44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague. It is dishonest to spread this information during the debate. I am not saying that the government is beyond reproach. After all, its original intention was to lump all guns together, whether they are used for hunting or not. It has backed down. That is good, and I applaud that. Now we need to take action.
Those members' actions are not contributing to the debate at all. I am not afraid to call out the Conservative Party, because it is members of the Conservative Party who are using social media to scare people. Just yesterday, one of my colleagues was talking about how the Bloc Québécois was going after hunters, and he said that the motion we are debating today was another attack on hunters. I had no choice but to tell him that what he was saying was wrong. Sometimes people are good at playing with the truth and coming very close to lying, and sometimes it is just a lie. That is dishonest. I am talking about what is being said on social media, not here in the House. It does not contribute to the debate.
Let us be clear about what Bill C-21 does at this point. As I said, right now, hunting guns and air guns are off the table. This bill is about something else entirely. I want to be clear about that.
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- May/9/23 7:17:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for addressing the problem with the Liberals putting us in this position. We are now debating and rushing through a very important bill that would impact over two million law-abiding firearms owners. It just drives me nuts that we have to rush this debate through because of the Liberals' inadequacies in bringing it forward in a timely fashion.
The member did a good job of that, but I have two quick questions for her.
First, she talked about the consultation process that the minister promised. I would like to know if she is aware of a single Bloc riding that was consulted. I can speak with pretty much 100% certainty that not a single riding held by a Conservative MP was consulted in this process. It is really not fair to the vast majority of firearms owners or Canadians that the minister and the government are not actually consulting with them.
Second, I take issue with the member's hunting rifle comment in that all of the firearms that were banned on May 1, 2020, were legal firearms for hunting and sport shooting. Can the member just name one that has been banned that was ever in use by the Canadian Armed Forces?
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Madam Speaker, I noted several elements in that question.
I do think it is unfortunate that the debate is being rushed through. I thought that the study in committee was constructive, that we were asking officials and the government the right questions and that we had time to debate amendments.
There is one interesting fact that I did not mention, which is that Bill C-21 is not a huge bill. It has 74 clauses. The party that moved the most amendments was the Liberal Party. That shows just how unprepared the government was to table this bill. Why did it not wait a little longer? Why did it not hold consultations all across the country in order to table a sturdy bill without having to amend its own bill? That is rather curious. We would not be here if the government had been more prepared. We would be working with the opposition parties' amendments, and there were a reasonable number of them. I do not know if I am allowed to say how many amendments were moved by each party, but it was a very reasonable number. I find that unfortunate.
I heard my colleague mention consultations. He believes that the Conservative ridings were not necessarily consulted and that the minister did not visit them. I do not believe that he came to any Bloc ridings either. Is that a coincidence? Let us say it was random. That said, I know that the government wanted to do better. However, as I mentioned, these consultations should have taken place at the outset, before Bill C‑21 was even introduced.
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- May/9/23 7:21:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are debating a matter of life-saving importance. It is a public safety matter. For better or for worse, the issue is complex and emotionally charged.
My colleague talked about the process and the fact that so-called alternative facts may have been spread over social media by certain members of one political party.
Three parties came to the House with a reasonable proposal that would move us forward and improve public safety. However, one party is filibustering and using this opportunity to raise funds. The longer the debate drags on, the more donations the official opposition, the Conservative Party, stands to gain.
With a majority consensus emerging in the House, should we not try to speed up the process and deny the Conservatives the chance to raise even more funds ahead of the next election?
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- May/9/23 7:22:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was an interesting comment. I know everyone is trying to position themself advantageously, if I can put it that way.
It is interesting that the member said some people are trying to slow the debate down as much as possible. Earlier I was in committee along with my NDP colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby. I think he spent just as much time raising points of order about how long it was taking, about how the Conservatives were not asking real questions, about how they were filibustering and about how this bill really needs to get passed. If we were to add it up, I bet he spent as much time talking about wasting time as the Conservatives spent asking questions. Sure, there is filibustering, and I have seen the Conservatives do it ever since I first came to the House, but things were actually going pretty well there.
