Debates of June 18th, 2018

Firearms Act

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was astounded that my colleague from Kenora would actually accuse someone like me of having mental health issues, because I am one of the law-abiding firearms owners he is talking about. On the fact that he is suggesting that changes to the law made in Bill C-71 would address the issues in the United States, I might suggest that he would be better off pursuing a Congress seat than representing the fine folks in Kenora. To imply that making the changes we need to make here in Canada is the result of U.S. legislative policies is simply misguided.

I wish I actually did not have to rise in the House today to talk about this. I wish that the public safety committee, when the current government first took office, had been tasked with actually going across Canada and talking to people. If we were going to have a serious conversation about creating a safer Canada and increasing public safety, we could have had a thoughtful discussion. We could have had a less partisan discussion on this issue. Instead, the bill just came out of the blue. Bill C-71 came late in the mandate of the government after several years of trying to get electoral reform through. The Liberals cannot pass their marijuana legislation without the Senate pushing it back. They are trying to rig the election system again through Bill C-76.

This is where we are at. We are three years into a four-year mandate, ramming legislation through with a handful of hours at second reading, one meeting with the minister and bureaucrats at committee, and three more meetings with a handful of witnesses, a mere fraction of the number of people and organizations that wanted to be represented and have their voices heard. Now we just had notice from the government House leader that the Liberals are going to move time allocation, not only at the report stage of this bill but also at third reading, making sure that the voices that are reasonable and need to be heard will not be so that they can push through what can only be described as an emotionally based agenda when it comes to firearms.

There is not a single member of Parliament in this place who would not do the right thing if given the right options and good advice and empirical evidence to suggest that the legislation was going to improve safety for Canadians. If that actually happened, if that was the approach the government had actually taken, we might have come up with some legislation that had unanimous support. In fact, my colleague from Kenora who just spoke suggested the mental health side of things. There is nothing in Bill C-71 that would actually address mental health issues. There is nothing in Bill C-71 that would address any co-operation between federal investigators, law enforcement agencies, or firearms officers and anything to with any of the provincial mental health acts.

Here is why this bill is so offensive to the law-abiding firearms community. The Liberals say that nothing about this is a firearms registry. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a previous life, before I came here, I was a tenured faculty member at Red Deer College teaching systems analysis and design. I was a database architect and a database administrator before I came here. I understand information technology. I understand how to cross-reference information. Whether it is a distributed computing system or the technology we have today, with clouds of information out there, it is very easy.

The bureaucrats, the minister, and the police officers who came before the committee made it painstakingly obvious to anyone who was paying attention that with Bill C-71, every time there was a transaction and a firearm changed hands, whether through a sale, an estate inheritance, a gift, or lending or borrowing, Canadians would have to get permission from the government. If they were at a gun show on the weekend, if they were going to Cabela's, if they were selling a firearm to their neighbour, or if they were lending their rifle to their hunting buddy to go on a trip and were not on that trip too, they would have to get permission from the government to do this first.

Here is how this would work. The Liberal government today says that it is going to have someone on staff, 24/7, 365 days a year, to pick up the phone when the buyer and seller want to have a transaction. The Liberals' original legislation actually said that for every firearm that was going to be transacted, they would need a separate reference number. This is a registry, because there would be the seller's licence and the buyer's licence.

Here is my buyer's licence. It is a document. It has my licence number, my name, my address, and the type of licence I have. Every one of those reference numbers is going to transact the serial number, make, and model of that firearm, to be cross-referenced with distributed store records. I specifically asked the bureaucrats how this would work, and they said it would be no trouble for the central transaction database, with all the reference numbers, to easily go back to a store and find out where a firearm was originally purchased.

If I buy a firearm from Cabela's or another store, and I choose to sell that firearm to a hunting buddy, who then sells that firearm to someone else, and that firearm is stolen and used in a crime, the police would have the ability to implicate me and everyone in that entire chain of sales in the act that was eventually done by a criminal, rather than focusing on that criminal.

If I sold 40, 50, or 100 firearms in one transaction as a single individual and not as a business, maybe that would trigger some kind of threshold and someone would ask what was going on. Was it an estate dispersal? Was I getting rid of all my firearms? That might have done something to increase public safety, but unfortunately, this bill would not do anything.

