Senator Plett: When officials from the department briefed me during my critic briefing, they acknowledged that very few sentences for firearms smuggling are at the higher end of the sentencing range permitted under the law. There may be such cases, but they’re so rare that they’re very difficult to find even by officials.

In the face of that fact, the minister claims that raising the maximum to 14 years will send a strong signal to the courts. This seems highly doubtful when most custodial sentences are five years or less.

I recognize that some gun offences may at times attract stronger sentences. In his second reading remarks, Senator Yussuff claimed that “on average those who are convicted [of smuggling] serve eight years of their sentence.” I believe what Senator Yussuff was likely trying to claim was that the average sentence was eight years, not that they actually served eight years in custody. In fact, serving eight years in prison is almost impossible if someone were to receive a maximum 10-year sentence. That is because statutory release of all inmates occurs at about the two-thirds mark of a sentence, so even on a maximum 10-year sentence, all inmates would be released even before the 7-year mark.

I also don’t believe that there is any evidence that eight years is actually the average sentence for gun smuggling. I can only repeat what the Library of Parliament said. They could find no example of a maximum sentence being imposed on firearms smuggling, and officials acknowledged that there were very few sentences at the high end of the sentencing range. One would hope that this trend might change, but, in fact, the tendency is actually towards sentencing at the lower to middle range of the scale.

One illustration of how this works is the case of William Rainville who, in 2021, tried to smuggle 248 Polymer80 Glock‑type pistols into Canada. These pistols were smuggled without serial numbers. The guns had an estimated street value of $1.6 million and they were destined for criminal use. He, colleagues, received a five-year sentence.

Some might argue that is a stiff sentence, but it’s actually only in the middle range, and the fact is that William Rainville was out on day parole in 12 months of that five-year sentence.

Colleagues, think about that: 12 months served for smuggling 250 firearms into our country with the serial numbers filed off. These were guns that were clearly destined for criminal use and would likely have killed people, but he was out in 12 months.

Why only 12 months? Here we have to reference another bill passed under this government, Bill C-83. That bill introduced a principle into the Corrections and Conditional Release Act mandating that all offenders must be incarcerated at the least restrictive level of security consistent with public policy. That means that as long as offenders keep their noses clean while inside, they are often transferred to increasingly lower levels of security, speeding their way to early day parole and full parole. It means that, regardless of the seriousness of the offence, if an offender knows how to work the system, he can often be out very quickly.

The government was warned that this would happen when they passed Bill C-83. Those warnings included ones given by our very own colleague Senator Boisvenu, but those warnings were ignored.

Another individual, Tony N’Zoigba certainly knew how to work the system. He was arrested in February 2020 after crossing the St. Lawrence River in a motorboat in which he had a duffle bag containing nine guns. These guns were clearly intended for criminal use, since their path had been traced through a joint Canada-U.S. sting operation. His intent was to sell those guns to criminal gangs right here in the city of Ottawa.

For that, he faced 92 charges. What was his sentence? He received 18 months.

A few months later, he was out on day parole. And what was he up to on day parole? Allegedly, he was working on yet another deal to smuggle even more guns into Canada, so his day parole had to be suspended.

Colleagues, when it comes to cross-border firearms smuggling, criminals are highly organized and they take advantage of lax Canadian laws, weak Liberal judges and limited law enforcement at the border. I am afraid that neither the limited measures that the government has taken nor the proposed minor increase in a maximum sentence — that even today is rarely if ever used — will have any impact on the grave problem that Canada faces.

The minister has argued that the bill grants new investigatory powers by expanding the list of eligible firearms offences. This, he says, will allow police to obtain more wiretaps. His government also claims that they have invested over $1 billion to combat gun crime. But statistics of money spent are not the same as results. This is a government that is very willing to throw money at problems but never wants to ask detailed questions about whether their policies are actually working.

We also need to be honest that this money is spread over many years. It is spread across the country. It is spread over multiple initiatives. Much of it does not go to the support of front-line officers. Certainly, the $750 million or more that is being wasted to compensate legal gun owners for the 2020 gun ban enacted by the government does absolutely nothing to support our front-line policing.

