44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2023 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Outremont.
I am pleased today to speak to this legislation, Bill C-21, which speaks to the complexities of responding effectively to the escalating gun violence we are seeing in this country. There is surely no easy solution.
In Canada, we continue to justifiably pride ourselves on being a place of peace, but there are fissures in that feeling of security. The debate on Bill C-21, in particular the now infamous amendments, is no exception. From what I have heard to date, whether from constituents at home in the Yukon or from any member of the House speaking to this subject, we all agree that more needs to be done to keep our communities safer, even as each party, perhaps each member of the House, may harbour different ideas as to how best to achieve the peace we are all seeking.
Acts of violence have increased again in recent years. Despite the rhetoric of easy blame, there are likely multiple reasons for this increase. Organized crime, intimate partner violence, gang violence and random acts of violence are all contributors. From the horrific mass casualty event in Nova Scotia in early 2020, to the recent tragic stabbing of a 17-year-old in Vancouver, to the shooting of Sgt. Eric Mueller hardly a stone’s throw from the House just last week, we cannot ignore the rise in violent crime.
Enter Bill C-21. When this bill was initially introduced, many of my constituents reached out to express concerns about some of the provisions. They were from both vigilant and law-abiding firearms owners and those without their own firearms who were concerned about the further pressure on an already tightly regulated activity. Thus began my own journey with this bill and its various iterations.
When consulting with Yukoners, I found support for some of the provisions of the bill, such as bolstered law enforcement to address illegal sales and smuggling, stiffer penalties for transgressions, commitments to invest in early diversion program, and measures such as the red-flag and yellow-flag laws to make it easier for early intervention where risk was apparent. These all remain notable and worthy aspects of Bill C-21.
However, I must highlight, before we address the amendments and their revisions, concerns remain from handgun owners. Some of them are collectors, and others use handguns on the trapline or when they are travelling in remote areas. In skilled hands, handguns provide protection against potential predators in the wilderness and are far less cumbersome than a rifle.
There were also concerns about the ban on airsoft rifles, the limitations to be set restricting the pathways to elite sports shooting and the ability of indigenous peoples to access guns to pursue their livelihoods, rights recognized in the Constitution Act of 1982.
I have been assured that pathways to sports shooting will be addressed in regulations, but the uncertainty of who will be included remains disconcerting for many. It is now no secret that, when the substantial G-4 amendments were introduced in committee, they arrived in short notice and were welcomed by few. The amendments, in addition, were confusing to interpret, and arrived without substantial prior consultation with indigenous peoples, hunters, sport shooters, or for that matter, rural MPs.
I would not dwell on the angst that these original amendments aroused in my riding, as well as in other areas of the country. The lack of clarity confused and angered many. Law-abiding Canadians, indigenous communities with recognized rights and others were uncertain whether certain rights would be upheld or indeed, if and how they were going to be fairly compensated for firearms that would need to be handed over. Some collector pieces, whether handguns or rifles, are worth hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars. Regardless of prices, some of these pieces have heritage or sentimental value that cannot be matched by undefined promises of compensation. In short, it is no wonder that many reasonable Yukoners were upset.
In speaking for Yukoners, as well as for other potentially affected people around the country, including first nations and other indigenous communities, I was pleased to see how much improvement to these amendments we were able to influence and achieve. Ultimately, the controversial amendments were withdrawn with ensuing consultations around the country, including in the Yukon, leading to the new amendments currently being considered in this debate.
The Minister of Public Safety came to the Yukon to meet with hunters, outfitters and first nations, and his efforts were widely appreciate. The now revised amendments have, likewise, been recognized as a positive step forward from those initially proposed. No longer is there a massive and confusing list of banned guns. Firearm models presently on the market are to be exempt from the assault weapon definition, and current owners now have some room to breathe.
A new advisory committee, which would include hunting and sport shooting experts, indigenous peoples and gun control advocates, would be launched to determine classifications on firearms newly on the market. The onus on classification would now shift from the owner to the manufacturer. Few would argue that we need urgent action to address ghost guns and their vast potential to make gun crime easier to commit and harder to detect.
