Debates of May 16th, 2023

Criminal Code

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, as we have heard in the public—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Seeing that there are other individuals who seem to want to ask questions or make comments, I would ask them to please hold off because it is not their turn. I did not recognize them.

The hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have learned their lessons from Facebook. Facebook knows how to raise a lot of money because it keeps on pressing people's emotional buttons. This is a party that has become expert in rage farming. That is what they do. They churn it out. They take videos out of context. It is all to get people hopping up and down, mad about blatant mistruths. Yes, they have taken great lessons from Twitter, from Facebook, from everyone who has become an expert on this. They have become masters at keeping people angry so that they can rake in the cash. I will take no lessons from them on that.

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

Madam Speaker, the NDP usually agrees with nearly everything the government does here in the House. The NDP is almost like the Liberal farm team. The New Democrats agree with the Liberals on everything except one thing, which the member explained quite well in his speech. His colleague brought forward an amendment in committee to expand the exemption for sport shooters. He was trying to include groups in that exemption, including the International Practical Shooting Confederation, or IPSC.

Exempting these groups would have created a huge loophole. In fact, it would have made the handgun freeze completely obsolete and useless. The NDP, which claims to be in favour of better gun control and a handgun freeze, introduced this type of amendment in committee. I find it hard to understand why they would want to exempt as many sports shooters as possible. That attempt was nearly successful.

I would like to understand the NDP's position. Are they for or against better gun control?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have spoken to sport shooters, and they just simply want to be able to continue their sport. I would redirect my hon. colleague to the testimony that we had from none other than the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. They said that a handgun freeze is absolutely one method of reducing access to these types of firearms, but they also qualified that by saying they support allowing law-abiding handgun owners to practise their sport.

The NDP is on the same side as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, to nobody’s surprise, the Liberals are missing the mark once again. As my Conservative colleagues have reinforced time and time again, legal firearms owners are not criminals. However, Bill C-21 treats them this way. This leads me to believe that the bill is not about firearms or assault-style weapons; rather, it is about philosophy and how the government sees the Canadian people.

It seems that the Liberals may be forgetting or perhaps ignoring what it means to have a firearms licence in Canada. Any hunter or sport shooter will proudly tell us about how they underwent a series of background, mental health, common-sense and legislative regulation tests to receive and maintain their licences. They are proud because they have received the trust of society and want to show themselves worthy of that trust.

If the members opposite actually listened to their rural constituents about these issues, they could also explain that, to legally own and register firearms in Canada, they must subject themselves to random check-ins by law enforcement. Moreover, they must report data, such as residency, more often than do most citizens to ensure the safekeeping of their weapons. Before travelling with a firearm, every firearm has specific safety protocols that must be followed.

With this in mind, how would banning the firearms belonging to law-abiding citizens limit the occurrences of violent gun-related crime? How would a crazy repeat offender get a locked-up pistol or hunting rifle from a law-abiding owner? It does not make sense. We cannot deny that violent crime with firearms does happen in Canada. However, they are not mass produced for the Canadian market. People with the technological know-how in the underground market are the real criminals contributing to crime here. People 3-D printing parts of a rifle and mailing them across the international border into Canada are contributing to the illegal underground market; law-abiding firearms owners are not.

The Liberals do not trust Canadians. They see every gun owner as a potential criminal. As far as they are concerned, one gun in private hands is one gun too many. That there is no scientific evidence showing that Canadian farmers, hunters and sport shooters are turning to a life of gun crime is something they choose to ignore. They say that Canada has a gun crime problem and that this will solve it. However, the Liberals are missing the mark and ignoring the evidence. Gun crimes are not being committed by people who purchase their guns legally and then suddenly become lawless. Canada’s gun crime problem has been created by a government that is unwilling to clamp down on the illegal smuggling of weapons into Canada. Shutting down the gun pipeline is hard, but targeting hunters and sports shooters is easy.

This is not to mention the negative impacts that vastly outweigh the positive; I can only imagine how much this ban will negatively impact many Canadians, ranging from those who inherit rifles to citizens whose everyday lives revolve around a culture of hunting and gathering. I cannot help but wonder what rural Canadians will do if this rifle ban passes. Canada is known to be a well-forested country, meaning that we have a fair amount of rural area. The main source of food for many of these Canadians is hunting, and this has been the case for as long as we can remember. With that in mind, how will these hunters eat if the ban goes through?

As seen through the newly proposed passport design, the Liberals’ disregard for the rich Canadian history that preceded us is nothing new. I am not surprised that the Liberal government is living up to its expectation of continued disappointment that Canadians feel toward the government. The more I look at this bill, the more I agree with the member for Kildonan—St. Paul, who said, “This is the largest assault on hunters in Canadian history.”

Rifle owners by inheritance will have to face the sad reality that a part of their family history will be stripped from them at the hands of the government, and hunters will have to face an ever-higher rate of food insecurity in this G7 country. Hunters will have their entire way of life uprooted and have to defer to alternative lifestyles, which they may not have the means to adapt to. This is especially the case considering the cost of inflation and the impact that the carbon tax has had on the cost of living. We cannot tell them to go to a grocery store instead. These rural areas have limited access to the essential services they need, and there is no need to take away a major component of how they can be self-sufficient. It is unjustified.