The reality is that gun crime is going up, and much of that crime is fuelled by smuggled guns. With regard to that problem, the minister is actually doing very little. He claims that border officers are seizing record numbers of guns at border crossings. But how are such seizures actually impacting the crime on the streets?

My office posed an Order Paper question related to firearm seizures at border crossings. We asked how successful the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, has actually been in intercepting illegal guns destined for street gangs. In response to that question, the Department of Public Safety responded that in 2019 the CBSA seized 713 firearms from all sources at the border. That sounds impressive, but the reality is that the CBSA also reported that only 72 of these firearms were identified as prima facie crime guns, that is to say, firearms that were believed destined for illegal use in Canada.

In 2020, the numbers were less impressive. While 470 firearms were seized by the CBSA at the border in 2020, a mere 8 of these were identified as likely crime guns, in other words, about 2% of all gun seizures.

Seizing guns from otherwise unsuspecting American travellers, unfamiliar with Canadian laws, who will only be in Canada for a few days or weeks, has no impact on crime in urban Canada. We need instead to stop gun smuggling by organized groups who are funnelling those guns to gangs on our streets.

For all the minister’s talk about investments and money spent, the sad reality is this, colleagues: If we don’t have sufficient numbers of officers on hand to investigate organized gun smuggling, then we will not seriously address violent crime on our streets. If we don’t have aggressive and well-funded intelligence-led policing that targets gun smuggling, then we will not address violent crime on our streets. If we don’t have sufficient numbers of police officers or border officers policing the border between ports of entry, then we will not seriously address violent crimes on our streets. If we don’t have sufficient numbers of officers and Crown attorneys to pursue wiretap warrants and to support major investigations, then we will not seriously address violent crimes on our streets. Lastly, if we don’t have serious sentences for gun smuggling and gun crime, sentences that will permanently remove violent criminals off our streets, then we simply will not address gun crime on our streets.

To be honest, Bill C-21 and all the rhetoric surrounding it provide none of those capabilities. This bill is focused almost exclusively on legal firearms owners. It views them as the problem. The approach is particularly evident in another provision of this bill. It relates to the so-called “red flag” provisions.

Minister Mendicino said:

We are seeing gender-based violence in our workplaces, communities, homes or wherever online. There is a trend between gender-based violence and guns. Between 2013 and 2019, the incidents involving gender-based violence and guns went up more than 30%, and that trend has continued.

The minister is suggesting that the mere existence of legal guns is a problem, but there are millions of legal guns in Canada. Unless the minister is suggesting taking them all away from every hunter and sports shooter, then I don’t know how he plans to address this. He certainly won’t address this through any provisions of Bill C-21.

I do think that all Canadians agree that the increasing incidence of violence, sometimes rampage attacks, that we are seeing in our society is extremely disturbing. Such attacks may be driven by religious or other ideological extremist ideas. They may simply be driven by a collapse in an individual’s mental health. Whatever the reason, we seem to be seeing more of them. They may be random stabbings or other assaults. They may involve someone using a car as a weapon, or they may involve firearms.

Our legal firearm controls are designed to help address that issue. That is why, in Canada, we have long recognized the need for reasonable firearm controls. There has been a broad political consensus in Canada when it comes to firearms licensing, mandatory safety training and ensuring the safe storage of firearms. There has also been a broad consensus around police background checks. Holders of firearms licences in Canada must renew their firearms licences every five years. Firearms owners are subject to continuous review. If issues of concern arise, licences can be suspended, and firearms seized. These are comprehensive legal provisions, but we must recognize that we will never have fully foolproof solutions.

In Bill C-21, the government is proposing to add a new set of provisions called “red flag” laws. The provision will allow anyone to go to court and ask a judge to seize the gun or suspend the licence of a person who owns a gun if they believe they pose a threat to anyone else or themselves. What does this provision really add in terms of enhanced public safety?

The Criminal Justice Section of the Canadian Bar Association, the CBA, notes that police officers already have the power to seek a warrant to seize firearms under specific circumstances. The law allows police to seize firearms without a warrant when obtaining one is impractical or when someone fails to show a licence or other authorization.

The seizure of a firearm means an automatic revocation of licences and authorizations. The individual then has an opportunity to be heard in court. In other words, any individual can already file a complaint or a concern with the police, who are then empowered to act.

