44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. One thing we heard from the Conservatives is their refrain that we want to take hunting rifles away from hunters and Canadians living in rural areas. We know that is not true.
I believe that the member also represents a rural riding. Can she explain why she is comfortable with this definition of firearms so we can reassure Canadians from rural areas?
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Madam Speaker, I attended a dinner in Saint‑Alexis‑de‑Matapédia last week at a club for people 50 and over, and one of the organizers is even a member of the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs.
It was a pleasure talking with him and letting him know that there has been a great deal of disinformation about Bill C-21, and that everyone was under the impression that hunting rifles were going to be prohibited, although that is not at all the case.
At that point, we had just adopted the definition. Hunting rifles were not at all affected by Bill C‑21 as amended. This is still true, after the committee study. I want to reassure hunters because the Bloc Québécois worked hard to ensure that hunting rifles are not affected.
Is the definition perfect? No. Could it be? We can never really achieve perfection, but we could certainly do more about the assault rifles that remain in circulation.
However, it would be false to say that hunting rifles are affected by Bill C‑21.
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Mr. Speaker, I will get a chance to expand upon this, but members should not try to fool anyone who is following this particular debate. The Conservative Party of Canada has consistently spread misinformation, whether it has been by trying to give the impression to hunters that we are after their guns, or whether it has been on indigenous rights. I believe it is being done intentionally for one reason, and that is to raise funds.
The question I would put to the member opposite is the same question I asked his colleague: When will the Conservative Party put the safety of Canadians ahead of raising money for its political party?
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Madam Speaker, many hunters in my riding are very nervous about Bill C-21. Their concerns are not unfounded. Bill C‑21 is the biggest attack on hunting rifles in the history of Canada.
Hunting is part of Quebec's ancestral traditions. In our province, hunting is an important cultural and economic activity. During the 2021-22 hunting season, 563,228 hunting licences were sold in Quebec. That is over half a million licences. Nevertheless, under the guise of public safety, the government is going to use Bill C-21 to ban a wide variety of hunting rifles and shotguns, even though they are essential hunting tools.
Violent crime involving rifles or shotguns represents 0.47% of all violent crime. Of course, some people will say that that is too much. However, the fact remains that it is a tiny percentage. The hunting rifles that the government wants to ban are used not only for an important economic activity for Quebec and Canada, but also as tools for farmers to protect their herds from wild animals, for example. Hunting rifles are not responsible for the mass killings in urban centres. We know all that. Do the Liberals really think that a hunter from Saguenay is responsible for the shootings in downtown Montreal?
When we were seized with the first version of Bill C‑21, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois were forced to back down under pressure from the Conservatives. This proves that those political parties do not know how things work in the regions. We have long known that the Bloc Québécois is no longer a party of the regions.
Everyone knows that illegal gun trafficking at the border is a problem. Our borders are basically a sieve for illegal guns. We need more monitoring and more resources at the borders to deal with the trafficking. No one believes that going after legitimate gun owners is going to reduce violent crime across the country. It is just another Liberal plan to once again divide Canadians. The solution to fighting violent crime is regulation, not a blanket ban on hunting rifles.
Speaking of violent crime, it has increased by 32% since the Liberals took office, and gang-related murders have increased by 92%. Who is paying the price for the Liberals' incompetence and their abysmal failure on public safety? It is our hunters, our farmers and our indigenous people. There is no reason to attack Quebec and Canadian hunters. The government is giving in to lobby groups that condemn all guns as assault weapons, when in fact many are guns used for hunting.
It is clear to me that the Liberal government is once again way off base. It is out of touch with the Canadian reality outside the major urban centres. Perhaps it would be good for Liberal ministers to go and visit the regions. I even invite them to come to my riding. We will go out and meet some hunters. I hope they will gain a better understanding of the Canadian reality.
My leader and the Conservative Party's Quebec lieutenant came to Saguenay last month. We held a round table with hunting groups, and many people were in attendance. Do members know what they all had in common? They were all very concerned about Bill C-21. However, we reassured them by confirming that the three other political parties in the House that were 100% in favour of Bill C-21 at the start had taken a step back and reconsidered because of us, the Conservatives. We will always be there to defend their interests, and that is what we are doing today.
