SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 199

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 199 - May/17/23
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • May/17/23 8:35:12 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-21 
Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my hon. colleague that at this hour, my French is not up to putting this question. We have had discussions of the red-flag laws in this place on Bill C-21. I have read the Mass Casualty Commission report and find it deeply disturbing that, over a period of over a decade and a half, reports were made to the police that the man who ultimately killed 22 Nova Scotians had guns, and over the course of 15 years, reports were made to the police that he was violent and had done damage to his intimate partner. No action was taken in any of those cases. I would like to ask the member if he considers that it is worth it to bring in a law that could have saved 22 lives in Nova Scotia if it had been in place before the events of April 2020.
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Context: House Hansard - 199 - May/17/23
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • May/17/23 8:48:37 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-21 
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yukon began his speech referencing the mass casualty report, and I just recently had an exchange on it with another member. The mass casualty report on the events of April 18 and 19, 2020, in Nova Scotia is really a ground truthing of why we need to change our laws. The concepts of gender-based violence, violence against intimate partners and coercive control should permeate the ways in which we look at how we prevent the use of any weapon in ways that kill one person, such as an intimate partner, or cause a mass casualty. The mass casualty report is a deep report of over 3,000 pages of solid evidence that 22 people in Nova Scotia did not need to die. They died because, despite various reports over many years of the predilection of a rural Nova Scotian to collect illegal guns and to have an illegal police car, which looked just like a real police car, and reports that he was violent toward his partner, over and over again, for more than a decade and a half, the police did nothing. I wonder if the hon. member for Yukon could reflect on whether he sees Bill C-21 as making a difference in a circumstance such as this in the lives of rural Canadians.
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Context: House Hansard - 199 - May/17/23
Mr. Brendan Hanley
  • May/17/23 8:50:07 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I would say a few things. One is that the mass casualty report, to its credit, hugely emphasized prevention and how much more we need to do in prevention. As well, as the member described, opportunities for early intervention are really part of prevention. The other thing is that, as I pointed out earlier in my speech, the red-flag and yellow-flag laws would have that capacity to help address these situations for preventative early intervention.
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