As a matter of fact, all it would do is create more red tape, more bureaucracy, and more expense. It would make gun shows on weekends that Canadians participate in more difficult. When I asked the bureaucrats what would happen for a large gun show in Canada, they said they would need a few weeks' notice. Now it would be up to every gun show organizer in this country to let the firearms centre know that on a weekend, it would have to staff up. Do members know how many gun shows there are in Canada? Virtually every weekend of the year there is one somewhere in Canada.

We did not talk to anyone. We did not talk to any gun show organizers. We did not hear from anyone from the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, which is in the retail business. None of those organizations were brought in to testify before the committee so that the government would have an opportunity to understand what it was it was going to do.

Bill C-71 would create a registry of firearms transactions, to be maintained by the firearms centre, which would be cross-referenced with all the records that would now be mandatory for store owners to keep for a period of 20 years or more. The period would be 20 years or more, because the legislation does not say for just 20 years. It says that if Canada acceded to an international treaty that required Canadians to store the records for even longer, it would be automatic in law that those records would need to be kept longer. It would not even come back before Parliament.

We have discovered that Canada is already involved in negotiating one of those treaties, so it is very convenient that the legislation would be there so that we could keep the records even longer.

It is a $3-billion boondoggle. We have not had a single government official say how much more the government is going to spend on the firearms centre to ramp up the staff to keep track of the new gun registry.

Classification is another thing that frustrates firearms owners. Bill C-42, the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, actually put the decisions back in the hands of elected representatives so that at least there was some recourse for law-abiding firearms owners who, by the stroke of a pen, went from one day being law-abiding firearms owners to the next day being in possession of prohibited property.

The Liberals could have adopted a very simple fix. We simply suggested taking it out of the hands of one individual and creating a panel. I put a recommendation before the committee to have five technical experts, including police, military, and civilian experts, advise us, thereby depoliticizing the issue altogether. In this way, it would not be in the hands of one entity or in the hands of politicians. We could get a panel of actual experts to make those recommendations and fix the rules.

We know that there are three basic criteria for handguns: rimfire, centrefire, barrel length, and so on. These criteria tell us if a firearm is restricted or prohibited. There is nothing that prescriptive in the long-gun classification system. It is very subjective, and that is the problem with the rules. The minister says that it can hide behind the RCMP, because the RCMP simply has to follow the rules, but the rules are not clear. They are very subjective. It is very frustrating.

Last but not least is the notion of licensing. As my colleague from Kenora rightly pointed out, if we go back to the passage of legislation in 1977, there are firearms owners in Canada who have had licences for almost 40 years. They would now, when they went to renew their licences, have to answer for everything they did back when they 18 years old, some 20 years before 1977, for example, as if the mental health issues from 60 years ago were going to be the basis for denying them a licence. Mark my words, someone is going to go back and dredge this up, and a current law-abiding firearms owner who has had a licence for 30 or 40 years is going to be denied a licence. Do members know how to appeal that? A person has to make an application before a court. A person has to hire a lawyer, go before a court, and get a judge to overrule the decision of the chief firearms officer.

We provided an amendment at committee, which the Liberals shot down. As a matter of fact, it was an amendment proposed by a rural Liberal member from Ontario, who suggested that we create a system of appeal so that law-abiding firearms owners were not caught up in being denied their licences if they had had them for a number of years.

I could go on for another couple of hours about the failures of Bill C-71, but my time is up, so I will happily answer any of the misguided questions the Liberals have for me.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned, implied, in fact, that individuals should not be held accountable for the acts they carried out when they were 18 years old. He referenced a specific age. What if an individual happened to commit an act of violence, say domestic abuse against a wife or abuse against a child? Should that not be taken into account when assessing whether someone should have a gun licence?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it shows just how much my hon. colleague, who sits on the committee, does not understand about the continuous eligibility criteria that every firearms owner in Canada already has. Every day, every firearms-licenced owner in Canada is checked. If the police go to a domestic dispute or if any court issues an order against a person for committing any type of crime, it is automatically flagged in the firearms system. The next day, that individual will get a knock on the door, the police will show up, and if the person has firearms in the house, they will confiscate them until the issue is resolved. The fact that the member does not know that means that there are very serious problems with Bill C-71.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I found it very interesting to hear what the member across the way had to say, particularly what he construed as a registry when looking at the handling of business records. He also mentioned different amendments that were not accepted. What he did not mention was an amendment proposed by the Conservatives, if anyone wants to check the record, which was unanimously accepted. In fact, my friend across the way voted in favour of it. It specifically stated, as an addition to the Firearms Act, “For greater certainty, nothing in this Act shall be construed so as to permit or require the registration of non-restricted firearms.”

