Adam Vaughan

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, when I saw this on the Order Paper and that it was up for discussion tonight, I literally ran from my office to be here. There is nothing that has taken more lives in my life than handguns. In fact, I have been to more funerals in my riding for children killed by illegal handguns than I have for members of my own family in my entire lifetime.

People only have to attend one of these funerals to have their lives changed forever. For those who have attended a sequence of them, one begins to understand that it is not the cliché that is being buried, it is a victim of so many things that have gone wrong that is being buried. The families who have to deal with gun violence in their communities are traumatized. Literally, the number of children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders in the riding that I represent, in a couple of neighbourhoods, is exceptional.

I will never forget, after a machine gun was used to terrorize a community, seeing a grandmother pull the shrapnel out of a kid's bicycle that now had a flat tire and hand to me so I could give it to the police just in case they could find the individual who had used a submachine gun in a residential neighbourhood.

The most terrifying thing is that in some of our communities, it is not even the residents in the communities who are the targets, it is just the name of the community that is targeted. The media picks up on it and it further traumatizes and stigmatizes the young people who come from some of these neighbourhoods. At the end of the day, it is young people's lives that are being taken by illegal handguns and it is time for it to end, and to end as quickly as possible.

I thank the member opposite for stepping up. We do not normally see good, strong gun control legislation coming from the Conservatives, but in this case, as I said, I do not need a party to tell me how to vote. My residents have told me how to vote and I will be supporting this bill.

The issue, however, is more than just the smuggled guns. By the time a kid picks up a handgun to shoot or be shot, it is too late. So much of what we need to do as a country and, in particular, so much of what we need to do in the city I represent is to give young people better choices, because when those better choices are there, they make the better choice.

I have seen countless examples of young people who have been steered away from a life of trouble, have been taken away from the justice system, put into restorative systems and literally rehabilitated, to the point where they are leaders in bringing down the level of violence that threatens our communities. They have changed the way young people themselves approach the challenges that some of them face and have taken neighbourhoods that had shootings that were just too many to count and returned them to relative peace.

All it takes is people coming out of prison and recycling themselves into a society that does not give them any options except a life of crime sometimes and we end up with a revictimizing of the victims, a revictimizing of these young people and it starts all over again. There are neighbourhoods that are literally on five-year cycles because of the five-year mandatory minimum sentences.

We can almost predict which community, in five years' time, will have a major bust or sweep through it with guns and other elements of criminal activity involved. We know that everyone will be getting out of prison at about the same time, in about five years' time, and it will start all over again. That is why justice reform, changing the way we police this issue, stopping guns at the border and giving kids better choices are conversations I will never back away from. It also requires us to think differently about guns in this country.

I have a sister who ran a logging and tree-planting crew in the interior of B.C. and on Vancouver Island. I understand a shotgun is used as a tool to keep people, especially tree planters, safe in very remote communities. My family was a farming family back in Australia and I certainly understand that sometimes farmers require these tools in order to keep their crops safe or their livestock alive. I understand that and I have no intention of breaking into that.

I have been to the north with my colleague from the Northwest Territories. I have seen the way country food is harvested. I understand the role that hunting plays in sustaining communities from coast to coast to coast, in particular, indigenous communities, but there is no rational reason for anybody in this country to own a handgun. Handguns are made for one reason, and one reason only, and that is to kill people.

They may be needed in the armed forces and policing. Even then I still require convincing continually because I get nervous when I see handguns pulled in policing sometimes. I have been on the police service board, I have been to police funerals and I understand the need to defend people, and police officers have just as much right to go home safely after their shift as any other Canadian.

The culture around handguns is as much what we are trying to stop coming across the border as the politics of handguns and the handguns themselves.

We put this bill in a sequence of legislation that includes strong investments in public housing, strong investments in early learning and childcare, strong investments in youth diversion from the justice system, and strong investments in looking at different ways that sentencing can work to support the re-creation and rebirth of people who have made bad choices in their lives. When we invest in education and jobs, and particularly jobs in racialized communities, the temperature changes. The danger starts to disappear, but it is never entirely gone until the guns are gone.

I have huge problems with any attempt to relax the regulations around guns in this country. I will never back away, as I said, from this conversation. They can put my face on the sides of campaign buses and they can write the hateful letters and terrible emails that are sent when one speaks out against handguns and gun violence in this country. I do not care. I just do not care. I care too much about the people and families in my riding who have had to suffer from bad gun laws in this country for too long.

