44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise this evening in the chamber to speak to Bill C-21, the Liberals' firearms confiscation plan that, unfortunately, we have seen get rammed through the House of Commons with little debate and with support from the NDP to move it forward.
It is a shame because here we go again. Every single time it seems the Liberals get into trouble, whether it is with the inflationary crisis they caused or the incredibly concerning allegations of foreign election interference, and whenever there is an issue facing the Liberals, they always have a new gun law or a new gun proposal to bring forward to try to distract Canadians from their crises. Unfortunately, while they are doing that, they are diverting precious resources away from real solutions that could keep Canadians safe.
As mentioned by my colleague before me and many others in the chamber, not only this evening but in many days prior, we have seen violent crime increase across the country since the Liberals took office by, I believe, over 30%. That is a direct result of a lot of the broken policies the government has brought forward. I will speak more to that later on in my remarks.
I want to share another concern I have, a broad concern, with the Liberal approach to firearms. Whenever they are speaking about firearms, they use very aggressive terminology that even they cannot define. It is things like “assault-style weapons”, things of that nature. One would think they are trying to move forward with banning AK-47s or fully automatic machine guns, which are already prohibited, but that is the way the Liberals talk every time they are talking about firearms and what they are trying to supposedly get off our streets. I think it shows a real lack of understanding of the issue of violent crime across the country and a lack of understanding of firearms more broadly.
I want to speak to the issue of community safety, because, as I mentioned, violent crime is up 32% since the Liberals took office. We are seeing, quite unfortunately in growing frequency, assaults, murders and very violent crimes and attacks right across the country. It is something we are seeing in northern Ontario and northwestern Ontario as well. In small communities of just a few thousand people, we are seeing, in greater frequency, these types of attacks.
I had the opportunity to speak with an individual from Sioux Lookout earlier this morning. His name is Howard, and he shared with me a story of his 22-year-old son, Skyler, who was killed just a few years ago. The perpetrator of that act was someone who had recently been released and who was previously convicted of murder.
It was incredibly difficult to have this conversation with Howard and to hear his incredible concern about the broken bail system that led to this individual's release. He knows, unfortunately, that there is nothing he can do to get his son back, but he is trying very hard to advocate for solutions to make sure this never happens again. I share that story with members because it hit me incredibly hard, and I know there are many people right across the country who are facing similar stories, unfortunately. Too many families have been torn apart.
That is why our party has put forward a plan to fix the broken bail system to ensure that violent repeat offenders face jail time instead of being released back into our communities, where they are able to perpetrate further crimes. The same could be said for hardened drug dealers, people who are preying upon vulnerable individuals with addictions and fuelling another side of the community safety crisis that we are seeing, again, right across northwestern Ontario.
I have spoken in the House previously about the unfortunately large homeless population, not only in the city of Kenora, but also in Dryden, Sioux Lookout and right across our region. Far too many people who are on the streets are addicted to drugs and alcohol, which is leading to needles being found throughout the community, more assaults and threats, and more people all around the community feeling unsafe. Tourists feel unsafe when they come to visit our beautiful region as well. It is another aspect of community safety that I think is greatly missing.
The Liberals have done nothing to address the broken bail system. They have not done enough to ensure that there are proper treatment and recovery options for those who are struggling with addictions to get the help they need so they can hopefully break that cycle and be able to get their life back, get a home and a job, reunite with their family and be able to lead a better life.
Something we see playing out across our district is that the number of HIV cases is up as a result of the drug crisis in northern Ontario. In the Kenora district, we unfortunately have one of the highest per capita rates of overdose deaths in the entire province of Ontario, which is in large part attributable to the lack of resources and proper support systems for those who are struggling. As a result, our community is not safe for anybody, including for the most vulnerable, the unhoused population, or for business owners, who are scared to keep their doors open to customers because of the potential consequences of that. It is not safe for our residents. I spoke with Marliana, another constituent from Kenora, earlier today. She mentioned something to me that I have heard time and again from people when I have been going door to door. She is scared to go downtown to go shopping. She has lived in Kenora for over 40 years. This was never a concern for her until very recently, because we have seen such a rapid escalation in violence and community safety concerns.