I am surprised at the NDP's insistence that we speed up debate and at its motions to sit 10 hours a day and 24 hours in a given week. There are also the House of Commons resources to consider. I do not mind sitting all night. I am sure my colleagues do not mind either.
Nevertheless, officials are there to help us; there are also the interpreters and technicians. We must also think of those people before making somewhat extreme proposals. I would therefore be careful about that.
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- May/9/23 7:23:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, does the member believe that the Conservatives will, in essence, support the legislation, thereby lying down and just allowing the legislation to pass, or does she believe that the Conservatives do not support the legislation and would do whatever they could to prevent its passage?
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Madam Speaker, I cannot predict the future. I do not know how the Conservatives will use the upcoming committee meetings or how they will use their time in the House when the bill returns. I cannot say in advance. I suspect that they will not support this bill. Is that a reason to reduce our speaking time on each amendment?
I have important amendments that I would like to move. Women's groups spoke to us. They want more protection. They do not feel protected by some elements currently in Bill C-21, which were introduced by the government.
We must take the time to debate these amendments properly. That is not what the government is proposing at this stage by claiming that the Conservatives could try to slow down debate. That is democracy. We must have a debate in committee. We must take the time to study this bill, which all my colleagues have said is very complex. It is not unusual to have questions for officials every time an amendment is moved.
I believe we must take the time needed.
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- May/9/23 7:25:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague quickly addressed the issue of women's groups. She spoke about how the Bloc Québécois has worked to reassure hunters. She also mentioned in her speech that women's groups are concerned about violence. A measure was proposed for women's groups, the red flag provisions, and we discussed it.
I would like my colleague to talk about that. Could she tell us more?
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- May/9/23 7:25:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that just happened in committee.
We looked at clause 4, the red flag provisions. It is a measure proposed by the government that seemed worthwhile at first. Now, women's groups from across the country have appeared before the committee or have sent letters to us and the Minister of Public Safety expressing their worries that this measure will relieve the police and law enforcement of responsibility, that this tool should not be included in the act and that it will harm rather than help women.
I heard that and I wondered who better to speak to that issue than women's shelters. I therefore voted against that measure. The NDP and the government voted in favour of it.
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Madam Speaker, it is hard to find the words to start given how long I have personally been involved with this piece of legislation. I know there are a few select members of this House who would agree with me. I think for each one of us, this has been our own personal odyssey, and to get to this point is really remarkable. All of the different twists and turns that this one bill, Bill C-21, has taken are going to be studied in parliamentary procedure for years to come.
I have had the privilege of representing my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for three terms, now being in my eighth year, and I have discovered that in my time here, Parliament has demonstrated that it is indeed the last place to go for an open, honest and logical debate on firearms. A lot of the debate we have seen on this bill and on firearms regulations, policy and legislation in general has done a very real disservice to Canadians. Both sides of the issue have torqued up their arguments. There has been blatant misinformation and labelling, and this has really descended the level of debate into something that I think a lot of Canadians would quite rightly be disgusted by. It is very difficult in this place, when we have all of these torqued up emotions and political agendas, to have a reasoned debate on firearms. That certainly has been the story.
I know a lot of people on Twitter are following this debate very closely. I would say that the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security is probably the most watched committee of them all, and I know that my words right now are being analyzed and tweeted about, even in real time. I just want the people who are listening to brace themselves, because I have equal amounts of criticism for both the Liberals and the Conservatives as to why we now find ourselves in this place.
I first want to start by talking about the committee, because ultimately today's motion is one of instruction to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. One could be forgiven for thinking that all this committee does is study policy and legislation surrounding firearms, because that is indeed all it has really been consumed with since the bill was referred to the committee late last year. In fact, we started Bill C-21 at committee in October 2022, and here we are now, well into May 2023, and we are still only at the clause-by-clause part of the bill.
I think it is useful for people to understand what the mandate of this committee is. It is responsible for reviewing legislation, policies, programs and expenditure plans of a whole host of different government departments and agencies that are responsible for not only public safety, but national security, policing, law enforcement, corrections, the conditional release of federal offenders, emergency management, crime prevention and of course the protection of our borders. When we are doing things like the estimates for the spending plans of Public Safety Canada, quite often we have representatives included from the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Parole Board of Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
What I am trying to underline here is that this committee is an extremely important committee of the House of Commons, and all the work it does in all of these different areas in looking after our intelligence gathering, law enforcement and border protection has been sidelined by the incredible amount of time that has been consumed. Time is our most valuable resource in Parliament, and once we spend it we do not get it back.
