Joël Lightbound

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 28th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada is committed to upholding human rights and international labour standards. Forced labour in any form, anywhere in the world, is completely unacceptable. The CBSA actively collaborates with Employment and Social Development Canada to monitor and research evidence related to problematic supply chains. Shipments containing products suspected of being produced by forced labour will be detained at the border for inspection and will be prohibited when it has sufficient evidence to do so. All goods entering Canada may be subject to a more in-depth secondary examination. The government has made amendments to prohibit products that are mined, manufactured, or produced wholly or in part by forced labour from entering Canada. Additionally, the government has prohibited the import of goods suspected of being made using forced labor in China's Xinjiang region.

[Public Safety, May 14th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Our government is actively monitoring the flood levels. We need to determine which measures to take, and we will certainly support the provinces and territories if they ask for help.

Through the Government Operations Centre, Public Safety Canada is closely monitoring high-risk zones, including in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and across the country. We are certainly ready to support the provinces and territories that might need the federal government's help in case of flooding.

[Public Safety, May 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, we know that there is no miracle solution. We have to work on all fronts and give the CBSA more resources to fight smuggling. We need stricter storage measures, as we are proposing in Bill C-21, and we must continue to make new investments like those we have made to prevent gun violence upstream. I am thinking in particular of the investments I mentioned in my first response.

By fighting all these facets of gun violence, we will reduce the number of cases of gun violence in Canada. That is certainly our government's objective.

I would like the Conservatives to be less “tough talk and no walk” and finally start supporting these new investments in our law enforcement agencies. These investments are helping us curb smuggling and armed violence and provide our police forces with the right tools in terms of both human resources and technology.

[Public Safety, May 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Langley—Aldergrove for his comments today. I had the pleasure of sitting with him on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

This is a very important issue and a reminder that every incident of gun violence in Canada is one too many. We really must do everything we can to combat this type of violence, which we have certainly seen too much of, and our government is determined to fight it.

However, with respect to what the member just said about the theft and diversion of legal firearms, I would like to set the record straight and remind the House that the chiefs of police of Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina have all said that this is one of the most common forms of diversion of firearms from the legal to the illegal market.

It is also fair to say that, when the Conservatives were in power, their deficit reduction action plan slashed funding for the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency. They cut the human and technical resources dedicated to fighting gun violence in Canada.

It is equally fair to say that, at every opportunity, the Conservatives voted against more funding for our security agencies and police forces, funding that was intended to better equip them so they could combat diversion and smuggling, which is how weapons get into Canada and end up being used in violent incidents.

Lastly, it is fair to say that, if we look at the Conservative leader's stance on firearms, it is eerily similar in every way to the gun lobby's.

Let us look at what the government has done and continues to do to address gun violence in Canada.

Starting in 2018, we began investing more than $327 million in the provinces, territories and local police forces to better equip them for law enforcement and prevention activities. We have invested in the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency to repair the damage done by the previous government, with its decade of austerity and cuts, precisely where it has the greatest impact on our police forces, in the fight against gun violence. Again in 2018, the Conservatives stayed true to form and voted against these reinvestments in our police forces, including the RCMP.

In the 2020 fall economic statement and in Bill C-14, we committed $250 million over five years to municipalities and indigenous communities to help them invest in upstream prevention and intervention programs to reduce the risks of gun violence. Again, the Conservatives voted against that.

In budget 2021, we went even further. On top of the $250 million in the fall economic statement, the government made a commitment to invest an additional $312 million over five years starting in 2021-22. After that, there will be $41.5 million to protect Canadians against gun violence by continuing to support the work of the RCMP and the CBSA.

I hope that this time, the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove will support that. I have only spoken about investments, but we did not stop there. I remind the House that our government tabled Bill C-21, which increases prison sentences for smuggling and illicit trafficking of firearms from 10 to 14 years.

I think this sends a clear message to judges about the importance we attach to these crimes. I hope the Conservatives will support the bill. The bill has a much wider scope, but I unfortunately do not have enough time to go over all the ways in which it helps combat gun violence in Canada.

[Business of Supply, May 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, in a minority government, both the government and the opposition parties have a responsibility to ensure that an election is not triggered.

As the NDP member just said in her question, if we lose a confidence vote, then we automatically have an election.

Why is the Bloc Québécois refusing the proposed amendment to add the responsibility of the opposition parties?

[Business of Supply, May 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for her speech.

I hold my colleague in high regard, and I am grateful for her work. I have a little less respect for her party.

I would like to quote from an article published in the Journal de Québec on July 24, 2020, that refers to a Bloc Québécois press release. The article states:

...the Bloc Québécois calls on the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada to consider social distancing measures for a general election that could be called before a medical solution to the illness is available, and calls on the Speaker of the House of Commons to arrange for a vote of all 338 elected members of the federal Parliament as soon as Parliament resumes on September 21, or sooner.

Last August, the Bloc Québécois was dangling a non-confidence motion over Parliament's head. The Bloc was calling for preparations to be made for an election. Yes, the responsible thing to do is to be prepared for a possible election, especially in the context of a minority government, since this also affects the opposition members.

What is the responsibility of the opposition members? Why did they vote against a simple amendment that added the role of the opposition parties?

