This bill is from the 42nd Parliament, 1st session, which ended in September 2019.
Ralph Goodale Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
Part 1 of this Act amends the Firearms Act to, among other things,
(a) remove the reference to the five-year period, set out in subsection 5(2) of that Act, that applies to the mandatory consideration of certain eligibility criteria for holding a licence;
(b) require, when a non-restricted firearm is transferred, that the transferee’s firearms licence be verified by the Registrar of Firearms and that businesses keep certain information related to the transfer; and
(c) remove certain automatic authorizations to transport prohibited and restricted firearms.
Part 1 also amends the Criminal Code to repeal the authority of the Governor in Council to prescribe by regulation that a prohibited or restricted firearm be a non-restricted firearm or that a prohibited firearm be a restricted firearm and, in consequence, the Part
(a) repeals certain provisions of regulations made under the Criminal Code; and
(b) amends the Firearms Act to grandfather certain individuals and firearms, including firearms previously prescribed as restricted or non-restricted firearms in those provisions.
Furthermore, Part 1 amends section 115 of the Criminal Code to clarify that firearms and other things seized and detained by, or surrendered to, a peace officer at the time a prohibition order referred to in that section is made are forfeited to the Crown.
Part 2, among other things,
(a) amends the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, by repealing the amendments made by the Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1, to retroactively restore the application of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act to the records related to the registration of non-restricted firearms until the day on which this enactment receives royal assent;
(b) provides that the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act continue to apply to proceedings that were initiated under those Acts before that day until the proceedings are finally disposed of, settled or abandoned; and
(c) directs the Commissioner of Firearms to provide the minister of the Government of Quebec responsible for public security with a copy of such records, at that minister’s request.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-71s:
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Mr. Speaker, what is the problem with registering the guns? Second, you say there is not enough in the bill to deal with—
Firearms ActGovernment Orders
The Speaker Geoff Regan
I think we had better go to the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, please.
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's question is a good one. My condolences go out to the family. That is the kind of stuff that we all hate to hear about, it does not matter where it is.
Respectfully, the answer to his question is in part of the comment that he made. The 11 handguns, if I heard him right, were basically sold to gang members. If that is not the case, I would like to talk to him in private because that was my understanding from listening, that they ended up in the hands of the gangs.
Young lives were lost and I feel very bad for the mother, but I do not know what we have to do to get the hon. member and others to understand that the bill does nothing to address gang crimes and illegal firearm sales. It only puts another burden on the people who already register and are law-abiding firearms owners.
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is an honest conversation because I think the bill does two things. It places much more stringent background checks on individuals so that when someone is acting in a way that is inappropriate, there is a longer and deeper investigation as to why that person may be inappropriately holding guns or a licence.
Second, restrictions on moving guns around cities makes cities safer. Those are two things that will make the communities that I represent safer.
Could the other side explain why registering all those other tools is acceptable, but guns somehow should be different?
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Mr. Speaker, I guess I misunderstood his first response. I thought he was going to stand and clarify it and he did not. He wants to target something that is already happening to law-abiding firearms owners. Tomorrow or the next day, I hope the member contacts me because as a law-abiding firearms owner and a politician, a legislator like he is, I would like to better understand the situation and at that point maybe we could have a good dialogue.
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Mr. Speaker, it has been a very interesting evening and an interesting debate, with a lot of information and emotion. I get to follow the last three, and they are tough to follow. Many of the things I might say will be related to things that have already been said, such as gang violence, illegal guns, illegal handguns, the penalties for those people who use those illegal weapons, and the consequences that follow.
I have heard from a lot of my constituents on this. There are a lot of unhappy constituents. I just heard a member across the aisle say that it is a registry, but I heard several members across the floor tonight saying it is not a registry. It was really nice to hear a member stand up and say it is a registry, but all the previous ones stood up and said it is not a registry. This bill targets law-abiding firearms owners in my riding. It does not actually prevent the crimes. They use firearms in legitimate and lawful ways. They use them to hunt, to work, and for sport shooting. Firearms are a big part of their rural life.
