Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Kenora for this interesting adjournment debate. It is a topic that concerns us.
To answer the question he asked at the very end, I can assure him that there is nothing in Bill C-21 that takes aim at the vast majority of law-abiding Canadians, whether they are hunters, sport shooters or collectors who obey the law and who have our respect. There is absolutely nothing in Bill C-21 that targets law-abiding Canadians who own guns.
As for the gun smuggling he referred to in his question a few weeks ago, which he addressed to the Minister of Public Safety, it should be noted that Bill C-21 includes tougher sentences for those who are involved in smuggling operations. The maximum has increased from 10 to 14 years. It is rather surprising to see the Conservatives oppose such a measure. As for the bill he talked about in his speech, there was nothing in there that addressed smuggling as such.
Now let us look at what we are actually doing. Next Saturday marks the first anniversary of the measures we put in place to ban over 1,500 models of military-style firearms and their variants.
While the Conservatives listen to the gun lobby, we listened to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has been calling for such measures for decades, as have many civil society groups. Last May, we took extraordinary and necessary steps to ban more than 1,500 models of military-style firearms. These are weapons that were designed not for hunting or sport shooting, but for tactical situations for their effectiveness on the battlefield. They have a lethal character that makes them inappropriate for civilian use and makes them too dangerous in our society. That is why we decided to ban them on May 1, 2020, and I am very proud of that.
Last month, we introduced Bill C-21 to make further headway in our fight against gun violence. This bill will complete the ban on military-style firearms, which have no place in our society as I mentioned. Once passed, the bill will help reduce domestic violence and prevent suicide with the implementation of a red flag and yellow flag regime. These measures will allow individuals and the authorities to act more quickly and remove weapons from individuals who are a danger to themselves, society or their families.
The bill will help fight the criminal use of firearms and their diversion to the black market by requiring that a firearms licence be presented to import ammunition and by giving police organizations greater powers to share information when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a licence holder is supplying weapons to criminals. It is a measure that the Conservatives should support. We are surprised that they are not supporting these types of measures, which are enshrined in Bill C-21.
The bill will also create new offences for altering a gun's cartridge magazine and for depicting violence in firearms advertising.
In short, we believe it is essential to reduce firearms smuggling and trafficking in Canada to make our communities safer. I sincerely hope that our opposition colleagues will help us pass this bill, which, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, will also amend the Criminal Code to increase the maximum penalty of imprisonment for smuggling and trafficking firearms from 10 to 14 years. That is important. It sends a message to all judges about how significant these types of offences are and how seriously we take them because they have very clear impact on violence in our communities. I would certainly like to see my colleague from Kenora support Bill C-21.
This bill will also prevent people who have been arrested for smuggling from entering Canada by amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
I see that my time is running out. We could continue to talk at length about the good things that Bill C-21 has to offer, as well as the investments our government has made in budget 2021 to provide more resources to police authorities, whether the RCMP or border services, to combat trafficking and smuggling.