Because of the shenanigans that have occurred with respect to Bill C-21, the public safety committee has quite correctly been prevented from examining all of these other different areas, keeping tabs on those different departments, examining different pieces of legislation and keeping tabs on what the government's policies and practices are going to be with respect to other key areas. That is an important element that we first need to establish when we are talking about where we are today.
As many members will know, including members in my own community, I used to be our party's public safety critic. I found my time on that committee to be personally quite valuable. I found that the subject matter we were dealing with was quite intellectually challenging and stimulating, and it is important work.
I know from my interactions with other members of the committee, whether on the Liberal, Conservative or Bloc Québécois side, that they all conducted themselves very well, and I enjoyed my working relationships with them. That even goes for our work on Bill C-21.
Believe it or not, there was actually a time when Bill C-21 was progressing through committee in relatively good order. We concluded roughly eight meetings with witnesses. The committee then had time to come forward with its amendments, and there seemed to be an acknowledgement that aside from a few differences with a few clauses here and there, the bill was probably on schedule to be reported back to the House for report stage and eventually third reading sometime in December.
We then got to November, and all hell broke loose. This was when the eleventh-hour amendments were dropped by the Liberals. I should correctly say “the Liberal government”, because I do not think they were, by design, from the Liberal members of the committee. They did come from the government.
I do not want to go into the details of the bill too much, because I think that is a well-trodden path and a well-known story, bu allow me to take this moment in my speech to levy what I think are some well-earned criticisms on both the Liberals and the Conservatives. I know some of my colleagues will probably laugh at this, particularly the member for Hamilton Centre, because he has heard me joke about this before.
I often feel like the character Mercutio in Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, when he is expressing his frustration with the Capulets and the Montagues, because I feel that same frustration with the Liberals and the Conservatives. It is difficult sometimes to watch the shenanigans between those parties and the way our level of debate around this issue descends into the depths and scrapes the bottom of the barrel.
Let me start with the Liberals. One day, someone is going to write a book about this sorry episode, and it is probably going to be titled something like “How Not to Amend One's Own Legislation”. It is going to be a warning guide for governments in the future on what not to do and how not to spring a surprise on an unsuspecting committee when they have not done their homework, when they have not done consultation and, most importantly, when they have not consulted with the members of the committee who are actually responsible for shepherding those amendments through.
I want to caution members: My comments are not, in any way, directed to the colleagues I work with, but more to the Liberal Party brain trust. I understand the reasoning behind where they are coming from. Gun violence in our major urban centres is a very concerning thing. It needs to be dealt with appropriately. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the extreme grief that is out there within so many families who are dealing with a loss due to firearms violence.
Sometimes the road forward for the Liberals has been paved with good intentions, but it has led to some pretty awful results. I would ask them to step back and try and heal some of the wounds that exist in that divide between urban and rural Canada. We need to understand that yes, firearms violence is a big issue, but there also has to be a level of respect afforded to Canadians who are lawful firearms owners, who play by the rules and who have done everything right. I would encourage the Liberals to consult more with their rural MPs.
When the Liberals introduced those amendments, one of the groups that were leading the way was indigenous communities—not only hunters and farmers, but indigenous communities, not the least of which was the Assembly of First Nations. In an extremely rare move, the AFN came out with a unanimous emergency resolution on the last day. That is almost unheard of. They were going after the government for those ill-thought-of eleventh-hour amendments.
No consultation had taken place. One could make a legitimate argument that the Liberals, in bringing in these amendments, were not respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or even the legislation we have passed that enshrines that within our own laws to make sure that all federal laws are in harmony with the declaration itself. It went against the spirit of that.
Now I will turn to my Conservative friends.
What do we say about the reams of ridiculous hyperbole we have seen from that party on Bill C-21? The bill has been a fundraising boon for the Conservative Party. That giant sucking sound we hear is Conservatives hoovering money from the harvest of their rage-farming operation around the bill, and I think a part of me wonders whether the Conservatives do not want to see the bill go forward because it has been so financially viable for them. The evidence is all out there. I do not think there is any interest at all in trying to move the legislation forward, because doing so would essentially stop the goose from laying golden eggs for them. It has been an incredible money-maker for them.
