Hon. Marco E. L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Safety: First, Senator Plett, I want to begin by saying that I share your concern and the concern of everyone around any cold case because those women and those young girls deserve justice. And that was the reason why we created the MMIWG commission, which was a commission that had not been previously struck but one we did strike because we want justice for those victims and survivors.

As to the most recent status of any outstanding investigation and cold cases, obviously, those are questions best put to the RCMP or any other police jurisdiction who has the responsibility for carrying them out, and I’m happy to work with you, senator, to get the latest update on that. I know that our time is coming to a close here, but I do hope, Senator Plett, you will take the technical briefing on Bill C-21, which we have offered. It is important that we do this work together so we can save lives through responsible gun control legislation.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Well, since you asked me about the technical briefing, minister, let me ask you a question. Yesterday, Senator Gold’s parliamentary secretary, Mark Gerretsen, tweeted, “I’m calling on Senator @DonPlett to stop stalling & get tough on crime by passing C-21.” The bill has not been introduced in this chamber, minister. The Senate received Bill C-21 two sitting days ago. The sponsor has not spoken. I find it strange that he has been the parliamentary secretary in the Senate for a year and a half and he doesn’t have a clue how this chamber conducts its business. Why did Mark Gerretsen accuse me personally of stalling a bill that the government sponsor has not moved yet at second reading? Do you think this unfounded personal attack is warranted?

Hon. Brian Francis: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, notwithstanding any provision of the Rules or previous order, the Honourable Senator Gagné be replaced as a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages by the Honourable Senator Audette.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, the time for Question Period has expired. I’m certain all senators would like to join me in thanking Minister Mendicino for joining us today.

[Translation]

We will now resume the proceedings that were interrupted at the start of Question Period.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, the time for Question Period has expired. I’m certain all senators would like to join me in thanking Minister Mendicino for joining us today.

[Translation]

We will now resume the proceedings that were interrupted at the start of Question Period.

Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, when the Senate next adjourns after the adoption of this motion, it do stand adjourned until Tuesday, June 6, 2023, at 2 p.m.

Hon. Brent Cotter moved the adoption of the report.

He said: The Judges Act applies to federally appointed judges, as many of you will know, who are often called superior court judges. This applies to judges, for example, of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia or to the Court of King’s Bench of Saskatchewan, the Tax Court of Canada, federal courts, the Federal Court of Appeal, courts of appeal across the country and the Supreme Court of Canada. It doesn’t apply to provincial court judges. Those are governed in provincial jurisdictions.

This bill, Bill C-9, is intended to amend the Judges Act by modernizing the regime by which federally appointed judges are investigated for misconduct pursuant to the responsibilities of the Canadian Judicial Council. This would be a new system for judicial misconduct proceedings.

The objectives of this bill — as I hope we will hear eventually from its sponsor, Senator Dalphond — are to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the system and, in turn, reduce delays and costs. Some of these, as you may conclude from earlier discussions when this bill was spoken to in this chamber, indicated that in some cases millions of dollars of public money have been expended in lengthy and sometimes questionable processes leading to consideration of judicial misconduct.

Key changes to the bill include the ability to impose sanctions other than merely the recommendation for removal from office; the limiting of a judge’s ability to seek judicial review; judicial review by the federal courts is replaced with an internal Canadian Judicial Council mechanism; and a right to seek leave to appeal directly to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The new Canadian Judicial Council misconduct process has five possible steps for the review of a complaint against a superior court judge. The proposed new process — and I will try to be brief here — begins with an initial screening by a council official. Any complaint that cannot or should not be dismissed as completely without merit is then reviewed by a review member followed by the review member being able to dismiss the complaint or refer it to a review panel. The review panel can dismiss the complaint or uphold it and impose remedies up to but not including removal from office, such as requiring an apology or mandatory professional training.

If a judge wishes to appeal the decision, they can appeal the decision to a reduced hearing panel for a matter that, ultimately, can go to a full hearing panel if it is serious enough to warrant potential removal from office. A full hearing panel functions like the public court with the process structured as an adjudicative and adversarial hearing. The full hearing panel determines whether a judge should be recommended for removal from office.

If the judge who is the subject of the complaint or the presenting counsel — that is, essentially the person, usually a lawyer styled as the prosecutor — wishes to appeal the full hearing panel decision, then that matter is referred to an appeal panel and that appeal panel functions like a Court of Appeal and has the same powers. If, ultimately, the appeal panel recommends removal from office, according to the version of the bill received in the Senate, the judge’s remaining recourse would be to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. If the decision in favour of recommended removal from office is sustained and all of these options for appeal are exhausted, a recommendation for removal from office is reported to the Minister of Justice, who may place the question before both houses of Parliament to decide. It is a process intended to be rigorous but to respect judicial independence.

