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Colleagues, we are starting meeting number 69 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, May 6, we will be dealing with Bill . We'll be here for an hour today.
We have one witness before us today, the creator of the bill, Mr. Robert Sopuck, member of Parliament for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette.
Mr. Sopuck, we'll give you the floor for up to 10 minutes to explain the bill, should you wish, and then we will go to a round of questioning.
I'm very pleased to be here talking about my first private member's bill. It reminds me of that old saying which many of you are aware of that those with weak stomachs should neither watch law nor sausages being made. This was an interesting process.
I was pleased to introduce Bill for two very important reasons. This is an important technical clarification to the Criminal Code and the keyword is “technical”.
Under the law currently, items such as BB guns, paintball guns, and other barrelled items that shoot a projectile at a low velocity are exempted from the licensing requirements that are placed on conventional firearms. Why is that? It is because Parliament recognized that there is a fundamental difference between a Daisy BB gun and a hunting rifle. However, certain areas of the Criminal Code were not included in this exemption. That is why I introduced the bill.
Under the current law, an individual could face serious jail time for not taking “reasonable care and precaution” when storing or transporting BB guns or paintball guns. What precisely does this mean? It is unclear because it is an undefined term under the law. Does that mean trigger-locking all paintball guns or perhaps storing BB guns in a separate locked container from the pellets?
At the end of the day, it could mean many things to many people. This bill brings uniformity to the Criminal Code treatment of these items.
This brings me to my second reason for introducing this legislation. Quite frankly, it is all about our Canadian outdoors culture.
I'm the very proud chair of the Conservative hunting and angling caucus. We are the only party that has such a caucus. There are four million Canadians who participate in sport shooting, trapping, fishing, and hunting, and that's actually an underestimate.
However, I fundamentally believe that the New Democrats and Liberals continue to believe that these activities are reserved for rural people who are out of the mainstream of Canadian society. Greg Farrant from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters said this before this very committee:
Firearms owners in Canada are judges, lawyers, farmers, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, accountants, even federal politicians, many of whom...live in and represent urban ridings. They are not criminals. They are not gang members. Rather, they are lawful firearms owners who obey the law.
However, it is clear that this message has not yet sunk in and some members of the Liberal Party and NDP took the debate on my bill as an opportunity to criticize outdoor enthusiasts by saying that those who want to be able to obey clear rules are part of an American-style gun lobby or are advocating for a return to, as one NDP member from Quebec said, “wild west gun laws”.
This is patently ridiculous and it is offensive to the millions of Canadians who use harmless items like BBs for recreation. They're harmless when they're used in a proper way, I might add.
The fact of the matter is that many outdoor enthusiasts, hunters and sport shooters, got their start with such devices as BB guns. I include myself in that group. The laws as they are currently drafted discourage ownership of even BB guns.
This is not about behaving irresponsibly with these items. In fact, I learned my respect for firearms and the importance of safe storage with my initial use of a BB gun. Indeed, my time as a hunter and angler has led me to a 40-year career in environmental conservation. This is a common path along which many people in the conservation professions have travelled.
It is about respect for those who enjoy our outdoor heritage activities. One of the Liberal members, the public safety critic, had this to say in the House:
There appears to be no dispute of the fact that BB guns, pellet guns, and air guns are weapons and are fully capable of discharging a projectile, which can cause serious injury, if not death.
I don't do this very often, but I do agree with Mr. Easter. If used irresponsibly, these items can do harm, but so can knifes. There were 195 stabbing homicides in Canada in 2013 and there are no criminal penalties for storage methods for these items which, if used irresponsibly, can cause serious injury.
It comes down to this. Should someone want to walk down to a ravine with a BB gun to shoot some pop cans off a tree stump, the government should not create red tape to try and discourage this type of activity. We should use good common sense to approach this issue. That is what this bill strives to achieve. It exempts transport and storage of these items from criminal sanction as previous laws have exempted licensing. However, it keeps unsafe use of these items as a criminal charge. It still remains a crime to use one of these items unsafely. It is still an aggravating factor to use one of these items during the commission of a crime.
In short, I believe this bill builds upon our Conservative government's record of safe and sensible firearm legislation.