When I look at some of the misinformation that has been put out by the Conservative Party around the bill, I see they are fanning flames of rage over amendments that no longer exist and incorrectly saying that the government wants to take away all their guns. It is just completely off-the-wall bonkers stuff that can be easily disproven, and it is completely not helping the standard of debate we expect of our parliamentarians. It just makes the rest of our jobs harder when we have to fight that completely untrue disinformation that is being actively fanned on social media.
Yes, it is a sorry state due to the actions of both parties in so expertly playing politics with the bill, and that is a large part of the reason we are here today.
We know that the problematic amendments were withdrawn by the Liberals. That is fact number one. All current owners of long guns in Canada are not going to have those firearms impacted, because the problematic amendments were withdrawn. What we now have being proposed as an amendment to the bill would go after firearms that will be manufactured in the future, after the bill receives royal assent. There is also an important amendment, I understand, that would make sure that nothing in the bill takes away from the rights of indigenous peoples. That is recognized and affirmed under section 35 of our Constitution.
Of course, there are incredibly important amendments dealing with the exponentially growing problem of ghost guns. This is a problem that has been brought to the committee's attention repeatedly by law enforcement agencies. I would hope that more attention is paid to those particular amendments, and of course we, the remaining members of the House of Commons, have to reserve our judgment on the bill until we see the final version that the committee ultimately reports back to us.
Now let us turn to the motion of instruction and what it would do.
First of all, we have to understand that as of this morning, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security had already spent approximately five hours on clause-by-clause consideration. If they had been able to complete their meeting this afternoon, and I know it was interrupted by a series of votes, that would have brought the total to eight hours, which is roughly equivalent to four full meetings. The motion being debated today would add a further 17 hours to that, bringing it to roughly 25 hours, which is the equivalent of 12-and-a-half meetings.
I understand from the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, our member on the public safety committee, that he has tried multiple times to extend the sitting hours of the public safety committee so that Conservatives, the Bloc and New Democrats could have additional time to look at the amendments that are being proposed by various members. I understand that in each of those instances, these attempts were either rejected or filibustered so that the committee ultimately could never get to a vote. To hear Conservatives complain that they are being silenced in the House when they have, in fact, had multiple opportunities at committee to extend the sitting hours of that committee does come across as a bit rich.
I would say that because I have had my staff look at bills similar in size and complexity to Bill C-21, Bill C-18 comes to mind. That particular bill, when it went through clause-by-clause study at its committee, had seven meetings, the equivalent of 14 hours, for clause-by-clause study, so that is more than enough time to get through it.
I know from my own experience, because I used to be a member of the public safety committee and have seen a lot of these amendments, that are a lot of them are very technical, small changes to the bill, especially the parts that deal with ghost guns. Not a lot of debate is going to be required on them. In fact, the committee can probably get through them in short order because they are repetitive and many different areas of the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act have to be updated to make sure that those existing statutes are in harmony with each another.
The other thing I want to turn to in my final three minutes goes back to the earlier part that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the overall mandate of the public safety committee. We have two really important pieces of legislation waiting in the wings, waiting for their turn to be examined at the public safety committee. They are Bill C-20 and Bill C-26.
Bill C-20 is going to create our first-ever public accountability and transparency network that is independent of the RCMP and the CBSA. In fact, the CBSA has never had an independent oversight mechanism. Looking at the public safety committee's report from the previous Parliament looking at systemic racism in policing and looking at all of the instances of injuries and sometimes death that have happened to people who had been in the custody of the CBSA, we see that these are important measures. We have had so many racialized Canadians, so many indigenous Canadians who have been calling out for these types of oversight measures for years. Why should those pieces of legislation continue to be pushed back while we draw out this process on Bill C-21?