What happened to the Canadian dream, where hard work gets rewarded and where we are the land of freedom with responsibility? The Liberals have led not just me but many other Canadians to feel that everything is off. Life in Canada is not as free as it used to be eight years ago, and this unjust firearms ban is a symbol of this broken feeling.

Rifles do not harm people; the people behind them do. Instead of attacking the real criminals, the members opposite chose to slap some half-baked idea together and call it a day. This is why I say that the Liberals have missed the mark once again, and it raises the following question: How does this help society?

Does it reduce crime in Canada to take rifles away from hunters with no criminal records? It does not. Does it stop gun crime in our nation to make it impossible for an aspiring biathlete or a target shooter to acquire a rifle? It does not. What it really does is make the Liberals feel good. It allows them to pretend that they are doing something without actually having to take real action.

When will they finally admit that the legal firearms owners are not the criminals? When will they humble themselves and admit that their catch-and-release policies are not just ineffective but outright dangerous to society at large? Violent repeat offenders, not our licensed gun owners, are the real criminals. When will the Prime Minister stand up, scrap this nonsense once and for all and propose solutions that actually protect Canadian citizens?

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Madam Speaker, as I have said several times in this House, I came from municipal politics before coming here. After being elected as mayor in 2013 in my home town, at our first public meeting, the fire chief entered and said, “Everybody stay in the building. There is a shooting next door.” A jilted boyfriend showed up at a medical clinic and shot the boyfriend of his former girlfriend in his vehicle. He then went into the medical clinic and shot his ex-girlfriend. He was found dead the next morning in his vehicle in a cemetery not too far away.

This bill will help to keep those situations from happening. Why is the member against stopping those types of situations?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are not against stopping crime. We are for stopping criminals from making those crimes happen.

As I clearly said in my speech, we are for finding all the ways to defend Canadians. However, we are against going after law-abiding Canadians who own guns while leaving the criminals on the streets to trade and bring in guns from everywhere in the world and then sell them to kill Canadians. That is what the bill has not addressed.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to say how much I value my colleague. I work with him on various committees. I want to congratulate him on his speech.

What I particularly like about my colleague is that when he and I debate, our positions are always based on facts. I am open minded, but now, the Conservatives are telling us that hunters will be penalized if we pass this bill.

My question for my colleague is quite simple, and I am sure he will not dodge it because his statement that hunters would be penalized is surely based on facts.

My question is this, and I look forward to his answer: Can he name a single model of hunting rifle that will be banned if we pass Bill C-21?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is the million-dollar question coming from my friend from the Bloc Québécois, and it came from the NDP before. The million-dollar question is what this bill would do to protect Canadians. This bill does not do the job. That is the million-dollar question.

We can look at how many times the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the government have confused Canadians over this bill. The bill has been going back and forth for a few years here. Now the question to me is about how many times and what rifles are mentioned in this bill. I think that is a bit rich.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I like the member, but we have now had a dozen Conservatives stand up in the House who have not read the bill. They have no idea of its contents and are just reading packaged statements. I think that is showing some disrespect to Canadians for Conservatives to have not even read the legislation.

If they had read it, they would see that this legislation is cracking down on criminals, which is what the Conservatives are asking for. There are the ghost gun provisions on these untraceable weapons, which are increasing exponentially across the country. Conservatives have tried to block the bill that would contribute to law enforcement being able to crack down on criminals. The hypocrisy is astounding.

The other point I need to make is that we had two amendments tabled by the Liberals that were withdrawn, thanks to the NDP fighting to get them withdrawn. Will he admit the two amendments he referred to in his speech have been withdrawn? They do not exist, and they are not pertinent to this debate.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member meant to discredit Conservatives by saying we have not read the bill. We have been fighting for a good bill for as long as he and everybody else remembers.

I would ask the NDP a question: How many times have they changed their minds on this bill? How many times have they danced back and forth on this bill?

Before the NDP members ask us those questions, they should ask themselves how many times they have changed their minds and why, at the end of the day, there was a revelation from somewhere that made the NDP agree to this bill.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments, firearms, at report stage. The bill has gone through quite the journey in this place, filled with huge backtracks, misleading statements from the government, and the repackaging and introduction of previously repealed amendments.

As a reminder, let us look at that journey. The introduction of Bill C-21 was first announced at the end of May last year, with all the fanfare that the government could muster when trotting out yet another misguided and ineffective policy. The Liberals claimed the bill would, among other things, ban the future legal sale of handguns in Canada, increase the allowable penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking, and introduce new red-flag provisions that may allow law enforcement to remove firearms from a dangerous domestic situation more quickly.

Shortly after seeing the bill, Conservatives attempted to introduce the following motion:

...that given that the debate on combatting gun violence needs to be depoliticized and centred on the rights of victims and the safety of communities, the House should call on the government to divide Bill C-21 into two parts to allow for those measures where there is broad support across all parties to proceed separately, namely curbing domestic violence and tackling the flow of guns over the Canada-U.S. border, from those aspects of the bill that divide the House.