How does my friend suddenly construe from this legislation something that he himself voted for and say that it cannot be construed in that way?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague does not have her facts straight. The day that amendment went through at committee, I was at the Stittsville range for shooting day, where I won top marksman, so I could not have possibly been at the committee. She actually said I was. If she cannot even get her facts straight on where I was on a particular day, I am sure she has no credibility on the rest of the file.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I currently have a gun licence, both unrestricted and restricted, and I have friends who go to the range quite often.

What does the member have against the RCMP being entrusted with classifying what would be prohibited, restricted, or otherwise?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a problem with the RCMP being involved in this process at all. I have said this publicly many times. Should the RCMP be consulted, with their technical expertise, about the classification of firearms? Absolutely, it should. Should other police officers or agencies perhaps be involved? Yes, they should. Should someone from the military be involved? Some of the issues we heard at committee were that some people are confused about what a firearm is, what an assault firearm is, and what a military firearm is versus a civilian-use firearm. Even though they might look the same, they are not the same at all. Should we have a military expert involved? Yes. Should there be civilian experts on that panel? Should there be a panel of five? I put the amendment forward. The reason I wanted to do that was to protect the integrity of the RCMP, because I have a lot of respect for the RCMP. I actually wanted to join the RCMP at one point in my career.

I do not have a problem with this. If the Liberals do not want politicians to make the decisions, and the Conservatives do not think the people who enforce the law should be the ones making the law, let us find some common ground through having a panel of five technical experts to go through this process and make recommendations on not only what the classification rules should be but on what the ultimate classifications are. That would depoliticize this and would win the trust of most firearms owners in Canada. I do not know why that reasonable amendment was turned down by the member's colleagues.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

[Member spoke in Cree]

[English]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today.

The people of Winnipeg Centre believe in effective gun control measures that prioritize public safety and also ensure that law-abiding gun owners are treated fairly. During its last term, the Conservative government loosened gun laws through a series of legislative and regulatory amendments. Astonishingly, Canada has seen an increase in gun violence in the past three years.

The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security proposed a number of significant amendments and accepted amendments from all recognized parties. A Conservative amendment even help reassure people that this was not a long-gun registry.

In 2016, there were 223 gun-related homicides in Canada, 44 more than in the previous year. This is an increase of 23%, the highest increase since 2005. In 2016, guns were the most common murder weapon used in this country. Between 2013 and 2016, the number of domestic violence cases involving a firearm increased from 447 to 586.

We proposed a suite of measures, each one directly related to strengthening public safety and security. These measures will keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and help police locate firearms that have been used to commit crimes. That means Bill C-71 is very important, because it will help save lives and solve crimes.

Bill C-71 will improve background checks for people applying to obtain or renew a firearms licence. It will also require firearms sellers to check whether the buyer is authorized to own a firearm, and it will tighten up the rules governing the transportation of restricted and prohibited firearms.

It is always fun to have the chance to speak some French in the House.

The 2015 Liberal Party platform made nine specific commitments related to firearms. Bill C-71 includes the platform commitments that require legislative changes. These include repealing changes made by Bill C-42 that allow restricted and prohibited weapons to be freely transported without a permit, and putting decision-making about weapons restrictions back in the hands of police and not politicians. It is time to have the experts actually doing the work, not politicians as it was under the Harper Conservatives. We are also looking to require enhanced background checks for anyone seeking to purchase a handgun or other restricted firearms. We are going to require purchasers of firearms to show a licence when they buy a gun, and require all sellers of firearms to confirm that the licence is valid before completing the sale. We are going to require firearms vendors to keep records of all firearms inventory and sales to assist police in investigating firearms trafficking and other gun crimes. We will not create a new national long-gun registry to replace the one that had been dismantled.