In closing, we know the Liberals and the NDP would, if given a chance, bring back the wasteful, ineffective long-gun registry. We know former Liberal cabinet minister Allan Rock said that he came to Ottawa firmly with the belief that only the police and military should have access to firearms. I'm concerned that the views of the Liberals and the NDP on conventional firearms also extend to a desire to take BB guns and paintball guns out of the hands of Canadians.
I'd like to thank the committee for its time today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions.
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Mr. Sopuck, I'd like to thank you for bringing this bill to committee after having it go through the House, as well as for your work as the chair of the hunting and angling caucus. That's also very important.
You mentioned that four million Canadians are actually involved in outdoor activities such as this. You're absolutely correct. It's not just people in the rural and remote areas who participate. A number of constituents in my riding of Scarborough Centre fall into that category as well.
With regard to this legislation, I will just reaffirm that the government does support this bill. There are a number of reasons that we do. First and foremost, it's common sense. Second, it supports law-abiding Canadians who do participate in outdoor activities such as the ones you talked about in your opening remarks.
You did mention very briefly that it's a technical clarification based on a recent Supreme Court decision that has left a bit of a grey area with regard to storage and transportation. I'm wondering if you could comment a bit further on why it's so important to bring this legislation forward to clarify the sections of the Criminal Code. You mentioned that it could make someone a criminal very instantly. Could you specifically relate it to paintball and pellet gun owners and the differences between those types of activities versus, as you mentioned, other types of firearms?
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Again, I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what this community is into.
To be fair, I know that some of my colleagues across the way participate in this. One can look at the Conservative caucus that I am so proud to belong to. We have Mr. Norlock, whose private member's bill, for example, reserved the third Saturday in September as a hunting, trapping, and fishing heritage day. Our caucus has a deep-seated understanding of this community. It's unfortunate that many people want to pigeonhole the outdoors community using various terms like “gun lobby” and so on.
I happen to represent a very large, sprawling, beautiful rural constituency where firearm ownership is ubiquitous. When I think of the family get-togethers over meals of wild game, the community suppers with garden vegetables and so on, that's a way of life which I deeply cherish and which I became an MP to vigorously defend. It's truly unfortunate that some people choose to demonize that way of life and want to see many of these activities come to an end. I vow to stop that.
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I certainly agree with you, Mr. Garrison, that all of these devices—and I refuse to use the term “weapon”, because these aren't, in fact. People use the term “weapon” for those kinds of things, but I simply refuse to. My .30-06 is not a weapon. It is a firearm. There's a big difference.
In terms of the transport of BB guns, for example, a child should be taught about safe transport and storage of these things, and the law does not need to get involved with these relatively harmless devices. To your first point regarding the NDP and the long-gun registry, I would refer to a December 2014 statement by your leader. The headline of the article reads, “NDP would track every gun, Mulcair vows”, and “A New Democratic government would ensure police are able to track every firearm in Canada”.
That is a very clear statement from your leader saying that if he were given a chance—and that will never happen—he would bring the gun registry back.
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I think no matter what the device is, it has to be carried and used very safely.
Also, thank you, Mr. Falk, for bringing up the penalties for unsafe firearm and ammunition storage. Again, we eliminated the long-gun registry as a Conservative government, but those other restrictions still apply regarding firearms storage and storing the ammunition separately from firearms in a locked area.
I think regarding, for example, Bill , which is before the House right now, we have struck the right balance between protecting the rights of lawful firearm-owning citizens and ensuring that public safety is maintained. Again, from the commentary I'm getting from the hunting and outdoors community from across the country, they are by and large fine with, for example, Bill and the restrictions that remain in place, but at the same time very strongly appreciate our government's work in ensuring that the rights of law-abiding citizens are maintained.
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So I guess the government was just negligent in not doing that.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Wayne Easter: In any event, since you talked about the hunting and angling caucus, I want to outline clearly that we are strong supporters of the hunting and angling community. It is big business and important to the economy in the country. For many people, hunting is a way of life, and they're to be congratulated on it.
I want to come back just for a minute to.... Bill always seems to come up with name. I wonder if you have any idea who drafted the original bill that became Bill C-68.
