Hon. Mary Coyle: Honourable senators, I rise today on National Indigenous Peoples Day, on the lands of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people, to speak at second reading of Bill C-21 — a bill that aims to build on existing national gun control legislation in order to build a safer Canada.

Many colleagues will remember Bill C-71 — the most recent firearms legislation, which received Royal Assent in 2019. Bill C-71 expanded background checks, required businesses to keep point-of-sale records for non-restricted firearms and reinstated a requirement related to authorization to transport restricted and prohibited firearms.

My intention today is to quickly touch upon the main elements of this new firearms bill — Bill C-21 — including clearly stating what is not in the bill; and then I will highlight a few key areas and key stakeholders that I would suggest the committee examine in their study.

Honourable senators, let’s review the main elements of the bill:

First, the bill brings in a national handgun freeze in order to cap the number of legal handguns circulating in Canada. It is not a ban; it is a freeze. There will be no confiscation of legally owned handguns.

Second, it brings a new prospective, not retroactive, definition of assault-style weapon characteristics.

Third, as you have heard Senator Jaffer mention, the bill introduces red flag laws and yellow flag laws, with the purpose of reducing and preventing firearm-related family violence, self‑harm and suicide.

Fourth, the bill includes a number of elements aimed at strengthening border controls, including anti-firearms smuggling and trafficking measures, and requiring a firearms licence in order to import ammunition.

Fifth, it includes measures to address illegally manufactured firearms, otherwise known as ghost guns. The prevalence of 3-D printing of guns makes traceability very difficult. This law will provide a new definition for a “firearm part,” and require a person to have a licence to import, purchase or transfer a prescribed firearm part.

Sixth, and finally, there are new firearm-related offences and strengthened penalties in this bill.

To clarify again, the government is not proposing in this bill to ban or confiscate any existing hunting guns. The new prospective “assault-style weapon” definition only applies to long guns designed and manufactured after Bill C-21 receives Royal Assent.

Senator Yussuff, the bill’s sponsor, addressed these key components of the bill in detail in his speech kicking off this debate, and I will not repeat what he’s already said so thoroughly.

Public Safety Canada’s technical briefing on Bill C-21 is entitled Building a safe and resilient Canada. We know that this piece of legislation has more than one purpose. It is aimed at reducing and preventing gun violence that we are seeing in cities, often perpetrated by gangs; it is aimed at preventing further mass tragedies, such as the one experienced in my province in 2020, as well as l’École Polytechnique murders, and the Quebec City mosque murders that we’ve heard about tonight; and it is aimed at addressing family violence, self-harm and suicide.

Our job will be to determine whether this bill is, in fact, fit for purpose. Will the bill’s measures contribute — and contribute effectively — to the intended outcomes? This legislation is meant to enable Canada to make advances in these critical areas and — pardon the analogy — it is not meant to be a silver bullet. As with most legislation, this bill is meant to be one piece of a much larger puzzle.

I will now turn to a few key areas that I would recommend the committee investigate.

Colleagues, we have heard Senator Manning and Senator Boisvenu speak about the scourge of femicide and intimate partner violence. Several of us have spoken to Senator Boniface’s inquiry on intimate partner violence; we have heard about this tonight.

With that in mind, it is important to examine if — and how — Bill C-21 responds to the recommendations of the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission and the Renfrew County inquest. The proposed red flag laws and yellow flag laws respond partly to Recommendation C.22 of the Mass Casualty Commission, as well as recommendations 56 to 62 and recommendations 70 to 72 of the Renfrew County inquest.

It will also be important, colleagues, to examine which firearms restrictions are handled through regulations versus legislation. We know that around 1,500 firearms were banned through regulations in May 2020 in response to the mass murders in Nova Scotia and the case of intimate partner violence which kicked off that horrible rampage.

In the House committee, the government proposed amendments to Bill C-21 that would ban those firearms and others through legislation, but, as we all know, they later withdrew those proposed amendments. Therefore, those are no longer part of this legislation.

I also believe that it will be important for the committee to examine how Canada measures up internationally on gun control and gun violence. In the recent Time magazine article entitled “Canada Risks Following the Path of the U.S. on Gun Violence,” the authors point out that Canada has the fifth-highest gun ownership in the world, and now has the third-highest rate of firearm homicide among populous high-income countries, after the U.S. and Chile. Worldwide, Canada has the ninth-highest age-standardized rate of firearm-related suicide among men — more than twice the global average.

Canada’s gun control measures are stricter than those of the United States, but less stringent compared to some other Western countries. Countries like Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan have implemented more comprehensive gun control measures than Canada, and these countries have achieved lower rates of firearm-related deaths and mass shootings compared to Canada. The U.K. banned handguns following the Dunblane school massacre in Scotland in 1996. In the U.K., there have been no school shootings and one mass shooting event since then.