Conservatives were clear. We supported the elements of Bill C-21 that were focused on protecting potential victims of gun crime and tightening up laws that address gun smuggling. Unfortunately, the Liberals were not willing to back down on their political agenda and separate the ineffective and divisive parts of their bill that would do nothing to stop gun violence and provide no benefit to vulnerable Canadians. They blocked this common-sense motion, proving they were more interested in playing division politics than addressing gun violence in Canada.

I will fast-forward to November, 2022, when the Liberal government introduced amendments to Bill C-21 that would have banned millions of hunting rifles with a new prohibition of any “rifle or shotgun, that is capable of discharging centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner and that is designed to accept a detachable cartridge magazine with a capacity greater than five cartridges”.

For weeks, the Liberals denied that their amendments would outlaw any hunting rifles, then the Prime Minister finally came clean, this past December, and admitted that the government’s amendments would outlaw hunting rifles. While speaking to CTV News he said, “there are some guns, yes, that we’re going to have to take away from people who were using them to hunt.”

The Prime Minister finally admitted what the Liberals had been denying the whole time, which was that the Liberal government, with the support of their NDP allies, were going after law-abiding Canadians. Thanks to the leadership and hard work of the member for Kildonan—St. Paul and my Conservative colleagues on the committee, Canadians were made aware of these attempts by the government to attack the rights of law-abiding citizens. The backlash to the attempts of the government was rightly fierce, and the Liberals retracted their amendments, supposedly learning a lesson.

However, we soon learned that they were just biding their time, waiting to try to catch Canadians off guard. Earlier this month, the public safety minister announced new amendments to Bill C-21 to create a definition by which new firearms would be banned. The minister also announced that he would appoint a firearms advisory committee that would determine future bans of firearms that are presently owned by law-abiding Canadian gun owners.

To be clear, the new Liberal definition is the same as the old one, and the new amendments that were brought to the committee were simply original amendments in a new package. It is expected that, between these measures, most of the firearms previously targeted by Liberal amendments late last year, including hunting rifles, would once again be targeted for future bans. It would seem the only lesson the Liberals learned was to give Canadians less time to object to their amendments, so they could force them through and try to cover it up.

That is why the government used some of the most heavy-handed tactics the House has seen, by moving to limit debate on Bill C-21 at committee in an attempt to pass the bill before the break week at the end of May. The Liberals forced multiple midnight sittings of the public safety committee, two of which I did sit in on. They passed Bill C-21 through committee in the wee hours of Friday morning last week by heavily limiting debate on over 140 clauses and amendments.

Even more surprising, both the NDP and the Bloc supported this heavy-handed attempt to pass the bill. They supported the government in enforcing strict time limits at the public safety committee and shutting down debate in the House. It would appear the governing party has suddenly grown by 57 members, which brings us to today and midnight sittings again being scheduled for this week to ram this bill through report stage.

I represent a rural riding. I represent thousands of hunters, farmers, sport shooters and indigenous Canadians. I know they are not supportive of this bill. They have told me. The sentiment from my constituents has been clear. They do not support Bill C-21, and they think it will do more harm than good.

Betty from Delisle raised concerns with the bill that many of my constituents have raised with me. She noted that this bill would target and severely handicap hunters who are trying to feed their families, noting it would cause another skill, which was a staple of our ancestors, to disappear. She also noted this bill would go after target shooting, stating that this bill would have negative consequences for gun clubs that offer training to young people as an activity that keeps them off the streets and away from bad influences. These sentiments are the same as those of rural Canadians across the country.

In fact, the backlash from rural Canadians forced the NDP to backtrack on its support for the government’s initial amendments last time. There are several NDP MPs who represent rural ridings, and my hope, although it is waning, is that they will stand up to the Liberals, stand up for their constituents on this issue, and fight for them here in Ottawa.

The truth of the matter is that this bill is an attack on law-abiding citizens who are legal gun owners. Hunters, farmers and indigenous Canadians will not be fooled. They know this is part of the Liberal plan to distract and divide Canadians. No one believes going after hunters and legitimate hunting rifles will reduce violent crime across this country.

This bill is also a distraction, another attempt for the government to distract and divide. It is targeting law-abiding gun owners to distract from its failures on public safety. The Liberal government has given easier access to bail for violent, repeat offenders through Bill C-75. In doing so, it ensured that violent offenders are able to get back onto the streets more quickly. It has removed mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes with Bill C-5, and it has failed to stop the flow of illegal firearms coming across the U.S. border.

Instead of going after the illegal guns used by criminals and street gangs, the Prime Minister is focused on taking hunting rifles and shotguns away from law-abiding farmers, hunters and indigenous peoples. We know going after hunters and hunting rifles will not reduce crime across the country. The government needs to come clean with Canadians. The only thing worse than doing nothing is pretending to be doing something when one is not.

