Mr. Speaker, as I said during my remarks, whenever a statute is introduced with verbiage like “common sense”, we know that there is something political going on. When we heard the interventions by the Conservatives, it confirmed that suspicion.
No, the bill does not make us any safer at all. Of course, that is the burden of the Coalition for Gun Control's argument and that of the Government of Quebec and of so many other interveners who pointed that out.
Moreover, when we look at the budget cuts the government has made to those who make us safe, such as the CBSA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as I alluded to in my remarks, we see what game is being played here today.
Similarly, the decision to simply give more discretionary authority to the cabinet, rather than to stick with the classifications that are in the statute, suggests that there is an attempt to provide political cover for cabinet to make changes as it sees fit, dependant on the lobbying that is made to the cabinet on any given subject. That is also a matter that I think undermines the claim that this is somehow about public safety. It is about politics.