I remember a few years ago when I was the principal of a high school, there were issues about guns and gun violence with youth. I happened to be in a regional meeting of principals talking about guns and other issues, and I said there would be guns in vehicles in the parking lot of my school. There were other principals from urban areas who were astounded that I would admit there were guns in vehicles in my parking lot. I said, “You bet there are.” Those are farm trucks. Those are ranching vehicles. Those guns are tools. Those students know how to use those tools. They are trained how to use them, and they are there as a tool in their vehicle. They drive the vehicle to school and they drive it home. They may use that gun as a tool on the way to school or on the way home. It is part of rural life. They are responsible for those firearms. They do not like being targeted every time a Liberal government says that we need to have a registry or more gun control.
The opposition to this bill is not just in my riding. It is across Canada. E-petition 1608 which calls on the government to scrap this law had over 80,000 signatures the last time I checked. That is the second largest e-petition in history. I do not know why that number does not give the government pause. Regardless, I am happy to have the opportunity to convey some of my constituents' concerns about the bill.
The largest source of disappointment is it has nothing to do with gang violence, illegal handguns, and crime in rural areas. My constituents say they hear about the gang violence, the shootings in cities, and they experience rural crime, but where in the legislation does it do anything about that, other than make them do more red tape as legal gun owners?
There are a lot of obvious points about the bill, but criminals are generally not using legal firearms. What is driving gun violence is gangs and illegal handguns. The illegal use of handguns will not be impacted by this legislation. Only those who already follow the law will. Criminals do not register illegal weapons nor do those who have the number filed off those weapons.
Let me move to some obvious points suggesting this legislation is poorly designed. Given that we are at report stage of the legislation, it is worth looking at some of the testimony my colleagues heard in committee. They heard from Solomon Friedman, a criminal defence lawyer in Ottawa and expert in firearms. He had some interesting testimony. We all heard the Minister of Public Safety suggest the legislation is intended to combat increasing gun violence from 2013. Mr. Friedman noted, as some of my colleagues have already said, that the year 2013 as a starting point for the reported trend was not chosen at random. As we know, 2013 was a statistical aberration in terms of violent crime and homicide in Canada. The year 2013 saw the lowest rate of criminal homicide in Canada in 50 years. If we start at a point that was the lowest, the only place it probably will go is slightly up. It looks like the Liberal government has used statistics to justify targeting law-abiding firearm owners. This is a disappointing choice.
My colleagues at the public safety and national security committee also heard from Mr. Gary Mauser. He noted that 121 of the 141 firearms-related homicides that the minister cited were directly related to gangs in cities. Where in the legislation does it deal with gangs that are working with illegal handguns? It is not there.
We know what the real issues are out there. We agree that the safety of Canadians should be our priority. However, the government seems intent on distorting the evidence to suit its particular narrative. I think many of my colleagues have pointed out why it is doing this. The Liberals are pretending the legislation will do something to combat crime, but all it does is place more regulations on law-abiding firearms owners.
At the same time, the government has introduced Bill C-75, which makes all kinds of serious crimes punishable with a mere fine. That for rural crime is a real challenge. We have many people in western Canada, in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, where rural crime rates have increased in the last two or three years. People are using guns and violence, robbing properties, and are being slapped with fines. They will be right back on those properties. It should be the reverse. If people are using guns in crimes, there should be more severe penalties. This is not how we stop gun use in crimes by letting people off with fines.
The witness testimony I noted undermines a lot of rationale for this legislation. It supports what I have heard from so many law-abiding constituents, who use their firearms for sport, work, or hunting. They are not happy that the word '“gangs” never appears in this bill. “Illegal handguns” does not appear there. However, they are even more unhappy to see the word '“registrar” in the legislation. In fact, it looks like the words “registrar” or “reference number” are used 28 times. It is a registry. As the last member from across the aisle admitted, it is a registry.
It seems pretty clear that Bill C-71 would make it mandatory to register firearms and provide reference numbers. That information would be logged by a business and then passed onto the government. The government has been insistent that this is not a new gun registry.