Conservatives believe we must ensure at-risk and vulnerable Canadians are protected. We must target the criminals and gangs responsible for rising gun violence in Canada. That is why, under the leadership of the member for Carleton, we will continue to support common-sense firearms policies that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and ensure there are strong consequences for those who commit gun crimes to make our communities safer.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member, for whom I have a lot of respect, talked about targeting criminals. That is what the bill would actually do. I wish Conservatives would actually read the bill, with the amendments that were put into it, so they could actually comment on all of the measures that would be taken to target and fight criminals who use ghost guns. We have seen these untraceable ghost guns proliferating on the streets right across this country. In the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, they have increased 10 times over the course of the past year. That is a 100% increase every month.

It is critical that those provisions that target criminals actually be passed by the House and moved through. Instead, the Conservatives wanted to fundraise, and have been blocking those provisions week after week. My question is very simple: Why did Conservatives try to block provisions that would actually target criminals and eliminate ghost guns and untraceable weapons from our streets?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking all my colleagues who serve on the committee that dealt with this bill, for the many hours they put in, providing great questions to the departmental officials. I was greatly impressed by their questions, and was grateful for the opportunity to participate, even if I was not asking the questions, by hearing what the answers were.

I find it really rich for that member, who has actually bargained away his responsibility, as a member of an opposition party, to hold the government to account on deeply flawed legislation, which is what Bill C-21 is. It is not about enhancing public safety. This bill would basically create a confiscation program.

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

Madam Speaker, if Bill C‑21 is as terrible as my colleague claims, I would like her to tell me why the Conservative party voted in favour of every one of the government's amendments on ghost guns.

Why did the Conservative party vote for the Bloc Québécois's amendments on magazines? Why did the Conservative party amend Bill C‑21 to enhance it by adding a definition of family violence, for example?

The Conservatives also moved a very helpful amendment on firearm advertising. Could it be that Bill C‑21 is not so bad after all?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I believe that, in the comments I made during my speech, I noted that we recognized there were issues that did need to be addressed, and that we asked for those parts of the bill to be separated so we could have a meaningful conversation.

What the member points out, and what another one of my colleagues made very clear, is that there could not be more of a stark contrast between Conservatives and all the other parties on this issue. We are the only ones defending the rights of law-abiding firearm owners, and that is why we do not agree on whether or not this is a good bill.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a rebuttal. The member has made a bunch of allegations. Can she name one firearm that would be taken away from somebody as a result of this bill? We have asked this question before. No Conservative has been able to answer it, because it would not happen. It simply would not happen. The Conservatives really should read the bill.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is my understanding that Bill C-21 aims to ban various reproductions of antique firearms, such as the flintlock pistol. These firearms are single-shot, muzzleloading, black powder firearms that require time and effort to reload for each shot. These firearms are curated by collectors, used in re-enactments, and do not pose any significant threat to public safety.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-21. It is an act to make certain consequential amendments in relation to firearms, which is really the government's way of saying that this is a bill to confiscate hunting rifles from law-abiding farmers, hunters and indigenous people, and distract from the real issue of the crime wave that is going on in Canada right now. That is really what this bill is. It is purely a distraction to distract from what is going on in our streets, on our subways and in some of our schoolyards right now. It is another virtue-signalling bill from the current government, to pretend it is going to do something about smuggled handguns, illegally attained guns and gang violence, but not actually do anything.

It is a distraction bill to take the focus away from the disastrous result of the Liberals' soft-on-crime bills, Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. It is a distraction from the multiple police officers who have fallen on the job very recently and the random stabbings in Toronto, the Lower Mainland and my hometown of Edmonton. All these random attacks hurt, but the one in Edmonton strikes very close to home. A mother and her 11-year-old child were stabbed to death in a schoolyard park. EPS police chief, Dale McFee, commented on the attack. He said it was “completely random. In no way could the victims have anticipated what would happen to them. There is no making sense of this.” This was a mother and her daughter who were in the playground of a schoolyard. A person drove up, got out of his car, stabbed them to death and just left. It was completely random. The police chief said, “There is no making sense of this.” I agree with Chief McFee that it makes zero sense that this would happen. He also said that the victims could not have anticipated the attack, and I agree with that as well.

However, here is the kicker: The court system could have anticipated this attack, and should have, and we should have had laws to protect this family. The killer had been released just 18 days earlier, on bail from a previous assault. He had a record. The killer was only 33 years old, and he had a record going back 14 years, having been in and out of jail, released on bail, and having had constant charges of assault with a weapon. He was in and out of prison repeatedly. There were robberies. He had stabbed someone who was just sitting on a bus bench. His parole documents stated to him, “You were armed with a knife and stabbed your victim once in the upper back. You then fled on foot. Your victim's injuries include a punctured aorta and a laceration to his spinal cord.” These are not simple injuries. This is attempted murder, yet he was back out on the streets. Between committing that crime and committing the murders in Edmonton, the attacker assaulted a corrections officer and two inmates, and was released, despite the warnings from parole officers. We have to ask where we have heard this before. He was sent back to prison after testing positive for meth, but was released again and assaulted four more people; three of them were assaulted with weapons. He attacked a 12-year-old on the bus just last year, and on the same day was charged with assaulting someone else. Then, he assaulted someone else with a weapon. He was sent to prison on April 14 for another assault and then released on bail. He then went on to murder someone and her young child.