In my riding of Winnipeg Centre, gang crime is an important issue. It is something that goes hand in hand with this legislation. In fact, as part of our commitment to make it harder for criminals to get and use handguns and assault weapons, and to reduce gang and gun violence in Canada, our government has announced up to $327 million over five years and $100 million annually thereafter in new funding to help support a variety of initiatives to reduce gun crime and criminal gang activities.

The Government of Canada also brought together experts, practitioners, front-line personnel, and decision-makers for a summit on criminal guns and gangs in March 2018. The criminal guns and gangs summit is an unprecedented national summit on the challenges, solutions, and best practices in the fight against gun crime, and in combatting the deadly effects of gangs and illegal guns in communities across Canada, especially in communities like Winnipeg Centre. The government heard from key stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, community and mental health organizations, indigenous groups, and government and non-governmental organizations.

I would like to quote my good friend, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness:

Too many young people have been killed and too many communities have been marred by gun crime and gun violence. It doesn't have to be this way. By working together, we can make our communities safer through greater enforcement, collaboration and prevention. The federal government is making major new investments to tackle this scourge and will bring all levels of government and our partners together to confront this problem at the Summit on Criminal Guns and Gangs.

I have already talked about some of the crime that has been going on with guns in this country, and the increase in the number of gun crimes that have been happening. However, we have also seen an increase in the number of incidents of organized crime. For instance, between 2012 and 2016, there was an increase in murders of 17%, in manslaughter of 12%, in extortion of 74%, and in human trafficking of 300%.

The meth crisis especially is expanding, facilitated by organized crime groups. The production, trafficking, and sale of illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, are often the main cause of gun and gang violence. We are taking action on that not only with this program of $327 million, but we are also ensuring that we have a bill, Bill C-71, which is trying to bring a balanced and equitable approach to what we can do and how we can work together.

I had the opportunity to read about some of the issues that are going on. We have enhanced background checks. We will ensure there is licence verification. We will ensure that record-keeping is done by vendors to be able to trace firearms used in crimes. I was looking online and I noticed that, for instance, pharmacies have to keep records for 10 years related to drug use and patients' records and who gets prescription drugs in our country. I think it is okay if we ensure that vendors actually keep some records so that if the police need them when a crime is committed we can ensure that they have the full story about what is going on.

I would also like to talk about weapons classifications. Firearms are classified as prohibited, restricted, or for anything that does not fall within those two categories, non-restricted. The Criminal Code apparently lays out the criteria for what technical aspects of a firearm make it either prohibited or non-restricted, and the associated regulations directly list several dozen models. The RCMP is tasked with analyzing new firearms and firearm variants to determine which classification they will have under the criteria passed by Parliament.

In the spring of 2015, Bill C-42 of the Stephen Harper Conservatives granted the Governor in Council, or cabinet, the ability to overrule the variant classifications made by the experts, the RCMP, and to downgrade the classifications of firearms. This was done for two groups of firearms, the CZ 858 and the Swiss Arms rifles. As a former member of the 22nd Regiment, that is very concerning to me, because when we look at a CZ 858, it is a submachine gun. It resembles an AK-47. This is a weapon that has been used in the Vietnam War, in the war in Afghanistan by the Czechoslovakian army, and in the Libyan civil war. I do not think this type of weapon should be involved in hunting, as we should have respect for animals. I know most hunters have a great respect for hunting because it is a good thing to go out onto the land to provide for one's family. However, I do not believe that a weapon that resembles an AK-47, and has been used in armed conflicts around the world, is perhaps an appropriate weapon to have in our country. Individuals who own these weapons as of June 30, 2018 will be grandfathered. The government will offer a three-year amnesty to provide owners of affected firearms with time to come into compliance with the grandfathering requirements. During the amnesty period, owners will be authorized to possess but not use their firearms until licensing and registration requirements are met.

There is an awful lot to cover, but I would like to talk about one final thing before the opposition can try to tear me apart. There were 1,200 Grant Park students who walked out of class on March 14, just around the time of the summit. They walked out of class because they wanted to raise the issue of gun violence in their community. They were upset with the propositions put forward by many politicians who refused to acknowledge that there is gun violence in our country, and who have not proposed adequate solutions. This is why I am very proud of what we are trying to do, which is to strike that balance not only with respect to legislative changes, which are simply reasonable changes, which is not a long-gun registry, and ensuring that we have good records in case a criminal investigation needs to be undertaken, and also having programs to ensure that we provide our youth and those who are most vulnerable an ability not to become involved in gangs and criminal activity.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, law-abiding firearms owners have to go through a rigorous screening and education process in order to obtain a licence to possess firearms in Canada.

