Candice Bergen

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I have been working on this file for many years and I am a big supporter of background checks. Anyone who threatens his or her spouse or has been involved in domestic violence absolutely should not own a firearm. However, the long gun registry did nothing to combat gun violence or domestic violence. In fact, the majority of women who were murdered, were murdered with knives, not with firearms.

Let us talk about domestic violence in an authentic way, and let us deal with it. It has to do with family issues and a lot of things that do not have to do with the actual weapon used in domestic violence.

A very good friend of mine was murdered by a gangster in early 2009. She was pregnant, she was almost ready to deliver her baby, and she was murdered by a gangster with a gun. Therefore, this is very real to me.

Nothing in this legislation, nothing in the long gun registry, nothing the Liberals have introduced has addressed that. Again, they want to coddle the criminal instead of dealing with it. Sometimes it is tough to deal with. It is tough to deal with a returning terrorist, but we have to address the problem and not send a red herring somewhere else to distract. This will do nothing to combat domestic violence. That is just the fact.

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-71. I will note that I will be sharing my time with the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.

I am going to be very clear. I will not be supporting Bill C-71, and I will tell the House why. There are three basic reasons, although there is a whole list. I could probably give the House the top 10, but there are more reasons than that.

First of all, the Liberals cannot be trusted when it comes to firearms legislation that would do anything to get firearms out of the hands of criminals while at the same time protecting and respecting law-abiding Canadians. The Liberals cannot be trusted.

There is a statement we have all seen that is true, and that is that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. What have we seen from the Liberals when it comes to gun legislation? We all know about the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry that was introduced by the Liberals. They defended and supported it. It cost $3 billion. It penalized and made criminals out of law-abiding Canadians.

That was the very first thing the Liberals did when they had a chance to do something to combat crime. Now they are back at it. They told Canadians that they were going to introduce a bill on firearms legislation.

The Liberals are having a lot of trouble right now around the disastrous India trip. They are having a lot of trouble because they are breaking promises. The Prime Minister is failing Canadians with his ethical lapses, so the Liberals had a brainwave and decided to go after law-abiding gun owners again; that would work.

As I said, the Liberals cannot be trusted. Gun owners know and Canadians know that the Liberals are going after them instead of going after the people who are actually committing crimes.

In 2009, I was a new member of Parliament, and I introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-391, which would have ended the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry. There were a whole lot of Liberal MPs who had told their constituents that they would vote to end the long-gun registry, and the first chance they had to fulfill their word, they did what Liberals do. They broke their promise, which would result in law-abiding Canadians being penalized. I want to remind the House of some of those members who broke their word and are here in this Parliament and will have to answer to their constituents.

For example, the member for Yukon broke his word to protect law-abiding Canadians. He supported the long-gun registry. The next one on the list I will not name. The third one is the member of Parliament for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame. He, as well, had an opportunity to support law-abiding Canadians. What did he do? He supported the long-gun registry. The member for Malpeque promised his constituents that he would vote to end the long-gun registry. What did he do? He supported the long-gun registry. The Minister of Public Safety himself, when he was part of the opposition, had a chance to end the long-gun registry. He voted for it and supported it.

One might ask why I am bringing this up now. As I said, the Liberals cannot be trusted. They want to target law-abiding Canadians, because it is easy. It is very easy to target people who are already obeying the law, people who get a license to own a firearm or store owners who already keep records. What easy targets for the Liberals. It is so easy to go after people, under the guise of doing something to combat gun crime, who are already following best practice and already obeying the law.

First and foremost, I do not trust the Liberals. I do not trust them on ethics. I do not trust them on balancing the budget. I do not trust them on keeping their word. I do not trust them when it comes to any kind of gun legislation that would do anything to penalize criminals.

Let us remember, the Liberals actually like to protect and reward criminals. It is quite interesting that we have returning terrorists who have been fighting with ISIS who are being protected. They are being told, “We believe in you. We think you can be rehabilitated.” There is no legislation coming for ISIS terrorists who return to Canada. They will get a nice little group hug and probably more money. However, for gun owners and stores that sell firearms, like Canadian Tire, the government is coming after them.

People who have fought against our allies, like Omar Khadr, get a big payout. The Liberals had no problem just laying that down. Everything Omar wanted, he got. However, they are not standing up for gun owners. It is a whole lot of talk. The only people who actually get protection with the Liberal government are criminals. Therefore, I do not trust them.

I want to talk about the actual substance of Bill C-71, which is the same old, same old. There is nothing here that will protect anyone or do anything to fight crime.

Let us talk about the part of the legislation that will ask store owners to keep records. They are already keeping records. This is like a solution in search of a problem. Crimes are not being committed by people who are legally purchasing firearms. I will provide the statistics on that:

Analysis of a Special Request to Statistics Canada found that between 1997 and 2012, just 7% of the accused in firearms homicides had a valid firearms license (or 2% of all accused murderers).

A person in this country who has a licence to own a firearm is 50% less likely to ever commit a crime with a firearm. It is not like we have some big outbreak of people buying firearms at Canadian Tire and using those firearms in the commission of crimes, and Canadian Tire is saying to the police that it will not give them that information. That is not happening. That is not a problem that needs to be fixed.

I will tell members what is happening. I am going to refer to John Tory, the mayor of the city of Toronto. He noted that only 2% of gun homicide victims in Toronto had no connection to either gangs or drugs and that 98% of the crime that is going on has to do with gangs and drugs. That is where the problem is, and that is what needs to be addressed.