At committee, in consideration of Bill C-9, six amendments were made to Bill C-9. I will try to highlight them briefly so you will know the changes that were made for our consideration in the chamber.

All of the substantive amendments that were made to the bill apply to clause 12. Now that sounds like a simple matter. However, clause 12 has 81 sections. It is the heart of the change.

I will not read all 81 sections, but they make up the bulk of Bill C-9. That is where the changes are set out with one technical exception. The first amendment adopted by the committee, which appears in your report, is that various sections of clause 12 were amended at committee to add a layperson at every stage of the decision-making process in judicial misconduct consideration.

The bill provides for a layperson to be one of three members on a review panel, one of five on a full hearing panel and laypersons are now included in the decision making with respect to anonymous complaints and on what is called a “reduced hearing panel.”

The composition of the appeal panel was initially designed to be five judges. The amendment changes the composition of that appeal panel to three judges, one lawyer and one layperson.

The second amendment is in relation to diversity. The original bill stated in section 84:

As far as possible, the Council shall name persons who reflect the diversity of the Canadian population to the roster of judges and to the roster of lay persons.

There will be a pool of judges and a pool of lay people who will then be drawn upon to participate in the consideration of complaints against the judges, and the language “as far as possible” was thought to be a challenging, unfortunate and unnecessary phrasing. It was suggested that it weakened the commitment to diversity, and this amendment removed the “as far as possible” phrase.

A third amendment was the publication of decisions. An amendment was adopted at committee to require the Canadian Judicial Council to publish all decisions as soon as possible. Under the bill, the Canadian Judicial Council is already required to publish decisions and reasons of full hearing panels and appeal panels. This amendment goes further and will require the Canadian Judicial Council to publish all dismissals of complaints, and essentially provide the reasons for those dismissals of screening officers, reviewing members and review panels throughout the process.

A fourth amendment was related to sexual misconduct. In the original version of Bill C-9, complaints alleging sexual harassment or discrimination on a prohibited ground could not be screened out at an initial screening stage and had to go to the next level. Committee members were concerned that the phrase “sexual harassment” was too narrow and would not capture other forms of sexual misconduct. Various sections of clause 12 are amended to add “sexual misconduct” to the types of allegations that cannot be screened out at the initial stage.

The fifth amendment is related to disaggregated data collection. The committee also adopted a series of amendments to expand the collection of data and reporting requirements of the Canadian Judicial Council that address ethnic and national background, Indigeneity, race, religion, sex, gender and disabilities, as well as that the annual report capture a range of those reporting-by-category pieces of information.

Finally, an amendment was adopted by committee to restore the ability of a judge or the presenting counsel — that is, the prosecutor — to appeal directly to the Federal Court of Appeal prior to any consideration by the Supreme Court. The bill had limited a judge’s ability to appeal outside of the Canadian Judicial Council process other than with leave to the Supreme Court of Canada, and an additional level has been returned to the bill in this amendment. The amendment is intended to permit Canadian Judicial Council decisions to go to the Federal Court of Appeal, and then, ultimately, either the judge or presenting counsel would have the entitlement to seek leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.

As well, there is a small coordinating amendment to align clause 16 with this last amendment, which brought back the Federal Court of Appeal into the picture.

In conclusion, let me say that this bill has an extensive series of amendments by the committee. The bill is the modernization of a 40-year-old or so process that has come under significant criticism, and I think it deserves this chamber’s consideration in modernizing the judicial misconduct process.

Thank you.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I have a couple of questions for the senator if he would accept them.

Senator Cotter: I welcome them.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Cotter, your time has expired. Are you asking for five more minutes?

Senator Cotter: Yes.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Cotter, your time has expired. Are you asking for five more minutes?

Senator Cotter: Yes.

The Hon. the Speaker: Are honourable senators ready for the question?

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill, as amended, be read the third time?

(On motion of Senator Dalphond, bill, as amended, placed on the Orders of the Day for third reading at the next sitting of the Senate.)

Hon. Hassan Yussuff moved second reading of Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms).

He said: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms).

Colleagues, I want to recognize at the start of this debate that the conversation about guns is never an easy one to have. It is usually filled with high emotion and strong opinions, and it can be very divisive and polarizing because it is about life and death, safe communities and people’s rights and privileges.