One of the people we met at a round table was Stéphane Brassard, a retired police officer and now a member of the Saguenay hunting federation. He spent his entire life chasing criminals, but now he is being made to feel like one. His only crime is that he is a hunter and sport shooter.
We also met Marie Line Tremblay, leader of Poule des Bois, a group of women who like to hunt. She told us it is primarily a social group that gives women a chance to get together and talk about their lives and their interests as hunters. While this activity might not seem criminal to most, the Liberals see things differently.
Many controlled harvesting zones in my region, known as ZECs, depend on these weapons for hunting. They include the Association des sauvaginiers du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean and the Club de tir le faucon, not to mention sport shooters and biathletes in training. Major businesses also depend on the hunting industry, like Chasse et pêche Chicoutimi.
Did anyone give a second thought to these organizations and businesses? What kind of compensation is the government prepared to pay? The whole thing amounts to a lot of trouble for very little return.
I will finish my speech with a message of hope to reassure all hunters and farmers in the country that the Conservatives are here to defend them. A Conservative government will invest in law enforcement and make our border safer and more secure. We will use common-sense policies to deal with criminals, instead of spending billions of dollars taking guns away from law-abiding citizens. The Liberals must end their crusade against hunters and leave them alone.
Bill C‑21 does not address crime in Montreal. It attacks ordinary people who hunt in Quebec. I know very well that the Liberals voter base is in major cities. Ultimately, they know perfectly well that Bill C‑21 will not reduce gun crime. This is a purely ideological bill. That is why I strongly oppose it.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague says that Bill C‑21 is the biggest attack on Canadian hunters ever. Unfortunately, I do not know if he has read the bill as amended in committee last week, but no hunting weapons will be prohibited if this bill is passed. The new definition of prohibited weapons is prospective. It will apply to future weapons, ones that do not yet exist. I do not know why some people are still trying to scare hunters.
My colleague also said that mass murderers in Canada do not use hunting rifles, that they do not use them in shooting sprees. I would remind him that the SKS, which I am sure he is familiar with, is widely used in Canada for hunting. It is especially popular in indigenous communities because it is affordable. I would respectfully remind him that an SKS was recently used to kill two Ontario police officers.
Perhaps we should stop scaring hunters. Thanks to the Bloc Québécois, hunting rifles are not in Bill C‑21.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that, at first, she fully supported Bill C-21. She even felt that Bill C-21 did not go far enough.
Then, at some point, she saw people everywhere on social media saying that the bill had missed the mark and that it would be dangerous for hunters. That struck fear in the hearts of the Bloc Québécois, and because of pressure from the Conservatives, the Bloc was forced to sit down with the NDP and the Liberals to get back to work.
That is why we, Conservatives, will always be there to stand up for hunters and sport shooters when the other parties want nothing to do with them.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today on an issue that is, quite frankly, very near and dear to my heart. It is near and dear because before Grandpa Jack passed away, I got to hunt with him for many years for deer on, ironically, Manitoulin Island. I am very blessed to still have the opportunity to meet my father at 4:30 in the morning at his house to go chase wild turkeys with my uncle Tom. I guess it is really near and dear to my heart because I am hoping that my grandson Levi, who just turned two years old a couple days ago, will have the same opportunity to enjoy the outdoors with his “Pip”, which is me.
Today, I stand in solidarity with law-abiding gun owners across Canada. For generations, my family has been hunters. My dad got his first gun at the age of five. He, as I did, grew up on a farm. Most farmers owned guns and most family members of the household learned how to use them. Besides supplementing their food supply, farmers used guns to keep predators from their livestock. From one generation to another, each was taught how to handle a gun safely and responsibly.
My dad passed his knowledge and love of hunting to me and my two brothers. Traditions are important. We need look no further than to first nations that support these very same traditions. Hunters today still eat what they hunt and share with their wild-game-loving neighbours, just as I did Saturday night at the Gosfield North Sportsmen club's wild game dinner back in my riding.