I wonder if my colleague has obtained his possession and acquisition licence, and if he could give a technical description to the House of Commons on the two firearms that he listed in Canada, their usage in gang-related violence in Canada, and how many people who are law-abiding firearms owners use those, as opposed to people who own them for their farms or use them as tools in rural communities. Perhaps he could actually go through, step by step, the processes required for a law-abiding firearms owner to acquire the weapons that he mentioned in his comments.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in fact I have never owned a firearm personally. I have only used a firearm while I was in the Canadian Armed Forces. I know how to take apart a C7 or a C9. I can do all the things that are required of me not only in the exercise, but if required, even in the exercise of my duties as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. I am very proud of that.

I would point out there are a number of leading organizations that are in favour of this, such as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Labour Congress, the women's shelters in Canada, the National Association of Women and the Law, the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, and the PolySeSouvient. People must remember the 14 women who were killed in 1989. As well, the Canadian Coalition for Gun Control, which represents over 200 groups, and the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association are in favour of this legislation. It is an important consideration that there are many great groups that are actually in favour of this legislation.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's service in the Canadian Armed Forces. A number of veterans who are lawful users of firearms are probably wondering why the member does not have more of a background to answer the question from my colleague for Calgary Nose Hill.

I will make this a very simple question for my friend. He quoted extensively from the little PR stunt that the Minister of Public Safety had on his gangs and guns conference. He quoted the minister. He talked about that summit. Could the member point to one section of this bill that addresses gang-related violence or illegal firearms used by gangs?

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it was actually in the last budget, budget 2018. If the member would like to take the time to actually read the budget, he would see that it is in that budget.

The government legislation cannot be taken in isolation. It actually has to be taken as part of a whole-of-government approach. One cannot simply take things by themselves, piece by little piece, cherry-picking how one wishes to make a point. One has to take an overall consideration of all the measures that the government is taking and its actions in order to address the larger issues that affect our society.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one cannot take simple things and then equate it to a larger whole. I think the member has misconstrued the actual provisions in Bill C-42 in the previous Parliament.

The Minister of Public Safety, at the advice of his technical firearms committee, could bring a recommendation to the Governor in Council, the cabinet, and bring to his colleagues a rationale for change to the status of a particular firearm to overrule the RCMP.

The RCMP do a great job. However, that legislation did not take the power away from the RCMP. It just allowed a check. Does the member not believe in the importance of having oversight over the bureaucracies that we have in this country, that politicians should be accountable, and they should be able to act on technical advice?

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will try and make it short. At the end of the day, we do need experts. It is about science and it is about using data. For instance, in Winnipeg we actually did a long census looking at the homelessness issue, not only 18 months ago but just last month. We released that data. It is to allow us to make sure that we have the data and the statistics necessary to put in place good government programs.

In this case, if the experts have decided that these should be prohibited arms, we should rely on that expert testimony, and we should not, within reason, question it too much.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year the Prime Minister had a bit of an incident when he went to India. That trip did not go so well. It was supposed to be a visit where a bunch of photo ops would take place that ostensibly would have gained him votes in certain communities in Canada. He had very expensive costumes provided to him and very expensive photographers. He brought his own Indian chef to India. All of these things were supposed to do wonderful things for the Prime Minister's reputation, but it did not go so well. It was probably one of the worst foreign trips in Canadian history. It was ostensibly a disaster.

It was one of those moments when everything crystallized. All of the Prime Minister's gaffes, spending scandals, errors, everything that Canadians were willing to forgive just kind of crystallized in a moment. Canadians knew he was not in it for them, but in it for himself. It was that moment.

I can imagine Gerald Butts sitting around asking how to change the channel. The Liberals looked south of our border for something concerning. They looked toward gun violence in the United States and decided to capitalize on that. They tabled a gun bill in Canada in an effort to make the situation in the United States the same as it is in Canada in an effort to change the channel politically. That is disgusting. Really.