It is different in rural Canada. I get that, but in urban Canada there is no need, no reason, no requirement and no justification for owning a handgun. Whether it is lost, whether it is stolen or whether it is smuggled, when that gun goes off that bullet does not stop ricocheting in our communities. Families that lost a loved one 15 years ago still walk by corners in my riding and break down in tears. Families that lost a loved one to ricocheting bullets that went through windows, or bounced off bicycles, or went through air conditioners do not forget the sound of bullets entering a living room and do not feel safe in their homes anymore.

We have a responsibility as politicians. We have a responsibility as community leaders. We have a responsibility as neighbours to protect each other from this kind of violence. If this law takes 50 guns off the street, I will support it. If it takes 100 guns off, I will cheer. If it takes 1,000 guns out of our communities, I will be doing nothing other than giving my thanks to the hon. member for the leadership he is providing on this issue.

That being said, we also need to have a frank conversation about mandatory minimum sentences, because we know systemically how they are applied and who they are applied to, and who benefits from justice and who does not when it does not understand context. This is not a plea to be soft on criminals. If someone has picked up a gun and fired it, they are a criminal and will always be a criminal, in my view.

The real challenge, and the most important thing here, is to start to understand that we have an opportunity, a responsibility and a chance to take those bullets, and those handguns, away from our communities and make the lives of police officers safer, make the lives of clerks of the court system safer, make our communities safer, and make politicians safer as we see guns being used against politicians around the world. We have a mutual obligation to work together.

I know that there are people who have a relationship with their guns because they went hunting with their dad. I know that there are communities that need the long gun and the shotgun for food. I understand the arguments that come and the divide that exists between rural Canada and urban Canada, but I plead with people who come from rural ridings to understand that they have to help us stop burying kids in Toronto. We need everyone's help, and we cannot do it alone, with educational programs or background checks. We have to focus on handguns.

I recognize there are some people who like to trap shoot, just as there are some people who like to throw javelins, but someone cannot throw a javelin in downtown Toronto just because they want to. Someone cannot drive a snowmobile in the winter through downtown Toronto just because they want to. If someone has to have a gun and needs to pursue that hobby, please take it out of our cities. Take it away from crowded environments. Take it away from the nightclubs. Take it away from the back alleys. Take it away from a place where it will hurt somebody, because of the damage that guns have been doing, in particular with regard to who is being buried and which communities are being affected.

People are crying for laws on this. They are pleading with us for laws on this and their voices are being largely ignored in this Parliament. It has to end. It is for that reason that I will be voting for this motion, even with my concerns about the mandatory minimum sentences, because we have to get rid of handguns in this country and I will never back down from that position, ever.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way for this bill. Regarding the smuggling of handguns in particular, the cost in my riding is beyond description. It is not just members getting caught in the crossfire: the ricochets impact communities right across the GTA and across the country, so I am pleased to stand and speak to this. I look forward to supporting it personally, even if my party does not. I promise that. We have to stop the illegal importation of handguns into this country, and we have to do it as quickly as we can.

My question for the member is whether he has secured a guarantee from his party that an amendment that was made to Bill C-71 will not resurface, which is the “Oops, I forgot I had a gun” excuse. There was an amendment moved by the Conservatives in the previous Parliament on Bill C-71 that said if people forgot to declare their handgun they could simply say they forgot it was in the trunk and get off, which was a loophole so big it would have killed kids right across the country. It was so silly I cannot believe it was even proposed.

Can he assure me that amendment will never see the light of day, and the Conservative Party will back away from the “Oops, I forgot” smuggling amendment?

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to a number of Conservative presentations and I understand their worry about the potential for criminalizing private conversations between adults and youth, parents and children, teachers and students in this circumstance, as well as ministers or preachers and members of a congregation.

Would members opposite not also agree that some of those conversations can be very difficult? There are teachers who have had inappropriate conversations with youth, and while that situation may not be criminalized, it cannot be entirely inside the scope of this bill or entirely outside of it. It is a grey area that requires study by the committee.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the Bloc's dissertations and presentations on this issue. It seems they understand there are systemic challenges for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and two-spirit communities. There are systems at play that disqualify their full and equal participation in society. If they can see that for the LGBTQ2S community, and they can see that for women, why can they not see it for other marginal communities in this country, including those who are racially marginalized?

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Yukon and the work he has done on a whole series of children's rights issues.

The last two initials that have been added to the long string of letters that we now identify as communities are “2S”, or two-spirited. One of the great things about being a parliamentarian is how much detail we get to learn about other parts of the country and other people who make up this great country. The indigenous community, with the concept of two-spirited people, has really raised the bar. The notion that being different makes someone special is always a little awkward, but it gives a person something else. The sense that a person has two spirits and is therefore regarded within a community as exceptionally spiritual really turns this issue on its head.

