Arif Virani

[Criminal Code, June 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my Bloc Québécois colleague's question and her work on public safety.

Among the possible options, we decided to proceed through regulations rather than a bill, because this approach is sometimes faster.

I understand my colleague's impatience and why she is eager to see regulations on assault weapons. Let me assure the member that several of my Liberal colleagues and I will fight to have these regulations made as soon as possible.

[Criminal Code, June 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, obviously we have a very strong philosophical and principle difference on this issue. As a basic proposition, I would put to him that Canadians' safety is improved when we restrict the number of firearms in circulation. Any efforts in that regard, of which this bill is one, will benefit Canadians' safety. That is my first point.

The second point is that I do not dispute that there are concerns with the border. That is what I identified in my opening intervention. When issues come up about supporting the CBSA and RCMP at the border, in terms of their ability to intercept weapons, I hope this time the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and his colleagues on the Conservative benches will vote in favour of those investments instead of opposing them.

[Criminal Code, June 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Whitby.

I want to recognize that I am speaking to the House of Commons from traditionally unceded Algonquin territory.

I am speaking today on a very important bill, Bill C-21, an incredibly important bill that addresses the proliferation of handguns in Canada and the need for greater measures to protect community safety.

Just by way of a refresh, our work on gun control, as a government, started much earlier. Since 2015, we have banned AR-15s and listed 1,500 models of assault-style firearms as prohibited. We have cracked down on illegal trafficking by investing in law enforcement and enhancing border security. We have invested $250 million to address the root causes of gang violence.

Bill C-21 is part of the evolution of this approach and it is targeting specifically handguns. The question is why. We know that gun violence in Canada is on the rise. Since 2009, violent offences involving guns have increased by 81%, and handguns are the number one type of gun used in shooting homicides in this country.

Around 47% of Canadians have reported feeling that gun violence poses a serious threat to their communities. My community of Parkdale—High Park is no exception. My city of Toronto is no exception. We know that handguns are the preferred weapon of criminals in Canada, and that criminals obtain their guns through different means: smuggling, theft or what is known as straw purchases.

For example, the horrific Danforth shooting a few years back in Toronto involved a gun that was originally a legal firearm that was stolen in the province of Saskatchewan. We are trying to address part of the problem, which is the supply of handguns that are circulating in Canadian society.

How will we do that? This bill would freeze the market. Individuals will no longer be able to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns, subject to some very narrow exceptions. This means that there will never be more handguns in Canada than there are at the moment this bill passes. I just want that to sink in for members of Parliament, because that underscores the need to ensure community safety by passing this legislation as quickly as possible.

That begs the question, what about other sources, such as the borders? We are addressing borders and smuggling as well. While Bill C-21 limits the domestic supply of handguns, what we have done at the borders, and we have heard this injected into the debate by people like the member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges, is that we have made a $350-million investment into the RCMP and the CBSA, in their capacity to intercept weapons coming across the U.S. border. While we venerate our relationship with our strongest ally and our largest trading partner, that trading partner also happens to be the world's single largest manufacturer of firearms on the planet.

When we made that investment, and I will note this for the people watching on CPAC, the Conservative Party of Canada voted against that investment, betraying its perspective when the rubber hit the road, in terms of voting patterns.

What happened after that historic investment? Let us look at the evidence. In 2021, the RCMP and the CBSA intercepted nearly double the number of firearms at the border than they had in 2020. The investments in border safety are working to keep our communities safe.

Both in this debate and in the context of other debates about firearms and gun control in this legislature, at least in the time I have been here, since 2015, we have heard a lot about the narrative about victims, that the focus needs to be on the victims. Let me talk about three victim groups that I feel are strongly served by a bill like Bill C-21.

The first is women. The member for Vancouver East just asked a very poignant question of the member who just spoke from the official opposition, about victims of intimate partner violent and things like gender-based violence. We have heard, and it is fairly common-sense, that if there is violence in the home, the presence of weapons in the home would accentuate the propensity of that violence to end up being lethal. That is exactly what has happened. A stat was just provided that 500 instances of intimate partner violence involved firearms. That is almost two per day in terms of how frequent that is. That is an alarming statistic for all of us who are concerned about violence, and I am sure there is no debate that all of us in this chamber are concerned about intimate partner violence.

What does this bill do? This bill would provide, among other things, regulatory authority that will allow for an individual who is the subject of a restraining order to be prevented from having either a firearm or a firearms licence. We know that the number of women who are killed at home because of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence is far too large. That is why we are working to address this.

The next area I would like to address, in terms of whom we are supporting, is those who are dealing with mental illness. We know that we have a concern about mental illness, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.

We know that rates of suicidality are going up. We know that when people are contemplating suicide, or having what is called suicidal ideation, the presence of a weapon can, again, be lethal. We know that guns in homes lead to greater numbers of suicides in this country. There are members of the official opposition who have called for various measures, and they are right to call for them, to address suicidality and to address getting people support.

