44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2023 10:00AM
- May/9/23 4:09:36 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the NDP is correct. There has been obstruction from the Conservatives with respect to the debate on this bill, and on an array of priorities when it comes to delivering for Canadians. I would highlight that we have had 15 meetings, 79 witnesses and approximately 40 hours of debate, despite the obfuscation by the Conservatives.
I thank my colleague from the NDP, as well as my colleagues from the Bloc, with whom we have had constructive discussions on the next steps we need to take to strengthen the national ban on the AR-15 assault-style firearms, which have no place in our communities. It is only the Conservatives who are advocating for policies that would repeal that ban and make those types of guns, which were designed for a battle field, legal again.
139 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to the ongoing efforts by the Conservatives to stoke fear, we respect gun owners, farmers and the first nations communities who use firearms responsibly. I have engaged with all of them, and we have gone to great lengths to make sure we are weaving their experiences into our laws.
Therefore, rather than stoke fear and disinformation among Canadians, it would be far more productive if Conservatives were prepared to have a debate based on facts, not fear. That is what we are doing with other parties in this chamber, including the NDP and the Bloc, and I want to thank them for their collaboration on Bill C-21.
118 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, my colleague on this side of the government aisle is correct. The vast majority of Canadians, approximately 80% of Canadians, support a national ban against AR-15 style, assault-style firearms. They support a national freeze on handguns.
Handguns have become the number one type of gun used in homicides. Canadians support and want to see action that will allow us to reverse the disturbing and alarming trends of domestic abuse and the presence of guns. Again, women are disproportionately victimized as a result of the presence of guns. We want to reverse those trends.
We want to save lives, which is precisely why we need to move forward with Bill C-21. Were it not for the Conservatives who continue to obstruct and obfuscate, we would be able to do that more quickly. That is why we are taking the step that we are today, and we will continue to engage with all Canadians so we can keep them safe.
163 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 4:15:31 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, that Conservative member knows full well that that is false. We are not at all targeting, with this legislation, law-abiding gun owners, and her repeated claims that it is true are simply misleading all Canadians.
Frankly, it is the other parties with whom we have been working across the aisle, and thanks to the advocacy of the extraordinary members of the Liberal caucus I get to work with, we are putting forward legislation that will save lives by ensuring that we take the next steps to strengthen a national ban on assault-style firearms, as the Mass Casualty Commission from Nova Scotia recommended that we do, by implementing, permanently, a national freeze on handguns, which have become the number one type of gun used in homicides.
Those are the types of responsible, evidence-based policies that will help to save lives. It is only the Conservatives who are out there in left field on their own on this issue, and they should be joining this debate to support these policies.
173 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 4:20:16 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it would be bad enough if all that the Conservatives wanted to do was just protract the debate on this so that they could obfuscate some more, but no, that is not all. They have openly campaigned, repeatedly, on a commitment to repeal the policies the government has put into place, including wanting to make AR-15 style firearms legal again. These are guns that were designed for the battlefield. It was the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission, which I know you, Mr. Speaker, are very familiar with, that recommended we take additional steps to strengthen that ban so that we could protect communities from another tragedy like the one we saw in Portapique and Truro.
We have been able to have those discussions with our colleagues in the NDP and the Bloc, and for that, I am grateful. It is only the Conservatives who are bending over backwards, doing everything they possibly can, to frustrate debate so they can prevent the passage of this bill into law. I think that is wrong. The Conservatives should reverse course so that we would be able to put this law into action and save lives.
195 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, it is a real privilege to talk about Bill C-21 and to really stand up against it.
Getting an honest answer from the minister is difficult. We have tried. I remember being the one in SECU who actually got the witnesses to admit that law-abiding hunters' firearms were on the banned list. The Liberals have tipped their hand, and most firearms owners across the country know that. I have spoken with Liberal members of Parliament who do not necessarily like the way their own government is going on firearms.
This is really a call-out to the NDP. I just heard members from the island. I have been to the Campbell River Gun Club, where people brought huge concerns forward around Bill C-21 and the freedom to access their legally obtained firearms. Again, these are citizens who are vetted on a daily basis. The stats support that people who have a firearms licence are far less likely to commit a crime than an average citizen is. These are impeccable citizens being shown complete disrespect by the Liberal minister.
Again, my question for the New Democrat members is whether they will finally stand with their constituents and oppose this legislation.
204 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 4:24:21 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing today is the Liberals admitting they have no idea how firearms regulation works in this country and what it takes to lawfully obtain and transport a firearm.
When I was 12 years old, I took my hunter safety course, and then I had to apply for a possession and acquisition licence. There is an extremely arduous process one has to go through to get licensed and to be able to acquire a firearm, including background checks, checks that are run daily by the system.
My question for the minister is actually quite simple. Does he even have a possession and acquisition licence, or has he even taken the hunter safety course in Canada?
119 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 4:27:27 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we were in the House until midnight last night with the same sort of childish antics going back and forth. While these are going on, while people are asking to be apologized to and talking about their feelings being hurt, children in my community are being killed by guns, ghost guns, illegal guns. This is what we are talking about. We are talking about the balance between those law-abiding gun owners who deserve and want the right to be able to use their firearms in a responsible way and families who are losing children, along with women who are intimidated and hurt by guns that are not legally allowed in this country.