When we think about the dialogue that is happening in the U.S. around public safety and for Justin Trudeau, the so-called defender of rights—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Order. The hon. member knows that we do not use the names of individual members here, but rather their titles.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for the Prime Minister to use what was happening in the United States to try and change the channel on his debacle in India was something that I think will go down in history as a very misguided attempt to do so. He tabled the bill in the House, capitalizing on gun violence in a country that does not have the same laws as us, which is disgusting. Canada is not the United States. For colleagues who are watching around the world, my colleagues opposite are applauding that comment.

However, I am a law-abiding firearms owner, and from the moment I decided to become a law-abiding firearms owner to the moment that I actually became one, it took me a year. In Canada, it is not like buying a latte: here is a latte and so I am a latte owner. The same decision tree does not exist to be a firearms owner in Canada. We have very rigorous screening processes and education processes. For those who are watching at home, my colleagues across the aisle are laughing and mocking me. Why? It is because they have not gone through this process. Many of them do not understand the fact that a lot agricultural communities rely on firearms as a tool of their trade and there are actually hundreds of thousands of Canadians who participate in sport shooting, as I do, and I am a proud sport shooter. I am also proud to abide by the laws of this country.

I have been a member of cabinet. I am a member of the Privy Council. I have gone through extreme vetting to become part of that. I accept my responsibility to become educated on firearms and to accept a vetting process that is associated with the right to own a firearm in Canada. In fact, my name is run through databases every day to see if I have committed a crime, because I am a firearms owner. Again, my colleagues are mocking me for this. The Liberal Party is mocking me as I give this speech.

The Liberals do not understand how critical it is to be pragmatic on these issues in Canada. They do not understand the vetting that I go through. I think the vetting for me to be a cabinet minister and to have access to state secrets is actually less rigorous than it is for me to own a restricted firearm in Canada every day.

In October 2014, as many of my colleagues were here, we were subjected to a very serious incident in the House of Commons. We were shot at by a terrorist, and I had people say to me, “Well, maybe if we only had more stringent gun laws in Canada that this wouldn't have happened”. Therefore, I took it upon myself to understand what it actually took to own a firearm in Canada. The journey I went through to educate myself on this made me realize that Canada has a very strict set of laws that firearms owners need to adhere to.

Now, for the Prime Minister to table this legislation and try to deflect from his India trip when the U.S. was going through a very serious conversation around firearms legislation in a completely different context than Canada is disgusting. Why? It is because we actually have gang-related violence in Canada. Anybody who lives in Toronto wants to have a conversation about how we protect our citizens from the effects of gang violence and illegal firearms ownership.

The bill would do nothing to protect people from firearms that have been obtained illegally. It would do nothing to prevent gang violence. Further, the government has tabled proposed legislation to water down the penalties associated with gang violence and with terrorism. I stood up in the House of Commons today and asked the government to prosecute ISIS terrorists who are in Canada who are walking free, and who have confessed to their crimes on public podcasts. What is the government's response to any sort of crime in this country? It is to prosecute people who abide by the laws, under very strong penalties, very strong educational requirements, and we are not in the United States of America, for political gain, to change the channel, and that is wrong.

Every person in the House should be focused on protecting Canadians from crime and the bill does nothing. If anything, it vilifies people who have obtained their firearms lawfully and are focused on safety, who want to educate and teach people about the respect that owning a firearm carries.

Why can we not be focused on talking about how we actually prevent gang violence, prevent people from illegally obtaining firearms, instead of doing something that does none of that? All this does is prosecute farmers. It prosecutes someone like me. When I get off the plane in Calgary after a long week, I do not mind firing off a set of ammo at the range. It makes me focus and makes me respect the weapon I am holding.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

My colleagues opposite just heckled me with “Annie Oakley”. That shows how they do not understand the community, the sport, or the respect for firearms. I tabled a petition in the House asking for the members of the committee that is supposed to inform the government, the subject matter experts on this, to at least have the licence that I have, that I understand how to use, but they refused. Why? Because this is all about ideology, not about keeping Canadians safe. The government does not give two hoots about keeping Canadians safe. The Liberals care about the politics of the Prime Minister's ego because that is what is keeping them in office. That is what Canadians rejected in Chicoutimi tonight, by the way. They care about changing the channel, but regardless of political stripe, Canadians are standing up and saying this makes no sense. If we want to keep Canadians safe from firearms, then deal with the people who are illegally bringing it in and using it illegally in gang violence.