For some people, guns are tools. They use them to protect their farm animals, to protect themselves in the wild, to hunt for recreation or for sustenance food, or to pierce a target in a competition. For some it is just a toy to have fun with. For others, guns, especially those considered assault-style weapons, are grotesque instruments of death and destruction that have caused immense pain and suffering to innocent people and have no place in our society. I know it will not be an easy debate, and I am expecting colleagues in this chamber will have strong opinions on both sides of the issue.

Whenever a government intends to restrict or limit its citizens’ ability to own personal property like firearms, it is something that we as legislators must seriously consider. Colleagues, fundamentally, for me, this bill is about striking a fair balance between the right of Canadians to safe communities and the privilege of Canadians to own certain types or models of guns for hunting and sport shooting. Finding that balance is no easy task.

For some gun control advocates, this bill does not go far enough. For some gun rights advocates, it goes too far. As the debate on this bill progresses, I want you to think about people’s rights versus people’s privileges. I think this bill, at the end of the day, strikes a good balance between the right of Canadians to a safe community by reducing the number of firearms in circulation and the privilege of Canadians to use certain models of firearms for sport and target shooting, collecting, hunting, et cetera.

Senators, I want to talk today about what this bill is about and clear up some misconceptions about what it is not. There is no silver bullet to combatting gun violence, and this bill does not purport to be a silver bullet. This bill is just one piece to solving a very complex puzzle of creating safer communities through a group of initiatives that I would like to now explain in more detail.

First and foremost, Bill C-21, introduced a year ago, would codify in law a national freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns, which took effect via regulations on October 21, 2022. What this means is that any legal handgun owner who had a handgun before October 21 of last year can keep and use their handgun. They will, however, not be able to purchase new handguns or transfer or sell their handguns, and no one who didn’t have a handgun by last October will be able to acquire one.

For the general public, there are only limited reasons for which a person may be licensed to acquire or possess a handgun that is a restricted firearm, notably, for target practice or target shooting competitions or as part of a collection. What is not a permitted reason is hunting.

I want to be clear on the fact that the handgun freeze in no way limits the privileges that allow Canadians to hunt. The handgun ban restricts only the privilege of approximately 275,000 Canadians to collect handguns and use them for sport or recreational shooting.

There has been a growing increase in the prevalence of handguns in Canada. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of handguns increased by 74% to 1 million handguns owned by approximately 275,000 individuals in our country.

Research shows that the availability of firearms in developed countries and the incidence of firearm crimes, violence and misuse are correlated. By restricting handgun accessibility and by freezing the sale, purchase and transfer of such, the government expects that it will essentially cap the growth of privately owned handguns and have a positive effect on gun violence as a result.

The bill also includes other significant measures to address the alarming role of guns in gender-based violence through red and yellow flag laws; strengthen border controls by increasing maximum penalties for gun traffickers; create authorities to combat firearms smuggling, trafficking and related offences; amend the Criminal Code definition of “prohibited firearm” to add a prospective new technical definition that contains the characteristics of an assault-style firearm, which would only apply to firearms designed and manufactured after the bill’s coming-into-force date; and address the growing threat of illegally manufactured firearms, otherwise known as “ghost guns.”

The latter two measures are particularly important, and I want to start with them in explaining what this bill is about.

Bill C-21 adds a brand new technical definition that contains the characteristics of an assault-style firearm to the definition of a “prohibited firearm” in the Criminal Code. The new future definition focuses on semi-automatic centre-fire firearms that are not handguns that were originally designed with a detachable magazine with a capacity of six cartridges or more.

It is important to note that this new definition will only apply prospectively, which is to say that it only impacts firearms that are designed and manufactured after the date when this provision comes into force. I want to be clear that no legal semi-automatic centre-fire firearm in circulation right now that is not a handgun will be impacted by this new definition.

Incorporating technical criteria in this definition puts the onus on industry to do their part in protecting our communities from these dangerous weapons. As I just mentioned, it would not impact the classification of existing firearms in the Canadian market.

The proposed prospective technical definition of characteristics of assault-style firearms allows us to proactively address advances in the firearms market and keep out of our communities firearms designed to kill as many people as quickly and as easily as possible. This is part of the big picture of keeping Canadians safe. We’ve seen far too many tragedies, including those recently in Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.

