Debates of May 16th, 2023

Criminal Code

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (bail reform).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, entitled “Main Estimates 2023-24”.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, entitled “Asylum-Seekers at Canada's Border”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, it is my honour to table, in both official languages, a supplementary report to the 16th report, on the situation at Roxham Road border crossing.

Conservative members wish to reiterate what our leader, the hon. leader of the official opposition, has said, which is that the government could have acted much sooner to close Roxham Road. This inaction was highlighted by the fact that the government signed a secret protocol well over a year ago to close the safe third country agreement, but set an effective date of March 26, 2023. Conservative MPs did ask the Minister of Immigration, in November 2022, if the government had any intention of closing this loophole, but he kept answering that negotiations were ongoing, claiming that it could not be done easily. This was a statement we now know is false, as the signature had already been dry for half a year on the agreement to close Roxham Road.

We tried to call the minister before the committee on this, but the NDP-Liberals indicated they had no desire to allow transparency on this issue. This, once again, shows how the NDP-Liberal coalition is more concerned about making a media splash than solving problems.

Pesticides

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the esteemed chamber to present a petition calling for an end to the use of glyphosate and to stop the spraying of Canada's most widely sold pesticide. There have been many studies on the harm it can cause to people and the environment.

The use of glyphosate harms aquatic and terrestrial species. It causes a loss of biodiversity, thereby making ecosystems more vulnerable to pollution and climate change. It endangers pollinators, including wild bees and monarch butterflies, and exacerbates wildfires, since coniferous-only forests burn faster and hotter than mixed forests. The results are that the use of the pesticide harms residents in Canada, including infants and children who consume glyphosate residue in their food and water, and people who are exposed to it while outdoors for recreation, occupational activities, hunting and harvesting.

The petitioners call upon the Minister of Health to ban the sale and use of glyphosate and develop a comprehensive plan to reduce the overall pesticide use in Canada. They call upon the minister to stop the spraying.

Victims Bill of Rights

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a rare occasion when I rise to present a petition about which I have had conversations in depth with the person who brought it forward. I am really pleased to be able to present it today. I want to thank Elsje de Boer, who brought it forward.

Many of my constituents signed this petition; in fact, 553 people did. It deals with the perils of people in situations somewhat like the pre-disaster situation of people in Portapique who feared a neighbour but could not get the police to intervene.

This petition points out that there are 2.5 million victims of violent crime in Canada every year, but that the Victims Rights Act of 2015 does not allow police to intervene in a preventative, precautionary way. Petitioners point out that the Victims Bill of Rights Act of 2015, in section 28, says, “No cause of actions or rights to damages arises from an infringement or a denial of a right under this act” and, in section 29, says,“No appeal lies from any decision”.

In that context, the petitioners ask the House to consider that the Victims Bill of Rights Act is unconstitutional in depriving victims of crime the right to equal protection and equal access to benefits. Victims of violent crime often cannot get protection, and there is no opportunity for the victim or a victim's lawyer to defend their rights or question the statements of the accused or defence counsel.

Therefore, the petitioners ask that the government and all of us call on the Minister of Justice to amend the Victims Bill of Rights Act to conform to the charter and create an opportunity for victims or their lawyers to defend the rights of victims through police investigation and using the courts, including involving custody disputes where domestic violence is an issue.

We are seeing increasing focus in this place on coercive control. This petitioner and all the petitioners who have signed this petition are looking for us to do more.

Public Safety

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba to present a petition on the rising rate of crime. The common people of Swan River are demanding a common-sense solution to repeal the Liberal government's soft-on-crime policies that have fuelled a surge in crime throughout their community. Since 2015, crime has increased 32%, and gang-related homicides have increased 92% in Canada. What was once a safe rural community has now turned into a place where people fear leaving their homes.

The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies, which directly threaten their livelihoods and their communities. I support the people of Swan River.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms), as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

There are 13 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-21.

Motions Nos. 7 and 8 will not be selected by the Chair because they could have been presented in committee.