One way of ensuring that suicidal ideation does not result in death is by restricting the numbers of firearms in homes. This bill would do that. I found it a bit perplexing, to be candid, to hear, in the debate just prior to my intervention, about the notion of background checks. It was raised by the Conservative member who just spoke. When the issue of background checks was moved in the House of Commons in the previous Parliament, the Conservative Party again voted against that aspect of the legislation. That is really troubling for a party, when all parliamentarians need to be addressing the need to ensure that lawful firearms are only put into the hands of people who should have firearms, not people who may perhaps be suffering from mental illness.

Let me address a third group, and this one is really important to me in the work that I have been doing for the past seven years. What this legislation would do through the red flag provisions is address people who could be targeted by hatred. I am talking about people who might be racial minorities and religious minorities. I am talking about people who could be targeted online, and the women I spoke of earlier. If such people have a legitimate basis or reasonable grounds to believe that a firearm should be removed from the home of a potential assailant, or someone who was stalking or threatening them, etc., they could apply for a court order to do just that. The court order raising a red flag could be for a limited period as short as up to 30 days. A long-term prohibition order could be all the way up to five years, if there continued to be a reasonable basis to believe the individual posed a public health risk.

The removal of the weapons could be done immediately, via a court order that they be surrendered immediately to law enforcement. This is important because we heard from, and listened to, women and minority groups who are targeted by violence. They are targeted by hatred and are threatened. They told us that their fears are real and that there are fears of reprisal.

I am going to get to an aspect that we have improved in this legislation. What they have said is that they were not going to come forward because if they did so, it would put them in even greater vulnerability. They would have a greater sense of jeopardy, with a higher likelihood of potentially fatal consequences. What we have done with this iteration of Bill C-21 is we have improved it. We have listened to those stakeholders, and we have cured what we feel is an aspect of the old Bill C-21 that needed curing. This is in terms of protecting the identity of those persons who would apply for such a court order.

Under the current version of the legislation that we are now debating, a court could close the court hearing to the public and the media. A court could seal the documents in the record for up to 30 days and remove identifying information for any period of time, even permanently, if the judge felt that was necessary. That is important because it gets to the heart of this issue: that people who are facing threats and have very legitimate fears need to be emboldened to come forward and not be afraid to come forward. This is what this legislation would do. It would allow for such people to be protected.

I want to point out the types of people who have been calling for the red flags. One amazing group is a group of physicians called Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns, and I salute their incredible work. I had the occasion to meet with some of them, including Dr. Najma Ahmed and Dr. Julie Maggi. Many of their colleagues were doing incredible work from a medical perspective about this being a public health crisis that we are dealing with, in terms of firearms violence.

I also want to salute the lifetime work of my constituent, Ms. Wendy Cukier, a professor at TMU in Toronto and also the president of the Canadian Coalition for Gun Control. I first met Wendy when I was a parliamentary intern in this chamber in 1995. She was doing work back then, 27 years ago, to promote better gun control. She has never wavered in those 27 years. I salute her for the success that this legislation has achieved.

The last piece I want to address in closing is the idea of having municipalities deal with this on a one-off basis. Having bylaws in individual municipalities would create a checkerboard. It would not serve the constituents of Toronto if guns were banned in Toronto but available in Markham or Mississauga. The same would apply across the country.

We are taking a national approach because this is a national issue and a national crisis. It is important for victims. It is important for women. It is important for people who are suffering with mental illness. It is important for racial and religious minorities. I firmly support this bill, and I hope my colleagues will, as well.

[Firearms, June 16th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, gun violence is a reality in every community. My riding of Parkdale—High Park is no exception. As my staff have heard repeatedly from my constituents, we must do everything in our power to combat gun violence.

To date, we have banned assault-style weapons. We have cracked down on illegal trafficking. We have committed $250 million to address gang violence.

With Bill C-21 we are going further. We are implementing a national freeze on the sale, purchase, transfer and importation of handguns. We are responding to the pleas of women who are victims of intimate partner violence, which often turns lethal simply because of the presence of handguns in the home. We are responding to pleas of racialized and religious minorities, who have asked that red flag laws, which enable firearms to be removed by court order, protect the anonymity of those targeted by hate. We are responding to the pleas of mental health advocates, who contend, rightly, that handguns in Canadian homes result in increased deaths by suicide.

The only pleas we are ignoring are those of the gun lobby, who would criticize us for working to keep Canadians safe.

[Small Business, June 13th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for the question. I would just point out to her that what we are doing and what we have done throughout the pandemic, and afterward as we exit this pandemic, is supporting Canadian small businesses.

We have recovered over 115% of the jobs lost prior to the pandemic, which is point number one. Point number two is that budget 2022, which I am sure the member opposite has perused carefully, actually shows significant supports for small businesses, such as the phase-out of the small business tax rate, $15 billion invested in the Canada growth fund to scale up and $97 million to secure Canadian IP.

We will continue to work hard for Canadian small businesses because we know that they are the backbone of our economy.

[National Indigenous History Month, June 1st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, June marks National Indigenous History Month. My constituents, including Anne Hines, the minister of Roncesvalles United Church, care deeply about understanding indigenous contributions to our community. When Anne considered what her congregation could do to support indigenous reconciliation, she looked no further than Phil Cote.

