Candice Bergen

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has been doing such an amazing job, working for her constituents and doing a great job in the House.

She is bang on. She sees something I think so many Canadians see. People who voted for the Liberal government, thinking they could trust what the Prime Minister said, wanting to give him a chance, are realizing that he has failed to keep his word on so many issues, not just the issue around respecting parliament, not just the issue around using his majority to ram things through the House and not allow for debate. On issues of balancing the budget, Canadians are seized with the impact of his reckless spending.

On issues around ethics and transparency, as I mentioned earlier in my speech, we have a Prime Minister who, for the first time in history, has been found guilty of breaking four parts of the Conflict of Interest Act. On fiscal responsibility, we see the government taxing Canadians. Canadians are paying more for everything because of the government.

There is electoral reform. The Prime Minister has betrayed veterans. On every front, everything the Prime Minister touches seems to fail. Everything the Prime Minister says he is going to do fails. He may have thought he was going to try hard. He may have thought that if he put his hand on his heart and was very sincere, it would work, but it has failed. This is a failure as well.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I fully agree with my hon. colleague. Part of what makes our democracy so vibrant is the opposition. I talk a lot with my constituents about the role we we play. For example, on the small business tax changes, the government was going to ram those through, penalizing so many of our hard-working men and women across the country, professionals as well as small business owners and farmers.

People will recall that those individuals and their voices were loud, but it was the voice of the opposition in this place that was able to amplify that day in and day out. In fact, we used things like opposition days. We used every tool we had to ensure the government knew it could not ram those small business changes through.

The problem is this. When the government starts to erode the fundamentals of our democracy, it become a slippery slope. We have seen the Liberals try to do it with people's fundamental right to beliefs and conscience. We see it in the House when they try to erode our ability as opposition to do our job. It is about the government recognizing that the role we play, although it might be difficult for the government and for the Prime Minister, is a vital role. It is what makes our democracy vibrant.

Many times, there are opposition motions that the New Democrats bring forward on which the Conservatives might not agree. Then when the vote comes, that is when we have the chance to express that. We have the time to express that during questions and answers during debates. That is when the Liberals can express their displeasure with our opposition day motions. In fact, they can defeat them every time, but we should have the ability to bring them forward and ensure they are talked about. If these days are cut short, it is disrespectful to opposition, whether Conservative, NDP, or other opposition members.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is like being a singer. Sometimes a backup singer does help. I do not mind if the hon. member wants to be my backup singer.

My point to the hon. member is that most of the Liberal members sat here. I saw them toiling away hour after hour, and in the end the government gave in. This is something that the Liberals will have to make decisions on in the future. If their Prime Minister and the government is going to be giving into what Canadians are asking for, they need to rethink how much they have his back.

On the issue about voting on different measures, we can recall how sanctimonious the Liberals were during the 2015 election when they said they would never, ever use omnibus bills. Then, of course, they immediately started using omnibus bills, not only on public safety and justice legislation, but also on the budget. They threw everything but the kitchen sink into the budget so that they could say that we, the opposition, did not vote for this measure or that measure. It is an old trick. It is an old party; the old party with the old tricks.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague addressed a couple of issues there. I will begin with the first one, and that is on the marathon voting that went on here. What happened, just so I can remind her and everyone else, is that we were simply asking for Daniel Jean to come to the public safety committee to testify. It was not unreasonable. It was not a brand new request. It was something we asked for. We said we were going to show the government that we were serious and that there would be a whole lot of votes. There are very few tools we have in opposition. One of the tools we have is that we can have extended votes. We think that is something we have to be able to do to show the government we are serious.

The Prime Minister slept wonderfully that night on his feather bed. He did come in at about 8 in the morning after we had all been here and were exhausted. He came in eight hours later. He looked refreshed. He was energized. Apparently he brought donuts, someone said. My point on that marathon voting was that in the end, Daniel Jean came to committee.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, here we go again: another spring, another motion from the Liberal government to sit until midnight. In fact, it is exactly the same motion for midnight sittings that the Liberals used last year. It also has the same flaws that last year's motion contained, and quite frankly, the issues dominating debate in the House are pretty much the same.

Last spring, the Prime Minister was under an ethics investigation. This spring, now that the Ethics Commissioner has found the Prime Minister guilty in four different ways, it is the Prime Minister's friend, the fisheries minister, who is embroiled in what has become known as “clamscam”. Of course, the finance minister is under investigation as well. Boy oh boy, round and round we go.

