moved:
That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security that, during its consideration of Bill C-71, An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms, the Committee be granted the power to travel throughout Canada to hear testimony from interested parties and that the necessary staff do accompany the Committee.
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood.
I am extremely pleased to rise in the House today to speak to this motion. We are asking for this travel time for a number of reasons. First, our Liberal friends reduced to a minimum the number of committee meetings to debate this bill. Several stakeholders have not received an invitation to appear, including first nations, unfortunately.
Are we to believe that it did not occur to the Prime Minister, who says that his government is inclusive, open and transparent, to consult first nations on the new gun registry that he wants to introduce? Who hunts as much as the first nations? Who is as close to nature as the first nations? Who relies on guns for their subsistence as much as the first nations?
I cannot stay silent on this subject while the Liberals stubbornly persist in the belief that they can reduce crime with a bill that does not even go after criminals. This is unbelievable. They obviously have not learned a thing from their past mistakes.
Young people and new Canadians who were not here when the Jean Chrétien Liberals introduced the gun registry may not know that the idea was not only poorly conceived, but also an attack on law-abiding Canadians. When the initiative was launched, the minister said it would cost about $2 million, but it ended up costing almost $2 billion.
The Conservatives of Canada believe that the safety of Canadians must be the top priority of any government. The Liberals are not to be trusted when it comes to firearms legislation. Instead of cracking down on criminals, they treat law-abiding gun owners like criminals.
When we were in office from 2006 to 2015, we worked tirelessly to keep Canadians safe. We made promises and we kept them. For example, we passed the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, which simplified the licensing regime while strengthening firearms possession prohibitions for people convicted of domestic violence offences.
Furthermore, we passed the Tackling Violent Crime Act, which provides for mandatory prison sentences for serious firearms offences and stricter bail provisions for those accused of serious offences involving firearms.
We also passed the Act to amend the Criminal Code regarding organized crime and protection of justice system participants, which provides police officers and judges with new tools to fight organized crime, including new sentences for the reckless use of a firearm.
These are just some of the measures we took.
The government is already halfway through its mandate, and it is faltering. It lacks courage to keep its promises. The proposed legislation does not contain a single measure to deal with the criminal and unauthorized possession of firearms, nor does it address gang violence. The Liberals think that violence and gun crimes can be fixed by going after law-abiding citizens instead of combatting gangs and organized crime.
For the most part, this bill does little to nothing to improve public safety. However, it imposes a number of new conditions on law-abiding gun owners. On this side of the House, we know that law-abiding citizens are not the problem.
I can give other examples of promises the Liberals have made on firearms issues that have either been broken or simply remain unfulfilled. For instance, they promised the provinces and territories $100 million a year to help fight the illegal firearms trade. Where is that money?
On top of that, the Liberals have yet to implement the marking regulations on imported firearms, even though they promised to do so as soon as they took office.
The Liberals have also forgotten their promise to invest in technologies that would help customs officers detect and intercept illegal arms entering Canada from the United States.
Those are some concrete gun control measures. I would urge the government to leave hunters and sport shooters alone.
Finally, the Liberals promised they would not bring back the long gun registry, and yet that is exactly what they are doing with Bill C-71.
Yes, the wording of the bill opens the door to another registry. It is very subtle, but what is proposed is very clear.
As I said earlier, the bill does nothing to deal with street gangs, trace illegal weapons coming into the country, or combat organized crime. The Prime Minister needs to decide who the real threat is. Is it street gangs or farmers? Is it sport shooters or organized crime?