That is what the Liberals are trying to distract from with this bill. It is to distract from their disastrous catch-and-release laws that they have inflicted upon Canadians. The Liberal government will sit and say that it fixed catch-and-release today. However, for five or six years now, the Liberals have denied it was a problem. I want to quote the present public safety minister, in debate. He said that this would simplify the release process “so that police and judges are required to consider the least restrictive and alternative means of responding to a breach, rather than automatically detaining an accused” and that “police would...be required to impose the least onerous conditions necessary if an accused is released.”

A mother and her child are dead in Edmonton because of this law. The Liberals can claim that they are fixing it, but they had half a decade to do something, with warnings from the police chief, warnings from the opposition bench and warnings from the premiers. It is not good enough that they are saying,“Well, we're going to play around with it today. Everything is fine.” It is not fine.

I want to go back to Edmonton police chief Dale McFee. We are talking about the catch-and-release program. For a three-year period, Edmonton saw a 30% increase in shooting victims. Chief McFee stated that the biggest problem is building to attack gang violence, and that most of the problem is gangs and organized crime. It is not a law-abiding hunter going out for a catch. It is not a farmer with his shotgun plinking away at varmints or pests. The police chief says it is organized crime and gangs. Subsequent to Bill C-75 being introduced, 3,600 individuals were arrested for violent crimes in Edmonton in a one-year period. Two years after that, 2,400 of those 3,600 reoffended, a total of 19,000 times, including 26 homicides. That is the result of Bill C-75, the catch-and-release program of the government. That is what this government is trying to distract from. Instead of going after criminals, repeat offenders, they want to confiscate shotguns and hunting rifles from hunters, farmers and indigenous people. The government should be going after the criminals and trying to make life miserable for them, not trying to make life miserable for law-abiding hunters and farmers.

Canadians should not be fooled by this new bill, Bill C-21. The Liberals brought in some amendments and said, “Oh, we fixed all your concerns.” Canadians should not be fooled by this. The Liberals' so-called new definitions are basically the same as the old ones that are targeting hunting rifles. The same ones that they went after before, they will go after again. I do not think anyone should believe that this new Liberal firearms advisory panel would be any different than what they had proposed previously.

This is the same government, members will remember, that politicized the Nova Scotia shooting tragedy. It is the same government that said that it was the police forces that recommended the Emergency Act, but we asked the Ottawa Police Service and the RCMP, and they both said no.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member will have two minutes left the next time this matter is before the House.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from April 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (deemed trust – perishable fruits and vegetables), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Financial Protection for Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Farmers Act

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, today I am going to talk about an extremely important bill. I am going to make a big announcement: This bill is free. How many times do we have the opportunity in the House of Commons to pass a bill that costs the government nothing? It does not happen often. It is worth pointing that out.

We are talking about financial protection for fresh fruit and vegetable farmers. The bill simply seeks to give these farmers a priority claim in the event of client bankruptcy or non-payment. It would seem that the government is not amenable to this bill, because this sector has been asking for this for years and the government has consistently refused. Is it because the Liberals do not want to put their banking friends at a disadvantage? I do not know. However, honestly, this measure would cost nothing and would provide protection for our agricultural producers. I do not understand why the government has refused to take this step for so long.

The bill is quite simple. Ultimately, its objective is to place the amounts due for payment of the fruits and vegetables in trust, that is to create a deemed trust. That way, when the time comes to recover outstanding debts, the fresh fruit and vegetable farmers would be paid first. The remaining amount could be put towards their production.

This is such an important and exciting bill that I offered to co-sponsor it with my colleague who introduced it. I filled out the form. I can therefore say that the Bloc Québécois is not only in favour of the bill, but fully supports it. In fact, I thank my colleague for having proposed it.

I would also like to say a quick word to our member for Salaberry—Suroît. Many of the vegetable farmers in her riding often talk to me about this issue, and they care deeply about this kind of bill. I have no doubt that, like me, she wishes she had been the one to introduce it.

This protection that would be provided to our agricultural producers is exceptional and very appealing to them, but it also has potential outside Canada. It is also interesting from an international trade perspective because, up until 2014, our agricultural producers had this protection when they sold produce to the United States. In 2014, the United States decided to take that protection away from agricultural producers in Quebec and Canada, telling them that farmers did not even have that protection in their country, so the U.S. saw no reason to include it in their insurance plan.

That is a second excellent reason to vote in favour of this bill. The United States made a formal commitment to start discussions and reactivate this protection for our farmers. It is doubly important because currently, when our farmers export vast quantities and they want to have some guarantee, the United States Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act requires them to post a bond worth double the value of the shipment. To register and have the right to protection, they need to deposit twice as much as it is worth. Let us be serious. Our farmers, in 97% of cases, or maybe 98%, do not have enough cash on hand to do that. That means they do not post these bonds. As a result, if the client defaults or declares bankruptcy, our farmers have little or no recourse.

What will they do? If they see that there is a chance of bankruptcy or non-payment, they will rush to negotiate a cut-rate out-of-court settlement with these clients. They end up receiving only a fraction of the money that is owed to them. We have no right to do that to our vegetable farmers. We have no right, because vegetable farming is a tough job.

