Debates of Nov. 26th, 2014

Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against Bill C-42, the so-called common sense firearms licensing act. While this is not the most egregious short title assigned by the Conservatives to a bill, even in this session, the bill might better be titled “the special interest firearms licensing act”.

What we have before us is a bill that only looks like common sense when viewed from the point of view of the gun lobby. New Democrats believe that public safety must always trump politics when it comes to firearms licensing and regulation.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, have been promoting the dangerous ideas of the gun lobby, a small minority of Canadians, and perhaps even a small minority among gun owners. In particular, there is the idea that any regulations at all on firearms pit the interests of law-abiding gun owners against the government and the police, and that these regulations amount to nothing more than excessive red tape. New Democrats have a different view, one that clearly puts public safety first.

The Conservatives like to pose as the only ones here who understand rural Canada, but let me say, perhaps to the shock and surprise of some, that I actually grew up on a farm. My father and his father before him were hunters of quail, pheasant, duck, deer, and moose, and all but one of these later graced our table when I was a kid. I have to say that sometimes there would not have been much on the table without the hunting that went on in my family. I learned to shoot at a young age, an age that most now might consider inappropriately young, and yes, my grandpa always kept a shotgun behind the door for scaring away the coyotes. It must have worked because I never saw any. This was in the day before those proper storage regulations. When those came in, he changed his behaviour. He did not see these as unnecessary red tape. He saw them as good advice for keeping his family safe, and the shotgun disappeared from behind the door and into a locked cabinet.

Subsequently I lived in the Northwest Territories as a young adult. I was fresh out of university, and while there I was privileged to go hunting out on the traplines with my Dene friends. By that time I was not such a fan of doing the shooting myself. It was a great life experience I had there. None of them regarded safety regulations as red tape.

Now I represent a riding that stretches from the Victoria Harbour all the way out to the head of the West Coast Trail at Fort Renfrew, so I do know something about law-abiding gun owners and something about communities where hunting is much more than just a prop to use in arguments about gun registration and licensing.

When the Conservatives abolished the gun registry, we on this side of the House warned that it would be necessary to remain vigilant on the question of gun licensing and gun regulations. We all knew that members of the gun lobby would not be happy to stop at the abolition of the registry, that with their U.S.-influenced ideological viewpoint they would keep pushing to weaken all the other measures in Canada that place restrictions on firearms in the interest of public safety.

Like his gun lobby allies, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has fallen into the habit of using U.S. rhetoric in his comments on firearms. This was never clearer than on July 23, 2014, when the minister said:

To possess a firearm is a right, and it's a right that comes with responsibilities.

Here we have a minister of the Crown, one of the government's chief legal ministers, directly contradicting the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1993, the Supreme Court found, in a case called Regina v. Hasselwander, that:

Canadians, unlike Americans do not have a constitutional right to bear arms. Indeed, most Canadians prefer the peace of mind and sense of security derived from the knowledge that the possession of automatic weapons is prohibited.

Therefore, the minister is in direct contradiction of the Supreme Court in the rhetoric he is using around gun licensing. The court could not have been clearer, nor could there have been any doubt about the precedent, since the Hasselwander case was precisely about the right to possess automatic weapons.

The court later reiterated in the 2010 case of Regina v. Montague that in Canada there is no right to own firearms. In that case, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal against an Ontario Court of Appeal decision rejecting the existence of such a right in Canada.

Like their gun lobby colleagues, when the Conservatives are challenged on the rights question, they often switch gears and try to argue that gun ownership is somehow a property right, which I would point out is another right that is not found in the Canadian constitution.

What the minister's comments last July clearly indicate, unfortunately, is that we have a government that likes to pander to the gun lobby. At least in this case, however, I would have to say that the Conservatives do so fairly transparently and in order to generate political support from their base.

When the Conservatives made their first appointments to the Firearms Advisory Committee, the committee responsible for advising the minister on firearms regulations, the appointees were drawn entirely from representatives of the gun lobby. It took until 2012 for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police to prevail on the government to add three police chiefs to the nine gun advocates the government had already placed on the advisory committee.

This was only after the committee came forward with a set of extreme recommendations for the government, including such great ideas as extending the ownership licences to 10 years and, unbelievably, a proposal that the police should re-sell guns that had been seized rather than destroying them as is now the case. It is hard for me to even imagine the police running a garage sale of seized weapons. These are the kind of recommendations that came from the Firearms Advisory Committee, which was loaded with gun lobby advocates. When it comes to the specific firearms regulations adopted by the Conservatives, the influence of the gun lobby is quite apparent.