Bill C-26 is an important piece of legislation, which I will be the first to admit needs a lot of work at committee, but it is going to really bring in line a lot of the cybersecurity requirements that are needed for some of our critical sectors, be they in banking, transportation, energy and so on. It is going to be a requirement for many of those private actors to bring their systems in line with a standard that is acceptable to the federal government. Again, a lot of work is needed, but no one in this House can deny or absolve themselves from the fact that these are important issues that deserve to have their turn at the public safety committee.
My ultimate motivation for this motion today is to get Bill C-21 on its way. We have had enough time at the committee. It has occupied so much time at the public safety committee, and it is time for the public safety committee to move on to other bills that are equally important to many other Canadians.
In conclusion, I ultimately am going to reserve my judgment on Bill C-21 until I see what the committee reports back to the House, but I will not agree to let that committee continue to be bogged down, especially when there is so much other important work to be done.
With that I conclude. I welcome any comments and questions from my colleagues.
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- May/9/23 7:46:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a very brief question.
I always thought that it is a positive thing when a government is prepared to entertain and bring forward amendments, in the sense that this often reflects concerns that have been raised by MPs, other stakeholders or people who make representations at committees.
Would the hon. member not agree that it is a good thing when government listens, brings forward amendments and supports even opposition amendments?
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Mr. Speaker, I am not going to disagree with the principle that I think is behind the parliamentary secretary's remarks and question.
Of course, amendments are always welcome, and they should be informed by feedback received from the public and committee, but I have to draw the line at the particular amendments that were introduced in November because those took everyone by surprise, and not just the committee members. They took indigenous communities by surprise. They took hunters and farmers by surprise. It was such a huge overreach from the bill we originally thought we were debating at second reading. When we started debating Bill C-21, its main provisions were on airsoft, red flag laws and a handgun freeze.
I want to take a moment to also thank members of the committee for passing my amendment on airsoft. That amendment was passed, and I am happy to report to the airsoft community that the offending section of Bill C-21 has now been removed, thanks to an NDP amendment. That is definitely a bright light in this whole journey.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a respected critic for public safety. We talk about surprises, and I was surprised.
I wonder if he could tell the House why he was removed as critic and why the leader of the NDP removed him at the height of Bill C-21, seeing as he represents rural Canadians so well in his riding, and replaced him with the NDP House leader, who is really an urban MP. I wonder if the member could explain that logic to the House.
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- May/9/23 7:49:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do enjoy working with the member from the Conservative Party. I too have seen the rumours on Twitter and have been greatly amused by all of the different reasonings out there.
Let me say clearly and for the record that my moving off the public safety committee was done by mutual agreement. I am still a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. If the member will recall, at the time, I managed to bring forward two successful motions, one in the House of Commons and one at the agriculture committee, that focused the committee's investigative efforts on the role that corporate profits are playing in driving inflation, which is a huge issue not only for my constituents but also for the member's constituents.
It was agreed between me and the leader of the NDP that it was important for me to refocus my efforts on an issue that was affecting so many Canadians because of their purchasing power, their inability to buy sufficient groceries for their families and the incredible climb in food bank usage. That is the reason. It was mutual agreement and I had other extremely important work to take care of.
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- May/9/23 7:50:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at the very end of his speech, my colleague touched on the issue of red flags.
Between the Conservatives' disinformation and the lack of political will of the Liberal‑NDP coalition, there was a great deal of concern coming from women's groups. The issue of red flags was not clear.
My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia talked about it earlier. This happened quickly this afternoon. Women's groups, including shelters, have reservations about the impact of this red flag provision.
For these reasons, given these reservations, my colleague would have voted against. I would like my colleague to tell us why the NDP voted in favour of a measure that is causing concern among women's groups and does not reassure them at all.
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- May/9/23 7:51:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am no longer a member of the committee, but I can say from my time there and through close consultations with my NDP colleague from Winnipeg Centre, that many women raised concerns with the red flag provisions because many women right now have an incredibly difficult time trying to access basic protection from their local police service. I have heard those same arguments from many women's organizations. Their argument is a solid one. Their main question is this: If police services are inadequate and not living up to a standard that we all expect, why would someone in a domestic violence situation, under fear of their own life or fear of a loved one's life, be forced to go through an already overburdened court process to apply for a protection order?