Hunters respect nature. We are the original conservationists. We hunt according to seasons, designed to cull the herds, to curtail the behaviours of predators such as coyotes and to preserve wildlife.
Prior to my election as the member of Parliament for Essex, I was an outfitter operating in the Far North. I had the honour and pleasure of working with many first nations guides. Camps like mine, scattered across Canada's vast terrain, help preserve a traditional way of life. We bring resources and jobs to the local communities.
Interestingly enough, my riding of Essex is home to the Jack Miner Migratory Bird Foundation. Jack Miner was an avid outdoorsman and hunter who founded a sanctuary for the conservation of migrating geese and wild ducks. I suppose I could dedicate this entire speech to his list of achievements, but suffice to say, he became world-renowned. As the Right Hon. Pierre Trudeau said of him, “Jack Miner, with his vision and determination is largely responsible for those conservation measures in existence today.”
As I said previously, hunters are the original conservationists. They are also law-abiding citizens. Every gun owner in Canada has to go through rigorous certification and training. Our guns are stored under lock and key. We hone our skills at licensed shooting ranges, and we transport our guns in the prescribed way.
Our government knows that the smuggling of illegal guns across the U.S. border is the true source of gun violence in Canada, yet no matter the facts, law-abiding gun owners are the ones negatively impacted by this new proposed legislation. Why is that? Is it ignorance? Is it government overreach? Is it virtue signalling to their voter base? Is it all of the above?
Sadly, the proposed new gun law restrictions are based on emotion, not on facts. Bill C-21 is divisive. It pits rural Canadians against urban Canadians. It serves no practical purpose because it ignores the real source of gun violence. It trifles over types of guns, which only serves to show how profoundly uninformed the government truly is.
Bill C-21 inexplicably also captured, or had the potential to capture, the airsoft and paintball industries in its net, thus jeopardizing these recreational activities and the businesses that go along with them. It is often hard to relate to something that one is indifferent to. However, beyond curtailing our own passions and pursuits is something more fundamental: the erosion of our charter rights and freedoms under the guise of public safety.
Law-abiding gun owners are the low-hanging fruit for the government's obsession with exercising more and more control over the lives of Canadians. Bill C-21 exploits the fears and emotions of Canadians without any bearing on the facts. It is yet another in a long line of such laws that represent a slow and steady erosion of a gun owner's charter rights and freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. My hope is to cast Bill C-21 in a light that even Canadians who are not recreational gun owners could find a point of agreement on regarding what the government should do and, equally importantly, should not do to address gun crime.
Canada is a democracy. The people elect their government, and the government serves the people. The Constitution of Canada is based on the rule of law. As long as citizens are obeying the laws of the land, they are to be free to go about their daily lives. For the government's part, those we elect to govern us are to only pass laws that are necessary and beneficial.
Furthermore, the onus is on the government to prove that any restrictions on a citizen's liberty are necessary and beneficial. Every law that is restrictive in its nature must be thoroughly scrutinized, and we must make a compelling case for its justification. There should be no benefit of the doubt, no ignorance masquerading as facts, no cynical appeal to emotion.
Our Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What happens when our laws become unjust, as Bill C-21 is? Even more alarming, what happens next? Will this open the floodgates? Is the real goal to end gun ownership entirely? The fact is that those who commit violent crimes using a gun do not obey the law, any law, no matter how restrictive. They always find an illegal way to acquire firearms, chiefly by smuggling. The government knows that.
To my point about the need for balance to ensure that laws are just, when regulations become too restrictive for the law-abiding and enforcement too lax for the criminals, the law becomes unjust. That is exactly what has happened with firearms owners in Canada.
However, this will not end with firearms owners. A government's appetite for control is only whetted by each new measure of control it seizes from its citizens. The only ones who can curb this appetite are the citizens themselves. Maybe hunting is not someone's thing, but they should be concerned nevertheless.
