44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is passing strange that the ghost gun component is actually the biggest part of Bill C-21, and Conservatives, who have been saying all along that they want to crack down on criminals, have been filibustering and opposing the bill at every stage.
However, what is not in the bill are the G-4 and G-46 amendments, and I am prohibited from showing a prop, but on the amendments it says very clearly “withdrawn”. This means that those amendments do not exist, but Conservatives keep speaking to them, which shows a very strange hypocrisy when it comes to this particular bill. The other thing I find passing strange is that the Conservatives have tabled a report stage amendment to eliminate all exemptions for handguns, including for the Olympics and Paralympics.
The Conservatives have been all over the map on this. My simple question is this: Will the member agree that G-4 and G-46 were withdrawn at the beginning of February, and they should stop speaking to amendments that do not exist?
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Mr. Speaker, it is already illegal to manufacture or possess a 3-D printed gun without the proper registration and certification. What would Bill C-21 change with respect to 3-D printed firearms?
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Mr. Speaker, it would change absolutely nothing.
The bill, this change, was done by the Liberal government to deflect from its horrible job at stopping the rampant crime wave we have seen across this country. It is for its members to go into their strongholds to fundraise and say, “Oh, we're taking away guns. Gun crime will stop.” However, it does nothing to stop the gangs and the smuggling of the guns across the border, and it is doing nothing to prevent the crime.
The government is soft on crime. The bill is going to do nothing to stop the criminals or the crime wave that is going on in this country right now.
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Mr. Speaker, the beginning of this bill really started with Polytechnique, and that was when the Liberals, the socialists and a whole bunch of them decided to wage war. It was Bill C-68 at the time. They wanted to start a gun registry, which failed miserably because the fact that someone is registering a firearm did not do anything to prevent crime.
Then we fast-forward to the tragedy in Nova Scotia. On the heels of that, and in trying to interfere in the investigation into the tragedy, the Liberals were trying to get the RCMP commissioner to find out what the list of guns was so they could justify their order in council gun ban.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-21. As members may have noticed, I have not spoken to this bill or any bill related to guns, and there is a specific reason. I find it exceptionally difficult to speak about this issue given the work I have done in the past. However, I feel a need to weigh in today given the enormous amount of misinformation that is coming forth.
At the outset, I want to acknowledge that the bill, as amended, at this stage does not impact hunters or indigenous people. Their section 35 charter rights are protected under the non-derogation clause. I want to centre this conversation on why this piece of legislation is deeply important to me, my riding and my community.
About 20 years ago in 1997, on December 27, a young man, a 19-year-old University of Waterloo student, was shot at a coffee shop in Scarborough. His name was Kabilan Balachandran. I have spoken about him before. At that time, he sparked a movement to counter the violence and gun violence we had seen in our community. He would have been 44 years old this year. His was a life of boundless opportunities and potential achievements that was cut short because of gun violence.
My involvement in community work really started off just after that. An organization called the Canadian Tamil Youth Development Centre was started because of Kabilan in 1999, and for the next four years or so, I was able to run the organization as its coordinator on a voluntary basis. I can tell members that we put hundreds of hours a month into supporting young people who were impacted by violence in a community that was struggling with violence.
A couple of years later, in 1999 I believe, two young men were shot point-blank at 720 Kennedy Road. They were students at SATEC. I was able to meet with the families, and in fact I am still in touch with them. The pain I saw among their friends, classmates and those who were impacted, particularly their mothers, is something I can never forget. One of the mothers essentially stood in front of a window waiting for her son to come back. Of course, we know that he never came home.
We have seen other attacks and gun-related incidents that have impacted many young people, and I have been profoundly impacted by this. In fact, in many ways, my view on guns is shaped by this history.
There is a neighbourhood in my riding called Danzig, and it is impoverished in many ways but is surrounded by an incredible community. Just before I ran for office, when I ran for the nomination, it was hosting a barbecue on July 16, 2012. Again there was an incident that involved the deaths of two young men, with 24 people injured. In many ways, I do not have to look at mass casualties or mass gun violence outside of my riding because it happened right there in the middle of the summer, impacting so many young people and families. It shook the community to the core. In fact, we marked the 10th anniversary of their passing just last year, and I can tell members that the pain really has not gone away.
Then, after I was elected in 2017, on July 23, Demal Graham, a resident in my riding, was shot in front of his daughter. We had a chance to visit the family and meet with his mother Shauna, his daughter, his other children and his siblings, and again the hurt continued.
The pain may be different, and it may be 10 years later. It may be people of different backgrounds, faiths and upbringing, and they may be from rural communities. However, ultimately, the pain inflicted on the families that are impacted is just unbelievable.