Last spring, the Liberals were getting ready to ram through the House major changes to the way Parliament works, all to their benefit, of course, because the Liberals never do anything unless it is going to benefit them. Conservatives fought tooth and nail when the Liberals tried to ram through those changes that would erode our democracy. Well, this spring it is the very rules about electing members of Parliament to the House that the Liberals are trying to rig, and to rush those changes through Parliament as we speak.

We see this time and time again. When the Liberals are failing at something, they try to change the rules to benefit themselves. Last spring, the Liberals tabled a budget with a runaway deficit and no balanced budget in sight for decades. This spring, another whopping deficit and still no plan to bring the budget back to balance. Today, they made an announcement of another $4.5 billion to buy a 60-year-old pipeline, which did not need government money as we already had a private investor who was putting billions into it and creating jobs. However, now the federal government is giving them $4.5 billion to take down to Houston. Who knows what the costs will be to build this pipeline.

Let us remember that the federal government is not that good at building much of anything. We can look at its records on ships, planes, and the Phoenix system. I do not really trust the government to build anything.

I digress. My point is that more and more billions of taxpayers' dollars are being spent by the Liberal drunken sailor government. We see questionable ethics and self-serving rule rigging, taxing, and spending. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now let me turn to the principle of government Motion No. 22. Let me be clear. Conservatives believe in hard work. We believe in doing hard work rather than just talking about it. We do not have a problem at all with working a little extra in the spring. In fact, it is something of an annual ritual around here. We usually work harder in the spring as we gear up for the summer.

The last Conservative government also asked the House of Commons to put in some extra hours in the spring, but one thing we never did in government was to steal time for government business on opposition days. The current government did this last year and is proposing to do it again. It is probably going to ram it through again this year.

Let me just explain once again, for our constituents who are watching, what this means. Paragraph (j) of Motion No. 22 would shortchange the opposition, both the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, on the only four opposition days remaining this spring. Let me just offer a quick explanation. Over the course of one year, the rules of the House of Commons require the government to set aside 22 sitting days for discussion of topics of the opposition's choosing. That is 22 days in total for the NDP and the Conservatives to talk about issues they believe are important.

We get to discuss the opposition topic all day. Regardless of whether it is a short sitting day, such as a Wednesday, when we have our caucus meeting, or a longer day, such as a Tuesday, we debate the opposition topic all day. That is why we call them “opposition days”. It simply does not matter how long the day is. We get to debate our opposition topic from the beginning of the day to the end of the day.

We have brought forward some very important topics during our opposition days, topics such as support for Kinder Morgan. Interestingly, the government voted against that topic when we brought it forward, but it is now buying the pipeline. That is quite something.

We have brought forward very important topics, such as helping Yazidi girls and women who were victims of ISIS terrorists. We have brought forward motions supporting Israel. There are a number of topics that we have brought forward on opposition days. As I said, it does not matter how long that day it is; it is our day.

If the government is asking the opposition to work longer days, we are fine with that. It only makes sense and it is only fair for the government to also be willing to discuss the opposition topics on those longer days as well, but it is not willing to do that. We have two opposition days left, and I believe the NDP has two as well. Even though we are going to be sitting longer hours, according to Motion No. 22, on opposition days the government is going to stop us earlier from talking about the issue that we have brought forward, probably at 5:30 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. The government will then continue with its business for the rest of the day, but we, the opposition, will not be able to talk about the topic we have brought forward. We do not have a lot of days to do it, and those days are important.

Again, let me remind everyone that when we were in government we did not do that. We might have sat a little longer in the spring, but opposition days also went longer in the spring. It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister, who was elected promising to respect parliamentarians, disrespects the job that we do here so much that he will not even let opposition topics be debated on these longer sitting days.

Wait, did the Prime Minister not recently fly down to New York and encourage people to listen to those who disagree with them? I think I remember that news coverage. There was our Prime Minister, standing at second base in Yankee Stadium with hand on heart, which we have come to learn is the Prime Minister's telltale sign that sanctimony and hypocrisy will soon be following. Nonetheless, there he was, telling university graduates about the importance of tolerating and listening to other people's views. However, our “do as I say, not as I do” Prime Minister has a different attitude when he comes back to his own country and our House of Commons.