In 2011, the Department of Public Safety drafted new regulations for gun shows that would have required things that most Canadians would see as common sense. These included things like notifying the local police of gun shows to be held in their jurisdiction. That does not seem like red tape to me; that seems like common sense. It would have required the tethering of guns on display at a gun show. Cellphones are tethered at cellphone kiosks, so why not have this important public safety measure of tethering guns at a gun show.

These gun show regulations were to have been brought into force in 2012, but that did not happen. Instead, the Conservatives junked the proposed regulations altogether after complaints from the gun lobby that the new requirements were too onerous. I guess we should have seen this coming, because the Firearms Advisory Committee called for scrapping the gun show regulations in its March 2012 report.

I am worried about who was consulted, as I said in my question to the minister at the beginning of this debate. Who did he talk to? He says he talked to the hunting lobbies and to members of his caucus. He probably looked at the reports of the Firearms Advisory Committee. We see that the committee's slanted approach has influenced what the minister is already doing.

Regulations were also due to come into force in December 2012 to require that each gun manufactured in Canada have an individual serial number. It is surprising to me that it is not a requirement, as it is actually required by the international treaties to which Canada is already a party. It is something that seems like common sense when it comes to the police being able to trace guns used in crimes or in the fight to combat illegal international trade in small arms.

In November 2013, for a second time, the Conservatives quietly implemented a regulation delaying the coming into force of this requirement for serial numbers on each gun manufactured in Canada. This time they delayed it until December 2015, conveniently after the next scheduled election date.

The connection to the gun lobby is not so clear in this regulation, but I have no doubt that it exists. Why else would the Conservatives have appointed a representative of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association as a member of the Canadian delegation at international arms treaty negotiations? A representative of the sports shooting association and a member of the Firearms Advisory Committee became part of the international delegation to debate the small arms trade treaty internationally. Now, at a time when 50 other nations have signed the arms trade treaty, why has Canada failed to do so? Why are we excluding ourselves from the important discussions about how to end the illegal arms trade? The minister in his speech made reference to the important role in public safety of stopping the smuggling of illegal arms into Canada, yet we have excluded ourselves from the very process that would make that possible.

When it comes to Bill C-42, I guess we should be glad that the government abandoned the most extreme recommendations of the Firearms Advisory Committee, the ones I mentioned a minute ago of 10-year licences and the resale of seized weapons.

Now we are seeing complaints in the media from the gun lobby that Bill C-42 does not go far enough. That is why I am worried about the private member's bill that was placed on notice today, which we will see later this week, and how it will relate to this bill. The minister can say all he likes that it is a private member's bill and that it has nothing to do with him, but we will see. We will see if it has nothing to do with this legislation. When I heard the gun lobby say that Bill C-42 should have gone further, I am concerned about the contents of this new private member's bill.

Let me turn to the contents of the bill we have in front of us. It is one that is still clearly a child of the gun lobby. I should point out, as I did in my question to the minister, that there is no evidence of broad consultations throughout the community. If this is such common sense legislation, I do not understand why such a narrow group of people were the only ones consulted on this bill.

For me, despite the short title, there is nothing common sense about the two major provisions in this bill. One of those would make the gun classification process a clearly political process. The other would remove the requirement for having a permit for the transportation of firearms in any vehicle carrying them. Neither of these provisions has any public safety purpose. Instead, they respond only to the explicit complaints from the gun lobby. All of the other things that the Conservatives want to address in this bill could be accomplished without these two provisions.

Let me discuss the first change that is proposed in the way weapons are classified.

Right now, recommendations on classification are under definitions contained in law, and those recommendations are made by firearms experts in the RCMP, who both the gun lobby and the government members have referred to as “bureaucrats”. They are, in fact, the RCMP firearms experts.

The minister's signature is required on any reclassification, but there is no discretion for the minister, providing the recommendations fall within the scope of the existing legislative definitions. What Bill C-42 suggests is that the cabinet should be able to ignore the classification recommendations from the public experts and substitute its own wisdom about how weapons should be classified. The minister has already told us today that when the bill passes, he intends to use this political process to reclassify two individual types of guns. Therefore, by varying the definitions in the legislation, Bill C-42 would go even further by allowing the cabinet to grant exemptions for guns and ammunition that would otherwise have been prohibited.

Where did this perceived need for a change come from? It came from a single case of reclassification of a single weapon, the Swiss Arms PE 90, or Classic Greens, as they are sometimes called. These are military-style weapons that have been sold for nearly 20 years in Canada as semi-automatic weapons limited to firing five rounds. Before 2013, there were approximately 2,000 of these weapons in Canada, worth about $4,000 each.

So why the reclassification? What we had in Calgary in 2013 was the sudden appearance of so-called “refurbished” models of this gun, which were now operating as automatic weapons. That meant that these weapons were now easily converted to automatic weapons capable of firing a long series of shots from a single trigger pull, exactly what the “prohibited” designation was designed to keep off the streets of Canada.