As I mentioned in my question earlier on, this bill does not even mention the words “gangs” or “organized crime”. However, it does mention words the Liberals love, like “registry” and “reference number”, which is their new one, 26 times.

Let us be clear. As per the normal Liberal way of doing things, this is getting ready to create a backdoor registry, which will then very easily turn into the regular, wasteful, and ineffective type of registry the Liberals like to promote.

Some of my colleagues mentioned some of the areas where gangs are getting guns. Let us talk about this seriously. We need to get tough on gangs and on violent crime. When we were in government, there were a lot of things we did. We had the Tackling Violent Crime Act. It provided mandatory prison sentences for serious firearms offences and stricter bail provisions for those accused of serious offences involving firearms. It tackled the problem and did not go after law-abiding gun owners and store owners.

We passed the Act to amend the Criminal Code with respect to organized crime and the protection of justice system participants, which provides police officers and officials with important tools to help them fight organized crime.

Conservatives are the party of law and order. We believe that criminals and people who use guns in the commission of crimes should know that the penalty will be swift and just. We do not believe in attacking law-abiding Canadians who are using firearms for legitimate purposes, nor the store owners who are legally, and in a principled way, selling those firearms.

Because of all their failures and the problems they have encountered over the last number of months, the Liberals are trying to import a problem that is occurring in the U.S. The U.S. gun control situation is completely different from Canadian gun legislation. However, they are trying to bring that here and somehow say that they are fixing a problem that actually exists in the U.S. It is window dressing. It is disingenuous. It is the typical Liberals saying one thing and doing something completely different. It is bad legislation, and it should be revoked.

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to ask my colleague from Manitoba a question about this legislation. Gang and gun violence is a problem in cities like Surrey and Toronto, and we even see it in Winnipeg, yet the legislation fails to even mention gangs or organized crime. In fact, it mentions registry and registration 26 times.

Could the member for Winnipeg North please tell us how this legislation will do anything to combat the real gun crime that is happening in Canada? That is not with law-abiding Canadians. That is with gangs and organized crime.

[Public Safety, March 27th, 2018]

This is incredibly serious, Mr. Speaker. The government sent out the national security adviser to the media to float out a story that India was responsible for the government's absolutely disastrous India trip. We want to know what the media were told. Now the public safety minister is saying, “Just read the newspaper and you're fine.” No. We are elected by Canadians to get an answer from the government, and it should answer the question.

[Public Safety, March 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, for weeks we have been asking, as parliamentarians, for the same briefing the media received from the government's national security adviser. For weeks we have been denied. In fact, last week we had to sit here while the government and the Liberals stood up for over 20 hours protecting the Prime Minister from our being allowed to hear what the media received. Yesterday we were told it is classified. All of a sudden, the media must be part of the Privy Council, if it was classified. Today the Keystone cops seem to have changed their story. Why cannot we, as parliamentarian, hear the same—

[Public Safety, March 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we are asking for the same briefing that the media received. If the Prime Minister is somehow suggesting that the media are members of the Privy Council, I suggest he check his notes once again.

I will go back to my original question and ask for an answer. Was the Prime Minister aware on February 22 that his security adviser was going to go out to the press gallery and tell them that India was involved in setting up Jaspal Atwal to be at his event, yes or no?

[Public Safety, March 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister a question, and we would like an answer. Daniel Jean did not decide of his own volition to go out and talk to the media. He was instructed by the Prime Minister's Office to go out and float a theory that somehow India was involved in the Atwal affair.

Therefore, I ask the Prime Minister, was he aware that Daniel Jean, his national security adviser, was going to be giving a briefing to the media about the Atwal affair, yes or no?

[Public Safety, March 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Liberals spent over 20 hours voting to protect the Prime Minister by preventing his national security adviser from providing information to parliamentarians. The Prime Minister is hiding something. Let us not be mistaken. The PMO set up and facilitated the briefing whereby the India conspiracy theory was floated out.

My question to the Prime Minister is this. Did he know that Daniel Jean was going to be briefing the media about the Atwal affair?

[March 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give my intentions for the remaining notices of opposition for the interim estimates.

Before I do, I want to express my sincere appreciation to all of you who have sat in the chair over the last many hours. I would like to especially express my thanks to those who have been at the table, those who have been calling the votes hour after hour, each and every one of the pages, as well as the security personnel, the restaurant staff, and others for their efforts to facilitate this extended sitting of the House.

I would like to remind the Liberal members that they came to power on a promise to be transparent with Canadians and to govern with respect for Parliament. Today they had a chance to make good on that promise. However, they failed to do so.

All we have been asking is that the government give the same briefing to members of Parliament as it gave to the media regarding the Atwal affair. The message to the members of the Liberal backbench has been clear. The Prime Minister, who has not shared in any of their pain overnight, clearly expects that they will do anything to protect him, his staff, and their reckless decision.

Mr. Speaker, I note that the date on the table is still Thursday, March 22. I believe you would agree with me that this has been a very long day. Canadians can be assured that, while Thursday is coming to a close, the Conservatives will continue to fight on their behalf for the answers they deserve.

Therefore, I think if you seek it you will find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move:

That motions to concur in all opposed items listed on the notice paper under interim estimates be deemed adopted on division, and that the motion to concur in the unopposed votes be deemed adopted on division.

That Bill C-73, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, be deemed introduced and read a first time, deemed read a second time, deemed referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered by the committee of the whole and reported back to the House without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage, deemed read a third time and passed on division.

[March 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I think rather than proceed and continue with votes, we should pause and you can get advice from the clerks and find out exactly what we should be doing. We cannot proceed. We are not going to continue with more votes.