It is really sad for our community to be in this situation, and I really do believe that the Liberals do not have an answer for it. They are bringing forward bills like Bill C-21, which is not addressing the bail system or the addiction crisis. The Liberals are really not targeting criminals at all, in large part. Again, this bill is focused on the law-abiding firearm owners in northern Ontario and across the country, whether the hunters in my riding who enjoy hunting as a means of providing for their family or the sport shooters who enjoy going to the range and enjoy the sport. It is incredibly concerning for indigenous people across northern Ontario. I represent 42 first nations, many of which are remote, with no road access and very few resources. There may be only one grocery store in the community and limited options for people to feed their family. They need their firearms to be able to put food on the table. This is a concern I have heard from residents, chiefs and leaders right across the district.
I want to emphasize, in the time I have left, that I believe this approach from the Liberals, with the support of the NDP, is misguided. They are not doing enough to address the very real issues of crime and violence we are seeing across the country and are only targeting the lawful firearms owners, hunters, sport shooters and indigenous peoples like those in the Kenora riding, who are not the problem. Taking firearms away from these individuals is not going to increase community safety in our large urban centres.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked about bail reform, which is in Bill C-48. Allow me to provide a quote that comes from the association representing Canada's frontline law enforcement personnel. It was released earlier today, I believe. It states:
Front-line law enforcement personnel have been asking the government to take concrete steps to address the small number of repeat violent offenders who commit a disproportionate number of offences that put the safety of our communities at risk.
We appreciate that [the justice minister and the public safety minister] have worked collaboratively with stakeholders and introduced this common-sense legislation that responds to the concerns that our members have raised.
We have seen a great deal of filibustering on Bill C-21. I wonder if the member is of the same opinion as I am that, when it comes to Bill C-48, we should get some sort of unanimous consent to have a round of debate on it and then allow it to go to committee so we can deal with it in a quicker fashion.
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Madam Speaker, I have to disagree with the context that the member brought forward, of a filibuster on Bill C-21. We have very legitimate concerns on this side of the aisle, as I mentioned, concerns that have been raised by members of 42 first nations I represent and the people at the sport shooting clubs. I just want to really push back on that assertion of a filibuster. We are here doing our job of raising the concerns of our constituents.
Briefly, I do appreciate that the government finally understands that there is a need to address bail reform. Unfortunately, Canadians really do not trust the government that broke the bail system to fix the bail system. That is why Conservatives are going to keep fighting for a common-sense approach to that.
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Madam Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam. There was recently a seizure of ghost guns in my riding, 3-D-printed ghost guns that can use real ammunition. The comments from the RCMP about these seizures were that, although these firearms were seized in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, they had the potential to be sold and used to carry out acts of violence in any of our communities. Seizures of this nature directly impact the safety of all of us.
My question for the member is this: Is he worried about the proliferation of these 3-D-printed ghost guns, which can impact all of our communities?
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Madam Speaker, I certainly am very much concerned about ghost guns and, as the member mentioned, the proliferation of ghost guns. In my comments, I did not have enough time to get into details, but we definitely have to focus on all of those aspects of crime. We have to bolster the borders to ensure that firearms are not coming across the borders illegally, and we have to ensure that there are enough proper resources for law enforcement to combat all forms of illegal firearms, including ghost guns.
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Madam Speaker, at the public safety committee, the Toronto deputy police chief said that 86% of guns that they recover from crimes are illegal guns smuggled in from the United States. I am wondering what the member thinks this bill would do about that, if anything.
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Madam Speaker, the simple answer is that it certainly would not do enough. The government, over the last eight years, has continually targeted, as I mentioned in my speech, law-abiding firearms owners, the hunters and sport shooters who have never done anything wrong. They are now having their private property attacked by the government rather than having the government focus on addressing the very real issues of illegal guns that are being smuggled across the borders and the gang activity in our cities.
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Madam Speaker, this member does represent a large indigenous community in his riding. He said there are 42 communities. I was wondering, out of those communities, how many support Bill C-21.