We have seen what the government does with emergency powers under the Quarantine Act. Three weeks into the pandemic, while Parliament's sole focus was providing families and businesses the income support they needed, the Liberal government sought powers that would have given it unfettered control of the public purse until the end of December 2021. The Conservatives fought back then, forced their hand and have remained vigilant since.
Since then, the Liberals have resisted accountability, rushed programs through Parliament and issued an order in council on gun control, which is the basis for Bill C-21. When Parliament finally returned to its full function after months of being shuttered, the Liberals gave us the WE scandal, ethics committee filibusters and then prorogation to avoid scrutiny. The government has proven itself incompetent, unaccountable, unethical and power hungry time and time again to advance an ideological agenda propped up by its informal coalition partners, the NDP.
Recreational gun owners are being scapegoated. I can assure members that it will not end with law-abiding gun owners. The government's sole focus should be an economic recovery plan and another to reopen our society, all rights restored.
To summarize my key points in closing, first, law-abiding gun owners are not the source of gun violence and should not be the government's scapegoats. Second, the government needs to focus on stopping the trafficking of illegal guns across the border. Last, let us uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and cast this bill and every bill in this House in its bright light.
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Madam Speaker, I want to say how much I value my colleague. I work with him on various committees. I want to congratulate him on his speech.
What I particularly like about my colleague is that when he and I debate, our positions are always based on facts. I am open minded, but now, the Conservatives are telling us that hunters will be penalized if we pass this bill.
My question for my colleague is quite simple, and I am sure he will not dodge it because his statement that hunters would be penalized is surely based on facts.
My question is this, and I look forward to his answer: Can he name a single model of hunting rifle that will be banned if we pass Bill C-21?
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Mr. Speaker, farmers who are defending their livestock and hunters who are trying to obtain food for the season do not think of or refer to their firearms as weapons. Police do. The military does. However, for sport shooters, hunters and farmers, their firearms are simply sports equipment or tools they need to do their job.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for the debate that we are having this evening on Bill C‑21 and that we will likely continue tomorrow.
I want to approach this issue from a completely different angle, from my perspective as a hunter. I have been a proud hunter since the age of 15 and I am 61 years old now. I started hunting with my brother Pierre. He is the one who introduced me to hunting, particularly waterfowl hunting. It is important to point out that my riding of Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup is mainly a rural riding. There are two slightly bigger communities, Montmagny and Rivière-du-Loup, where a lot of hunters live.
My entire riding is located either along the St. Lawrence River or in the Appalachian Mountains. It is a very beautiful area, where nature is only a two-minute car ride or a five-minute walk away. It is an area where one really can commune with nature every day. I am sure that my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia would say the same thing in that these are rural areas that are exceptional in every way, particularly in the quality and beauty of the surroundings. They are extremely large ridings. Mine is 7,500 square kilometres.
All we find along the river are flats and birds of all kinds, mainly shorebirds such as ducks, geese, teals, snow geese and Canada geese. I remember when my brother showed me how to hunt, when I was a teenager. I went with him to the edge of the flats where we would hunt snow geese and ducks in the fields. To him that was the most important thing he could teach me about hunting. We had to watch the birds and be mindful of our position and the wind direction. All these elements of nature were very important, but there was also how to handle firearms as a hunter, which was especially important.
Obviously, a firearm is an object that comes with risks, like many other objects. The risk is significant if the firearms are not handled appropriately given their inherent risks. My brother made sure to explain to me how firearms are to be handled and that we had to walk around with unloaded firearms.
I was 15 years old when I started hunting with my brother. When I turned 16, I took a firearms safety course. I passed handily because my brother had already taught me about how to handle and shoot firearms. Not only did he teach me how to handle them, but he also taught me how to protect myself and others when carrying a firearm. The relationship that was established between my brother and me continues today, which means that we always hunt together quite regularly, especially in places that have changed over time. For example, ducks and geese have changed their migration routes somewhat. Montmagny is Canada's snow goose capital. For the past 60 years, a rather interesting festival has been held there. As part of this festival, there are firearm handling demonstrations and, above all, presentations on nature conservation.