When there was an immediate outcry from the gun lobby, the Conservatives were quick to grant a two-year amnesty in March of 2014. It is an amnesty for which I believe legal authority is doubtful, at best. How can the government grant an amnesty on possessing a weapon that is prohibited by law in Canada?

Now the government has presented Bill C-42 as the solution, giving the Conservative cabinet the power to decide if these dangerous weapons should be allowed in Canada.

Quite apart from the danger of ending up with automatic weapons on the street, there is another principle at stake here. When we make laws, we make them in public after public debate, and they stay in force until there is another public debate about changing them. Public debate before changing law is essential to democracy and accountability. In fact, what we would have in Bill C-42 is the creation of a process whereby Canada could in effect change our gun classification system and the classification of individual weapons through decisions made behind closed doors and without any public debate.

The other major change in Bill C-42 would remove the requirement that exists in most provinces to have a permit in any vehicle transporting restricted firearms, and the bill would go further: it would prohibit any province from reintroducing such a requirement. Currently, permits must specify a reason for transporting the firearm and specify that the travel must be from a specific point A to a specific point B. This makes it easy for police to enforce the prohibition on the illegal transportation of firearms, since a specific permit and a specific route must be provided.

Bill C-42 rolls transportation permits into the licence to own firearms. This would automatically allow the transportation of firearms between the owner's home and a list of five kinds of places: to any gun range, to any gun shop, to any gun show, to any police station, and to any border post for exiting from Canada. This change would provide a vast array of excuses for having weapons in a vehicle along a myriad set of plausible routes, and it would make the prohibition on illegal transportation of weapons virtually impossible for police to enforce.

Again I want to say that is why I am concerned about the notice the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette has given about a bill to amend the Criminal Code on firearms storage and transportation. I am looking forward to having law enforcement representatives present in committee so that we can talk to them about the impact of no longer requiring permits for transporting restricted firearms to limit them to travelling from a specific place to a specific place. There is a great deal of danger here for Canadians.

We have some questions about some other provisions in this bill. Most of those questions will be about whether proposed changes, such as combining the two kinds of licences and creating a grace period after the expiry of a licence, would have negative consequences on completing timely checks as to whether owners remain authorized to own firearms after criminal or mental health incidents. We will be asking for assurances from the minister on these questions in committee. There is nothing more important to public safety than ensuring that the system works so that those who are convicted of criminal activity or those who have experienced mental health difficulties are no longer in possession of firearms. We have to look no farther than this Parliament Hill to understand the importance of those kinds of checks.

Does anything in this bill look good to New Democrats? The minister was asking me that question earlier, as a kind of heckle. Certainly measures that make prohibitions on gun ownership easier in cases of domestic violence are very welcome, as are expanded requirements for gun safety courses. In a sense, there are a couple of positives in this bill.

The minister might ask, “Why are we not trying to improve this bill in committee? Why have we said we will not support it at second reading?” I have to say I have become more than a bit cynical about this idea.

On Bill C-44 just last week, the minister assured me we could have full debate in committee on the bill expanding the powers of CSIS. He said it was up to the committee to make its own decision, as if the government does not have a majority on every committee and as if his parliamentary secretary did not move motions that restrict debate in committee. It beggars belief that he would make this argument in the House of Commons. The Conservatives said they would like all-party support on Bill C-44, and we clearly were told by the minister that the public safety committee was the place for detailed debate. However, this afternoon, while we are here in the House, the committee is getting its only afternoon with opposition witnesses, its only two hours to discuss the bill that would expand the powers of CSIS.

That is why, even though there are a couple of good things in this bill, I cannot argue that we should support sending the bill to committee to try to fix the rest of it. The experience that we have in committee again and again is limited time, limited witnesses, and the absolute refusal of the government to accept even the best-intentioned, most non-political amendments from the opposition.

Clearly public safety is not the priority for Conservatives in Bill C-42. In fact, its two main provisions seem to me to present clear threats to public safety. Making political decisions about whether or not a gun is a prohibited weapon does not bode well for public safety. Introducing this grey area in terms of transportation of weapons does not bode well for public safety.

Let me conclude by saying that I find it both sad and insensitive on the part of the government to be discussing this bill in the lead-up to December 6. This is a national day dedicated to remembering the victims of the École Polytechnique massacre 25 years ago, and a day set aside to recommitting to the fight against violence against women. As well, I do not understand why the Conservatives want to proceed so abruptly with this bill to loosen gun regulations in the aftermath of the murder of Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial and the attack here in Parliament. I would ask the government to put off further consideration of this bill until well into the new year, a less emotional time for victims, and to give time for the air to clear after the October 22 incident here on the Hill.