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Madam Speaker, to answer briefly, I have not heard of any community leaders or residents who support Bill C-21. I have heard a number of chiefs come forward with concerns about it, including Chief Rudy Turtle, who was a former NDP candidate. He ran against me in 2019, but I am proud to call him a good friend now. He is someone who has continually raised concerns around how this would impact indigenous rights to hunt.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise at this late hour on behalf of my constituents in Edmonton—Wetaskiwin to talk about this important issue.
I have to admit that I am not a firearm owner and I do not have a PAL, but I know more about the issue of firearms than I ever thought I would know, because my constituents, in hundreds of round table meetings over the 17 years that I have been a member of Parliament, have brought the issue forward, particularly in the last eight years as we have had a Liberal government in office, with significant concerns. In fact, particularly in the last seven or eight years, it has been one of the top issues raised in my constituency. We are talking about folks who are hunters, sport shooters, collectors and farmers. They are among the most vetted Canadians in any walk of life in any area, and some of the kindest people one would ever meet. They come to raise very legitimate concerns that we are hearing expressed in here.
It is interesting that, as I have been listening to the debate, I have heard the hon. member for Winnipeg North, the Liberal parliamentary secretary to the House leader, stand up time and time again and just throw accusations of misinformation and disinformation at Conservative members of Parliament who are standing up on behalf of their constituents to raise something that is very important to them. At one point, the member used the words “fear factor” to talk about what Conservatives were talking about. He is applauding himself now, even as I am speaking.
However, quite honestly, I do not think the Liberals believe that these Canadians are scary. I do not think they actually believe that. The scariest thing about these folks for the Liberals is that they do not vote Liberal. That is the scariest thing about these people, and because they do not vote Liberal, their concerns mean nothing to Liberal members of Parliament. Not only do they not have any idea of what life is like for these constituents but they really do not seem to care. In fact, they use these legitimate concerns to pit one group of Canadians against another group of Canadians on a regular basis.
When we talk about fear, another thing that comes up at my round tables on a regular basis is legitimate fear and legitimate concerns that we hear from Canadians across the country, Canadians who are afraid to walk around their neighbourhoods at certain times at night, and Canadians who are afraid, in every city in this country, to ride public transit, which is absolutely not a feeling or a concern that I heard on a regular basis eight years ago, but we are hearing it every day now. We have seen the numbers, the objective facts, and if we want to talk about information, let us take a look at objective facts. Violent crime is up 32% since the government took office. I was reading a statistic that said there are 124,000 more incidents per year. We see this sort of Liberal cycle. We see that crime has gone up. It is a very real thing, so fears have gone up.
We see a very significant mental health crisis in this country, and we all know about it. We all witness it and we all hear from constituents who are struggling with mental health issues. We see that Canadians are increasingly afraid to ride public transit and increasingly afraid to walk around their communities, and then we see the Liberals repeatedly stoke those fears for their political advantage. There is no other way to put it. Then, they stand up today and accuse Conservatives, who are raising the legitimate concerns of our constituents, of being the ones increasing the fear factor in this country.
If the Liberals are serious about crime and if they are serious about addressing the legitimate fears in this country, then they will do something about the real challenges and the real problems that are causing that fear. When they take a look at what those real causes are and look at gun smuggling, the illegal guns that are coming across the border, we have heard experts say that over 80% of the crimes committed with firearms are committed by illegal firearms. One witness talked about 86%. Liberals are doing nothing to stop that.
Again, we have talked a lot in this House over the last few weeks about the catch-and-release bail policies of the government. Liberals have gotten up and said that today after eight years they are finally doing something to address it, saying “why do we not pass it unanimously” and “why do we not stop talking about Bill C-21” and “quit filibustering Bill C-21 and let us pass this other thing unanimously”. However, it has been eight years and there is zero faith among Canadians that the Liberals are serious about dealing with these very real challenges.
I mentioned the mental health crisis in this country. The Liberals promised on page 75 of their platform in the costing document $4.5 billion for a Canada mental health transfer. It was laid out in black and white: over five years, $4.5 billion. They were supposed to have delivered $250 million a couple of years ago and then about another $700 million last year. They are supposed to be halfway through their plans to spend this $4.5 billion on a Canada mental health transfer, but they cannot find the money.