I am encouraged by the proposed makeup of this advisory committee, and I hope that this committee will help bring together individuals with different perspectives to chart a course forward to make our communities safer, something that we need to do much more of to achieve effective and lasting solutions to gun violence.
From the opportunities I have had to sit at the public safety committee from time to time and hear testimony from both gun control advocacy groups, such as PolySeSouvient, as well as from hunters and sport shooters, all agree that there is more we must do to keep our communities safe and there is space for these different perspectives to come together to find a way forward. Speaking of the public safety committee, I would like to thank the chair and all members of this committee. They have worked long hours of late to deliberate on the revised amendments on behalf of Canadians.
I appeal to all parties to not get bogged down in what has become an unnecessarily polarizing debate: urban vs. rural; progressives against Conservatives. On this issue and, may I say, on many others, we all want the same outcome.
Thus, I believe the proposed advisory committee could be a means to objectively, through expert and balanced eyes, take this assessment out of the hands of the politicians who have allowed it to become politicized through the oversimplification of the debates.
The statistics and quotes colleagues on both sides of the aisle are applying can also oversimplify the situation. While the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police supports Bill C-21, particularly the intensified border controls and penalties, and have recognized that a national handgun ban is preferable to a provincial or municipal approach, it also, in the same statement, acknowledges that banning legally owned handguns will have a limited impact on one of the root causes of handgun-related crime, the illegal handguns obtained through the United States.
We have seen an increase over the past few years in firearm-related homicides. For example, Statistics Canada reported an increase in firearm-related homicides by 91% between 2013 and 2020. One in three homicides in Canada are firearms-related, and about half of these are committed with handguns, yet 79% of solved homicides involving firearms have been committed by a perpetrator who did not hold a valid firearms license.
In a more local level, and a wrenching example, in October of 2021, there was a double homicide and an additional individual injured in a shooting in Faro, Yukon, using an illegally obtained firearm. Statistics alone, though, risk overlooking the thousands of Canadians whose lives have been touched by firearm-related crimes. Lives lost needlessly will never be returned, and the families changed will never be the same.
Setting Bill C-21 aside, we are continuing to work on making our communities safer. It is important to note that there is much more to this government’s response to gun violence than what is contained within the bill. Control of trafficking at the borders is essential. Our government has invested $312 million over the last few years to enhance the capacity of the RCMP and CBSA to halt the flow of illegal guns through our borders. We need to do more to clamp down on straw sales and the illegal movement of firearms.
Earlier this year, I was honoured to be on hand when the City of Whitehorse received almost a million dollars through our building safer communities fund. This fund strives to divert at-risk youth away from gun and gang violence early and prevent devastating situations from arising.
Just last week, the Minister of Public Safety announced almost $390 million for the provinces and territories to build upon the government’s take action against gun and gang violence initiative. As a Canadian, as a parent, and as a public health physician, I abhor gun violence. I am distressed by how we have seen a rise in gun violence in Canada. This is not the Canada we want. We are obliged to do better to address gun violence. We need to learn from our mistakes and move on.
Bill C-21’s journey, including the amendments, has been a quest for an urgent solution to address gun violence. It arguably did not meet all the requirements for a collaborative, consultative approach that would bring people of different perspectives together to chart a course forward. However, with these new amendments, including the formation of a new advisory committee, we have the potential to set the stage for a collaborative and expert-driven approach that will not only help to build a safer Canada but also, in so doing, help rebuild the trust that has been lost.
As we carry on with our work to address all aspects of gun violence, I will continue to play my part to ensure that the voice of the Yukon is heard.
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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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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Banff—Airdrie.
I rise in strong opposition to Bill C-21, the latest ideological, evidence-free attack by the Liberals on law-abiding firearms owners.
Canada is facing a crime wave after eight years of this disastrous Liberal government. Violent crime is up 32%. Gang-related homicides have nearly doubled, up a staggering 94%. An unprecedented 10 police officers since September have been murdered in the line of duty. Random violent attacks on public transit and on the streets are now commonplace in cities right across Canada. More and more Canadians are feeling less safe in their communities, and that is because more communities that once were safe are no longer safe or are less safe now than when the Liberals took office.
