Madam Speaker, I listened to some of the speeches here in the House today and I would like to make a comment about the last member who spoke and not be too critical of him. I think his speech is a great opportunity for all members in the House and for hopefully Canadians listening at home, because of the utter lack of knowledge of what he speaks to. That is honesty from my perspective, and I am one member who observes this, but to allude to guns and safety on our streets and to reference that back to the term “variant” is ridiculous.
If we talk to detectives, whether from the Ontario Provincial Police, Toronto Police Service, or anywhere coast to coast, and ask them if the term “variant” would make our streets safer or less safe, they will scratch their heads and say that whoever brought that up does not know what they speak of.
The guns that are on our streets, in our inner cities, and even in rural places like mine that have not been purchased through legal means are the guns that are committing crimes in this country. There is no doubt about that. They come here through the border and go into our streets and commit the crimes.
I do not know if the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound mentioned this, but there are 162,000 guns that are listed in the reference table. There are over 4,000 recently classified as a “variant” and listed as prohibited or restricted. The bill would help streamline this. It would help to eliminate all the cases where people purchase a gun legally, with an acquisition licence—a legal store, a legal gun—and then find out later, because someone looked at it and made a determination that it needs to be prohibited at this point in time. We have seen examples like this.
It also highlights a flaw in the system, in which we see a Mossberg Blaze. There are two variations of a Mossberg twenty-two. That is not an assault rifle; it is a twenty-two. It can be used to shoot rabbits or whatever people need to shoot around their property. It was simultaneously listed as prohibited and as non-restricted. So any gun owner who knows this will see the utter stupidity in the system. Why was one classified as prohibited and the other classified as non-restricted? The one that was non-restricted had wooden features and the other had black plastic around it. That is how the determination was made.
That is an example for members of House to see why the whole issue of these classifications and reference tables needs to be fixed and streamlined. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is serving it up here on a silver platter.
I heard other members say that we should look at the whole act and we will finally get it right. Canadians do not trust the Liberal Party for one second for any reform that has anything to do with the Firearms Act. It has been one disaster after another. In previous Parliaments, we saw many members, who had held certain positions for over a decade, flip-flop for the sake of Michael Ignatieff, and we know how that worked out. There might be one here in the House of Commons today.
Canadians do not have trust in the Liberal Party or the Liberal government to make any determinations on this. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound brings about a better way to make a little more common sense in guns and how they are classified.
Let us look at one issue that is not efficient, and the determination on a variant is as wide as the country. Not to criticize the RCMP, but on its website the classifications are listed and below that is a list of re-classifications. That tells us about how often guns get classified and re-classified, variants, and so on.
People should go to Cabela's, or local gun owners, or a shooting club and ask them what they think makes sense. They should ask people who have owned guns their entire life what they think. They will say that the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is on the right track and that there needs to be a determination.
Some people in the House of Commons may think that buying a gun is wrong, but it is right, it is legal, and there is a process which Parliament and the RCMP have set up to establish the legal way to acquire a gun. There is a legal way to bring a gun into the country and to sell it, and that way is not efficient. The right thing to do is not to reject it on the first run-through but to look at it.
We know the Liberal Party wants to try to have rural members elected. The rejection of this bill is certainly not a good start. A member from Toronto brought forward his bill on the way in which farmers should handle their livestock, which certainly is no way to gain favour with rural Canadians. The Liberals should have an open mind and take another look at the bill. When they are back in their constituencies next week, they should talk to gun owners and to the people at places that sell guns. They should call a U.S. manufacturer and ask him or her what it is like to try to import a gun into our country.
Again, I want to go back to the Mossberg example. It is a .22, not a high-powered rifle. It is not an assault rifle. It is a rifle that would be used on a farm to shoot a groundhog out in a pasture so cows or steers do not break their leg when they are out grazing. That is what we are talking about. Whether it has black plastic around it or wood on it should not make it, as an example, non-restricted or prohibited. That is ridiculous. The inner workings of it are laid out very clearly as well.
I hope we have further discussion on this. I hope when we get back to the next reading of the bill, the Liberals will have taken a second look at it, talked and consulted with people, and understand the value perhaps in doing this. I also hope they understand that what the member from Winnipeg has said has no connection to what we are talking about today. Fighting crime our inner cities and rural areas and guns that were brought here illegally have nothing to do with the classification of a .22 rifle. It is unfortunate that those kinds of references are made in the House, but they do happen from time to time, incorrectly.
I am pleased to support the bill. I know the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound has been a long-time advocate for safe hunting, safe licencing, and safe purchasing. His father is probably over 80 years old and has owned a gun his entire life. He grew up on a farm and understands safety. That is what we are talking about, and I believe if we change this, we will improve.
As I said, 162,000 guns are registered here. In addition to that, 4,000 guns have been used through the variant classification. People who are trying to sell these guns in their business and people who are trying to purchase these guns do not want to be made into criminals just by the snap of a finger. The member from B.C. referenced that he owned a gun, the Swiss Arms gun, which was classified as prohibited, overnight. Other members in the House, who still sit here today, with the stroke of a pen, would have been criminals if it had come to that. That is not what we are trying to do.
I am a gun owner. I have taken the course. I have a non-restricted classification. To be honest, I am not so sure if I will buy a gun right now with the Liberal government in power. I will likely wait until the Conservatives get back in before I buy another one because I want to ensure my guns do not get taken away. I am pretty sure the member from Winnipeg does not want to take the gun I own away, but we never know with these strokes of a pen.