As stated on the CBA website, the Criminal Justice Section of the CBA believes:

. . . the current law contains sufficient powers to accomplish the goal of seizing weapons believed to have been used in a crime or removing them from the hands of persons who are believed to be a danger to themselves or to others.

It is difficult to understand what precisely layering “red flag” provisions on top of these already existing provisions will achieve. Is an individual more likely to call the police if they have a serious concern, or are they more likely to take the time to go to court? The answer seems rather obvious.

It will be very important for the Senate committee studying this legislation to hear from legal and other witnesses on this matter. These issues are complicated, and it will be necessary to understand how the current law functions, as well as what these proposed new provisions add when it comes to enhancing public safety.

In considering all of these issues, this bill appears to have no practical value. What is its actual purpose? I believe that purpose is not to eradicate gun violence, as the government claims, but to lay the foundation for future actions that can target legal firearms owners more comprehensively. In that regard, the government proposes to incorporate in this legislation an expanded definition of prohibited firearms. That definition would now include semi‑automatic centre-fire firearms that were originally designed with a detachable magazine with a capacity of six cartridges or more. That will technically incorporate, perhaps, the 1 million‑plus existing non-restricted firearms that I have already referenced.

The government claims that this definition would apply prospectively, meaning that it would only apply to firearms designed and manufactured on or after the definition comes into force. It would not impact the classification of the existing firearms in the Canadian market. But if that is the case, what is the public safety benefit of the amendment? New firearms that may be largely the same as old firearms, and that shoot the same ammunition, would be banned, but the 1 million-plus existing firearms would not be banned.

When I use the number “1 million-plus,” I do so because nobody actually knows the exact number. What we do know is that banning new guns — that are exactly the same as the old guns — and then leaving the old guns in circulation makes absolutely no sense. The government claims that the purpose is to “close a regulatory gap where firearms that enter the Canadian market may be misclassified.” But the capacity to do much more than that is there, and the government’s ultimate intent is shown in the amendments that have, for now, been withdrawn. This means that no one should be fooled into thinking that firearms — which may have been held by Canadians for decades — are safe from arbitrary prohibition. In the firearms prohibitions that the government introduced by order-in-council in 2020, the government showed that it is more than willing to initiate completely arbitrary firearms prohibitions whenever the political considerations suggest that this would be a good idea.

Canadians are not made safer when governments arbitrarily take a political decision to ban a few classes of firearms simply based on their look, but leave other similar classes of firearms, often shooting exactly the same ammunition, in legal circulation. That, of course, makes no sense, but it is exactly what the government did in 2020.

Previously, the government argued that its decisions related to firearms prohibitions would always be based on facts and on professional input, but that promise has gone out the window, and the reclassification of firearms will now take place behind closed doors, subject to all manner of pressure from politicians.

What are the implications of all this for gun control in Canada? As occurred with Bill C-68 exactly 30 years ago, it is probable that support for gun control will take a major blow. Gun control of legal firearms is, by its very definition, focused on law-abiding citizens. For the most part, gun owners in Canada have always cooperated with gun control in Canada, and their cooperation is necessary in order to maintain viable and effective gun control. It is, after all, their firearms that are being regulated. But laws must be seen as legitimate and necessary if they are to retain the cooperation of those who are most impacted by those laws. Bill C-21 undermines that public confidence. This bill is already being perceived as a politically driven and gratuitous attack on gun owners. It is their personal property being targeted.

As a result of the government’s actions, 1 million handguns held by law-abiding gun owners can no longer be legally bought or sold. This arbitrary decision comes with absolutely no financial compensation, making it particularly unjust.

Shooting disciplines and handgun clubs across the country are being impacted. When it comes to the various handgun shooting disciplines, the government has decided that only Olympic shooters will be exempt from buying and selling handguns. What sense does that possibly make? How can you sustain Olympic‑level competitors in Canada without allowing any other shooters into the shooting sport? As I have said before, it’s as if we were to say that the only hockey that will be allowed is the NHL, but we won’t allow anybody in amateur hockey to play. Every legal gun owner knows that the real objective here is to kill all shooting sports in Canada.