We often talk about climate change and variability here in the House. Vegetable growers know what it is like to have a longer warm spell, which leads to more aphids, for example. It happened last year. They know what happens when there is a drought, making it hard to grow crops. They also know what happens when there is too much water in the field. They know all the variations, and they are at the mercy of the weather. They have to deal with whatever conditions nature throws at them.

Could we at least tell them that, when they sell their produce, they will be first in line among the creditors to receive payment in the event of non-payment or bankruptcy? That seems reasonable to me.

Sometimes we are told that farmers are covered under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. For that to happen, however, their produce must have been delivered in the 30 days prior to the possession date. The produce can then be repossessed, provided there is evidence showing that the produce being repossessed is the same produce that was delivered and is in the same state as it was at the time of delivery.

Imagine going back to repossess tomatoes a month later. It is not an option. That is why these farmers need this protection, and why we need to hurry and pass this bill here, so that they will very likely qualify for protection in the United States. In my opinion, it is just common sense.

Sometimes we are told that these are very small amounts, that very few claims are made in a year and that the losses are therefore negligible. There are no claims being made because there is no protection. As I mentioned earlier, farmers rush to negotiate a lower out-of-court settlement before the client goes bankrupt or defaults on their payment obligations, in order to try to salvage something from the wreckage. The current claim rate does not reflect the actual rate that we will see after this law comes into force, and I hope it will be implemented quickly.

Some people will also say that we are going to put our friends, the banks, at a disadvantage and that the banks will calculate that there is more risk and will charge more interest. I doubt it, because our farmers use assets as collateral when they apply for financing. This argument seems more like blackmail or fearmongering than anything else.

Others will say that this is a shared jurisdiction and that, if we really want to have a law that is equivalent to the U.S. law, then part of this falls to Quebec and the provinces. It is true that this partly falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, but the United States has made formal commitments. Let us start with the basics. Let us start with what the federal government can do.

Earlier, I spoke about agricultural producers and the fact that they have to contend with the weather. The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recently studied food prices. Produce growers explained to us that they supplied lettuce for 87¢ a head, and the week after, they saw it in grocery stores for $2.49. That means that it can be sold for even more. Suppose that the price is $2.79. Someone is making a profit, but it is not our producer. That is why we want to implement a code of conduct. They are already dealing with less than favourable conditions.

Let us talk about labour. When asparagus spears emerge, the farmer cannot let them rot. They have to be harvested, but that requires the good old federal government to finish its labour market impact assessment and issue work permits. That is a long, complex and expensive process, not to mention the number of times that someone from another sector steals their workers by offering them $2 or $5 more an hour, when it was the produce grower who paid the fees to bring the workers here in the first place.

I am not even talking about the long and perhaps somewhat unnecessary investigations where produce growers, who already have no time to sleep, are asked to fill out a bunch of forms on a series of workers, one after the other. Inspections are necessary, but they are often too intense. I hear about this a lot.

It is important to consider deliveries, shipping and how hard it is to manage fresh produce.

Other considerations include the reciprocity of standards, pesticide and fungicide residues that are allowed in from outside. The levels differ from what our farmers do here.

I cannot believe that a fruit or vegetable from Mexico costs less than a fruit or vegetable from Quebec. This is because the standards are not the same. Something has happened in the interim. The least we can do is to offer our farmers financial protection. We should do this joyfully and happily.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to give a few of my thoughts on Bill C-280, which was introduced by the member for York—Simcoe. I would like to thank him for introducing this important bill.

Of course, Bill C-280 is an important bill that is going to amend both the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, which we will hereafter call the BIA, and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the CCAA. Ultimately, the bill is seeking to create a deemed trust for perishable fruits and vegetables.

Let me go into a bit of background on why this particular issue is so important. For the people who are growing, harvesting, packing and marketing fruits and vegetables, we have to understand that this industry comes with a number of risks. First, there are very high costs. Second, the capital in that industry is often tied up in the farmland, the buildings, the machinery and the overhead, so we can look at the value of the company and can see that it is what is commonly termed as “land-rich, cash-poor”.

Furthermore, the challenges are exacerbated because any returns made from the selling of their produce are often delayed until that product has been sold and payment is collected all the way up the supply chain, which can be long after the farmer or another seller has passed on the product. In that whole system, there is no financial protection from losses because of buyers who have become insolvent, which adds a tremendous amount of risk to this business model. The perishability of fresh produce and the common industry payment terms make it impossible for sellers to recoup money that has been lost when a buyer goes bankrupt, and we have seen a recent example in Ontario with Lakeside Produce in Leamington.

Prior to 2014, Canada was the only country in the world that enjoyed preferential access with our largest trading partner, the United States, under its Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, also known as PACA. That was a dispute resolution mechanism in the United States, which basically meant that Canadian produce sellers were treated on par with their American counterparts when selling to a U.S. buyer. Unfortunately, and this continues to this day, the United States removed our country's preferential access to that system because we did not have reciprocal protection here in Canada.

It has to be clearly underlined that the fresh fruit and vegetable industry has been calling for a statutory deemed trust for payment protection from losses due to buyers defaulting on payment obligations. They have been calling for this for a long time, to make sure that we are on par with what our American counterparts enjoy, and they want us to do this so that our amazing producers can be on a level and competitive playing field with our closest trading partner.