[Business of Supply, May 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his speech, which he delivered with his customary eloquence.

I am very perplexed that the Bloc Québécois is unable to support such a simple and clear amendment that certainly calls for responsibility on the part of the government, but also for responsibility on the part of the opposition parties.

In the context of a minority government, each parliamentarian must demonstrate the highest level of responsibility. We know that a minority government faces confidence votes that it can lose, and Bill C-19 prepares us for a potential election, which is responsible.

The government must face confidence votes. It is all right for opposition parties to vote against the government in some of those votes, but it is therefore equally right to prepare for a potential election during a pandemic.

I would also remind my colleague and the House that, just last summer, the leader of the Bloc Québécois said he was willing to trigger an election. For him, the pandemic was not a very important issue. He was promoting a potential election every chance he got last summer.

I believe that supporting Bill C-19 would be a responsible decision.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this inconsistency in the Bloc Québécois's discourse regarding Bill C-19 and the responsibility that we all have as parliamentarians to be well prepared in the event of an election.

[Public Safety, April 30th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Markham—Stouffville for her tireless advocacy to promote safer communities in her part of the country and across the land.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary since weapons designed for military use were prohibited, and since we moved past thoughts and prayers and acted. Of the Five Eyes countries that have prohibited these rifles, none have experienced mass shootings this year. The other countries are averaging one mass shooting per day.

Our plan to protect our communities is working, but we need to finish the job. With our new legislation, we will complete the prohibition and ensure that these rifles never re-enter our communities again.

[Public Safety, April 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I am always puzzled to hear those types of criticisms from the Conservative Party.

When the Conservatives formed the government, they proceeded to make the biggest cuts to our intelligence services and our police forces, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, and border services officers. Their austerity plan included massive cuts to technical resources and staff deployed on the ground to fight smuggling or illegal gun violence. The Conservatives talk a big game, but do very little.

In contrast, without looking back to the past five years, but simply looking at the investments we made in the past year, the 2020 fall economic statement provided $250 million to target the causes of violence and prevent it upstream by investing directly in our communities. More recently, just last week in the budget, we allocated $312 million over five years to the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency to better support their efforts to fight gun violence. All of that speaks much louder than the Conservative rhetoric.

[Public Safety, April 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Kenora for this interesting adjournment debate. It is a topic that concerns us.

To answer the question he asked at the very end, I can assure him that there is nothing in Bill C-21 that takes aim at the vast majority of law-abiding Canadians, whether they are hunters, sport shooters or collectors who obey the law and who have our respect. There is absolutely nothing in Bill C-21 that targets law-abiding Canadians who own guns.

As for the gun smuggling he referred to in his question a few weeks ago, which he addressed to the Minister of Public Safety, it should be noted that Bill C-21 includes tougher sentences for those who are involved in smuggling operations. The maximum has increased from 10 to 14 years. It is rather surprising to see the Conservatives oppose such a measure. As for the bill he talked about in his speech, there was nothing in there that addressed smuggling as such.

Now let us look at what we are actually doing. Next Saturday marks the first anniversary of the measures we put in place to ban over 1,500 models of military-style firearms and their variants.

While the Conservatives listen to the gun lobby, we listened to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has been calling for such measures for decades, as have many civil society groups. Last May, we took extraordinary and necessary steps to ban more than 1,500 models of military-style firearms. These are weapons that were designed not for hunting or sport shooting, but for tactical situations for their effectiveness on the battlefield. They have a lethal character that makes them inappropriate for civilian use and makes them too dangerous in our society. That is why we decided to ban them on May 1, 2020, and I am very proud of that.

Last month, we introduced Bill C-21 to make further headway in our fight against gun violence. This bill will complete the ban on military-style firearms, which have no place in our society as I mentioned. Once passed, the bill will help reduce domestic violence and prevent suicide with the implementation of a red flag and yellow flag regime. These measures will allow individuals and the authorities to act more quickly and remove weapons from individuals who are a danger to themselves, society or their families.

The bill will help fight the criminal use of firearms and their diversion to the black market by requiring that a firearms licence be presented to import ammunition and by giving police organizations greater powers to share information when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a licence holder is supplying weapons to criminals. It is a measure that the Conservatives should support. We are surprised that they are not supporting these types of measures, which are enshrined in Bill C-21.

The bill will also create new offences for altering a gun's cartridge magazine and for depicting violence in firearms advertising.

In short, we believe it is essential to reduce firearms smuggling and trafficking in Canada to make our communities safer. I sincerely hope that our opposition colleagues will help us pass this bill, which, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, will also amend the Criminal Code to increase the maximum penalty of imprisonment for smuggling and trafficking firearms from 10 to 14 years. That is important. It sends a message to all judges about how significant these types of offences are and how seriously we take them because they have very clear impact on violence in our communities. I would certainly like to see my colleague from Kenora support Bill C-21.

This bill will also prevent people who have been arrested for smuggling from entering Canada by amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

I see that my time is running out. We could continue to talk at length about the good things that Bill C-21 has to offer, as well as the investments our government has made in budget 2021 to provide more resources to police authorities, whether the RCMP or border services, to combat trafficking and smuggling.