We have also been told that a side impact of this is that police officers across the country, who are often only able to train at their local gun club, may suddenly have nowhere to keep up their shooting skills, as these clubs start to close in the years ahead. Did anyone in the government think about this public safety impact? How will our police officers keep up their shooting skills as clubs start to close?

It is hardly surprising that — when one looks at all of the implications — people are reacting very negatively to this bill. That is why this bill is already opposed by a broad cross‑section of Canadians. Colleagues, it is also opposed by most provinces and territories. In fact, some provinces are enacting legislation that will thwart the very objectives of Bill C-21.

Some senators in this chamber will, no doubt, console themselves by believing that this is only what Conservative provincial governments are doing. But this is what Irfan Sabir, justice critic for the Alberta NDP, said about this legislation:

There are legitimate criticisms of the federal firearms program, and absolutely they needed to withdraw and reconsider their amendments that would have captured many firearms, including those used by Albertans and Indigenous peoples for hunting.

Honourable senators, that is the view of the Alberta NDP.

The only point of correction I would make is that, unfortunately, the federal government has not walked away from its amendments to Bill C-21. Instead, it has merely tried to temporarily freeze those amendments with the full intent of bringing them back in future regulations. These regulations will be recommended by a ministerial committee composed entirely of individuals appointed by the Minister of Public Safety — a man whose credibility is already completely shattered by the bad bill that he has introduced. We should not be surprised that this minister is simultaneously presiding over other fiascos, such as his demonstrated incompetence over the transfer of killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security institution.

Honourable senators, the reality is that this minister and his government have mishandled the entire criminal justice file from the very beginning. Its approach to combatting gun and gang violence in our communities is wrong, and it should simply start fresh.

What should it be doing instead? First, it should admit its mistakes on Bill C-5, Bill C-75 and Bill C-83. In regard to Bill C-75 and bail conditions, it has now done that half-heartedly, but the new measures that it has proposed are unlikely to have a major impact on stopping crime on our streets. All of the bad bills that the government has passed need to be completely revisited if we are going to make a dent in the rise of violent crime in Canada.

Second, in regard to firearms smuggling, tackling this problem should become the real top priority. We will never be able to fully stop crime guns from entering Canada from the United States, but we can, at least, try to make it very costly for criminal gangs to engage in cross-border smuggling. We need to make it monetarily costly for them — and we need to ensure that when someone is caught smuggling guns into our country, they are removed from our streets, either for a very long time or, if they are repeat offenders, permanently. Parliament, not the courts, is supreme when it comes to law-making in Canada, and we need a government that is ready to stand by that important principle.

Third, the government needs to work closely, and in a collaborative fashion, with vulnerable communities. We need a government that invests in them and in the youth with measures that actually work.

Most importantly, those communities, like all other Canadian communities, deserve an environment in which law and order can be taken for granted and where children and youth can grow up without fear. You can have all the programs you want, but if the streets around where those programs are being delivered are unsafe, then the impact is going to be very limited.

Fourth, we need a federal government that is willing to work collaboratively with provinces and not at cross-purposes from their objectives. In other words, we need a federal government that is more interested in real results than it is in bills like Bill C-21 that are based on slogans and on targeting law-abiding Canadians. I understand that provinces have different views on this matter. The federal government needs to be prepared to work with all of them, not to impose solutions from afar.

Lastly, colleagues — I’m sure you are happy to hear — we need to maintain a firearms licensing regime in Canada that is both effective but also reasonable. This is not the United States, and in Canada, we have a strong tradition of responsible but reasonable gun control.

For gun control to be effective, it must be seen as being legitimate. Gun control must retain the support of legal firearms owners. With this bill, the government risks losing that support. It took years to build back a measure of support for an existing gun control regime after the debacle of the long-gun registry created by another Liberal government 30 years ago. Now, this government has thrown that support away. That makes this bill extremely foolish and short-sighted.

Colleagues, all of these issues need to be thoroughly examined by the Senate committee that will review this legislation. I trust we will not close the door on the diverse number of Canadians who want to be heard on this bad bill. I hope we will not do what the government did in the House, which was to introduce time allocation and ram the bill through the House committee process as well as third reading. That would be a slap in the face to many Canadians who deserve to be heard. It would also be a betrayal and complete abdication of the Senate’s constitutional role.