Let us not forget that the Liberal Prime Minister, who claims to believe in tolerating other people's views, has imposed a values test on Canadians and organizations looking for help to hire summer students. Those views he does not want to listen to. Their views he is not going to tolerate. Their views have to be shut down because the Prime Minister does not think they are worthy of listening to. He will go to the U.S. and lecture people in the United States about listening to other people's views, but when he comes back to Canada he does the exact opposite. It is unbelievable.

The same Liberal Prime Minister surely did not seem to have tolerance for opposing views when he fired the former chair of the fisheries committee, the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, because he disagreed with the Prime Minister over the summer jobs values test.

The same Prime Minister kicked the hon. member for Saint John—Rothesay off the committee as punishment for disagreeing with the Prime Minister about his dangerous and reckless plan for small business tax changes. Do members remember all that?

Do they remember the feminist Prime Minister? This one was particularly galling for me. He ordered his MPs to veto the election of the hon. member for Lethbridge, who was duly elected to the House of Commons, as chair of the status of women committee, a role which was filled by nomination of the official opposition, because he did not agree with her views on an issue of personal conscience. He was telling an elected member of Parliament what she can think, what she can believe, and what she can hold dear to her heart. It is utter hypocrisy.

Sadly, this sort of behaviour is not limited to just the Prime Minister. Let me be very clear. I do not think that all Liberal MPs are like this, but, sadly, a lot of them are seeing their leader do it, and they think it gives them permission to do the same thing.

Leadership starts at the top. This is not just a cliché; it is true. An organization's culture is often shaped and moulded, and the signal is sent by the boss. That fact of life is no different with the government. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change was on national television a few weekends ago, saying she has no time for politicians who disagree with her.

Earlier this spring, the Minister of Finance called our deputy leader, the hon. member for Milton, a neanderthal because she did not agree with him. There was no apology, no outrage. They will say one thing and do something completely different.

Now we have the government House leader bringing forward a motion that cuts off debate on opposition motions. No longer will they be opposition days, but opposition half days. The Prime Minister apparently cannot stomach having to listen to opposition ideas for a few extra hours. Maybe the Prime Minister should not have flown off to New York City to give a sermon on tolerance of different opinions. Maybe he should be reflecting on his own words, and at next week's cabinet meeting, maybe he should lay his hand on his heart and give the same speech to all of his colleagues. Certainly the disrespect the Liberals have been showing for ideas is matched by the disrespect they have for Parliament.

However, it is not just weeks of legislation that the Liberals have decided to hinder Parliament with, but also that we have not talked about recently that is incredibly important. Parliament has not been consulted on ordering Canadian troops into harms way as part of a United Nations mission in the west African nation of Mali. In a breach of tradition and practice, the Prime Minister is refusing to consult Parliament on this deployment. The seriousness of this deployment of our soldiers into an active war zone, which is widely considered to be the most dangerous UN mission in the world today, warrants a debate and a vote here in the House of Commons.

Again, the Prime Minister does not want to hear any voices that might disagree with him, that might challenge him, or that might ask him questions that he has no answer for. The Prime Minister, instead of doing what a leader does and taking the heat that comes with leadership, refuses to show the respect that this House, but mostly that our soldiers and their families, deserve.

On the security front, indeed, all Canadians have a vivid memory of the fiasco the was the Prime Minister's journey to India in February. The fumbling and flailing around that we saw from the government and the Prime Minister in the days that followed led to a full-blown diplomatic incident with our ally India, the largest democracy in the world. Conservatives wanted the national security advisor, Daniel Jean, to appear before a parliamentary committee to explain how those conspiracy theories came to be and his comments to the media. Members will recall that for weeks and weeks, because we had seen media reports about Daniel Jean telling the media that India had been part of this so-called conspiracy, we had wanted to talk to him. We wanted him to explain what was going on when a man convicted of attempted murder of a former Indian minister was invited to pal with and hang around with the Liberals at swanky parties in India.

By the way, we have a question on the Order Paper on that. The government will not tell us how much it cost. It is saying that there are just so many departments that it has to look into to find out. How much did all of those parties cost? I am pretty sure they cost a whole lot of money. We are not going to give up on getting those answers, because taxpayers deserve to know. However, the Prime Minister was going to have nothing to do with that kind of exercise and accountability.