The government has been clear that firearms designed for war, like the AR-15, which are capable of rapid fire and can inflict catastrophic harm, have no place in our communities. Bill C-21 calls for a parliamentary review of the new technical definition of a “prohibited firearm” after five years, which would help inform whether the objectives of the proposed changes are being achieved. Bill C-21 also includes several proposed amendments to control the purchase — meaning transfer or importation — of cartridge magazines by requiring a valid firearms licence.

These amendments received wide support from both sides of the aisle and Canadians during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in the other place. Senators, these amendments are in direct response to recommendation C.21 from the Final Report of the Mass Casualty Commission.

To me, this is a common sense measure. Let me give you a real-world example of what this means. In 2018, a gunman in Toronto killed 2 people and wounded 13. Known as the Danforth shooting, the perpetrator did not have a legal licence to own a handgun, but was nonetheless legally allowed to purchase the cartridge magazines that he used to kill and wound his 15 victims.

I do not personally have a licence to own a gun. However, senators, I can go to a store right now and buy a magazine for a legal firearm without presenting a licence. How does that make sense?

This bill also takes action against “ghost guns,” which are guns that have been illegally manufactured, often through 3D printing, which can use plastic, metal or epoxy resins, or through the assembling various parts, which can result in firearms with no or multiple serial numbers. These ghost guns are dangerous not just because of their capacities for violence, but because they are unmarked, untraceable and are the firearm of choice for many criminal activities. It is disturbingly easy to find schematics to 3D-print firearms components online for free.

Equally disturbing, it is impossible to know exactly how many ghost guns are on the streets in Canada today. What we do know is that the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, is seeing an influx of uncontrolled firearm parts across the border. That is linked to illicit firearms production in Canada, and several of those components are key to producing 3D-printed ghost guns.

For example, in August 2022, the CBSA announced two significant seizures of ghost guns in B.C. following interceptions at international mail centres. That resulted in the seizure of a 3D printing machine that was in the process of printing a lower receiver for a handgun, six handgun lower receivers with no serial number and a loaded 9-millimetre handgun with no serial number.

In February 2022, the CBSA announced the results of an investigation into 3D-printed firearms following an interception of undeclared firearm components, including metal parts and inserts commonly used to reinforce the plastic frames of 3D‑printed handguns from a processing centre in Ontario. That resulted in the seizure of two 3D-printed handguns and a 3D printer.

The implications of 3D-printed firearms are staggering, colleagues. That’s precisely why Bill C-21 targets them.

The proposed measures would amend the Firearms Act so that businesses or individuals selling certain firearms parts would be required to ensure that the buyer has a valid firearms licence. That is like the existing requirements to ensure individuals possess a valid firearms licence when they purchase ammunition.

Other proposed measures would classify illegally manufactured firearms as prohibited firearms and enact new offences targeting ghost guns, including the possession and distribution of digital files for 3D printing firearms or prohibited devices for the purpose of illegal manufacturing or trafficking. Those ghost gun amendments received unanimous support from all members of the committee studying the bill in the other place.

Senators, I would like to turn to another group of important measures in Bill C-21 related to reducing firearm-related family violence and self-harm. Statistics show that victims of intimate partner violence are about five times more likely to be killed if a firearm is present in a home. That’s why new red flag laws will allow courts to order the immediate removal of firearms from individuals who might be a danger to themselves or anyone else. Additionally, yellow flag laws will allow a Chief Firearms Officer to suspend an individual’s firearms licence if the Chief Firearms Officer receives information calling into question their licence eligibility.

These red and yellow flag laws have been further strengthened by recent amendments to revoke firearms licences within 24 hours of domestic or intimate partner violence and report weapons prohibition orders or protection orders to authorities within 24 hours.

The amendments also introduce a clear requirement for medical professionals to disclose information if a patient may be a danger to themselves or others with a firearm. Of course, the identity of vulnerable persons who provide information to the courts will be protected.

Let me be clear: There is no obligation for victims to use these laws. They will be there to offer additional protection.

I’d like to share a few more important statistics today.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Hon. Denise Batters: Thank you. I appreciate that.

First of all, I will certainly give a robust explanation as to my amendment, which was for suspension with or without pay, and without pay would have been only a 30-day time frame. We will discuss that in the near future, and you will have a fuller explanation as to my standing on that.

Senator Cotter, I wanted to ask you a couple of very general questions. Thank you for the explanation about the number of amendments, but I don’t think this was contained in your report: How many committee meetings did we have, and how many witnesses did we hear from at our committee?

Senator Cotter: The answer is quite a few, and I’ll get the specifics to you as soon as I can.

An Hon. Senator: On division.

(Motion agreed to, on division, and report adopted.)