The RCMP should have an oversight with regard to firearms reclassification. People who are on the committee advising the government on this should understand the basics of requiring a licence. If the government really cares about keeping Canadians safe, it should not be watering down sentences for major crimes in the omnibus justice bill, Bill C-75. The bill does nothing to protect Canadians. All it does is vilify people who play by the rules. On this side of the aisle, we stand up for law-abiding Canadians and we will keep Canadians safe.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we talked about what priorities the government should be looking at. What does the member suggest the government could look at? Could she also give us a brief update on the election results tonight?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, across the country people are rejecting virtue signalling, do-nothing politics that cost Canadians a lot and do nothing for them. That happened in Quebec tonight and as an Alberta MP, I am so incredibly proud of the results in Chicoutimi. Between this and the election results in Ontario, people are rejecting policies that cost Canadians so much and do nothing for them and that is what the bill does.

All the bill does is create bureaucracy and inefficiency and vilify people who play by the rules. Canadians have had enough of that. They have had enough of the Prime Minister's socks, his India trip, and his spending scandals. They have had enough of $14-billion deficits. They have had enough of $8-million rinks out front. They have had enough. I have had enough.

Across this country, people are raising their voices and saying it is time for change. It is time for better policy. It is time for hope. It is time for good governance and congratulations to Chicoutimi for being the first on the vanguard of making that happen.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, the people of Chicoutimi did indeed get a chance to say out loud what all Canadians have been thinking for months. Canadians feel they are being ignored by a government whose priorities do not match theirs.

Tonight, we are gathered here to debate a bill on, among other things, the issue of firearms. Chicoutimi is home to thousands of law-abiding Canadians, including moms and dads, who consider guns to be part of their lives. They do not own guns for nefarious reasons. On the contrary, they own them because they are carrying on the tradition of their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents. That is true in Chicoutimi, Hay River, Flin Flon, and Richmond. It is true from coast to coast to coast.

Based on her personal experience, could the member tell us how all Canadians, from coast to coast to coast, are united on this issue, which comes down to a matter of respecting all Canadians?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a geographically diverse country. I know so many people living in agricultural communities who understand that a firearm is part of the agricultural life. I know many people in first nations communities who understand that this is part of their traditional lifestyle. I know many Olympic sports shooters who understand that when one owns a firearm there are responsibilities associated with that.

They are proud to abide by the laws we have set in Canada. They are tired of being vilified by left-wing social justice warriors who believe that the only way to reduce gang violence and illegal gun use in our country is by vilifying them. We are saying, enough is enough. They should get educated and understand that if we want to see change in this country it cannot come by making the ATT a paper or attaching it to the licence, or saying, “Oh my goodness, maybe I should phone about this.” No, the government should put forward stronger penalties for gang violence and call it out for what it is.

There is nothing in the bill that would make it more difficult for people to obtain firearms illegally. In fact, it vilifies soldiers who have PTSD and who just want to have pride in their firearms usage. It is probably going to drive people who have mental health issues away from seeking treatment. We are not talking about the respect that our soldiers who go on to have careers in training on firearms or sports shooting have for their weapons after serving our country. This bill was designed to be a weapon for the Prime Minister's ego, after his disastrous India trip and after he tried to take political credit for what was happening in the United States. That is disgusting.

He should be standing up against gang violence in Surrey. He should be standing up against gang violence in Toronto. He should be putting forward stronger penalties for this. He has done nothing except lower penalties for this. That is what our party will continue to stand against, and I will continue to stand against.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary Nose Hill gave a great presentation. It was really inspiring and hopefully our colleagues across the aisle were paying attention. I know they were awestruck because they did not ask any questions. She must have really had their attention. She must have done such a good job answering our questions that the Liberals did not ask her one question during the question and answer period.