During my time at committee, with many of the amendments that I put forward, which I cannot speak about in detail because they still have not been dealt with by the committee, my focus was very much on the yellow flag provisions, strengthening licensing requirements and empowering authorities to remove licences when there were definite examples of domestic violence and threats of violence. I want to particularly thank the National Association of Women and the Law because its submissions to our committee were extremely helpful in guiding many of our amendments.
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- May/9/23 7:53:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard today, in the many interventions, of the technical aspects of this bill, the rights of hunters and farmers, the use of the tools and the specifics about the guns, but I do not think we have heard enough about the victims of gun violence. I am somebody who has had the heartbreak and tragedy of having attended funerals for gun violence. I think about Marley Rowe in 2014, and I think about the mass shooting that happened more recently in Vaughan, where my dear friend Doreen Di Nino was one of the lone survivors.
I wonder if the hon. member could reflect and re-centre the impact of gun violence on victims and on the work that he would wish to share for the benefit of this debate on the consultations that he has had with victims of gun violence. This intervention seeks to reduce the circulation of guns, introduce some kind of manufacturing accountability to tackle this new phenomenon of ghost guns and the idea that anybody at home with a 3-D printer can manufacture their own type of weapons. Could the hon. member just re-centre on the victims and talk about the ways this would hopefully help offset future tragedies?
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- May/9/23 7:54:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Hamilton Centre has a very thoughtful question, and he is extremely right. I am very fortunate to live in a riding that does not suffer from firearms violence, so I personally have never had that opportunity to grieve with families in my riding.
However, that does not take away from the testimony that we have heard at committee. It really goes right to our hearts when we hear survivors talk about their personal experiences, or the loss of a close personal friend or loved one within their family. All of us would do well to remember that ultimately our main goal is to make our streets safer for those people.
The member is also very right in raising the issue of ghost guns. We have heard testimony from multiple police agencies that this is an exponentially growing problem. The fact that people could construct a fully functioning firearm with zero traceability and no serial numbers or anything, all with the benefit and aid of a 3-D printer, is a very scary prospect. Police are on the record asking us to tighten up the legislation so we clamp down on who is able to import trigger assemblies, barrels and slides, and all of the other components that are necessary to manufacture a working firearm.
That is the important part of this bill that a lot of people are missing in all of their focus on the other aspects of this bill. There is still a lot in this bill that law enforcement has specifically asked for, and which I believe needs to be put up on a pedestal, on an equal plane of importance as all of those other elements.
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- May/9/23 7:56:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me start by talking quickly about why I suggest every member should get behind this legislation. We hear about ghost guns. This problem is growing across Canada. These 3-D printers are capable of printing what we call ghost guns. No matter which municipalities one looks at, one will find stakeholders, including police and first responders, who say that the number of ghost guns is growing at a very concerning rate. These are untraceable because they do not have serial numbers. This is something very tangible that this legislation attempts to deal with, in good part.
Only the Conservative Party does not want to recognize those sorts of facts and allow the legislation to pass. The NDP speaker addressed it, at least in part, when he talked about the issue of money and fundraising. For those who are following the debate today, I would suggest that they not underestimate how much money the Conservatives have raised as a direct result of guns and rifles, and the type of misinformation they are prepared to share with Canadians to generate the money they have raised over the years. We are talking likely into the millions of dollars.
I became an MLA back in 1988, and the Polytechnique shooting occurred about a year and a half after I was elected. That is when the whole issue, from my perspective, came to the fore. Many people might not necessarily realize this, but after it came to the fore, it was a Progressive Conservative government, and I underline the word “progressive”, under Kim Campbell, that received the recommendation from a Conservative senator for a gun registry. They were moving toward it. That is probably not very well known in the reform Conservative circles today.
Today's Conservative Party is very different from the Progressive Conservative Party. Its members are far to the right. They have recognized this is an issue they can manipulate to get people angry, but to do that, they need to give out misinformation. A tangible example is that they will give the impression it is affecting hunting rifles. This is not in any form or way an attack on law-abiding gun owners, but we would not know it by the propaganda of the Conservatives.
They know this would not affect hunting firearms. They know that, but if we check social media, we will see what it is they are actually saying—
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- May/9/23 8:00:44 p.m.
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I believe there is a point of order from the hon. member for Calgary Centre.
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