Will the government show more respect for Canadians and our democratic process by delaying this bill? I doubt it. Instead, I expect the Conservatives to press on to the tune of a dog whistle played by their gun lobby friends. Unfortunately, I think Canadians already know the answer to this question. The gun lobby rules, and this bill will press ahead. That is why, as a New Democrat, I will be proud to vote against Bill C-42.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make an observation: criminals who commit gun-related crimes do not follow the law. What the Liberals did in their era was try to curtail crime by shackling and burdening law-abiding gun owners—gun owners who follow the law, like myself—with unnecessary, complicated, restrictive laws.

The minister has brought about a bill to ease that, because they are are law-abiding gun owners. Unfortunately, the NDP has bought into the misguided Liberal logic that somehow criminals follow the law. They do not.

I am wondering if the member could just agree that criminals do not follow the law and that the intent of this bill is actually to respect law-abiding Canadians and the fact that they are allowed to own guns and should not be shackled and overburdened with unnecessary rules, regulations, and laws. There has to be a minimum amount of legislation in place, but not unduly so, as was presented by the Liberal Party in their day.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to start by saying that everybody is law-abiding until they are not, so the question does not make much sense to me. It is more rhetoric from the gun lobby.

Obviously there are legitimate uses for guns. There are legitimate reasons for having guns if one is a hunter or a sport shooter. We totally accept that on this side of the House.

What we are saying is that we have to have reasonable regulations in place to protect public safety. The first way we have to judge these laws is on whether they protect public safety, not on whether we have to fill out forms.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. friend. We sit on committee together.

The member raised a number of points in terms of some of the witnesses we would need to hear from at committee, including Canadian firearms officers, police, people who are involved with the transport of guns, et cetera.

Both the member and I are missing the debate on Bill C-44 because the government called this bill at the same time. Could the member share with Canadians his thoughts about the debate on this bill? We are having a debate here in the chamber that will likely have closure put on it at some point in time, while at committee our ability to hear the proper people we should hear from to deal with this issue is being curtailed.

One of the most important issues to deal with was raised by my leader in question period, the open-ended transportation of guns. Yes, they have to be in a locked trunk, but as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture said, criminals do not follow the rules. Of course they do not. There will be guns in car trunks, and most of the guns criminals use are stolen from legitimate gun owners. Is that not a problem with the new transport rules?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two points. I am a former municipal police board member, and I have done a lot of international policing work.

It is very rare to come across police who believe that gun regulations are red tape. Police are very supportive of reasonable regulations. They do not want extra forms. They do not want extra time wasted. However, the police are quite often in favour of reasonable regulations.

I very much look forward to having the time in committee to hear from law enforcement officials on the question of transportation of weapons. However, I have to say, as I did earlier, that after my experience with Bill C-44, I have kind of lost my faith that we are going to have adequate time in committee.

I would ask the minister again, but I know his answer will be that it has nothing to do with him, his parliamentary secretary, or the government majority on the committee. These restrictions on time and on the number of witnesses just come out of the air.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since being elected, I have noticed, and so have all Canadians, that the Conservative government does not govern for Canadians but for its electoral base. Today, with Bill C-42, we see that it is working for the gun lobby.

We know that this government did not consult organizations reponsible for applying the law, such as the National Firearms Association in Quebec, beforehand about the repercussions of the proposed changes on public safety.

Does my colleague not think that Bill C-42 runs counter to the concept of public safety and security?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly my point. Public safety has to be our first concern in any of the changes we are making to gun licensing and gun regulations.

However, I would also like to remind the House that, when the gun registry was being eliminated, the Conservatives were saying that was all we needed to do. Now, here we are with another bill that would loosen licensing and regulation, and sometime later this week, we are going to have another private member's bill that says we have to do something else. We are on a very slippery slope, I would say, but it seems more like an express train to keep making more and more changes at the behest of the gun lobby, forgetting the importance of keeping public safety at the centre of what we do.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca for his speech. I would like to say that his family, like many Canadian families, has used firearms safely.

My question is very simple. The former leader of the NDP, Jack Layton, proposed one of the measures in the bill, and that is combining the possession only licence and the possession and acquisition licence into one licence.

Today, why have the NDP unexpectedly flip-flopped on what seems to be their party's policy? Why oppose this specific measure when it was proposed by the NDP? Is it because of ideology or partisanship? I invite the member to consider the value of the measure and judge it on its merits.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's reference to my family background, for once accepting that some people on this side actually have families with similar experience to those on the Conservative side.

With respect to why we are changing our position on the bill, what I would have to say is that the proof is in the packaging. Our leader may have had an idea or a suggestion in the past, but it was not this package that the minister is bringing forward.