I strongly oppose this bill, but if we are going to send it to committee, we also need to give the committee time to do its work effectively. I trust we all agree with that principle, but it would be far better if we would not waste the committee’s time with this bad bill.

Bill C-21 will not make Canada safer. It does nothing to address crime on the streets. It is opposed by legal firearms owners. It is opposed by our Indigenous peoples. It has been opposed by provinces and territories. It risks destroying gun control in Canada.

Colleagues, I urge you to reject and defeat this at second reading. Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Senator Tannas: I don’t believe it is a confidence vote. We’ve seen budget implementation acts amended before. In fact, we’ve seen in this government’s time frame that they have been amended. The government didn’t fall.

That is one of the pressure tactics that is used, but if that’s the case, if we can’t touch the budget implementation act, then how could a government ever resist sticking something in there that no one can do anything about?

It goes to what those bright-eyed people in 2015 said about frustrating the work of Parliament and making it undemocratic. I think that it is intellectually dishonest to say that this piece, because it happens to be in a giant omnibus bill that is named the “Budget Implementation Act,” that our changing something in it would, in fact, cause a government to fall.

I would also say that we are at the end of the session, but we’re not at the end of the session. The government is still over with their colleagues in the House of Commons. They are still meeting today. They haven’t upped and gone home like sometimes when we get the budget implementation act and we have to deal with that issue. I would also say that they have voted and approved hybrid, so them coming back isn’t them coming back at all. They just have to get on their laptops at home to deal with whatever it is that we have sent.

I reject completely the idea that something that is not to do with the budget somehow becomes a confidence vote if you stick it in a budget implementation act. Thank you.

Senator Woo: Yes, I did. Your question is about the substance of privacy considerations in the Canada Elections Act. The proper way to deal with that as the Senate, as we are reputed to do, is to study that issue in isolation and in its entirety rather than to tack on an amendment to an omnibus bill at the last minute.

I would suggest, Senator Deacon, that whatever favour we may gain with the 96% of Canadians who are pushing for changes, we would lose with an equally large percentage of Canadians who see us as not being principled in our approach to this question.

[Translation]

Senator Woo: It is nevertheless an amendment that was argued extensively by you, Senator Tannas, on the grounds that an omnibus bill is intolerable. You cannot have it both ways, to my mind — well, you can, of course, and if this amendment goes through, you will have your way.

On the one hand, if you say that this item does not belong in the bill — because it’s in annex 3, it’s buried on page 400 or wherever it might be and it has nothing to do with the budget — then the principled approach is to say, “Let’s get rid of it.” But to actually play with it and finesse it is basically going against your argument that omnibus bills should not be tolerated.

I accept your point that you are trying to provide finesse to what was intended in the BIA. However, that is exactly my point: The finesse should be done with a lot more study and consideration rather than thrown on the floor at the last minute.

Senator Tannas: First of all, I think there is. We can hold public hearings if we want. We could figure out which committee needs to go. We can go out on the road and hold some public hearings.

At the end of the day, you can’t blame the political parties. Why would any organization rush headlong into something that is going to bring more accountability and a whole lot more transparency and work, et cetera?

As far as political parties go, I think there are a lot of complicated issues. You knock on somebody’s door, and they tell you something, “I’m going to do this; I hate this” — whatever. Now all of a sudden you’re in possession of information they’ve given, but they don’t know what you’re going to do with it.

These days with technology, you walk down to the bottom of the sidewalk, you key what that person said into your phone and it goes into a database. For all I know — nobody in here knows — it might go to the fundraising arm of the party immediately with a customized letter that says, “We are doing on X and Y” on the thing that person just said they hated. They could sell it — who knows — because they are not required under any law to do anything. They could have had a data leak. We had a data leak. The Green Party had a data leak and voluntarily disclosed it. They didn’t have to because they’re not subject to any law, but they disclosed it anyway. We don’t know if any or all the other parties have had a data leak and didn’t disclose it. That’s the situation.