I want to say from the outset that the NDP absolutely fully supports this initiative in Bill C-280. In fact, we have been campaigning on this particular change to the law since 2015, and we have continued to support it ever since then. The very first mention of it was in our 2015 election platform. When we boldly stepped out and made that commitment, we got praise from both the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and what was then called the Canadian Horticultural Council, which really praised us for taking a strong position on the issue.

Again, in the 2019 election, Rebecca Lee, the executive director of what is now the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada, stated:

Canada's fruit and vegetable farmers are facing financial risks that threaten their competitiveness at a crucial time when consumers want to make healthy food choices and are being encouraged by their government to consume more fruits and vegetables. It is important that all parties recognize this, and we applaud the NDP for their commitment to making a payment protection program for produce growers finally a reality.

It is not just from our election commitments. This has been the subject of parliamentary committees, two in particular, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I have been a proud member since 2018, and the Standing Committee on Finance, in the 42nd Parliament, the first Parliament in which I was a member in the House.

Both of those committees, which were, at the time, comprised of a majority of Liberal members, made the recommendation that our country move toward a PACA-like system to protect our produce growers. Unfortunately the Liberal government said they would not consider it at the time.

Again, in this current Parliament, as here we are in the 44th Parliament, with regard to the Standing Committee on Agriculture, in our recent report, entitled, ”Feeding the World: Strengthening Canada's Capacity to Respond to Global Food Insecurity”, recommendation 7 of that report makes a very clear recommendation to make a statutory deemed trust.

Again, the Standing Committee on Finance, in this Parliament, in its recent pre-budget consultations, also called for the creation of a limited statutory deemed trust.

We have had multiple committees look at this issue and make those recommendations. It is time for the government to take that ball and run with it and finally put this into action. I think we are actually going to see some movement on this, thanks to Bill C-280.

Let me read into the record the stakeholder feedback. We have positive responses from the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada and the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation. They are all calling on members of Parliament to consider this bill and to send it off to committee for further study.

I believe that this is a critical opportunity for all members of Parliament to demonstrate our support for this sector and to safeguard Canadian food security. I want to also give an honourable mention to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. It has also been an important voice in calling for this change.

Going forward, we are only at the second reading stage, in principle. The government has raised some concerns about this bill. It believes that no other commercial creditor has a deemed trust for unpaid claims. It thinks that this bill would favour sellers of fresh produce over sellers of other perishable products. It believes that fresh produce sellers could demand immediate payment, that this bill would benefit large retailers, that the existing dispute resolution corporation already has a mechanism or that the BIA already has provisions that adequately protect growers.

I think this will come through a committee: each one of those arguments has been thoroughly refuted and they will be coming up at committee, where we can finally put them to rest through important witness testimony and feedback.

I have seen both the CPMA and the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada respond to each of those points with evidence to the contrary and I look forward to that information coming forward in committee so that we can properly make a report back to the House.

I just want to say that Canadian farmers are essential workers and they need and deserve to stay in business. They work so hard on our behalf, putting in those long hours, working in a very uncertain market and with very thin margins. The least that we can do as parliamentarians is to set up policy and laws that help them compete on a level playing field.

I believe that if we go forward with this bill, we will have a number of positive impacts. We will help reduce the number of Canadian farm bankruptcies by extending key financial protection toward them. It will encourage timely transport of produce to market, because it is going to make it more worth the transporter's money and time to ship it.

I believe, ultimately, that a deemed trust is going to provide important stability in a very volatile food price inflation market.

For that reason, and as the NDP's proud critic of agriculture and agri-food, I am looking forward to voting on this bill tomorrow, to sending it to my committee and giving it the proper examination that it deserves.

I would like thank the member for York—Simcoe for bringing forward this important bill.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place today and speak to Bill C-280, an act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, deemed trust, perishable fruits and vegetables. I am pleased to second this bill introduced by my colleague from York—Simcoe, in June of this past year, to support the financial protection for fresh fruit and vegetable farmers.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to Bill S-227, establishing a national food day. During that speech, I took the opportunity to outline four factors that influence how much structure a particular food commodity gets and its efficient marketing between producers and buyers.

The factors were the perishability of the product, the complexity of its biology or technology, the ratio of buyers and sellers, and the international setting into which that product is marketed or traded. Today, I want to focus on one particular sector and one particular factor.

It is well known that fresh fruits and vegetables are highly perishable with a limited shelf life. I believe it is important for us to protect our farmers during the bankruptcy of a buyer. Unfortunately, current existing laws do not take this into account. The perishability of the product for sale is at the heart of the justification for this legislation.

This legislation aims to resolve this concern by establishing a deemed trust for fresh produce sellers, ensuring they have priority access to an insolvent buyer’s assets related to the sale of fresh product. It is important for us to note that the legislation also comes at no cost to the federal government.

The big banks will likely be opposed to this legislation, and I will come back to this point later.