I have said to him, very clearly, that there are a couple of things we like in the bill, but there are some things we are concerned about. If they are going to merge those licences, then we have to have the assurance that there are proper checks for criminal activity, for mental health incidents, for domestic violence in the home.

It is not just a question of picking out one idea and saying, “Why don't you support this one idea?” It is the whole package of measures in the bill that makes it impossible for us to support it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is worthy to note that the bill would, in fact, if passed, allow for a more open-ended transportation of firearms. In Winnipeg, with a population of 1.25 million people, thousands of vehicles are stolen every year. One year, in excess of 13,000 vehicles were stolen. I suspect that there would be a great deal of concern in that regard. We know, quite often, that it is part of a gang initiation, to go out and steal a vehicle.

It seems to me that the government is not dealing with the issue of possession of illegal guns.

I wonder if the member might want to provide some comment, with respect to that particular issue.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, I am concerned that there was not a broader range of people consulted about the impacts of the bill—in particular, in-depth consultations with the law enforcement community—on the very questions he raising.

However, there are also many groups working in Montreal and Toronto, in particular, which are trying to reduce gun violence on the streets.

I am very disappointed that the minister, clearly, has not talked to these people about the bill, because the situation of having most guns stolen is going to become much worse if we loosen the regulations on transportation of weapons. There is no doubt about that.

Again, I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say in committee and hearing from witnesses who represent those other parts of Canadian society that are also concerned about the presence of guns.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona, Environment; the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis, Health; and the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Public Safety.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-42, an act to amend the Firearms Act and the Criminal Code and to make a related amendment and a consequential amendment to other acts. As it states in the bill, the short title is the common sense firearms licensing act. When the government calls something common sense, as we well know, it is time for all of us to look at the fine print, and that is what Liberals are going to do.

I am pleased to lay out today the position of the Liberal Party on this bill moving to committee. First and foremost, as we know and as I said in a question earlier, the bill is coming forward disguised as a law and order bill, but really it is designed to try to re-ignite support among those in the pro-gun community for the Conservative base and the Conservative Party. As such, as we have already heard, government MPs will try to allege that the Liberal Party would bring back the gun registry, which we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture earlier. For any member from the Conservative camp to say that would be an absolute lie.

The leader of the Liberal Party previously, and again today, made it absolutely clear, to quote him, that we “will not bring back the long-gun registry”. It was stated in the past and it was stated today at a scrum with the media following the caucus meeting. Let me repeat that, as there seems to be a lot of yelling opposite by government members. They might not like to hear it, but the fact of the matter is that the leader of the Liberal Party has committed that the Liberal Party will not bring back a gun registry.

To play the gun registry card in Conservative propaganda and in fundraising on the part of the Conservatives would be, as I said earlier, an absolute abrogation of the truth. Indeed, it would be a lie. Anybody who stands in the House and says that the Liberal Party is going to bring back the gun registry is lying. Members should get that straight.

Let me turn to Bill C-42 as proposed. Simply put, there are good points that would be helpful to those who use guns in this country, and there are troublesome policy and legislative amendments, which would put public safety in Canada at risk and definitely, I believe, would make Canadian streets less safe as a result of some of the proposals in Bill C-42. Indeed, it would put lives at risk and, I would submit, police officers' lives especially. Therefore, the Liberal Party is asking the minister and the government that Bill C-42 be split.

We call on the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to split Bill C-42. We can support the following measures.

We can support creating a six-month grace period at the end of the five-year licence period, to stop people from immediately becoming criminalized for paperwork delays around licence renewal, which is in clause 14.

We can support streamlining the licensing system by eliminating the possession-only licence and converting all existing POLs to possession and acquisition licences, or PALs, which is in clause 11.

We can support making classroom participation in firearm safety training mandatory for first-time licence applicants, which is in clause 4.

We can support amending the Criminal Code to strengthen the provisions related to orders prohibiting the possession of firearms where a person is convicted of an offence involving domestic violence, which is in clause 30.

We can support authorizing firearms import information-sharing when restricted and prohibited firearms are imported into Canada by businesses. I do not have the list of where that clause is, but we can support that because it makes sense. The Canada Border Service Agency, the RCMP, and police forces of other jurisdictions should have that information.

To sum up, we therefore call on the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to split Bill C-42. We can support several elements, such as the provisions that streamline licence paperwork, that tighten safety requirements, that make it harder for people convicted of domestic offences to obtain a gun, the firearm information-sharing, and extending the grace period to six months. The bill should be split to assist lawful gun activity by activists, sport shooters, farmers, and hunters immediately. If the minister is willing to split the bill, we should be able to accomplish passage in this House of that segment. I think that even the New Democrats would support some of those aspects. We should be able to accomplish some of those aspects and get the bill through by Christmas, if that is really the desire of the government.

