one final point. You'll hear this person say, “Anyone can get a gun if they really want to”. You'll hear that person say, “Criminals don't register their guns”, and so on and so forth. I want to remind you that every illegal gun begins as a legal gun, either south of the border or in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Okay.

[Wendy Cukier]

Also, remember that the United Kingdom had 30 gun murders last year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Yes. Thank you very much.

[Wendy Cukier]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Mr. Wilson, you now have the floor for up to five minutes for your opening remarks. Please proceed.

[Marcell Wilson, Founder, One By One Movement Inc.]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and ladies and gentlemen.

First, thank you for having me here today. It's an honour, especially with my background and coming from where I have come from. I could have never imagined there would be a day where I'd be speaking in the House of Commons.

I say that because I am what we refer to as a “former”, that is, I am a former gang leader and former organized crime figure.

Currently, on the basis of the extent of my lived experience and my work in countering violence and extremism, I am now an internationally recognized subject matter expert on gang culture, behaviour and theory and the founder of the One By One Movement.

We are a think tank, consulting agency and speakers bureau and our goal is to decrease extreme acts of violence globally by utilizing data collected from our extensive and almost exclusive access to high-profile “formers” like me, as well as the access we have to the demographic we serve—most of them being active.

The One By One Movement works directly within at-risk and high-risk communities, in at-risk and high-risk environments, with at-risk and high-risk persons of various age, race and gender. We are hands-on, boots on the ground frontliners in the fight against gun and gang violence.

That said, I'm here today to address gun control, illegal arms trafficking and gun crimes committed by members of street gangs.

In my opinion, when speaking on gun control, when we hear the phrase, it should always be synonymous with illegal gun crime and illegal gun trafficking as over 80% of the gun violence we are witnessing is committed with illegal firearms smuggled in from the USA.

Understanding these numbers and that any loss of life is tragic, I think it is safe to say that very few gun crimes are committed with legally sourced weapons. The notion of banning illegal firearms as a main solution to combatting gun violence is not only false, it is offensive. This is because we, the Canadians who are suffering the majority of gun violence in Ontario, are mostly low-income and racialized communities, and the minority who have sadly lost their lives by acts committed with legally sourced firearms are not.

The current resources and efforts invested into banning illegal firearms sends a crystal clear message to the people who are facing illegal gun and gang violence on a daily basis amongst Canada's most marginalized communities that, when it comes to Canadian lives on this specific subject, the minority rules.

This government needs to ensure the message that all Canadian lives are precious. This can be accomplished by investing the same time, effort and resources into the most qualified agencies and groups that are concentrating on violence prevention and intervention initiatives with an acute focus on root causes and their risk factors that lead one to commit acts of violence. To say that banning firearms in this country will decrease violence in a meaningful way is like taking a sledgehammer to a problem that needs a scalpel.

That leads to the matter of addressing gun violence committed by street gangs. This is a major problem that is growing exponentially in the greater Toronto area. There has been a steady increase in the number of shootings related to street gangs, an increase in the brazenness of these acts and the perpetrators are only getting younger. This means that slowing the access to illegal firearms has to be a major pillar in this battle, but more importantly, there needs to be some long-term, sustainable investments made in prevention.

This means prenatal negative outcome prevention; early childhood violence prevention; youth violence prevention; and young adult violence prevention. It also means intervention: high-risk intervention; and police intervention. Lastly, it means reintegration and reinvention programs that are developed and implemented by those who truly understand the nuances of that lifestyle.

This is my expert valuation. Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, I'm looking at the clock and the roster. If I give five minutes to every party in this first round, we will end exactly on time.

Mr. Shipley, start it off, please. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

First I am going to discuss some issues with Mr. Wilson of the One By One movement.

First of all, Mr. Wilson, I want to personally thank you and your organization for all the great work you do. Breaking the vicious cycle of gang violence is a daunting task. I commend people like you who are out there making this world better through community initiatives.

Mr. Wilson, through this study, we've been talking a lot about gun crimes and violence. We're using a lot of numbers and data. I'd like to bring this onto a more personal level today. As you are aware, I have in the past spoken on an S.O. 31 in the House of Commons about young 12-year-old Dante Andreatta, who was tragically shot while just out for groceries with his mother in Toronto.

Seeing how yesterday another young 18-year-old was shot while in his school at David and Mary Thomson Collegiate, today I would like you to start off with much detail as you can, so we can get more of an experience of how this is affecting people and we can get away from data and numbers.

Please tell the committee about young Dante, his day that day and how he was tragically taken, who took it and how the family has been suffering with that going on.

Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

[Marcell Wilson]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley, for the question.

What an unfortunate and tragic loss.

I will tell you from being boots on the ground and from working with people in those communities, one thing we face over and over in dealing with these shootings is the community trauma component. There's been a complete lack of victim services, essentially, to not only assist these families, but to assist the communities in dealing with the traumas of these shootings.

Unfortunately, they're happening so often that I fear our society is becoming numb to this. I fear that that people like Dante and their cases are being ignored or even overlooked in some ways because of a lack of political will to deal with the real issues, which are the street gangs and illegal firearms.