Law-abiding gun owners will follow the law. They will do this because they are law-abiding gun owners. They will go through more red tape because they re law-abiding Canadian citizens. That is all it is doing is providing more red tape for those people.
I was happy at first to see that the Liberals supported one of our amendments, the one that stated “For greater certainty, nothing in this act shall be construed so as to permit or require the registration of non-restricted firearms.” I expected they would back up their support for this amendment by actually taking action. I assumed they would then support changes that removed the elements of the legislation that essentially created a new registry. However, they did no such thing.
It makes sense that the government does not want to remind Canadians of the wasteful $2 billion gun registry we dealt with before, but we do not know the cost of what they will do with this one. There will be a lot of bureaucracy, but there is no cost assigned to this. It is going to cost money, possibly a lot.
As I said, we want concrete measures that keep Canadians safe. I know the members opposite do not have bad intentions in supporting this legislation. However, they should understand that the bill would do nothing to fight the criminal elements that are behind gun violence. They should be focused on that. Instead they try to criminalize law-abiding citizens. I know there are members who are from rural communities and have misgivings about this legislation. Again, does this stop gun violence? Does this stop the illegal use of handguns? We need handguns to be out of the hands of criminals.
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would invite the member to look at the blues of the proceedings of the committee on public safety in which two things happened.
The MP for Red Deer—Lacombe, who spoke earlier tonight, is a member of the committee. He said outright at committee, “everybody at this table agrees that this”, Bill C-71, “is not a registry.” Therefore, it is on record that Bill C-71 does not constitute a registry in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the Conservatives, as we have heard tonight, tabled an amendment to that same effect. Why are they playing these sorts of games when their own members have put on the record the fact that Bill C-71 does not constitute a registry in any shape or form.
What does the hon. member have to say to that?
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Mr. Speaker, if I heard right, the member's colleague, just down the bench, just a few minutes ago, called it a registry. He called it a long-gun registry. Check the record. His Liberal colleague, sitting straight across from me, called it a registry.
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Mr. Speaker, I have noticed over the last few hours that the questions seem to be coming from our side of the House, and there has been a kind of hush over the Liberal side of the House. I wonder if it is not a reflection on the base that they formerly held in Chicoutimi that went rather silent, seeing a great Conservative win there, adding to our numbers here in the very near future.
I have a question for the member for Bow River. This bill does not seem to address anything dealing with gun crime, gun violence, or gang violence. It does not seem to address any of that. Have we missed something in the bill, or have the Liberals missed something in this bill?
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Mr. Speaker, absolutely, when I heard the member from Toronto speaking earlier about the tragedy in his riding, in a neighbouring riding, and the parents who had to deal with this. Absolutely, the Liberals have missed this piece. Illegal handguns are coming into this country, and we need to find the mechanisms by which to stop and eliminate illegal handguns. It is not in the bill.
The 121 out of 141 cases in this country were with illegal handguns. That is the problem. It is not addressed in this legislation.
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to touch on something I know my colleague did not have a chance to speak about in his intervention.
We had a rural crime task force in Alberta. Many of us had open houses throughout the province. One of the things that came out, loud and clear, was the frustration from our constituents that Bill C-71, proposed to deal with gun violence, gang violence, and illegal firearms, but those things were not in this bill.
We hear the frustration from our constituents in Alberta, where there is such an increase in rural crime. I know many of my colleagues from both sides of the floor are dealing with this issue. Could the member comment a little on how frustrated our rural constituents are throughout the country that this bill had an opportunity to address one of the largest issues that rural Canadians are facing, and it failed to do so?
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Mr. Speaker, if members want to see emotion in a room, they should have been in those town halls. People are scared. They are frightened. They are frightened for their lives. They are frightened because their property is being stolen constantly. Those people are using illegal weapons.
Once they are caught, it is just a revolving door, and they are back out on bail, immediately. There is not enough of a penalty for people using illegal firearms.
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Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House today and to share my comments about Bill C-71.