We are talking about Bill C-71. What a loss of opportunity. The day is winding down and Liberal members want to get out of here as soon as possible. Let us just think of the things that should be going on in this chamber right now. Let us think of all the priorities of Canadians that are not a priority of the Liberal government. Bill C-71 deals with gun violence, but what would it do for gang violence? It would do nothing for gang violence, nothing for illegal ownership. Those guys just go through the revolving door and there is zero impact. Bill C-71 will not do that. We have established that quite clearly.

What about rural crime? Rural crime is a huge issue in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and rural Ontario. The farmers who have guns for shooting ducks or maybe the odd bear that may run into their yards, or for skeet shooting, are the ones now targeted. They are being told they are doing something wrong, so this legislation is for them. What about the guy who drove into someone's yard and stole a quad, or the guy who drove into someone's yard and shot at a family, or the guy who drove into someone's yard and stole things out of a shed for the fourth or fifth time? What is being done to catch those people and make sure they stay in jail? What is being done to take that revolving door away? How are judges being instructed to give sentences that actually stick? That is what the farmers would say. If we were talking about that, they would be watching us on TV and applauding all of us. However, what are we talking about? We are talking about law-abiding citizens going through more processes, more bureaucrats being hired, and a backdoor long-gun registry for people who already follow the law. It is so disappointing.

If the Liberals had their priorities right, what would we be talking about in this chamber tonight? Jobs and the economy should the top topics. We are seeing investment flee this country left, right, and centre, and the Liberals seem to ignore it. They say it will be fine; it will come back some day. It will. In 2019, when there is a Conservative government, it will start coming back, but until the Liberals change their ways, it will not. It keeps bleeding out. The numbers are very real. The impact on jobs, on our kids, and on the ability of our kids to find jobs is very real.

We could be talking about NAFTA. The NAFTA negotiations are ongoing. We could be discussing the future of that and the path forward. We could talk about the softwood lumber agreement and the forestry workers. There is still nothing in place for them. We could talk about the TPP. That would be a great thing to talk about, something the Conservatives and the Liberals actually agree on. We want to get this done and get it through the House as quickly as possible. Why has that not been put forward so we could do that this week, so that the farmers, the manufacturers, the people who require export markets could take advantage of those markets in this time of turmoil? Why are we not talking about that? No, we are telling those same farmers that we are talking about Bill C-71 and making them criminals, making their lives even more difficult if they own a .22 or a shotgun. It does not make sense to the average Canadian.

There are lots of things that people are concerned about moving forward. In the auto sector, there are tariffs coming. Where is the discussion on that? Again, the Liberals have nothing to say. They have no game plan, and yet they will talk about Bill C-71 and all sorts of things. They will keep the House going for as many days as it takes to pass legislation on pot, and yet when it comes to something like the TPP, where are they? They say, “Let's go home.” It is unreal. It is absolutely amazing.

Where are their priorities? Where are their heads with regard to what Canadians really want? The by-election proved that. Their priorities are so mixed up and delusional, somewhere out there in left field, that they have lost the basis of reality. The reality is that if there are no jobs, we cannot take care of the environment, because the environment and the economy go hand in hand. Let me repeat that: The environment and the economy go hand in hand. We have to take care of the economy in order to take care of the environment, and they have ignored the economy. That is the reality.

In five minutes, I have touched on a few things that the Liberals could take care of that would make our country a better place to live. That is just in five minutes.

The Liberals have had two years, and they have done nothing. How many bureaucrats have been hired in the last two years? The government has spent a lot of money, but on what? I do not have a new bridge in Prince Albert. I do not have a new hospital. I still have sewer and water issues on all the reserves.

However, the Liberals are in control. They have their finger on the pulse. They know what they are doing. Canadians are starting to realize very quickly that they do not. I know my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill talked about the trip to India. I think it was the BBC article that made Canadians start to look and say, “Holy cow, what did we do?” Canada is back. What does that mean? What is the Liberal interpretation of “Canada is back”? If that is what it is, please, somebody do something.

I go back to my riding to talk about a variety of things. I think back to the last long-gun registry. My riding was actually a Liberal riding, and then came the long-gun registry. It will never go Liberal again.

Do members know what happened? Do members know why that changed? It was because there were a lot of people who looked at that riding and said that the Liberals at the time, Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale, were balancing the budget. People thought they could maybe buy into that—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Order. I have to remind the hon. member not to use names—