Here, the New Democrats stand up in the House, backing the Liberals at every turn in this debate. What I am interested to hear from the NDP is why, with all of the negotiating power it had when they were putting together a coalition, the one thing that the New Democrats negotiated off the table from the Liberals' platform was a $4.5-billion expenditure on mental health for Canadians. How is that the one thing that the NDP negotiated off the table when it had the power at the table?
It is interesting because as we are talking about the fiscal challenges in the country, with respect to the Liberal confiscation regime, experts have taken a look at this plan and, quite frankly, there is no real plan around this. Some experts have said that it could cost billions of dollars and up to perhaps $6 billion and some have said maybe more than that. I asked the question: Where could that money be better spent?
It is a rhetorical question because it is very obvious that the money could be spent on, for example, a Canada mental health transfer that the Liberals promised on page 75 of their own budget when it was time to get elected in 2021. The money could be spent on tightening up our borders so that illegal guns do not come in across the borders. The money could be spent on tackling organized crime. We talk to police officers across the country and a continuing and growing problem is gang violence in our country. The Liberals could get serious about that.
Most important, as we are talking about firearms, they could forget getting serious about increasing penalties; they could at least stop decreasing penalties for violent crime committed by guns here in Canada. That is what the Liberals have done. That is what their record is over eight years. It is a record of decreasing consequence. Before someone on the Liberal side gets up and makes accusations of misinformation, the objective fact from Statistics Canada is that violent crime has increased by 32% under the Liberals' watch and yet, in this entire debate, no Liberal has stood up to talk about the real impacts of that violent crime on Canadians.
Therefore, here we are. The Liberals are pitting one group of Canadians against another once again, as they have done for years and years and years. Just to close this off, here we are ramming this through once again with two late-night sittings before we pass it. They got it so wrong in the first place that it took them five months to even get it back to this place.
I welcome questions and comments, hopefully from Liberals who will do something other than accuse us—
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- May/16/23 10:45:20 p.m.
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Questions and comments.
The hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells.
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Madam Speaker, I guess I would like the hon. member to comment on the fact that back in the Stephen Harper days the Conservatives cut the CBSA by, I heard, up to 1,000 people. The Liberals have restored that and added to it.
To the member's knowledge, would the Conservatives, if they formed government, go back and cut the CBSA again?
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful to get a question from someone other than the member for Winnipeg North today. I will point out that even the question itself highlights the Liberal incompetence on this issue, because what the member praises is basically an increase in spending that corresponds to a 32% increase in the negative effects and violent crime, despite the Liberals' spending and spending. I guarantee members that the answer next year, or whenever the next budget comes, is going to be more Liberal spending with worse results for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I like the member. We remember the CBSA cuts from the Harper regime. We also remember the Harper regime ending the crime prevention centres across the country, which effectively did a very effective job in reducing the crime rate before the crimes even happened. As we know, for every dollar invested in crime prevention, we save six dollars in policing costs, court costs and prison costs. It made good sense, and the Harper regime absolutely ended it. Unfortunately, the Liberals have not revived the crime prevention centres that were so effective in fighting crime.
However, the point I want to come back to is on Bill C-21. The focus of Bill C-21 now, because of NDP pressure, is on ghost guns used by criminals and criminal gangs across the country. We have seen an exponential increase in some parts of the country, including a tenfold increase in the use of untraceable ghost guns in the region of the Lower Mainland, so I do not understand why Conservatives have been blocking for weeks and weeks through filibusters the adoption of these important measures law enforcement is calling for.
Can the member explain why Conservatives blocked a bill that would take action against criminals and against criminal gangs and their use of ghost guns?
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Madam Speaker, if the hon. member wants to deal with that one specific issue, he can use his clout in his partnership with the Liberals and move that as a stand-alone bill that we can have a stand-alone conversation on, but the member talks about crimes being stopped from being committed before they are committed. Do members know what would go a long way toward that? It is keeping repeat offenders in jail. Do members know what else would go a long way toward that? It is not giving bail to violent repeat offenders.
That is not the conversation we are having right now, unfortunately. This is a conversation that targets firearms owners who are hunters, farmers, sport shooters and collectors and would do absolutely nothing to reduce crime in this country.
