Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague for the work he does in reaching out to his constituents. I understand the many valid concerns that they might express about a piece of legislation.
The member mentioned stores keeping records. Keeping records has been law in the U.S. for a number of decades now, as the parliamentary secretary said. The fact is that in the United States, stores are required to keep records forever, whereas this bill says it is only for 20 years. There are certain safeguards in place to make sure this information is not circulating freely in the hands of the government in the way the information in the gun registry did.
Nonetheless, it would give certainty in the law that records would be maintained and it would also allow police, should they require a warrant, to be able to access information that might help them in an investigation of an unlawfully obtained firearm.
To the point about the transportation permits, one of the key things or big issues that we heard at committee was that often a number of law-abiding firearm owners are going be requiring these permits at the same time—for example, if a gun show is being held, or something like that.
That is why in my speech I said the devil will be in the details. We have asked the minister and others before the committee what will be done to make sure that wait times are not too long and that it will be an easy system to access so that law-abiding gun owners who are going to a gun show, for example, would be able to obtain a permit in a timely manner.
One of the ideas put forward was that maybe something could be on the Internet. Well, when we see what happens with things like Phoenix, we can be wary about how computer systems work. The devil will be in the details, but it is a concern that we hear and that we hope to see addressed moving forward.