Members will remember the Liberal convention in Halifax last month, where the party's outgoing president, the same Anna Gainey who joined the Prime Minister on his illegal vacation on the billionaire's private Caribbean island, told delegates that “now more than ever, we need to have his back”, referring to the Prime Minister. Well, just a few weeks before that, the Liberal caucus got a taste of having the Prime Minister's back. The Liberal whip told those on the Liberal backbench that they needed to have the Prime Minister's back and would have to be voting for close to 40 hours. They would have to have his back by voting down the opposition day motion to have the national security advisor appear at committee. They would have to have his back by voting for potentially up to 40 hours. That was quite something. They were not going to give in. At the end of all of that, “Oh captain our captain”, they were cheering on the Prime Minister.

Then a week later they realized they had better make sure the national security advisor appeared. He appeared, lo and behold, miraculously. I just want to know how good it felt for the Liberal back bench to have the Prime Minister's back. After all that was said and done, after the extreme pressure laid on by our amazing Conservative team, the government relented. The national security advisor appeared at the public safety committee. It must be so fulfilling, so rewarding to be part of the Liberal caucus, when things like that happen. It must make them proud to go home and tell their constituents what they were doing.

The Liberals wanted to change the way the government asks for spending permission and the way the House of Commons studies these spending proposals. That is what has brought us to where the main estimates have changed. This year the main estimates include a single $7 billion lump sum under the buzz phrase “budget implementation”. The government claimed it would be focused on initiatives announced in this year's budget. The wording provides no assurance.

Again, the Liberals are ramming this through. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, a dedicated public servant who has had a long career here on Parliament Hill, told the Senate committee he had never seen anything like it. His office stated:

While the Government has included a new Budget Implementation Vote for $7.0 billion, the initiatives to be funded through this vote are not reflected in the Departmental Plans. Hence, there remains a lack of alignment between the Budget initiatives and planned results.

Let me summarize that: Liberal slush fund. That is what the $7 billion amounts to.

There are so many more things I could go on talking about. Last year the government tried to ram through changes to the Standing Orders. It wanted to eliminate Friday sittings. The Prime Minister did not want to be here to answer questions. Of course, the list goes on.

Is there a pattern here? Yes, there is. When the chips are down for the Liberal government, its go-to move is to change the game, to rig the rules, to tilt the scales in its favour, always to regain and have its own advantage. We have seen a pattern.

I will close with this, in Bill C-76, the so-called elections modernization act, here is what is happening. The Prime Minister is having a hard time raising money, even with his cash for access. His policies are so bad, people who have supported the Liberal Party for generations cannot support it anymore. Today, I think Kinder Morgan is going to be another example for these lifelong Liberals. Liberal policy is so bad, so destructive of our competitiveness, and so destructive of our foreign relations that longtime Liberals are done writing cheques to the party. The Prime Minister cannot raise money anymore.

What is he going to do? He is changing the election rules in Bill C-76 so that third party funding can flow before the election and help him, but he is limiting the ability of parties that have raised money, who have had people donate willingly to their party. Those parties, like the Conservatives, actually have had a lot of people, hundreds of thousands of people, support them through financial donations.

The Prime Minister says that he does not like that, because he cannot raise money, because he is doing such a terrible job and is such a failure that nobody wants to donate to his party. However, the Leader of the Opposition, our leader, is doing well and the Conservatives are doing well. We have good ideas, stable, strong ideas that are getting donations from supporters right across the country.

The Prime Minister says he is going to change the rules so that the party cannot spend it. The Prime Minister has not learned that he cannot get away with it. I know he does not respect Parliament, but we do respect Parliament. I believe that members of Parliament who have been duly elected, in the end, will also respect Parliament and will follow through and do the right thing.

I hope that the government accepts our amendment. All we are asking for is that on opposition, days we have the same ability to to bring our issues forward, even if it is uncomfortable for the government. It is called democracy. Even if the Prime Minister will not respect democracy, I sincerely ask my colleagues on the other side of the House to respect democracy, support our amendment, and then we can finish the work that we are doing here in the House of Commons.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to challenge the notice that was given by the government House leader of a closure motion concerning government Motion No. 22. It is my view that her notice was premature and therefore is out of order.

I raised a point of order earlier today disputing the correctness of House records concerning debate on government Motion No. 22, and we are still awaiting a ruling on that point of order.

Standing Order 57, which governs closure, reads, in part:

Immediately before the Order of the Day for resuming an adjourned debate is called, or if the House be in Committee of the Whole, any Minister of the Crown who, standing in his or her place, shall have given notice at a previous sitting of his or her intention so to do, may move that the debate shall not be further adjourned....