All remaining motions have been examined, and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note to Standing Order 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendment at the report stage.

Motions Nos. 1 to 6 and 9 to 13 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 6 and 9 to 13 to the House.

Motions in Amendment

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 0.1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 1.1.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 6.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 17.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 36.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-21, in Clause 36, be amended by replacing lines 16 and 17 on page 45 with the following:

“must deliver to a peace officer any firearm that they possess within 24 hours or”

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-21, in Clause 37, be amended

(a) by replacing line 4 on page 46 with the following:

“or a chief firearms officer”

(b) by replacing line 19 on page 46 with the following:

“cer the firearm to which”

(c) by replacing lines 29 and 30 on page 46 with the following:

“ferred to in subsection (4), deliver to a peace officer any firearm that they pos-”

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

moved:

That Bill C-21 be amended by deleting Clause 43.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

moved:

That Bill C-21, in Clause 45, be amended by adding after line 5 on page 51 the following:

“(1.11) The portion of paragraph 117(k) of the Act after subparagraph (ii) is replaced by the following:

of firearms, prohibited weapons, restricted weapons, prohibited devices, ammunition, prohibited ammunition, cartridge magazines and components and parts designed exclusively for use in the manufacture of or assembly into firearms;”

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to be speaking to Bill C-21 yet again. Last week, the Liberals moved a time allocation motion in the House to limit our ability to debate this at committee. After that passed, and after they forced a closure motion on my ability to speak in the House on that time allocation motion, then time allocation came to a vote. They did not really like what I had to say and wanted to shut me up, which is why they moved the closure motion. This meant that, in committee, every party, but our party in particular, only had five minutes to discuss each amendment and clause. There were many amendments and clauses, and their impacts were very far-reaching.

The Liberals restricted us significantly on time in committee; Conservatives, having only that limited time, were sure to use every last moment of it. We were at committee until, I think, almost one in the morning on Thursday, doing our due diligence on this bill. The bill should have taken weeks to thoroughly examine and question the officials at length on. Our debate was severely limited in many important ways.

Again, there are 2.3 million lawful firearms owners in this country whom many of these measures in Bill C-21 will impact. Therefore, I know the firearms community and their families were deeply concerned about that debate, as well as the fact that the NDP and the Liberals, working together, severely limited it.

However, that was last week, and here we are this week. This is likely our very last opportunity to debate this in the House, and today is the report stage amendment debate. I moved a number of amendments in a last-ditch effort to really fight for the people who are wrongfully impacted by Bill C-21. These are the lawful and good Canadian people who are the target of the Liberal government. Meanwhile, criminals get away free with bills like Bill C-5 and the government's reckless and dangerous catch-and-release bail policies, which were brought forward in 2019.

That is all going on; meanwhile, the firearms community, particularly hunters and Olympic sport shooters, will be deeply impacted by what is happening with Bill C-21. We have made that very clear; they also made it clear when they had the opportunity to come to committee and put words on the record.

Today, with my limited time, I want to address a few of the issues the minister has brought forward in recent days to communicate on his bill, Bill C-21. There are a number of falsehoods, or at least things I believe he is not telling the whole truth on.

The first thing I would like to talk about is that the minister mentioned recently, and it seems to be his go-to talking point, that 87% of Canadians support him in what he is doing. We found out at committee from the parliamentary secretary that this statistic is from one poll. For Canadians who do not follow polls, it is mostly an inside baseball political thing. An average poll has about 400 to 1,500 people. Okay, polls do tell us a lot; however, it is one poll.

Interestingly, a few years ago, the Liberal government spent $200,000 on a public consultation on its gun control ideology. This consultation was on what it is trying to do with Bill C-21 and its so-called buyback program, as well as the secret firearms advisory committee coming forward, which will ban hundreds of hunting rifles in the coming months. A couple of years ago it spent $200,000 of taxpayer dollars and consulted about 133,000 people.