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Madam Speaker, my friend, colleague and neighbour from the class of 2006, the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, and I have been here the same amount of time. A lot has been said, and he would feel this too, representing some of the constituents I used to represent, about the divisiveness that is happening in this country. The one thing that the government has managed to unite this country on is that all 10 premiers had to write a letter to the justice minister asking for bail reform.
The issue is violent crime. Can my colleague please expand on the only thing the government seems to have united the country on, which is how lousy it is at keeping Canadians safe?
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Madam Speaker, this is an issue that comes up time and again at my constituent round tables. I have four of them again next week, so I am looking forward to seeing my constituents and hearing more about what we can do if we form government after the next election. One of the things I assure members would be a top priority for our Conservative government if we form government would be to seriously tackle criminal justice issues in this country, because it has been eight long years that they have been ignored.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be able to rise in this House once again to speak on behalf of the great people from southwest Saskatchewan, which is obviously one of the largest rural areas in the entire country.
It is really important to remember that we talk about the differences throughout the country. There are rural areas all across Canada. However, it seems that when we talk about this particular issue there are a lot of urban versus rural perspectives. It is important that we bring our own unique perspectives, because somebody from urban Canada would have a different perspective from somebody from rural Canada.
The job of the government is to build trust with people from both portions of society, not to pick one side or the other but to deal with both aspects of it. All my colleagues here on the opposition side represent both urban and rural ridings, and we do a fantastic job of making sure that we represent both perspectives as we talk about this topic tonight.
One thing I want to do right off the top is really delve into what it is like growing up in rural Saskatchewan. At times the government forgets just exactly what that is like. If one was to talk to many of the rural members here or go back home and talk to a lot of the people who live in a lot of the small towns and even in some of the cities in Saskatchewan, and ask them what was one of their favourite gifts they ever got for Christmas as a youngster, one of the top items would be a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun.
It was a beautiful thing, a lever-action BB gun. I remember getting one when I was six or seven years old. I spent countless hours out in the backyard of our farm shooting pop cans or some birds in the yard, things like that, and learning the proper mechanics of how to properly handle and properly store a firearm, obviously one that was safe for a young person to handle. Many people all across this country do that.
As I grew older, of course, I moved to a .22 and started to see some larger calibres. The most important part was when I was 12 years old, the age I was able to go and get my hunter safety course. It is a course of several meetings in the evenings. We took it at one of the schools in one of the small towns. That was where we went through the very important elements of, again, proper handling, proper usage, proper storage and transportation of firearms, the different classes of firearms, the different species that people were allowed to hunt in Canada, species that one has to be licensed to hunt, and species that could be hunted in open season. That was a very formative and important part of culture in rural Canada. It is almost like a rite of passage of sorts.
Later on in life, as regulations advanced and changed, we went from having things like a firearms licence to having a possession and acquisition licence. It is extremely important that we talk about that process as we go through this debate here tonight.
If all we heard was what the Liberals and the NDP wanted to talk about, they would have us believing that everybody has unfettered access to all kinds of firearms that could do all kinds of different things. The reality could not be any further from that.
The reality is that we do have a very stringent, legal and regulatory system that people have to abide by if they want to be able to acquire, possess and transport firearms. It is a very good system. It is a long process to go through, but I do think it is very fair. When we look at the way our system is, it is a privilege to be able to have a firearm in this country. It is important that we do have a strong but fair legal system around that.
Nobody here is objecting to the system that we have in place, because, for the most part, it is a good system. It is important for people who do not have firearms or people who are not necessarily interested in firearms but might be interested in the debate here tonight to know and understand that we do have a very robust and comprehensive legal system around firearms.
Let us get to the next part of the debate tonight. One of the fundamental things that we always have to talk about in the House of Commons is trust. Does the government trust the people? Do people trust the government? What has the government done to earn people's trust when we talk about firearms?
Well, we know the Liberals had the massive debacle with the long gun registry. In the 2019 election, one of the their next failed ideas was to have a big, expensive buyback program. They said the buyback program was going to cost between $400 million and $600 million. Given that the long gun registry program, which was only supposed to cost $1 million or $1.5 million, turned into an over $1-billion program, people have a right to be skeptical of them.