Louis March is from the Zero Gun Violence Movement, and we have spent quite a bit of time together. In fact, when the Minister of Justice came to my riding in 2019, we had a round table and he was able to give us his first-hand experience with many of the mothers of the young men who were killed by gun violence.
I think we have been arguing a fair bit here, and I do not for a second pretend to know what my friend opposite just spoke about regarding living in rural Canada. I am not going to pretend to know that. I also want him to know that he may not know about living in an inner city in a place like the city of Toronto or any other major centre, and I do not want to presuppose that. However, our conversation needs to be elevated. It cannot just be about saying, no, we are not going to touch or restrict guns of any form. I think that conversation really fails Canadians.
What the Minister of Public Safety has brought forward is, I believe, very balanced legislation that would protect hunters. I have never hunted, and I do not think I ever will, but that is not the point. The point is that there are many Canadians who do and they do it lawfully, and this is not about taking away their ability to hunt. This is not, as I said earlier, about the ability of indigenous people to exercise their section 35 rights.
Ultimately, this is about bringing forward legislation. It may not be perfect and may not fully address all the issues of gun violence. That alone is not enough. Bill C-21 alone is not enough. We know more needs to be done, and that is why the Minister of Public Safety has brought forward funding to support communities and why we brought forward Bill C-48 today to address serious violent offenders.
Ultimately, I think we would do Canadians an injustice if we do not move this bill along. I think there has been sufficient debate. Oftentimes the debate is elevated, and while I do not want to go into the process, obviously this could have been done better. However, I can assure members that this is something that my community needs. Scarborough needs this, the city of Toronto needs this, major cities need this and I know that Canada needs this.
I look forward to questions and comments from my colleagues, and I am thankful for the opportunity to share some of my experiences with gun violence.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned that, despite Bill C‑21, more needs to be done about gun control in Canada. I agree with him.
When the government withdrew its amendments and came up with a new definition, I think everyone was relieved, except for a few groups that are calling for better gun control. The government took the list of 482 firearms that it wanted to include in the Criminal Code, removed them and proposed a prospective definition, meaning that it applies only to weapons that will be on the market in the future.
In so doing, hunting rifles will be left untouched, which is a good thing. However, hundreds of military-style assault weapons are also being left in circulation. I find it hard to understand how the government can hope to exercise better gun control by leaving a rather incredible number of military-style firearms in circulation.
What does the member think the minister should do? Should he enact an order in council to ban these weapons?
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Madam Speaker, the member talked about some of the lives that have been lost in his riding. We have seen gun violence happening in many countries. What does the hon. parliamentary secretary think it means to the families to see legislation moving forward that actually takes action to address gun violence, as opposed to just offering prayers and nice words? We see a government actually taking action for families that have lost people in their lives due to gun-related violence.
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Madam Speaker, it is very simple. Bill C-21 is not going to bring back any of these children or young people who passed away. It is not going to heal the families. However, it will give solace to those families, those survivors and those who have been impacted by gun violence.
Our government takes it seriously. Collectively we as parliamentarians take gun violence seriously, and we are taking steps to address it—
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which was a lot more nuanced than those of most of his colleagues. I commend him for that.
He talked about how beautiful the Lower St. Lawrence area is and how close it is to nature. I agree with him. We are practically neighbours. Our ridings are both in the Lower St. Lawrence region and not far from each other.
He also sang the praises of hunting. He told us stories about his family and about how, when he was young, he went hunting without a gun just to birdwatch. I have some good news for him. He is going to be able to continue hunting without a gun. I am just joking. He will be able to continue hunting with his rifle because Bill C-21 does not affect hunting rifles. Those are two pieces of good news for my colleague. That is all I wanted to say.
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Madam Speaker, the member made a joke, so I will make one too. Good jokes always carry a deeper truth. We see how the Bloc Québécois positions itself: It no longer wants people to go hunting. No, it is not true.
In fact, I will respond to my colleague anyway. I could almost quote what her colleague from Rivière-du-Nord said when the amendments were proposed last fall. He said that he could not have done better. That is a Bloc Québécois MP who comes from a region and who is the colleague of my neighbouring colleague from the Lower St. Lawrence who said such a thing. In these amendments, in this list of 300 pages, there were hunting rifles and there are still hunting rifles.
What the Conservatives mainly want to avoid is for hunters to be targeted, which has been the case from day one. Let us go back a few years. At the time, Mr. Chrétien said that the gun registry would cost $200 million. That number went up to $2 billion. Today, if we had kept it, it would cost a fortune.
The government wants to use this bill to attack law-abiding hunters. It has not set its sights on the right target. It should instead invest more money to ensure that our borders are safe.
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Madam Speaker, I have one comment. I shot myself in the military, or I should say, I did not shoot myself, but I was taught to shoot in the military, and I like to go to the range.