Studies suggest that red flag laws in the United States have prevented potential acts of violence. Research conducted in Indiana and Connecticut found a reduction in firearm-related suicides after the implementation of those laws.

In the U.S., states with more comprehensive “red flag” laws, adequate resources and strong community outreach have seen better outcomes. All of this important international data and much more will be critical for the committee to examine in detail.

It will also be critical for the committee to listen to the perspectives of a number of key stakeholder groups, and these include mass shooting victims’ groups such as PolySeSouvient, Danforth Families for Safe Communities and Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec. These groups are devoted to the prevention of future tragedies.

The committee should also meet with women’s organizations, including #Women4GunControl, a coalition of 33 women’s and feminist organizations, which includes the National Association of Women and the Law. These groups are naturally engaged on this given that access to firearms is one of the top five risk factors when determining a woman will die in domestic violence situations.

It might be instructive for the committee to hear from Lisa Banfield, the spouse of the Nova Scotia mass murderer, on how she was subjected to coercive control and almost died herself the night of the mass tragedy.

It will be important to connect with both urban and rural women’s groups, as the risks related to firearms and the implications of “yellow” and “red flag” laws have different nuances in different contexts. These women’s groups are clear that gun violence against women needs to be treated as a distinct issue from the “guns and gangs” issue. They want us to look at both of those.

Indigenous groups such as the Assembly of First Nations, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council, the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Pauktuutit, Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak — Women of the Métis Nation and others should be contacted and communicated with.

We know that Bill C-21 includes a specific provision stating that nothing proposed within it derogates from the rights of Indigenous peoples, recognized and affirmed under section 35 of our Constitution. It will be very important to balance the valid interests of hunters with the rights of all people to live in safe homes and communities in all communities in Canada, be they Indigenous or non-Indigenous.

Of course, police groups, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Police Federation and the Association des directeurs de police du Québec, should all be called to testify. They will have feedback on all of the measures in this bill, as well as issues related to the capacity to implement those measures. And, of course, court officials who will handle “red flag” laws will have an important perspective to add as well.

With the main focus of this legislation on prevention of smuggling and trafficking, the Canadian Border Services Agency will have important feedback on, again, the specific measures as well as their own capacity to implement those measures.

It will be important to hear from firearms advocates and hunters, including the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights and the National Firearms Association.

I live in rural Nova Scotia and I know how important hunting is to many families in my area. We’ve heard from Senators Wallin, Richards and LaBoucane-Benson on the importance of respecting hunters. I believe that part of respecting hunters is equipping those hunters with honest information on what is actually included in this bill so an honest discussion can be had.

Consulting sports shooters, including the Shooting Federation of Canada and the International Practical Shooting Confederation, is very important.

The handgun freeze in Bill C-21 does not remove handguns from any current owners but makes it illegal to acquire one, with exemptions for Olympic and Paralympic competitors and select individuals such as police officers. The exact rules for an individual to qualify as training for Olympic handgun disciplines will be determined by regulations.

Finally, and very importantly, as we’ve heard from Senator Kutcher in his speech, it will be essential for our committee to hear from people with expertise in health, mental health and suicide prevention. The group Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns argued that this legislation should be informed by public health science.

Colleagues, my staff team has done extensive research on the perspectives and positions of these key stakeholders and expert groups. As legislative lead on Bill C-21 for the Independent Senators Group, I’ve shared some of that research with our ISG colleagues, and we would also be happy to share it with anyone else in this chamber who would be interested; just let us know.

Unfortunately, colleagues, we know there has been a well‑organized campaign of disinformation on this bill.

Colleagues, I came to this chamber from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, whose motto is Quaecumque Sunt Vera — “Whatsoever things are true.” As you all well know, it is our responsibility as senators to pursue, find and share the truth.

Senator Yussuff said in his speech introducing Bill C-21 at second reading:

. . . I want to recognize . . . 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 . . . people’s rights and privileges.

Colleagues, we may not all agree on the best ways to keep Canada and Canadians safe, but I know we all believe we share a responsibility to protect Canadians from gun violence. Colleagues, that is what Bill C-21 is intended to do.

Honourable senators, while second-reading debate on this bill is essential — and I look forward to hearing Senator Plett in a few moments — I believe we are close to being ready to send Bill C-21 to committee. There, at committee, I have confidence our colleagues will work diligently to seek and consider the evidence required to further inform our deliberations on whether and how this bill is or can be fit for purpose.

Colleagues, let’s fulfill our duty to Canadians and move this bill to committee.

Thank you, wela’lioq.