Page 663 of Bosc and Gagnon puts this into plain English. It states:

Regardless, debate on the item which is the subject of the notice must have begun before notice of closure may be given.

The related footnote points to a ruling by Speaker Fraser in December 1988 during debate on the Canada-United States free trade agreement. Members with a passion for politics will recall that this was the immediate wake of that autumn's general election, sparked by the resistance of Liberal senators to a previous Conservative government's free trade agreement with the U.S. After the election, Parliament met quickly in order to pass the free trade agreement before a New Year's Eve deadline.

To aid the bill's passage, the government proposed a series of temporary procedural rules, not unlike the intention of government Motion No. 22. When the 1988 procedural motion was called, Liberals and New Democrats rose to challenge every fibre of it, because at that point they were still fighting against the free trade agreement with the United States. To make a long story short, those procedural arguments continued throughout the day.

In any event, the then government House leader gave notice of a closure motion. That notice, too, was challenged, which brings me back to Speaker Fraser's ruling. On December 15, 1988, at page 78 of Debates, the Chair said:

From a careful reading of this Standing Order, it is clear that the closure motion may only be moved “immediately before the Order of the Day for resuming an adjourned debate is called”.

In addition, this may only be done if notice of the intention to move closure has been given orally in the House by a Minister of the Crown at a previous sitting. While the Standing Orders specify when the motion can be moved, and how notice is to be given, they are silent on when notice may be given.

The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier argued yesterday that notice could only be given after debate had begun. Standing Order 57 does not specify this. However, a search of numerous previous instances where notice of closure was given—going back to 1913 when the rule was first introduced—has failed to reveal an occurrence where notice was given prior to debate having begun.

It can be argued that merely because this has not happened previously that does not prevent it from being allowed in this instance; that the Standing Order does not specifically prohibit this and therefore it should be allowed.

After a very careful consideration of this point, I am more persuaded by the weight of precedent and practice. Taking into consideration the gravity of the measure to be invoked and the necessity of protecting the rights of the minority, it is my feeling and decision that the intention of the Standing Order as drafted and as it has been applied is to allow a majority to impose closure only after debate on the question has begun. This is to ensure that such debate is not unfairly or prematurely curtailed. In this instance, debate on the motion had clearly not begun when the Hon. Minister served notice.

In resumé therefore I find that the motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Hon. Minister of State is in order and may be moved and debated. However, I cannot accept the notice of closure on that motion as proposed by the same Hon. Minister yesterday. Such notice can only be given once debate on the motion has commenced.

Next, let me anticipate a counter-argument from the government pointing to time allocation proceedings concerning report stage consideration of Bill C-62, the GST bill, in April 1990. It is critical to distinguish between the two rules that govern time allocation and closure.

Earlier, I quoted Standing Order 57 with its reference to an adjourned debate. Time allocation, on the other hand, is regulated by Standing Order 78. Section 3 of that Standing Order, which applies to most time allocation motions, reads:

A Minister of the Crown who from his or her place in the House, at a previous sitting, has stated that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of sections (1) or (2) of this Standing Order in respect of proceedings at the stage at which a public bill was then under consideration....

We have a critical difference here between “adjourned debate” for closure, and “under consideration” for time allocation.

Because a lengthy and complex ruling on the grouping and voting of report stage motions on the GST bill had been delivered and the various motions themselves had been proposed from the Chair, it could be clearly said that Bill C-62 had been under consideration when notice was given of a time allocation motion.

A critical maxim, applied judicially in statutory interpretation cases would be instructive here. It is that "Parliament does not speak in vain". That touchstone is elaborated upon in various entries in Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes, the leading Canadian authority on the interpretation of laws. I will simply offer two short quotes from the sixth edition. First is paragraph 8.14, which says:

Although ordinary speakers or writers require much co-operative guesswork from their audience, a legislature is an idealized speaker. Unlike the rest of us, legislatures are presumed to always say what they mean and mean what they say. They do not make mistakes.

Then there is paragraph 8.32, which reads:

It is presumed that the legislature uses language carefully and consistently so that within a statute or other legislative instrument the same words have the same meaning and different words have different meanings. Another way of understanding this presumption is to say that the legislature is presumed to avoid stylistic variation. Once a particular way of expressing a meaning has been adopted, it is used each time that meaning is intended. Given this practice, it follows that where a different form of expression is used, a different meaning is intended.

