Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today as Parliament resumes its work. I hope that you had a good holiday. It is nice to see you again, Madam Speaker.
I am very pleased to speak to gun control, an issue that has broad consensus in Quebec. I thank my colleague from Markham—Unionville for his work and for introducing this bill that seeks to amend the Criminal Code to imposes harsher sentences on those who unlawfully import firearms.
I will begin by sharing the Bloc Québécois' criticisms of Bill C‑238. I will also take this opportunity to point out that the Liberal government made commitments to prohibit all military-style assault rifles, ban semi-automatic assault rifles and give municipalities the authority to ban handguns. Those commitments have been slow to materialize.
It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois supports stricter gun control, especially for handguns. The vast majority of Quebeckers agree. This bill needs to be studied in committee, but we do have some concerns, which I will come back to.
We all want to combat violence, and more specifically gun violence. Given the dire consequences, there is no excuse for the Canadian government's complacent attitude towards gun control.
I want to talk about a few deeply disturbing stories.
“A troubled, hate-filled young man was able to kill six people, seriously wound five and traumatize 25 others for life, including four children, in less than two minutes, because he had easy access to firearms. This is what someone armed with a Glock pistol and five 10-round magazines can do.” That is a quote from the co-founder of the Quebec City mosque, about the massacre that happened there on January 29, 2017. Everyone remembers that tragic day in Quebec's capital city.
What we find so very upsetting is that the weapon used was acquired legally. The legal availability of handguns has not changed even though a September 2019 Angus Reid poll showed that 72% of Quebeckers want more restrictions on access to handguns.
There has been no progress despite the fact that seven out of 10 Canadians support a handgun ban. The federal government could have been expected to take this statistic more seriously. Moreover, there has been no progress despite Statistics Canada data showing that the number of gun homicides grew steadily from 2016 to 2019, an increase that closely tracked the dismantling of measures—