However, as we will find out, the government is really not interested in helping law-abiding gun owners. It is really interested in creating a fight to leave the impression that we on this side of the House do not like those law-abiding gun owners. That is the impression it wants to leave. Therefore, it has put in place a bill that has some good aspects in it for the law-abiding gun community but has a poison pill that I submit would damage public safety in this country.

Let me turn to those other aspects of the bill that we cannot support, because it does put public safety in this country at risk.

First, the bill would eliminate the need for owners of prohibited and restricted firearms to have a transportation licence to carry these guns in their vehicle. It eliminates that need for every time they are transported. This means they could freely transport handguns or automatic weapons anywhere within their province. It says in the backgrounder that they can travel with restricted and prohibited firearms to shooting ranges, practices, and competitions; when returning to an individual's home following a chief firearms officer's approval of transfer of ownership; going to a gunsmith, a gun show, or a Canadian port of exit; and going to a peace officer or CFO for verification, registration, or disposal.

There is such a mix of things that, when we give people a broad transport licence, it is an accident waiting to happen. Of course the guns would be locked. They would not be loaded. These are people who do not want to break the law. However, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture said earlier, criminals do not abide by the law and would break into those vehicles. They would take those weapons and use them for wrong purposes. With this aspect of trying to simplify the system, the minister is making the streets more dangerous. Therefore, we cannot support that part of the bill.

Second, Bill C-42 would take the power to classify firearms out of the hands of police, who are the experts at keeping Canadians safe, and put it into the hands of politicians like the current minister. It might even be the member for Yorkton—Melville or someone else over there at some point in time. However, the bill would take the power to classify firearms out of the hands of the police and put it into the hands of politicians. I will speak to that a little more in a moment.

Third, the bill would take the authority away from provincial chief firearms officers and imposes the federal minister's will upon those CFOs in the provinces by regulation. This is a point we have to strongly oppose.

I will explain those points in a little more detail.

The bill would enable the minister to assume the authority to designate firearms, which could result in currently designated prohibitive and restricted firearms receiving a non-restricted categorization. Effectively, an automatic handgun, or worse, could receive a designation the equivalent to a shotgun or a hunting rifle.

I would challenge the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to speak to this point. If Bill C-42 passes in its present form, the Conservative Minister of Public Safety will be empowered to designate any prohibited or restricted firearm to that of a non-restricted firearm.

This is the conclusion of the Library of Parliament. I will quote its interpretation of Bill C-42, which states, “Bill C-42 would give the Governor-in-Council the power to carve out exceptions by way of regulations for firearms that would otherwise fall within the Criminal Code definitions of restricted or prohibited firearms. This power would allow the minister to render firearms currently classified as prohibited or restricted firearms non-restricted firearms, and to render firearms that are currently classified as prohibited firearms, restricted firearms”.

Quite literally, we would have a firearms registration system in Canada which would be open to lobbying pressure, political favouritism and, in short, a corrupted system of firearms classification.

The legislation us would allow a politician, through the Minister of Public Safety, to override the recommendations of experts within our law enforcement community who have been empowered to determine which firearms should be restricted or prohibited from easy and ready access, as are rifles and shotguns, which are the firearms of choice for farmers, sport shooters and hunters in Canada.

What the minister wants to politicize is unique.

From a preliminary examination of other jurisdictions, which included the Untied States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany, the Library of Parliament found the following, “A review of firearms legislation in several selected countries has not revealed any jurisdiction in which a cabinet, a government department or even the police have the authority to override the firearms classification principles set out in the legislation”.

Therefore, this is unique. We are politicizing the classification of guns.

The question is on the politicization of firearms classification, which would allow Conservative politicians to work toward having full automatic firearms become the equivalent of a shotgun or hunting rifle. On this point, I look forward to hearing from certain members of the Conservative Party, specifically those, who in a previous life, were front-line police officers, because this clause could, if the minister is pressured, put police officers more at risk than they are today.

The primary motivation behind legislation, which would empower politicians to classify firearms in Canada, began when the RCMP did its duty. As a result of this, the Montreal Gazette, on August 30, stated:

The government came under a barrage of criticism...after the RCMP firearms program quietly changed the status of Swiss Arms-brand rifles and certain Czech-made CZ-858 rifles from restricted or non-restricted to prohibited.

The Conservative government, beginning with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, lashed out at “unelected bureaucrats” for having reclassified those firearms. He even put out a press release on the Conservative Party website as the member for Lévis—Bellechasse. He is the minister. In this press release of February 28, he said, “That’s why I was troubled to learn of a decision made by unelected bureaucrats”.