There were 133,000 people consulted. Let us say that the poll, which the minister is arguing is the reason he is claiming the support of Canadians to do all this damage on the firearms and hunting community, likely included 1,000 people. There were 133,000 people who responded to this consultation, and 81% responded “no” on the question of whether more should be done to limit access to handguns, while 77% responded “no” on the question of whether more should be done to limit assault weapons.

Of course, “assault weapons” is a term made up by the Liberal government. It is not a real term. The Liberals are trying to make it one. When they say “assault weapons”, we know they really mean things like hunting rifles and sport shooting rifles. We heard this first-hand from firearms advocates from the hunting, indigenous and sport shooting communities, notably Olympians.

Regardless of Liberals' using their tricky language, 77% of 133,000 people still said they did not want anything more done to limit assault weapons. Moreover, 78% said to focus on the illicit market. This is brilliant, because that is what police and anti-violence groups are saying. We know criminals are being caught and released because of this reckless bail system they brought in a few years ago.

Canadians overwhelmingly agreed that we should go after the illicit market. I will say this again: This was based on consultation with 133,000 people. That is what all the data and the evidence says would have the biggest impact when we are talking about reducing gun violence, which I think every single party and every single person in the House of Commons supports. It is just the way that they are doing it that is so contentious, so divisive.

It is not just one thing. The minister also mentioned that he is focusing on the border. Oh, the border—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Does the hon. member have a phone near the microphone? The interpreters are asking us to check.

The hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, with the CBSA, he talks about all these investments, hundreds of millions of dollars of investments he says he has made, because gun smuggling is the major contributing factor to gun violence. In this one regard, I agree. We have heard from the Toronto police that eight to nine out of every 10 handguns used in crimes are from the U.S. We know that smuggling is also a huge problem in Montreal and Winnipeg. I have seen them myself from Winnipeg police. If we are going to tackle this problem, of course, we need to focus on the border. The problem is this: Where is all the money really going? Is it having a real impact?

The minister says it is, but if we look at the employment numbers, when the Liberals first came to power in 2015, there were 8,375 frontline officers, or just under 8,400. These are hard-working investigators and all the people who are the last front line at our border to stop drug smuggling, gun smuggling, human trafficking and all other illicit behaviour. Eight years later, with all this spending that he has announced, there are only 25 more frontline workers.

If the money is not going to the frontline workers who supposed to be, and are working on, stopping gun smuggling and drugs and all the other terrible things coming across the border, where is that money going? It is going to middle management. Again, we absolutely respect our public service, but when it comes to stopping gun violence and gun smuggling, we need those frontline officers. However, he has taken the number of middle managers from 2,000 in 2015 to 4,000 in 2023. Those are the numbers that we have. He has doubled the number of middle managers and done nothing for the frontline officers who are actually doing the hard work. Therefore, I am not going to give him a lot of credit when he wants to claim victory on the work he is doing at the border. I am not seeing it reflected in the hard-working and brave frontline officers we need to stop this problem.

Lastly, I will talk about police. The minister mentions police. I have given him credit; I think it is important to be fair. It is important that he has made some investments in police. When I talk to police, what do they tell me? I have talked to police in every corner of the country. Actually, I would love to go to the north. It is the last place I need to go to talk to police.

What they tell me is that funding is great, but what really impacts their day-to-day work is the fact that they are rearresting the same dangerous, violent repeat offenders every single weekend. Sometimes, they know these individuals on a first-name basis, because they arrest them so many times. Sometimes, they rearrest them in the same day. They are getting out and back on the streets, terrorizing innocent Canadians and inflicting violent crime on them.

We see this in Toronto. Last year, 40 individuals were responsible for 6,000 violent crime incidents in this country. Just to be specific, 40 individuals had 6,000 interactions with police that included violent crime in one year. We can imagine how much more good the police would be able to do if we could just tackle those 40 people. How many more drug rings, gun smugglers, human traffickers and all those complex crime rings could they take down if they were not caught up with 40 people causing 6,000 incidents, causing mayhem for the people of Vancouver? That is the same across every city that I have heard about.