In 2019, the Liberals rolled out another plan for a buyback program for all the types of guns the Liberals do not like. However, lo and behold, nobody out there was interested in participating in this program and was willing to administer it, so the government had to back away from it. Fast-forward to 2021, and that is where we see the original proposal of Bill C-21.
It is important to note that the original part of it was about having a buyback program for barred firearms. The Liberals were maybe going to allow municipalities to ban handguns, and they were going to supposedly increase criminal penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking. There have been various legislative attempts by the government around sentencing. That is an issue for another time. I may be able to get to it tonight, but we shall see.
We are still waiting for details of the buyback program from that original announcement in 2021. The Liberals floated a few ideas out there. There were a few different things that happened, but ultimately nothing really came of it. We are currently going through the budget again, and there is still no allocation in the federal budget for a buyback program, yet that was part of the original intent of Bill C-21.
What we saw after the budget was announced is that the Liberals came up with a bit of a buyback program, but it is not for firearms that have already been lawfully acquired by citizens of Canada. Instead, they are looking at purchasing firearms back from dealers. Supposedly it will cost $700,000. We are still waiting to see how that program is going to be implemented and what it is going to look like. It will most likely have to do with the list of firearms that will come through Bill C-21.
Again, we have talked about trust. What has the government done to earn the trust of Canadians? As we look at the way Bill C-21 has unfolded not only before the House but also in committee, we have Liberals dropping big amendments with big comprehensive packages of firearms that are going to be banned, and all different kinds of styles.
That is another thing the Liberals have done. They have talked about this made-up term “assault-style firearm”. It is important to note one of the key terms in there, the word “style”. Based on what the Liberals described, it is about the way a firearm might look. That leads to the issue at hand: Do people trust the government with whether or not it is going to ban hunting rifles? We hear about that a lot, and it has been brought up a lot in this debate tonight.
Based on the way the Liberals have described the “assault” style, it could be a gun with a black stock on it or a camo pack on it, and it looks like it could be an assault-style gun. However, the Liberals are not concerned about the function of it. It could be a hunting rifle. It may fit perfectly within the parameters of what is acceptable as a hunting rifle. The Liberals have sowed a lot of fear and distrust in people who like to go out and hunt as part of their culture and way of life, and simply because of the colour of a gun, they may be looking at banning it.
The Liberals have created this committee program that is going to go ahead with a fixed date. It will decide whether a firearm should be banned or not. The bill we are debating tonight is going to set a date and it will be everything after that. That is where the problem lies.
When the Liberals use made-up terms like “assault-style firearm”, it leaves the door open to a vague description that does not have anything to do with the reality of how a firearm functions but is rather about how it looks. Then we will have a committee, which will obviously be hand-picked by the Liberals, with people who will not necessarily be acting in the best interests of these lawful Canadians, who are among the most vetted citizens in this country.
The Conservatives want to see a fact-based approach that takes into consideration people from rural Canada and urban Canada and that looks at what our professionals and experts are actually saying, not just what a bunch of activists are saying.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that a number of members have talked about border controls. I have referred to the fact that, last year alone, over 1,200 guns were confiscated at the border. We have invested in border controls.
I have posed this question to other members and would like to see if the member can respond to it. Is he aware of any guns that were confiscated, any sense of the number, while Stephen Harper was prime minister, because he did cut back on that?
With respect to the bill itself, concerns have been raised not just by the Liberal Party but by all opposition parties regarding the Conservative Party's desire to spread misinformation in order to achieve fundraising goals. I would like the member's thoughts on that.
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Madam Speaker, when the Liberals are in trouble, they like to refer to Stephen Harper rather than talk about the issue at hand. The facts on the ground and the reality from 10 years ago are different than they are today. Ten years ago, violent crime was down 20%. Despite all the money the Liberals have spent, violent crime is up 32%, but even worse, gang-related crime is up 98%. All this comes from the Statistics Canada website, a government website that has that information. That is extremely important.
We talk about the illegal guns coming across the borders and the ones being used in the commission of crimes, and the vast majority of them are falling into the hands of gang members, who are not law-abiding citizens. They are not legally and lawfully obtaining these firearms. We want the Liberals to continue to focus on illegally obtained firearms, but we are not seeing that approach when we talk about Bill C-21.
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