He was informed weeks earlier by the RCMP that this would happen. He is the minister in charge of those “unelected bureaucrats”. He is either the minister or not. He cannot be the minister one day and the MP for a riding the next. The minister should have accepted his responsibility and done his job. If he has a problem with the RCMP and how it does its job, which it did and for which he criticized it, and if he felt that way, maybe he should have fired the Commissioner of the RCMP.

It is unbelievable that the minister would go that far and attack the very people who he is responsible for in order to cater to the gun lobby in Canada.

The members opposite heckle me a little. They say that I might accuse them of politicizing, of facing political pressure and making decisions under political pressure. The evidence is right there. The minister caved into the gun lobby, and he knows it. That is, in part, why we have this bill today.

What is even more disturbing is that there are media reports saying that the Prime Minister was fully briefed on the need to reclassify these firearms in May, 2013. That is literally nine months prior to any public statements of reclassification.

In short, the Conservative government has sent a very strong signal to our front-line police officers and first responders across Canada. If there is any interference with any firearms issue, and it can sense some kind of political advantage, it will overrule any decision made on their behalf every time, with their safety and public safety taking a back seat to the government's political advantage. That is a fact.

A second concern with the legislation is the intention of the government to undermine the work of provincial chief firearms officers in this bill. What is the reason for the government challenging or trying to overrule chief firearms officers within the provinces? The reason may be in a Guardian article about Vivian Hayward, the Chief Firearms Officer in P.E.I. In the article, it says:

Vivian Hayward says she knows very little about the changes, as the province has not been consulted on the proposed federal Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act. But from what she has read in media reports, Hayward says she is concerned over the proposed easing of restrictions for firearms transportation.

“(It’s) just basically one step away from the U.S.-style having the gun on their hip authorization to carry, which people in this country don’t have,” Hayward said.

Is that part of the reason why the government is coming down hard on provincial chief firearms officers?

Let me conclude by saying that there are several good points that I outlined in the bill. We can support them. We can get those aspects through by Christmas, if we want to do that. Is the minister willing to split the bill? Let us deal with those issues that benefit the law-abiding gun community, and let us set the other ones aside and have a debate. Those are issues that jeopardize public safety.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, because of the trust that the people of Lévis—Bellechasse and Les Etchemins have placed in me, I have the privilege to serve the entire country in my role as Minister of Public Safety.

I have two questions for the member for Malpeque, who appears to have read the bill, unlike his leader, who is talking nonsense.

First, will he ask his leader to apologize for trying to mislead the House by saying that the bill would change the procedure for transporting firearms, which is not at all the case? Will he make it clear that the bill does not change the procedure for transporting restricted firearms in this country? Will he have the courage to tell the truth?

Second, what happens when hundreds of law-abiding citizens are treated like criminals because the firearm they own changed classifications overnight? Yes, there are measures in place to avoid situations like that one.

Why does the former public safety minister oppose a measure to ensure that law-abiding citizens who have not broken the law continue to obey the law and are not treated like criminals?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

My goodness, Mr. Speaker, did the minister not listen at all? We have said that we support some of those aspects, such as the six-month clause to prevent individuals from being made criminals.

If the minister is talking about the Swiss army rifle, there are other ways to deal with that issue. People have not been made criminals yet because the minister has been able to take action under the current laws of the land. He does not need to turn the whole issue on its head and take the authority for the classification of guns, whether prohibited, restricted or non-restricted, away from the experts in the RCMP, who certainly know what they are doing, and turn that authority over to a political base of advisers appointed by the minister, probably from the gun lobby itself, and give the minister the authority to make the final decision based on political favouritism, political pressure and other things. Those are the facts.

The minister accused my leader of misleading the House. The minister in his comments misled the House. Here is what the minister—

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I would like some clarification. If a member does not tell the truth in the House of Commons, does that mean the member is misleading the House?

If that is the case, I want to repeat that the leader of the second opposition party tried to mislead the House. I demand an apology and a retraction. This is an important issue, and public safety is not something to play around with. Members should not mislead people or encourage them to act dangerously.

I demand a clarification.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I would just caution hon. members on the use of the term “misleading the House”. Members will know that if one adds some motive in that kind of statement or intentional misleading, this is usually referred to as being unparliamentary. I recommend members avoid that kind of language because it is very easy to cross the line.

At the same time, the points that have been discussed here are matters for debate and I am sure can come up in the fulsome time that the House has to debate the question before the House.

I will give the floor back to the hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly would not want to go beyond the parliamentary rules.

The fact is that during the briefing with staff in the minister's office on this legislation, we received confirmation that easing the transportation regulations would mean that transport between locations, other than those that were a condition of licence, would be possible with the passing of the bill. That would open up all kinds of problems, as the New Democratic member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca said earlier in naming all the areas that under the bill weapons could be transported.