The need for a financial protection mechanism has been a major focus of the sector for several years and has been included among many recommendations by stakeholders. A deemed trust mechanism is needed to address gaps in market stability, trade and food security. It is crucial that we help ensure Canadians continue to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Growing, harvesting, packing and marketing fruits and vegetables comes with risks and costs that are unique to the production of perishable goods and returns on these investments are delayed until payment is collected, which is usually long after the product has been consumed by Canadians or has spoiled due to delayed payment.

Bill C-280 establishes an important tool to ensure that growers receive payment for their products, even in the event of a buyer bankruptcy. That means when produce has arrived at its destination, even if the buyer is unwilling to pay, the farmer will still get paid at least partially. Unlike in other buyer-seller relationships with perishable food, a farmer is not able to find and ship to another seller to make up for the lost sale.

It should be noted that in addition to providing healthy food to Canadians, the fresh produce supply chain supports 249,000 jobs in Canada. It is important that we continue to support these jobs and workforce in our country.

The introduction of a financial protection mechanism in Canada would also open the door to the reinstatement of preferential treatment under the U.S.'s Perishable Agriculture Commodities Act, or PACA for short, for Canadians selling produce into the United States. This preferential treatment had been in place prior to 2014 when it was rescinded by the U.S. due to a lack of reciprocal protection in Canada for U.S. sellers.

PACA was established in the U.S. at the request of the fruit and vegetable industry to promote fair trade within the industry. Since it was rescinded in 2014, several organizations representing parts of the Canadian agricultural sector have been lobbying consistently for an amendment to Canada’s laws so that the U.S. would revisit Canada’s preferential status.

The key issue that led to Canada’s preferential treatment being rescinded was protection in the case of insolvency for U.S. sellers, which has been difficult for Canada to implement since agricultural concerns are a shared responsibility between provincial legislatures and the federal government.

Before 2014, if bankruptcy or insolvency in the supply chain resulted in Canadian producers not getting paid, to start the dispute resolution process with preferential treatment under PACA would only cost the Canadian company $100. This dispute process was helpful and affordable to Canadian farmers because the traditional method of repossessing shipments would not work, as I said earlier, due to the high perishability of the product in question.

Without preferential access, Canadian companies trying to recover unpaid bills must post double the value of what they are trying to recover as a bond to make the claim. For an example, a small producer who is owed $50,000 would have to post $100,000 in cash to make a claim, effectively removing $150,000 from their cash flow or operating line for up to a year. Many cannot afford this and would simply walk away, losing what is rightfully owed to them, putting Canadian businesses at a steep disadvantage.

Canada did not choose to leave this agreement. Instead, we had our preferential status revoked in 2014 because U.S. legislators felt that their American suppliers to Canada were not adequately protected. Canadian companies are now treated under PACA the same as any other foreign licence.

In 2011, a bilateral regulatory co-operation council established by both the U.S. and Canada and created in Canada was created to address regulatory incompatibility between the U.S. and Canada that could be hampering trade. The issue of this inadequate trust protection was one of 29 issues identified.

It has been eight years since our Canadian fruits and vegetable farmers had preferential treatment under PACA, and it is time we change that. This bill offers the financial protection needed for fresh fruit and vegetable farmers to protect and support Canadian produce growers. Bill C-280 would pave the way for a reciprocal arrangement that would support Canadian businesses selling to our largest trading partner. Obviously, that is the U.S. Our farmers need a larger market to sell perishable produce. In my area, the greenhouse industry exports more than 75% of their production across the border to the U.S. and they need to have peace of mind, when they ship their products, that they will be getting paid.

It is important to understand that Bill C-280 would not require the government to offset or backstop losses incurred by farmers in the event a buyer could not meet its financial obligations. The legislation being proposed would create a deemed trust, which would cover accounts receivable, cash and inventory of the buyer stemming from the sale of produce on short-term transactions with payment terms not exceeding 30 days. Essentially, if a Canadian company sold produce to a U.S. buyer, who then resold it but did not pay the Canadian company, the trust would provide the mechanism to recover cash or accounts receivable for what was sold.

I am very proud to support local farmers in my riding and farmers across Canada by supporting this bill to give them the peace of mind they need. In particular, in southwestern Ontario there is a large greenhouse sector and a vibrant fresh fruit and vegetable sector. A recent bankruptcy of a vegetable marketing enterprise in southwestern Ontario only further supports the need for this legislation. The Minister of Agriculture has stated to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food that this legislation is not necessary because there have been negligible losses due to bankruptcy. I am sure that the farm that suffered a $1-million loss very recently because of the marketing company bankruptcy would very much disagree with that statement, and I would hope that my colleagues across the aisle would not bow to pressure from the big banks and support this bill.

The recommendation for a financial protection mechanism is not a new idea. It has been proposed repeatedly by stakeholders for several years. It has been long enough. It is time for us to take these recommendations and turn them into action. We need to show farmers that we support their efforts, their time and their resources and acknowledge the financial uncertainty it takes to produce perishable goods for our country. Let us stand with our farmers and protect them so they may continue to produce these very essential needs.

I am proud to second this bill, speak to this initiative brought forward by my colleague and champion the cause for fresh fruit and vegetable producers. I hope that my colleagues around this room will also support this initiative for our farmers.