When we celebrate our children for who they are, they do better, and we do better as a country when we celebrate that love, so let us do this and and get the bill passed.

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, that is one of several ways of asking a question that has been asked many times here today.

The space between a private conversation and where that trips into a form of conversion therapy is a very difficult line to draw in legislation. Part of the way in which our laws work in a democratic parliamentary society is that those definitions evolve over time, to a degree. Fundamentally, what we are doing is taking away the institutional structures, the political fight and the legal ability to force people into situations where they are no longer agents of their own lives.

The issue that the member raised is a good one, as to how to stop private conversations from being damaging conversations. I am not sure we can do that with the law. I think if there was a way to do that, we would all be writing those laws and a whole—

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, that is a horrible story. It points to the critical importance that we all play a role in eliminating sexual and gender-based violence in this country.

However, in the way it was presented to me, and maybe it was because the question was not finished, it does not tell me why we should not be protecting children seeking love to be loved. What it tells me is that children need to be protected from violence and they need to be protected from becoming victimized by systems and societies. Children need to be protected. This bill would not stop difficult conversations in families, in church basements, in schools and in the hallways of Parliament, but it would stop the systematic and engineered cruelty that conversion therapy is. That is what the bill seeks to deal with.

The horrors that the member spoke about need to be spoken to in other legislation, but voting for or against this bill will not stop horrific acts of violence from traumatizing people and creating confusion in their lives going forward.

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, for my first time rising in the House since we broke from normal proceedings way back when, I would like to thank the staff at the centre table, the support staff in the halls and throughout the centre block, for not only pulling off such an extraordinary presentation of democracy but also for their service to all of us in Parliament, and in particular the pages. As a former page myself, the pages might be here for the shortest time, but their contribution is never not noted. We are glad to have them here and hope they stay safe with all Canadians as we begin this parliamentary speech.

I rise today as the Parliamentary Secretary of Families, Children and Social Development. That is a great title to speak to this issue on because how we deal with children and families, and how we develop our society, are at the heart of what we are debating today as we seek to realize and protect the rights of our neighbours, friends and family: all of us who call Canada home. There have been some very emotional presentations from members today. As society has become more comfortable discussing these issues and embracing these people, not “othering” them, their stories and their backgrounds can be told more easily, and the emotional bridges and journeys that some of us have had to take become much more profound. I want to thank the members who have stood today and shared stories of themselves, their families and their communities. They make us all stronger parliamentarians when they come here with that much personal experience.

This issue has changed so much, in just my lifetime. We look at the letters that are often attached to this debate: LGBTQ2+. I can remember when there was only one initial, and I remember when each initial was added to that list and what it meant for different communities at different times, in the city and community I represent and the family I come from. I remember, very distinctly, the bath house raids in Toronto. I remember very distinctly, because one of the people who was caught in that process, who had to be smuggled out the back door because of political implications, was a friend of the family. I remember a staff member at Legal Aid Ontario, where my mother worked, whose life was almost destroyed by that night. I remember how it gave rise to the Pride marches, and I remember how it gave rise to what was then called gay liberation.

I apologize for interrupting, but I will be sharing my time with the member for Milton in this speech.

I remember when the gay liberation movement had the word lesbian attached to it, and how trans people, bi people and all their struggles led to a stronger, better and more compassionate understanding of some of the challenges that people in our society faced. I also remember, shortly after the bath house raids, the rise of AIDS and HIV, and I remember how the stigma prevented people from getting treatment and prevented them from being comforted by family members and loved ones.

Every time we have had to achieve a transformational change in the civil rights and human rights of members of the community has been a really difficult time for politicians. I remember, for example, a debate at Queen's Park when the NDP government of the day tried to bring forth a bill that would have simply provided family benefits to families that happened to be configured differently from what was perceived to be the norm. I remember the free vote that broke into a riot at Queen's Park, because I was covering it as a reporter. I remember the pain in people's eyes because they knew, coming out of the AIDS epidemic, that the failure to recognize people as full families meant that they could not be there at the end of life with people who loved them, cared for them and were quite often the only ones providing them with the medicine and medical care they needed through their struggle with AIDS and HIV.

We have come a long way as a society by opening our hearts and our minds simultaneously to these issues. Today's debate is profoundly important because society is starting to understand that the sooner we deliver people their human rights, recognize their civil rights and deliver the understanding that we see a person's humanity, the quicker that person starts to come to terms and become a citizen like everyone else, contribute like everyone else but also get loved like everyone else. That is what is at the heart of this debate today. I recognize that when we start trying to move the emotional into the legal and trying to bring social practice into law and statute, there are difficulties.