Phil belongs to the Moose Deer Point first nation and is a celebrated Anishinabe artist. Anne commissioned him to create a soaring indigenous mural, some 60 feet high and 70 feet wide, that now adorns an entire wall of the church.

The mural is the first of its kind in a church in Canada. The significance is clear, given the historical role of the church in administering the residential school system. Now all those who enter Toronto's Roncesvalles United Church are struck by this towering work of art and the creation story it depicts.

As opposed to working to take the Indian out of the child, Roncevalles United is now celebrating the indigenous presence that surrounds all of us.

The path toward reconciliation is a shared one. Thanks, Phil Cote and Anne Hines, for demonstrating that for all of us.

Chi-meegwetch.

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 31st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada expects Canadian companies active abroad to respect human rights, to operate transparently and in consultation with host governments and local communities, and to work in a socially and environmentally responsible manner while respecting applicable laws. Companies are also expected to adopt best practices and internationally respected guidelines on responsible business conduct and to take measures to meet anti-corruption objectives.

Canada pursues a balanced approach to responsible business conduct, RBC, which includes prevention, legislation and access to remedy.

In terms of prevention, the Government of Canada provides guidance on preventive measures that Canadian companies can take to mitigate risks in various markets and builds awareness about tools available to support company efforts. The Government of Canada endorses and promotes RBC standards and guidelines, including the OECD’s “Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises” and the UN’s “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”.

With respect to mandatory measures, Canada has adopted legislation addressing critical issues related to RBC, such as corruption, transparency and forced labour. For example, Canada has made it a criminal offence to offer a bribe to a foreign public official under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act; under the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, Canada requires extractive companies listed in Canada to declare all taxes paid and where they are paid; and, in July 2020, amendments to the Customs Tariff made it illegal to import products manufactured wholly or in part through forced labour. This prohibition applies to imports from all foreign sources and is enforced at the border by border services officers. Importers are ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance with the prohibition and are encouraged to work with their foreign suppliers to ensure that any goods being imported into Canada have not been mined, manufactured or produced wholly or in part by forced or compulsory labour. Canada has also committed to enacting supply chain legislation.

Canada provides access to remedy through two dispute resolution mechanisms: The Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise and the national contact point for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s “Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises”. If a Canadian company does not co-operate in good faith with Canada’s dispute resolution mechanisms, a recommendation may be made to withdraw or deny trade commissioner service support. A recommendation may also be provided to Export Development Canada and the Canadian Commercial Corporation to also withhold future support.

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 31st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), the Government of Canada has convened transformational conversations with all of Canada’s major financial institutions to fundamentally change the way our country supports Black entrepreneurs, and we’re seeing the results. Since the launch of the Black entrepreneurship program, or BEP, in September 2020, many financial institutions, FIs, have launched their own initiatives targeting Black entrepreneurs, totalling over $230 million. This exceeds the $128 million collectively committed during the announcement of the program. The objectives of these initiatives align with those of the Black entrepreneurship loan fund, the BELF, and demonstrate the continued commitment of FIs to supporting Black Canadian business owners and entrepreneurs.

With regard to (b), following the announcement of the BEP in September 2020, financial institutions voluntarily committed to provide additional lending of $128 million to support the BELF. Since launching their respective initiatives, officials from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, ISED, have held bilateral meetings with FIs to better understand these initiatives and to encourage them to continue to ensure transparency in their reporting on these initiatives and to continue collaboration with a view of furthering the objectives of the BEP.

With regard to (c), the loan administrator, the Federation of African Canadian Economics, FACE, has autonomy over the adjudication of and decisions on loan applications, in partnership with the Business Development Bank of Canada, the BDC. This process and the resulting decisions are independent of any government intervention or input. Consequently, this question would be best directed to FACE, which could provide the very latest data on applications received and loans issued.

With regard to (d), the government continues to work with FACE, the BDC and other financial institutions to find opportunities to increase access to capital for Black Canadian business owners and entrepreneurs.

[Taxation, May 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, with respect to the wine industry, we stand firmly in favour of supporting this industry in terms of its growth in this country and in terms of its growth, economic development and ability to export.

The minister's work is taking her into different areas of the world. Right now, she is travelling to APEC to address the need for diversification in the Asia-Pacific. With our agreements and trade accords, what we are doing is ensuring the exportation of Canadian wine and other Canadian industries so they can meet the important targets we are setting.

[International Trade, May 5th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we are talking about Canada-U.S. relations, as U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai is presently here in Ottawa, meeting with the Minister of International Trade. This underscores how important this relationship is and the work that is ongoing.

With respect to the member's specific question with regard to trade irritants that relate to CUSMA, he knows the extensive work that was done by the now deputy prime minister in terms of engaging in a strong agreement that protects Canadian interests. That is the first point.

The second point is that when CUSMA violations are triggered, we have been assertive and will always be assertive in defending Canadian interests and the interests of Canadian businesses to defend their economic success in this country.