In summary, “adjourned debate” and “under consideration” are two different expressions and, as a result, carry different meanings. The use of closure requires an item to have been debated, not simply to have been proposed or otherwise placed under consideration. Government Motion No. 22 has not been debated and, therefore, closure on Government Motion No. 22 is premature and out of order.

[Export and Import Permits Act, May 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, let me begin by asking my hon. colleague to reflect on this. Canada in no, way, shape or form can ever be compared to Russia or China in terms of our freedom, rule of law, and human rights.

The Liberals want us to sign onto agreements that would penalize our law-abiding firearms owners, as well as dumb down what we already have in place, just because the UN said we should. This is something I know the Liberals find hard to figure out. They just want to join agreements because then they can say that we are in an agreement, even though this does nothing to help the global problem because all of the people who are causing the big problems are not part of the agreement.

The Liberals always want to put Canada in a tough situation where we look bad, which is hard on us, just so they can say we are in another agreement. It is not good governance.

[Export and Import Permits Act, May 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying that everyone in this House, regardless of gender, is opposed to gender-based violence. It is time we moved on from the identity politics thing that somehow a woman should be standing up for gender issues. I think we would all definitely agree that when we look around the world and see where people are being victimized, we want to see that stopped, whether or not it is with respect to firearms and weapons being sold and traded.

Here is the problem. My colleague had a problem with the fact that I said our system is adequate. If the Liberals were proposing something would have a global effect on the arms trade and would be a better system, we would all be for it. However, as the Liberals normally do, this is not making our system any better. Therefore, if they want to improve our system, they should have come forward with real suggestions, like maybe talking tough to Iran or China, or using some levers that we have to address some of the horrible things that are going on internationally, rather than penalizing Canadian gun owners by using the system with a UN declaration. Here we have the UN again telling a country like Canada, which is extremely responsible, what to do.

I would welcome improvements. However, there are no improvements in this legislation. It will just affect and hurt Canadian men and women.

[Export and Import Permits Act, May 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-47, a bill that would implement an international arms control treaty. Bill C-47 lays bare a fundamental difference in the foreign policy approach of the Conservative official opposition and the Liberal government. I agree very much with my NDP colleague that the difference is that the Liberal government is primarily concerned with optics as opposed to real results for Canadians, lots of nice fancy window dressing with little or no results.

Previously, my colleague on this side of the House formally laid out the practical problems we have seen with this legislation, and the practical reality that we already have a strong system of arms control in this country that achieves the stated objective.

We oppose the bill on the grounds that it complicates existing arms control mechanisms that are working extremely well at present, and that, in the process, it introduces substantial problems for responsible, law-abiding Canadian firearms owners. I want to take this opportunity to discuss some issues we have in terms of this proposed legislation.

In real terms, Canada already has a strong and effective system of arms control that in practical effect exceeds the system proposed by the UN treaty. The current system includes the Trade Controls Bureau, which, through the responsible minister, has the ability to prevent us from supplying military equipment to countries where those exports might threaten Canadian security, or in cases where the weapons could be used in an internal or external conflict in general. The current system also includes provisions that allow a complete ban on trade with high-risk countries. Further, it is currently set that the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, and Statistics Canada collect all such information on goods exported from Canada.

Some might argue that signing on to this UN treaty is important to aligning Canada with other nations. In previous deliberations on this legislation, though, one of the members opposite referenced the nations that had initially signed on to this treaty. However, if we look at the ratification record of countries, we note that the countries accounting for a majority of the sales of military equipment have not signed on to it. Therefore, in actual fact, this treaty is not at all about establishing an effective international regime that we can all align with.

At best, despite amendments, we are in a place where Canadians know one thing for sure, that they cannot trust the government on firearms legislation. We are at that point yet again. Despite earlier attempts through Bill C-47, the government has failed to recognize the legitimacy of lawful firearms ownership and has moved to create all sorts of unnecessary problems and red tape for responsible firearms owners.

This legislation effectively recreates the federal gun registry by requiring the tracking of all imported and exported firearms, and requires that information be available to the minister for six years. Firearms groups and individual owners have repeatedly expressed concerns about the implications of this. They want a strong system of arms control, but they point out that we already have one.

Beyond that, firearms owners are generally frustrated by a constantly shifting classification system that does not provide any meaningful certainty to law-abiding gun owners in Canada. A firearm that is considered legal today could be considered illegal tomorrow, without even the due process of an order in council.

