Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
This December 6 will mark the 35th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, a tragedy that forever marked my community. Fourteen women were brutally murdered with an assault weapon simply because they were women. This event remains a poignant reminder of the dangers posed by hatred, especially when coupled with easy access to firearms like the Ruger Mini-14, a semi-automatic weapon created for the battlefield, not for our streets.
As Quebec and the entire country prepare to commemorate this sombre anniversary, we must work to strengthen our gun control laws, our laws governing assault weapons and handguns. We should not be putting these weapons back on our streets, as Conservative members are incessantly calling for. I do not know about my colleagues, but I do not want an American-style gun culture and neither do the survivors or the PolyRemembers activists. I will continue to work with them every day to make sure of that.
Let us be very clear. There is still work to be done and I am determined to continue to do that work. We need to work for stronger gun control, not just to honour the memory of victims, but also to prevent other tragedies, like the one that occurred at École polytechnique, and to take real action to protect the lives and safety of all. That is our duty as a federal government. We do not want any more mass shootings.
I was born and grew up just a few blocks away from Polytechnique. The night that 14 women were gunned down, in 1989, I was just a little kid. I was waiting for my dad to come home and he did not. It was late and getting dark and I waited by the door. It was before everyone carried around cellphones. By the time he did get home, I saw the look on his face. He was there that night, outside Polytechnique, watching as bodies were taken into ambulances. When I asked why and how, no answer was forthcoming. What does one tell a little girl about a femicide?
When I was first elected, I promised my community I would make stronger gun control a priority in my work in Ottawa, and I did. Our government has since banned 1,500 models of assault weapons, including the gun that was used 35 years ago at Polytechnique. I support PolyRemembers' call to finish the job that was started.
Assault weapons belong on the battlefield, not on our streets, despite the fact the Conservatives are desperate to bring these guns back into our communities. By doing the gun lobby’s dirty work in Parliament, they show their true colours. They are weak on security and soft on crime.
They are also weak when it comes to securing our border, including by voting against more funds for border enforcement. Our police and border officials have been very clear on multiple occasions that the measures we implement to strengthen our border are key to keeping back the flow of illegal guns coming into our country. When the Conservatives talk about the importance of protecting our borders, they should remember that they cut funding for the borders when they were in power. Since then, our government has invested nearly $1.5 billion in border enforcement and security, as well as border policing.
We are investing in gang prevention strategies. We increased the RCMP's capacity to trace gun crimes and to build a national system that allows for the flagging of the illegal purchasing of firearms. We also provided the RCMP and our border agency, the CBSA, with additional resources at the border to target firearms smuggling and trafficking.
We have signed 82 agreements with municipalities and indigenous communities to stop gun violence before it starts and to help stem the flow of illegal guns crossing our borders.
Two years ago, we banned the importation, sale and purchase of handguns. That means handguns are not allowed through our borders. That means the law does not allow stores to sell handguns. It means people cannot go out and buy handguns. Handguns are not used for hunting; they are used against other people. They are getting into the hands of our young people through gangs. They are getting into the hands of people who are scared and feel they need to be packing one in order to feel safe.
Statistics show that the proliferation of guns does not make people more safe; it makes people less safe. Handguns are used in more than half of violent crimes involving firearms. The Conservatives like to talk about police, selectively quoting from some police unions, but we know that the head of the police chiefs has supported our gun control measures and our ban on the sale and importation of handguns.
I do not think we can close our eyes to the reality just south of our border. For the third year in a row, gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States. This is not the culture we want to import into Canada. As a mother, it is sickening to me to think that the Conservatives and the leader of the Conservative Party are promising to flood our streets with dangerous weapons.
In 2017, a man stormed the Quebec City mosque with a handgun. He took the lives of six innocent people and wounded five others. I had the opportunity to visit the mosque. Even many years later, the pain is still just as great, just as heavy.
We owe it to them to do everything in our power to prevent other horrors of this kind. That is why we banned the sale, purchase and importation of handguns across Canada. When I walk the streets of my community, when I am out and about in Côte-des-Neiges, mothers stop me and share their concerns with me. They are feeling the increase in gang and gun crime. They want to get more guns off our streets, not put them back on the streets, as the Conservative Party is asking every day and as the Conservative leader has promised to do if he is elected.
It is for the safety of our communities and the safety of our children that we are working for stronger gun control here in Canada.