By contrast to the staggering 32% increase in violent crime under the Liberals, under Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives, violent crime went down 33%. In fact, the Liberals have managed to do something that no government has done, which is to reverse a 30-year trend in which Canada, until the Liberals came to power, saw a downward spiral in crime. Now it is up 32%.
I say that because this violent crime wave did not happen in a vacuum, it did not happen by accident and it did not even happen as a result of inaction on the part of the Liberals. It happened as a result of very deliberate and very specific policies regarding Canada's criminal justice system embraced by the Liberals.
The Prime Minister has embraced, full stop, a series of virtue-signalling, woke criminal justice policies. These are policies that the Prime Minister has imported from the United States. They are disastrous policies that have been implemented south of the border by radical, left-wing, big-city mayors and district attorneys. They are policies that have resulted in large swaths of once great American cities, such as Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, turning into crime no-go zones. It is these American-style policies that the Prime Minister is importing to Canada.
Let us look at the disastrous record of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, in 2018, was responsible for passing Bill C-75, which established catch-and-release bail. Thanks to the Prime Minister, a judge is now required to make it the primary consideration that an accused be released at the earliest opportunity with the least onerous conditions possible. This has resulted in a revolving door. It has meant that, in many instances, criminals are released back onto the streets and are out committing crimes the very same day they were arrested for the crimes they committed. That is catch-and-release Liberal bail.
Let us look at some of the statistics as a consequence.
In the city of Vancouver, 40 hard-core criminals are responsible for 6,000 arrests a year. That is 150 arrests per offender. Liberal catch-and-release bail has meant that a small number of hard-core criminals are overwhelmingly and disproportionately responsible for a significant number of criminal incidents.
In Edmonton, a community I am proud to represent in this place, a young mother, Carolann Robillard, and her 11-year-old daughter, Sara, are now dead thanks to Liberal catch-and-release bail. Carolann and Sara were brutally murdered, stabbed to death at a park, of all places, at an elementary school.
They were brutally stabbed to death by who? It was a total stranger who happen to be a hard-core violent criminal, who, thanks to Liberal catch-and-release, had been released on bail just 18 days prior. Who was this violent offender who stabbed to death an 11-year-old girl and her young mother outside an elementary school? He was someone who had a 14-year rap sheet of committing violent attacks.
He had been convicted multiple times of serious offences such as aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, multiple robberies and assaulting a correctional officer. Last year, he attacked a 12-year-old girl on an LRT in Edmonton. That is who was released thanks to Liberal catch-and-release bail. He never should have been released. He should have been kept behind bars. He never should have been on bail. It is outrageous that he was.
It is outrageous that the folks across the way can so sanctimoniously defend a series of policies that are indefensible. They are putting lives at risk and endangering public safety. How dare they.
It is not just catch and release. This is a government that, last year, passed Bill C-5, the fourth piece of legislation the government introduced in this Parliament. It is obviously a top priority for the government. What does Bill C-5 do? It significantly expands house arrest for some very serious offences, including sexual assault, kidnapping and human trafficking. In other words, criminals convicted of such offences will not have to spend a single day in jail.
What about firearms? We hear a lot about the Liberals' professed concern about firearms. It seems they are obsessed with firearms as objects, but they have not figured out that firearms do not commit crimes; criminals with firearms commit crimes. What have the Liberals done about criminals who go out and commit offences with guns? Bill C-5 actually eliminates mandatory jail time for serious gun crime, including robbery with a gun, using a firearm in the commission of an offence, discharging a firearm with the intent to injure and weapons trafficking. That is the approach of the Liberals.
It is a policy of the woke. It is a policy grounded in absurdity. Compounding that absurdity is Bill C-21, which is now before the House. It is a bill that does not take illegal firearms off the streets. It does not keep repeat offenders behind bars where they belong. Incredibly, it goes after law-abiding, licensed firearms owners, who are among the group of Canadians least likely to commit a crime.
Those are the people the Liberals are going after. It could not be more absurd. The government's set of priorities could not be more backwards.
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