If some of the weapons that would be banned were available at the range where we could just go out to rent them and shoot an AR-15, which is a very fun gun to shoot, would that be of interest to the hon. member?
Would the hon. member agree that, in spite of any weapons that are not going to be available in the future, there are still more than enough models available for hunters to go about doing what they do?
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Madam Speaker, while we are talking facts, I wonder if the member can show me a fact that says that seizing legal guns from legal gun owners is going to have a benefit. That is what is in this bill, so it is not fact-based; it is ideology.
We could talk about what more we could do to protect not only hunters, guides, outfitters and those who use rifles but also sport shooters who use handguns and want to cross into the U.S. to compete internationally. That is just part of what we, as Conservatives, want to have.
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Madam Speaker, what is very clear from the member is that the Conservative Party is responding more to the gun lobbyists. He cites constituents and says he will give their first names, but not the last names because he does not want the government to attack them in any fashion. There is this whole fear factor that the Conservative Party continues to spread with misinformation, as if hunters, indigenous people and other law-abiding gun owners are going to be attacked by this legislation, when it is just not true.
Why do the Conservatives continue to spread misinformation when they know many of the things they are saying are just not true?
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague talked about those two little words, “hunting gun”, which were in the government's first definition of prohibited weapons. He saw that and raised a hue and cry, accusing the big bad Liberal government of wanting to prohibit hunting guns.
When we saw that, we took action. We went to see the government. We asked it to go back to the drawing board and take those words out of the definition because they caused confusion. We asked the government to remove the list it was trying to put in the Criminal Code that would have prohibited weapons that are reasonably used for hunting. That was the Bloc Québécois's approach, and it succeeded. We now have a new definition that does not include hunting guns.
Instead of hitting the panic button and scaring hunters, instead of spreading disinformation about the bill, the Conservative Party could have worked with the Bloc Québécois to improve this bill.
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Madam Speaker, it is getting late in the day and the humour is getting really good. It is hilarious. I thank him for that second one.
Going back to the first one about rifles, has anyone been to Cuba? It has great cars but only up to about 1958 because it cannot get any newer cars. That is what this legislation does. It says someone cannot buy a new gun after a certain date, so we are going to be left with relics, guns that do not work and guns that are broken. One way to get rid of hunting rifles is by saying people cannot buy a new one.
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Madam Speaker, a lot of criticism of this bill has come from the very groups that have organized for years to ban the guns that they believe, with their evidence, are used to kill people. Groups have formed in Quebec, for instance, that recall the massacre at École Polytechnique, and they are angry with the Liberals for weakening this bill.
In this debate tonight, and on Bill C-21 in general, there are certainly flaws with how the Liberals have delivered this legislation. I will not disagree with that. However, it is becoming a dialogue and debate that is deeper in rhetoric than in fact. I think it is important to note that advocates for gun control are very disappointed with the government.
I wonder what my colleague makes of that in light of his criticisms.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, although I do not need the mansplaining. I think I understand the bill very well, and so do my constituents. Five hundred of them have written to me on my recent mailer.
Here is one from Laura. She said, “As a retired police officer, I strongly object to taking guns from legal gun owners. They are not the problem.” Here is one from Fred, who said, “It is not the hunters and farmers that are killing people, and when they catch the crook they should put them away and not send them back on the street.”
I have talked to numerous police officers and military personnel who have collections and use firearms on their off time to practise and get better at what they need to do in their jobs. This is also hurting our law enforcement officers—
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his questions. I agree that the Conservatives are spreading disinformation.
This was a collaborative effort. The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security tried to make this bill into one that will at least keep people safe and prevent the use of weapons used in mass killings. It is important to have a gun control bill.
Hunting rifles are not affected at all. Once again, the Conservatives are spreading disinformation and propaganda.
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Madam Speaker, the member is wrong to make the assertion he is alleging that this gun registration, or attack on guns, would affect our hunters, farmers and indigenous people. It is just wrong to say that those guns are going to be taken away. The information the Conservatives are putting out there is definitely misleading, and I am being kind in my wording.
There are some benefits within the legislation. I have made reference to one, and I will continue to do so. Ghost guns are a serious issue across Canada. This is a wonderful step forward in dealing with that issue. Could the member clearly indicate what parts of the legislation he does support, if any at all.
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Madam Speaker, I was grateful that the member for Barrie—Innisfil made the claim that Canada had the toughest gun laws in the world, because I decided to look it up. I do not think he was trying to mislead the House. I think he made that assumption, but it turns out Canada is not among the top 10 countries for tough gun laws. Japan is first, followed by South Korea, the Netherlands, Ireland, the U.K. and Israel. I think it might be interesting to note that we rate way better than the United States, but not in the top 10.
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