For me, this last point is fundamental. I have a vivid memory of the times my brother took me hunting. We would wake up at three or four in the morning to get to the fields before sunrise. To be in a field, surrounded by the autumn dew at five in the morning as the sun is rising, is an incredible experience. People often sleep in too late to see the sunrise. They see sunsets often, but a sunrise is even more spectacular, especially in our region.
The experience nurtured my love of my region and my love of hunting, as well as my respect for the animals we hunt. In my mind, respect for nature and the desire to conserve it are closely linked to firearms. A firearm lets us benefit from nature, within the limits of the law and proper handling.
When I returned to my region in 1988, I started a family. I moved to Rivière‑Ouelle, a little hamlet of about 1,500 inhabitants near the St. Lawrence. I lived on a concession road. People could set off on their bicycles to go hunting. Geese landed on the river in front of our place. I get a little emotional talking about this because I started taking my own son hunting when he was four years old. We went hunting, but without guns. We went hunting so we could observe nature and the behaviour of the migratory birds that flew past our house and in the surrounding area.
There were thousands of them, of course. There were one million snow geese back then. The population declined at one point, but I think it is now back to that level because there is less hunting. Like it or not, there are fewer hunters than there used to be. The migratory bird population has increased. Even so, nature has not changed.
When I say I used to take my son hunting without a gun, it was to help him to grasp the same thing my brother taught me way back when. For me, respect for nature is intimately linked to hunting. I wanted to back up and talk about the name of the river, but I only have two minutes left. Of course, in the mountains, there is more talk about wildlife, partridges, hares, deer and moose. I enjoy that kind of hunting, too.
The government's intention, what it wanted to do from the outset with the bill before us today, was to reduce the number of guns that there are in Canada, including those used by hunters, unfortunately. However, we must not forget the respect that hunters have for nature, not only for the landscape, but also for the animals that they track when hunting. I know thousands of such people. By the way, I am a bit biased, as I co-own a business that sells hunting and fishing supplies, including guns. If I owned that business without having been a hunter first, I think it would have been different. People will say I am not impartial, and that is true.
The government's intention from the beginning was to do away with hunters. The problem in Canada is not hunters or hunters' guns. The problem in Canada is guns illegally imported from the United States. Since this government came to power, the crime rate has increased by 32%, and violence by armed groups or street gangs has increased by 90%. We are not making this up. These are real figures that are publicly available. I repeat, the problem in Canada is not hunters or hunting guns. The problem is street gangs and illegal guns coming into Canada.
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Madam Speaker, the member's condescension is totally unacceptable. Political parties raising funds in connection with various issues is routine. The Liberals do the same thing, as a matter of fact. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Of course Conservatives want to protect the public, but this is about taking aim at the right targets, so to speak. The truth is, hunters, sport shooters and Olympic athletes are not the problem. The problem is street gangs and criminals who take guns, usually handguns, and use them to commit crimes in big cities.
Fortunately, the crime rate where I am in Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup is very low. That is due in large part to the fact that people obey the law, which is very clear about what people can do with weapons. Now, the scope of the regulations is so broad that hunters have to handle their weapons a certain way in order to comply. For instance, they have to lock up their guns. People in my community follow those rules.
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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 thank my colleague for his speech, which set a tone that should be universal and consistent when it comes to defending humans against gun violence. His tone was both measured and calm.
I wanted to tell him that my father was a hunter and that we also hunted snow geese in Isle‑aux‑Coudres. We saw just as many as my colleague would have seen on his side of the river. As long as there was game in the house, I would eat it morning, noon and night. My dad would stuff the goose, and we would eat it. The frightening truth is that I would eat every bit of it, including the gizzard. We still eat them from time to time, because I have a few friends who still hunt.
It is funny. People who hunt told me that, finally, the Bloc Québécois understood the issue of protecting hunters and hunting rifles, while excluding other weapons that could be misleading. I would like my colleague to tell me how the Bloc Québécois has taken firearms away from hunters. On the contrary, we have worked together to clarify the situation.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about the head office of a federation in his riding that represents hunters from all over Quebec. There are obviously other associations across Canada that do the same thing, and all of these associations have a very specific goal. My colleague talked about their goals and objectives in his speech.