If the minister does not mind, could he just explain again why we cannot go through 145 amendments at this pace and still save lives in this country?
143 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 4:28:25 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I know my NDP colleague's concerns are genuinely felt in her community, as they are felt in mine and indeed right across the country.
With regard to her specific question on ghost guns, we recently had a cross-border crime forum summit here in Ottawa with our American counterparts. What we are seeing coming out of that are concrete results, such as more capacity to trace illegal guns and more opportunities to leverage new technology to go after ghost guns. Ghost guns are a concern that has been expressed to me by chiefs from law enforcement right across the country. It is by doing this tangible work in collaboration with the United States that we are going to be able to build on the record number of illegal firearms that were seized at the border last year and leverage new technology to go after ghost guns to keep her community safe, and keep all our communities safe, from gun violence.
163 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, there are at least two serious mistakes in the premise of the Conservative member's question. The first is that we are not going after criminals. In Bill C-21, as I have just mentioned, we would raise maximum sentences from 10 to 14 years for illegal gun traffickers. That is an important and powerful signal to anyone who would try to terrorize our communities that they will run the risk of going to jail for a longer period of time.
The Conservative member also referred to prevention. That is precisely what the government is doing with a $250-million building safer communities fund. I would point out that the Conservatives have opposed the building safer communities fund's allocations, which will save lives through prevention by providing mental health services and other supports for people who are at most risk. The Conservatives are also against Bill C-21, which would give law enforcement the additional tools to go after criminals who use firearms to commit crimes. That is why their position is so misguided.
On this side of the House, we are doing the work. We are making sure that we pass responsible gun control legislation, but we are also taking action at the border and advancing strong prevention strategies.
213 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague from London that, as he knows, we have been working with rural communities and first nations communities right across the country.
In fact, I have spent a good, considerable period of time with a number of experts in gaming and hunting in the Yukon, where I had a chance to see how they participate in their traditions. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the way in which they participate in their traditions in a way that is safe and secure. I have also assured them, as we have done with indigenous communities, that this bill would reflect their lived experiences. What does that mean in plain and simple terms? It means that this bill would not target them. Rather, it would go after criminals. It would go after AR-15 assault-style firearms. Yes, it would implement a national freeze on handguns, because handguns have been growing by approximately 55,000 new registrations every year and they have concurrently become the number one type of gun used in homicides.
Those are the types of evidence-based, informed policies that are in Bill C-21, and that is why it would help save lives.
203 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 4:34:57 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, there is just so much wrong with this presentation. Under the Liberals, violent crime has gone up 32%; gang crime has gone up almost 100%. The minister just spoke about registered firearms, yet the experts who appeared at the justice committee, the police chiefs, said that illegal firearms coming in from the United States are the cause of this problem.
Would the minister acknowledge that his bill, Bill C-5, eliminated mandatory penalties for trafficking in illegal firearms, drive-by shootings and using a firearm in the commission of an offence? While he is talking about increasing sentences for certain crimes, would he also acknowledge that the maximum sentence has never been used for any of these crimes, and it will not be under these changes?
128 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 6:46:14 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, actually, the member is misleading the House a bit. His own government spent $200,000 in taxpayers' money on a consultation on firearms. There were 133,000 people who responded, and 77% of 133,000 respondents to the Liberals' own consultation said that nothing more was needed to limit access to so-called assault weapons. It is very interesting, because it is not what we hear from them, yet that is what their own evidence said. Again, “assault weapons” is a completely made-up term from that member and other members on the Liberal benches.
Further, of the 133,000 people they surveyed, 81% said no to limiting more handgun access, and 74% said the focus of any new measures should be on the illicit market, so I am not sure where he is getting his evidence. I am not aware of any other poll that polled 133,000 people, but the government's own consultation shows that he is wrong.
165 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, there are a number of things to point out. The list, first and foremost, may have been withdrawn from public scrutiny, but we have heard from the Liberal parliamentary secretary that it is going to go over to this so-called expert firearms advisory committee. Yesterday in the House, she said that they will look at what they should ban from that list. Those were her words. Therefore, I do not think the list is gone; it is just going to an unelected advisory committee with less transparency. The committee will have meetings in the dark behind closed doors, so to speak, so there is that.
I think part of the member's question was in response to the Liberal member who asked me the first question, and I would agree with most of her assessment. The committee has been working very well. Had the Liberals not been so sneaky with their underhanded amendment in November, we would have been past Bill C-21 a long time ago. This is on the Liberals for being underhanded and sneaky, bringing forward the worst amendments to attack hunters in generations, at the 11th hour in committee. That is not on us; that is on them. They dragged this out.
The minister then made us wait for six weeks. Now we are resuming. They call what the Conservatives have done a filibuster. The NDP lead on committee has spoken more than almost anybody else; I will make that very clear. It is ridiculous. Therefore, I reject completely that this is on the Conservatives. It is the Liberals' fault that we are in this mess with Bill C-21. People just have to look at the committee record to know that.
289 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 7:17:58 p.m.
- Watch
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?
212 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
2835 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 7:54:35 p.m.
- Watch
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.
285 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 7:56:44 p.m.
- Watch
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—
407 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