Let us address the trust issue that many law-abiding Canadians have with the government. With respect to the Liberals' new gun legislation, Bill C-71, it does nothing to address real crime and gun violence. It is essentially a regulatory bill, not a public safety bill. What is apparent is that it was drafted without any thought of what it would do to law-abiding firearms owners, like farmers, hunters, collectors, and sport shooters. There is nothing in that proposed legislation that addresses any of the real gang and gun problems facing Canadian families, police, rural communities, first nations, inner cities, border agents, or the issue of rural crime.

Legislation should be about the values and merits of what Canadians need to improve their quality of life, what they need to protect their communities. Legislation should be about empowering people to prosper, not the Liberal Party.

We have heard what Canadians need for safer communities. In ridings like mine with vast rural areas, police can sometimes be hours away. Rural Canadians often feel they are left to fend for themselves. With crime rates increasing by 41% in rural parts of Canada over the last few years, the bill would do nothing to address the needs of rural Canada. However, it has the potential to turn rural Canadians into criminals if they own a firearm.

The reality is that many Canadians have firearms because of where they live and because their livelihood depends on it. Many need a firearm to deal with aggressive predators and to protect their livestock. Others need it for their work, like farmers who might have to put down an animal or control rodents. Sadly, in some rural communities, due to excessive crime, some Canadians feel they need firearms to defend themselves. There are many reasons that rural Canadians need firearms, and they own them legitimately.

Recently at a summit on guns and gangs, police referenced the increasing number of gangs involved in gun violence. This violence often stems from drug related crimes, with shootings often related to gangs protecting their territory. Guns acquired by drug dealers and gang members are almost always acquired through the black market, via smuggling and theft. We know that those involved in gang related shootings do not register their guns; they do not get a licence to own a firearm. They will not show a licence to buy a firearm; they do not go through a background check. They do not submit to police scrutiny. The only people who do that are law-abiding Canadians.

Adding more processes and background checks for law-abiding citizens would do nothing to effectively combat gang related gun violence. Nothing the Liberals have proposed will deal effectively with gangs and their acquisition of illegal weapons, and there is no mention even of gangs, organized crime, or smuggling in the bill.

I talk about all of that because we have a piece of legislation before us that is supposed to work to ensure that international dealings and trade in arms is done responsibly, and that when Canada is exporting weapons or other types of military equipment, we ensure that it is done in a responsible way.

However, there are three problems. The UN treaty does not do that. In fact, what we currently have in place in Canada is extremely effective, and we have already discussed a number of times the already effective way that we export firearms. One wonders, therefore, why are the Liberals so intent on ratifying this agreement.

There are six main arms dealers in the world and three of them have not even signed onto this. We know that the government is quite fascinated with doing things the UN wants, not always thinking about what is in the best interests of Canadians or people who are affected by what the UN says and does. We know that the Liberals like to take their direction from the UN.

In this case it is going to have a negative effect on law-abiding Canadians. Indeed, because of what we have previously seen in Bill C-71 and from the Liberal government generally, members will know that the Liberals introduced the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry and that firearms owners in Canada have been battling with the Liberals for years and years. Liberals think that law-abiding gun owners are criminals.

The bottom line is that Canadian firearms owners just do not trust the Liberals when it comes to any kind of legislation around firearms. In this case, our regime has been adequate. Fulfilling a political promise is one of the reasons I think the Liberals want to do this, because the Prime Minister said he would ratify this particular agreement. However, we know that he made a whole lot of promises without actually thinking through the implications and that he has broken the majority of them.

The NDP have their reasons and we have ours, but I do not think anybody would be heartbroken or surprised if the Liberals just scrapped this. This bill is not a good bill. It is not going to do anything to effectively combat illegal parts of the international gun trade with our best interests in mind.

The big six arms trading countries are Russia, China, the United States, France, Germany, and the U.K. I will wind up by noting that the countries that are not part of the arms trade treaty include North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia, and China. Here, I would say that there is sort of theme with the government in who it likes to challenge and who it just kind of lets go to do their own thing.

I thank the House for this opportunity. I believe very strongly that we just need to scrap this piece of legislation and get on with the business of actually doing things to control illegitimate, gang related gun crime.

[Export and Import Permits Act, May 28th, 2018]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-47 be amended by deleting Clause 11.