Some of the opposition members are starting to talk about things they want to explore in committee and changes they think might be important. If those things are brought forward in the spirit of recognizing and deepening our common human rights and our common civility, then nothing but good will come from those debates.

I look forward to the committee taking hold of this issue and trying to find a way to improve this bill. No piece of legislation is ever presented in perfection. They are never passed in perfection. That does not mean we should not be trying. On this issue, it could not be more important.

I was a reporter here when the same-sex marriage debate was kicking up. I remember being a reporter at the City of Toronto, when the two Michaels came forward and decided they were going to present themselves to city hall and dare the city not to marry them. I remember being in a press conference. The city manager was there, and the politicians were there, including Kyle Rae, one of the first elected politicians in Canada to come from the gay community.

I remember asking the city clerk, “Why do you not just marry them, and let someone else deny them their human rights?” There was a brief moment when I thought the city clerk might actually just rip up the letter of disqualification right there on the spot. We all sort of stopped and hoped for it.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding reception of the two Michaels. I was lucky enough to be a city councillor when Toronto became the first place in this country, and the first place on this continent, to open the doors of the wedding chapel to everybody. We would get called in the middle of a debate in the council chamber because the wedding chapel was just across the way. We would get called in and have to go to witness people's marriages.

I have to say, it only took one or two marriage ceremonies, even for those of us who were convinced in our hearts it was the right and proper thing to do, to understand that just the act of seeing that happen was transformational. We knew, from the minute we saw an old uncle or a questioning sister or a troubled sibling, that when they saw the love that was being expressed and the humanity that was being embraced, they would see this was actually a celebration of life, and not a denial of someone else's belief structure. It was actually just people expressing love.

We saw that over and over again, and we knew from that moment on society would very quickly embrace it. People have. They embrace it because as soon they witness it and they see the humanity we are trying to stand up for, protect and defend today, they are forever changed by the glory of what happens when love, and who people are, are simply honoured.

This is a profound act. This is a really important piece of legislation we are debating here today. What it does, most importantly for me as the parliamentary secretary for families, children and social development, is it goes to the heart of something which is incredibly important in this country. We know from studying homelessness that if someone is homeless at 16, the chances of them remaining and becoming chronically homeless is in the range of 80% to 90%.

Let us think about that. For someone on the streets at age 16, the chances they will be on the street at 28 or 35 go off the chart. We also know that young people who come to terms with their sexuality and are kicked out of their homes end up on the street faster than any other child in this country. When our government commits to ending homelessness, this is part of that agenda. Make no mistake about that.

I will leave the House with one last thought. Two things happened when I was a member of Parliament on a pride march. I met a young kid from North Bay, who had left North Bay because he was afraid that his sexuality would mean he could never teach in that school system. It does not matter which school system it was, but he left North Bay because he was afraid he would never be allowed to teach up there. He was just not sure the level of tolerance of his sexuality was there to give him a place where he would have a career. He came to Toronto, and he went to the pride march. I was on a truck with him, and we had not quite turned from Bloor onto Yonge. I asked, “Are you ready?” He asked, “Why?”

We turned the corner onto Yonge Street in pride, and there were a million people in front of us celebrating people for who they are. I have never seen somebody cry so hard, so fast and so joyfully in my life. The reason I knew turning that corner was going to be so important was because the year before I had done the same thing with my sister. When that happens in a family, when love does not skip a beat, but just gets deeper, and people find new ways to love and new people in the family to love with, it changes a person forever.

This legislation is going to protect people to find that experience. It is going to protect the opportunity for young people in this country to be who they are, to love who they need to love, to love themselves and to be loved by not just their families but by the whole country and this Parliament.

Let us pass this legislation. Let us take it to committee and make it better. Let us make sure the Senate gets it passed. Let us make sure that children in this land know they are free to love, free to be loved and can love freely. If we can make this country the safest place in the world to fall in love, we will have done good work as parliamentarians.

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, concern was raised that the bill had not been perfected in its representation, but rather was being left to committee to work on it. I am curious. When he said that work needed to be done, who does he think needs to be called to that committee to help guide parliamentarians as we go forward? What voices does he believe are missing from this debate right now that would make this a stronger bill if we listened to them?

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for a very strong and principled speech. I would expect nothing less from him on this topic, in fact on virtually every topic he stands on. He challenges us in his comments. I am not going to ask a question about his comments; they stand for themselves and are well reasoned.

My question for him is simply this. Those of us who want to see the day realized have work to do with him. I would like to know from his perspective what the next steps Parliament, in fact Canada, needs to take to realize that vision and dream of his of full equality and what he challenges us as Parliamentarians to take up in battle with him to ensure that all members of his community enjoy the full rights to which he speaks.