Police are burnt out, exhausted and suffering from serious PTSD, because they are overworked. No amount of money is going to fix that. What will fix that is a government that comes in and focuses on getting tough on crime; jail, not bail, for violent repeat offenders; fixing the parole system, so that we are not letting people who are very dangerous out into our parole system and overburdening our parole officers; and fixing conditional sentencing, where people are now under house arrest after raping women. The conditional sentencing issue is because they brought in Bill C-5, which impacted people who commit sexual assaults; they can now serve their sentences from the comfort of home. Those kinds of things would sure help police fight violent crime and really make a difference in fighting gun violence.

That is what they want to see. That is what Toronto police and letters to government are universally saying. Premiers from every political stripe agree and have written multiple times to the Prime Minister, demanding bail reform. Those are the things that would really have an impact on reducing gun violence, not spending what estimates say is $6 billion on their so-called buyback regime, which is really a confiscation regime. That is where the resources they want to spend are going to go. Those are their priorities.

A Conservative government led by the member for Carleton would actually deliver results to Canadians, clean up our streets and reduce gun violence. That is our commitment to the Canadian people.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, through you, I would like to address the member opposite, who made some comments on this.

First, she asked about the definition of “assault weapons”. I would suggest that she speak to anyone who has lost a loved one to an attack by someone using an assault weapon to understand what those are. More than that, I realize that there has been a lot of communication with the gun lobby. In particular, the member has spoken to them. She mentioned in her comments that she filibustered committee, as well as that gun ownership is a right. Lastly, the member opposite mentioned the inability to debate this. There were two late night sittings, when there was an opportunity to debate these motions; the member opposite did not participate in either of them.

Is there a reason, other than fundraising through the gun lobby, that the member is raising these issues?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, perhaps the member has not been paying a lot of attention, but I believe the Minister of Public Safety has met with groups that are advocates for firearms ownership as well. I would be surprised if he did not.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I did.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, he just mentioned that he did, and I am glad that he has. Perhaps he should talk to the member who just asked the question. Is she suggesting that we do not talk to those who fight for our hunters and sport shooters? I am really unclear in that regard.

I will say that the individuals with whom the minister and the government are consulting are part of a group of doctors for gun control; this group wants to ban all civilian ownership of firearms. This includes banning ownership by indigenous Canadians, hunters and Olympic sport shooters. A main member of that group has met with the Liberals over 20 times; that member has been a key stakeholder in advising them what to do when it comes to firearms and has said publicly, on the record and multiple times on Twitter that all civilian ownership of firearms should be illegal and that it should all be banned. That is their true intention.

Perhaps the member does not represent any indigenous Canadians, hunters or sport shooters, but I would urge her to ask them what they think of that.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am rather surprised to see the amendments that my colleague is tabling today at report stage. Perhaps my colleagues did not follow what happened in committee last week. We spent several hours together debating Bill C-21, and there was a good consensus.

Yes, the Conservatives used every five-minute period they had to rise to speak. They took turns so that new people were coming in and asking the same questions as their colleagues did before. In the end, they voted in favour of all the amendments for ghost guns. They also voted in favour of the Bloc Québécois's amendments to require a valid licence to purchase cartridge magazines. There was firm consensus on the yellow-flag provisions, in particular.

Today, the Conservative Party is saying that there is nothing good about this bill and that it wants to do away with the amendments. I do not really understand the Conservative Party's rhetoric.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate working with the member. I think that I had a clear record of working very well on the public safety committee until November, when the Liberal government snuck through the largest hunting rifle ban in Canadian history at the eleventh hour. The government blew up committee with that. The minister then made us wait six weeks before we could resume.

It was the Liberals' fault that months went by and then weeks went by before we resumed. When we finally did, they had the support of the Bloc, which has largely abandoned its rural hunting community, unfortunately. The Bloc worked in lockstep with the Liberals and the NDP to call time allocation.

When we only have five minutes to talk about complex things, that can be very concerning. There were a number of times when we could have talked about issues at length, but we were not allowed to do so. The member is absolutely right. We used every five minutes that we could, that they allowed us to have.