I do not know whether my colleague is a hunter, but since he is from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, he is very familiar with the connection between hunting and nature in his riding.
What is that connection?
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Madam Speaker, it will be difficult to be brief. I will thank my colleague, but I will not mention his riding to save time.
I am, in fact, not a hunter. However, the landscape is extraordinary in Portneuf—Jacques‑Cartier. I am a conservationist, just like hunters, sport shooters, farmers and indigenous peoples, and we are all aligned.
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Madam Speaker, I thank everyone who is here this evening and all those folks out there in TV land watching this debate.
Certainly, there are many folks in Canada now who have lost that historical connection to hunting, and as my eloquent colleagues from la belle province said, it is still something many people love to do. Growing up in rural New Brunswick, as I did, it was something my family and I did as well. I have to echo the comments of my colleagues in the sense that, the joy we derived from being out in nature, being with one another, observing nature and using skills that have been passed down for generations, such as tracking animals and being able to understand how that process works, is really part of the heritage I experienced as a proud rural Canadian.
As I grew, I had the ability to join the military, and that created two things. The number one thing, as we know, is that some of the restrictions around firearms in this country made it very difficult to transport firearms, get them licenced and all that stuff. As that happened, both my brother and I were in the military, and we decided at that point to get rid of the firearms our family had, many of them for many years. As I reflect upon that, it creates a bit of sadness now because that is a tradition that I was not able to pass on to the rest of my family.
That being said, the military created a different relationship with firearms. It was different only in the sense of what their intended purpose was, what they looked like, how they shot bullets and how many, etc. That being said, respect for firearms is what continued to be pervasive in my approach to them. I think that one of the things people around here who have not had much experience with firearms either do not want to understand or refuse to understand is the respect we had for firearms.
I remember being a child at that time when there were not many restrictions. The firearms were on the wall. They did not have trigger locks, and they were never loaded. Also, let us be clear that it was not something people took off the wall, pointed at other people and did foolish things with. They were designed for a purpose. We knew that purpose, and we respected that purpose. Sadly, some of those things have changed.
As I said, I got into the military. I was a physician there, of course. The firearms training for doctors was somewhat different. Maybe it was just my skill level that was somewhat different, but nonetheless we did go ahead and have our days on the ranges. Again, they were all very enjoyable. It certainly is a skill that one can learn, and if practised well, one can become very adept. There are many stories around that.
Indeed, in my own riding of Cumberland—Colchester, in Springhill, there is an incredible history of sport shooting. One family in Springhill has won the Queen's Medal for Champion Shot 10 times. When we look at the incredible experience that family has shared from generation to generation, it is also with one of the most storied units in Canadian military history, the Nova Scotia Highlanders, of which I had the opportunity to be the honorary colonel at one point. Understanding this incredible and rich military history and the impact that the changes Bill C-21 would bring to the ability to undertake things such as sport shooting is incredibly sad.
I think from my own riding there are a couple of other things that are important to note. One is the incredible shooting group called the Oxford Marksmen Association. I had an opportunity last year to partake in a day at the range with those folks. Again, the word “respect” is what I really think I need to underline. There is the respect that group has for the firearms and for the sport shooting we undertook that day. Once again, sadly I was absolutely terrible, and they took no short time of making sure I knew that, but I am okay with that. If I could practise more, I would be much better, I am sure.
The other thing that is important is a group, also in my riding, called Women That Hunt. It is a great group of women who realize, again, that important family and nature connection they are able to have and create.
In particular, we often see women who have never had the opportunity to handle a firearm go through that entire process and understand the process of learning about the firearm, learning about munitions, understanding how to be in nature and then, also, understanding the very strict process that many of my colleagues have talked about here in the House with the licensing procedure that we have here in Canada.
In essence, when we look at all of those things, I would suggest that the rural riding of Cumberland—Colchester has a significant history of firearm usage and understanding the necessity of that from a hunting perspective.