So I agree with you. This is an issue that maybe a Senate committee could be helpful with. I don’t know, though. I guess that’s for us to decide in the fullness of time.

Senator Tannas: Absolutely.

Senator Dasko: Senator Woo, will you take a question?

Senator Ringuette: No. Thank you.

[English]

Hon. Rebecca Patterson: Honourable senators:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

So begins “High Flight,” the aviator’s poem, the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force, or RCAF. Today, we learned that two members of the RCAF have tragically slipped the bonds of life. Their CH-147F Chinook helicopter from 450 Tactical Helicopter Squadron at Garrison Petawawa, Ontario, crashed yesterday on June 20, 2023. Two of the four crew members on board survived and were recovered by base firefighters with the assistance of civilian first responders and support from 8 Wing Trenton. The two survivors were taken to hospital in Pembroke and have since been released. They are being monitored by Canadian Armed Forces medical personnel and their comrades in arms.

As the former commander of the Canadian Forces Health Services, I know that the two survivors and their teammates are being well taken care of. As a senator for Ontario, I want to thank all of those, both civilian and military, who helped in the search, recovery and treatment of the Chinook crew. Most importantly, however, as a veteran, as the mother of a soldier and as the spouse of a serving RCAF member, I know how much of a family the Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF, is.

We know service isn’t just about the Canadian Armed Forces members but also about their community. We don’t serve alone. So to the family, loved ones, friends and comrades of the fallen, we mourn your loss and stand with you in your grief.

Senators, the CAF truly is a family regardless of whether you serve in the air force, navy or army, and in times of tragedy, families stand together and support each other. Therefore, I ask of you, my new Senate family, to join with me and please keep those affected by this tragic accident in your hearts and on your minds.

In closing, I’d like to again read from the aviator’s poem:

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

We will remember them. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, we were all saddened to learn of the military helicopter crash that occurred yesterday near Petawawa, which left two crew members dead and two more wounded.

Our thoughts are with their friends and families, and with all members of the Canadian Forces, as we express our condolences for those lost and our hopes for a full recovery by the injured.

Honourable senators, please join me in rising for a minute of silence in memory of those who did not survive this tragic incident.

(Honourable senators then stood in silent tribute.)

[Translation]

Senator Duncan: Thank you. I won’t be long. I don’t want to get into a discussion of omnibus bills versus non-omnibus bills. I’ve been on both sides of that question, and I can appreciate both sides of it.

I am thinking back to when I first arrived in the Senate — it was June — and sitting on the Finance Committee. We dealt with the Federal Prompt Payment for Construction Work Act that was buried in the BIA. We’re still waiting for it to be proclaimed, for any number of reasons. It might be federal-provincial discussions. I don’t know why. I’m not privy to those discussions. Therein, we approved something, and we’re still waiting for it.

You summed it up: Members are on the horns of a dilemma here. We can certainly appreciate that it’s a minority Parliament. At the same time, we can appreciate and understand this issue you’re bringing forward. Quite frankly, anyone who has campaigned for office knows very well that political parties have a great deal of information and that this information should be protected. I also believe that a number of the political parties are not necessarily supportive of this notion.

You asked about problems and solutions. My question is this: Is there another way for the Senate to create a public discussion because we really need the Canadian public to be crying for this. Is there another way?

Senator Tannas: Thank you, I’ve been thinking about this because I hate people who put problems down and don’t have any solutions.

First, I intend to launch an inquiry where we can get some ideas on the table. My own personal idea is that, at some point, we should send a message that says that the first order of business for a budget implementation act is that we will review it to look for possible items that we believe need more study, more time or should be in a separate bill, and we will carve those out of any future BIAs. That would be something we could do.

If we gave them advance notice, maybe they would consider that. If they didn’t consider that, then we could decide whether we want to follow through with something that we have indicated we would do.

That’s one idea. I think there are a lot of other ideas.

This is part of what Senator Gold has always talked about: that he is the representative of the government in the Senate and he is the representative of the Senate in the government. I think if we spent some time and all made some proposals and discussed what we think and got the conversation going, we could arrive at a consensus here on how to deal with this so that we’re not again having Groundhog Day next June on the budget implementation act.

