Mr. Speaker, this Tuesday we saw, with great fanfare, the Minister of Public Safety announce changes to our new firearms law. We expected some changes that would actually keep guns out of the hands of gang members, but we saw little of that. What we did see, however and unfortunately, was changes adding additional red tape to lawful firearms' ownership and then buying non-restricted firearms in Canada.
Sadly, though, the worst of the worst happened. Along with my colleagues behind me, what we predicted was a return of the long gun registry to Canada, not just through the back door, as in the new reference system where every non-restricted firearm will need a reference number and be tracked by the registrar, but also deliberately handing through the front door a copy of the old firearms registry data to the province of Quebec.
This is indeed shameful and a breach of the Liberals' promise to their constituents in rural Canada that they would not re-establish the long gun registry. It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister is so uninformed about Canadian firearms law.