Just next door is Kings—Hants, and one of my colleagues, the member for Kings—Hants, participated in the debate on Bill C-21 and spoke out with much shenanigans, I will say, in committee, on Bill C-21. He was perhaps almost supporting an amendment to protect sports shooting. However, sadly, when the vote came, that member abstained. Clearly, part of the demise of sports shooting in the country is related to that individual.
At some point, we have to stand up to be counted. When we are elected to come to this place, that is what we are asked to do, which is to represent those folks in our riding. Of course, with Kings—Hants being mainly a rural riding, I would suggest there would be many people who would be exceedingly disappointed, not only with the fact that the member did not take a position but also that it was an abstention. When we look at those things, that is something for which, I think, as I said previously, we need to stand up to be counted.
I think it has become very clear that there is some protection in Bill C-21 around Olympic shooters. It becomes very clear, though. How can one become, say, for instance, an Olympic kayaker, if one did not have the opportunity to get into a kayak? That would be very difficult, and perhaps there are people around here who might find that to be a very difficult thing.
I had a great friend. He was in the Olympics in 1980, 1984 and 1988 as a kayaker, a very excellent kayaker. If, in 1988, the use of the kayak were banned in Canada, there could have been many individuals who would have been affected without the ability to go to the Olympics and participate in kayak. We will see that with Olympic shooting now, that there will be people, of course, who will not be able to participate in that.
That being said, I think there are two things I need to round off on. As we have heard here repeatedly, gun crimes, gangs and violence associated with that are not being undertaken by hunters, of course. That is a nonsensical notion. I think a common-sense approach to that would be something that would be exceedingly important.
One final, very sad note is that my Liberal colleagues across the way have often brought the Portapique mass shooting into this debate, which I think is deplorable. It is despicable. It is really something that should never have been done. We know very clearly that the madman, that maniac, who committed those crimes, those murders, that shooting, was not a legal firearms owner, and certainly, that was not done with legal firearms.
To bring that into this was unacceptable. Of course, there was the disrespectful and unacceptable interference we saw with the head of the RCMP, the commissioner of the RCMP at that time, and the use of that incident to talk about this order in council. It was, once again, unacceptable. I just want to highlight that point because, of course, Portapique is in my riding of Cumberland—Colchester.
On that note, hopefully those brief personal experiences, which have great meaning for me, will help Canadians understand what our position on this side of the House is, which is to protect those rights of legal gun owners in Canada.
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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, I have to give the hon. member and her colleagues credit; it is getting late in the evening, but the hysteria and hyperbole continue to mount.
I am looking at a site here that shows 532 different rifles for sale legally in Canada; they are non-restricted. Where do the Conservatives come up with this idea that hunters will not have access to rifles? There are hundreds, probably thousands of models available out there, so why are they pitching this story?
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Madam Speaker, I talked about that earlier when I was asking questions and sharing my thoughts on Bill C‑21. This ongoing disinformation campaign is shocking.
I heard the member say that hunters would be affected. Again, that is an improvement the Bloc Québécois brought about thanks to my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, who got the notion of hunters removed from the definition. It is no longer there. I also heard the member talk about airsoft guns. That is another improvement to the Bloc Québécois's credit. Let me reiterate the Bloc Québécois's position. We succeeded in getting the clause prohibiting airsoft guns deleted. Airsoft association members will be happy.
In both cases, what she said was completely false. Those things are not in Bill C‑21.
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Madam Speaker, here is what the Liberals have done. They have all of a sudden changed the narrative from hunters and indigenous Canadians to ghost guns. That is what they have been talking about today. They have also been talking about spreading misinformation and disinformation. They have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
Here is another concern that Canadians should have. The public safety minister has indicated that there will be a firearms advisory council. There is no indication yet about the makeup, who is going to be on it and what their decisions are going to be. However, the minister did say that this firearms advisory council will have an opportunity to look at certain guns, make decisions and recommendations to the government, and then the government can issue a ban through the order in council. How is that transparent?
The Liberals are going to continue to attack law-abiding firearms owners. They are just going to back-end it or do an end-around to accommodate that.
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