Senator Gold: Thank you for the question. I understand the question and I understand the preoccupation, but it’s impossible to know that.

First of all, the administration of justice is within the hands of the provinces and the territories. The prosecution of offences is within the hands, in large measure, of the provinces and territories. The sentencing of offenders is a matter for the judicial system. Many such cases go before provincially constituted courts, not superior courts under federal jurisdiction. Policing is, in large measure, a local matter.

The Government of Canada is taking a leadership role; it’s doing its part. It’s just impossible to set a percentage, but what the government can do, should do and is doing is taking concrete steps, whether in law reform or in bills we’ve passed to reduce but not entirely eliminate mandatory penalties; to provide alternatives to incarceration; to provide assistance to the provinces and territories so that the social service networks are more robust and better able to play their role; and to support Indigenous policing. The list goes on.

No one measure is a panacea or a silver bullet. In the aggregate, let us hope and commit ourselves to ensure that they will make a difference.

[Translation]

Senator Ringuette: Yes.

Senator Dasko: Thank you. You have correctly made the point that there are two separate issues here. One of the issues is the fact that these omnibus bills, as you’ve just said, are intolerable. I would guess that many of our colleagues would agree with this observation.

Would you be willing to put forward an amendment removing all reference to the Elections Act in Bill C-47, given the fact that we may not need more study of the particular issue, which is omnibus bills: good or bad? Many of us would agree we don’t need to study this topic. We would probably agree that this is not good. Would you be willing to put forward an amendment to that effect? Thank you.

Senator Loffreda: Thank you for your question, Senator Gignac.

[English]

With respect, it doesn’t have any impact or implications on the Senate, but the budget implementation act is a confidence motion in the House, as we all know. I did move an amendment last week, which I knew would not pass, but I moved it as a matter of principle for my community and the minorities I represent. It’s not the point of moving an amendment. I believe we have the right to move amendments — but, in this case, I believe that it’s unnecessary.

As I said, I’m a fan of Senator Tannas and many of you here in this house. I’m privileged and honoured to be here. I pinch myself almost every day and say, “Wow. Look at where I am.” It’s a weak argument because the government plans on doing it anyway.

Including a two-year deadline should not be an issue or really have any consequences. It’s not static; it’s dynamic. Legislation is dynamic. We have a right of overview. We have a right to revisit the situation. We have a right to look at it again if it’s not done. I want to get the quote right, but it is former President Reagan who said, “Trust, but verify.” We will do that in the future. If it continues to be the case, we will act accordingly.

Today, however, I feel it’s unnecessary. Trust is the currency of every relationship. I do believe it will be done. I’m looking forward to that. Thank you for your question.

Senator Shugart: Unlike you, senator, I have never been in politics, although I’ve been around it. I have learned that in politics it’s very unwise to answer a hypothetical. I do think that after we have explored the possibilities for amending this practice, if that proved fruitless, I personally, without imagining at this point what they might be, would be open to this chamber taking more draconian measures in order to get the attention of the executive branch. What those might be and when those might be, I’m not sure. But I think we should do our homework. We should make a good-faith best effort to address this situation, and then after that we will see.

Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much. I would like the record to note that this was not a typical situation. I was given an assurance by you. It’s reasonable to think that I could rely on that, and so I would very much appreciate it when and if you use your discretion to allow me to continue my question.

Senator Gold: The answer is yes, and I will briefly explain how this could happen. The Indigenous Languages Act, which was passed in 2019 under this government, is landmark legislation developed in cooperation with Indigenous partners. It is being implemented in an ongoing partnership with Indigenous peoples who know best what they need to revitalize their languages.

The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of listening and following the lead of its Indigenous partners with respect to their linguistic priorities. Furthermore, I note that section 49 of this act requires a three-year independent review of the provisions and administration of this act, agreements made with Indigenous governments and organizations and provincial and territorial governments to coordinate efforts to support Indigenous languages in Canada.

I believe that work is under way in that area and that the person or body chosen in consultation with the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages is required to consult Indigenous governments and organizations about the findings and recommendations.

In addition, my staff and I are offering to those interested — I have already mentioned it to one of your colleagues who is not here today, so I will not name her — to work with them, as well as with all senators, to advance this very important file.

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