Now it gets confusing. How can the police be sure that someone is going from point A to point B? How can we be sure that the individual, with that gun locked and no ammunition in the trunk, is not going to stop at a grocery store, or a Canadian Tire store or a service station to get gas? That is the risk and the Minister of Public Safety is willing to accept that risk. That is wrong in the interests of public safety for Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please.

We have a ten-minute period for questions and comments. We have one question down so far and we are about halfway through.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning, I was pleased to see the minister staying for the debate, but I wonder if the member for Malpeque thinks like I do that perhaps his extreme agitation is because of the shaky ground he is standing on with regard to this bill.

We heard the minister, during his remarks in the chamber, promise to change the classification of two guns. I wonder, as a former solicitor general, if the hon. member has ever seen anything like this, where a minister makes a political promise in the House of Commons about the classification of weapons.

Does this not really point to one of the severe problems with the bill, which is the politicization of classifications?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that it points to the politicization of classifications. I am pleased to see the minister here and I am pleased to see him get on his feet and raise questions.

I would hope that he would encourage his parliamentary secretary and the members on the committee to give us ample time to have witnesses and to have the proper hearings on the bill at committee. I would hope that he rethinks overnight that maybe the bill should be split, so that we could pass those elements that I think a number of us could agree on, or even get all-party agreement for once, that would help law-abiding gun owners. It would be a good thing to get it through fast and then deal with those other issues that are of public safety concern.

However, I really find it remarkably strange when a minister of the Crown, in charge of the RCMP, comes out with a press release as just an MP and puts it on the Conservative website, and attacks the very people he is supposed to be in charge of and minister of as unelected bureaucrats. I have never seen it before, but it is not becoming of the minister.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member might want to expand on the idea that the Liberal Party is advocating that the bill, in fact, be split into two.

I am not overly optimistic, given the government's tendency to bring in time allocation to force legislation through, but I am wondering if he might provide some comment on how we would be able to have that quick passage by taking what is good in the bill and putting it aside, so it would actually pass before Christmas.

Why would the government not want to do that?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it really would make us wonder why the government would not want to do that. The Conservatives claim to support law-abiding gun owners, farmers and hunters. This is their opportunity to do so.

My colleague would know that the leader of the party has a catch-phrase, “hope and hard work”. We are willing to put the hard work in and we hope that the government would come on side, so that we could get those five points through by Christmas for the gun owners, farmers and hunters.

That would be a good thing, but we need more time on the other aspects, the politicization of the classification of guns, the transport of guns. We need more time to hear witnesses properly to ensure that the Canadian public and police officers in this country are safe as a result of these amendments, which I do believe will damage public safety in Canada.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the speech by the member opposite is probably one of the most entertaining activities I have seen in 14 years. He is a young man at heart, I know, but he should be careful about the kinds of contortions that he twists himself into. He may never be able to get himself straightened up again.

The Liberals may have left the impression that they do not like gun owners. I wonder what could possibly have caused that impression. Perhaps it is the hated gun registry or 20 years of refusing to amend it, or their refusal to ever reconsider that they might have done wrong. Today they come here and tell us that they actually do not believe in a gun registry any more.

The hon. member has taken at least four positions. He was for it when it was brought in. He was against it, he told us, but then he voted for it. Now today he says that he is against it.

We have watched these twists and turns, and I think probably one of the reasons he is speaking to us today is because he is one of the people who is most likely to change his mind again.

It only makes sense and I will finish up here quickly. If one thing is going happen, it is that the Liberals will go further than they did last time.

Can he comment today as to whether they would actually go further next time and try to ban firearm ownership and confiscate firearms? Is that what they are really saying, when they say they will not support a gun registry any longer?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, what a line we are getting from the member who is probably as much responsible as the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food for destroying the Canadian Wheat Board as a marketing institution in this country. As we know, that has cost farmers a great deal of money. Now we cannot even get any information on that Wheat Board.

Be that as it may, the member can try and exaggerate all the stories he would like. I am proud to have been here for 21 years. I have listened to the public. We know where the public stands on the gun registry. Our leader has made it clear that we are not going to bring back the gun registry. We want to ensure that Canadians are safe and we will do that by other means, and no, we are not interested in banning guns in this country.

The member can get on with all the exaggeration he likes. We know the Conservatives are really doing this for fundraising activities and they cater to that right-wing base that used to give them money and they need a little more from it. That is partly what this bill is all about.

Our party believes in public safety. We are going to speak out in the interests of: first, law-abiding gun owners and hunters, and we would like to pass those five recommendations; and second, we are going to speak out and ensure that there is public safety in this country and that guns are not an issue that would affect that.