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One thing I've never seen from a Conservative member is an over-the-top comment. Have you, Mr. Chair? I never have.
In any event, I know that what Mr. Trudeau was talking about was machine guns and so on. They were prohibited guns, not something that hunters and anglers normally use. People going to a shooting range certainly sometimes do, and he is, as we are as a party, worried about that open transport becoming common practice.
I also want to underline something the leader said. He said he has absolutely no intention of bringing back the gun registry. That's a no-go. I think that lesson has been learned, and I hope it has been learned by all parties. I have some familiarity with that myself.
In any event, there really doesn't seem to be a lot of reason in terms of stats and numbers why these changes are being made.
I want to come back to Mr. Randall's point, because I think it is probably the most important one and one of the reasons we are taking the position we do, and that is the value of education and having this where it is under law. I respect everyone who, like myself, has had BB guns or pellet guns. I admit that we did some unsafe things with them when we were kids.
As for the value of education, I think it is wrong to have two sets of rules. Do you not see any value in leaving things as they are? There have been obviously no charges under the law. When people are using BB guns and pellet guns appropriately, and then they transfer into hunting rifles and so on, it's a good start to get into hunting and angling, etc. Is there no value to that? Why wouldn't you want the same law? I think you are complicating things with this bill.
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Au contraire, we are uncomplicating things. This is going back to the situation the way it was before the appellate court reversed the trial judge's decision. This is a return to the status quo, basically.
In terms of safety and so on, of course I agree with you. Proper gun safety is often taught using these low-velocity devices, but if these devices were subject to the Firearms Act and storage requirements, you would get into the absurd situation, for example, where a BB gun would have to be locked in a safe and the BBs, which are basically just pellets with no propellant in them or anything, would have to be locked up in another room. That is clearly absurd.
It is the absurdity of these kinds of laws, like the registry itself, that has caused the outdoors community to rise up. Again, I talked to the outdoors community across the country in my role as chair of the Conservative hunting and angling caucus, and I can say categorically that the support for my bill is widespread in this particular community.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for joining us today, Robert. We spent a few months together on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. We shared some fishing tales. It's very nice to have you with us today.
I am also part of Canada's hunting and fishing community. I don't like to be depicted as part of any given community. I sometimes find that the Conservatives put all the hunters and fishers in a specific category.
I agree with some of the points. However, I think that practically all the committee members have a least one air gun, as every time someone asks questions about that, they mention that they have one. So I will jump on the bandwagon. I also have air guns at home. It's always very nice to relax at the cottage and fire at targets.
That is why I have been looking at the current practices on air guns. I know that practically anyone can buy air guns with a velocity of less than 500 feet per second. They are currently not considered firearms under the Firearms Act. They are also not subject to the Criminal Code penalties for the possession of firearms. Air guns are considered firearms under the Criminal Code only if they are used to commit a crime.
This brings a lot of questions to my mind. Are the current laws not logical? Why would we want to change things? I feel that the logic is very simple. An air gun is considered to be a firearm under the Criminal Code only if a crime is committed. Why would we want to change the rules in that regard?
As one who has been fighting the long-gun registry wars for many years, long before I became an MP, I became acutely aware of the differences between what the rank and file officers on the street thought versus what the representatives of the police chiefs association thought. The disconnect was very stark.
Again, the criminal use of these devices, such as using a look-alike item in a criminal act, is clearly a crime: it was a crime; it is a crime, and it will remain a crime. This bill is a technical amendment to that court ruling that basically would treat these low-velocity devices in the same way as true firearms, and my bill corrects that.
I really enjoy being told that it was a previous Conservative member of Parliament, a cabinet minister and actually prime minister, who brought in the original FACs, which the outdoors community had no problem with. It's only when the Liberals tried to up the ante and brought in the long-gun registry.... She never brought that into law and quite frankly would not have gotten it past most Conservatives in this country. I need to get that out of the way.
When the opposition talks about tracking sales, that's code for a new kind of registry through the back door; that's what it's all about. In actual fact, they're not entirely wrong, because under the old FAC, there was a tracking of it, and we might have had something like that anyway without all the kerfuffle, but the Liberals, always trying to one-up everybody else, brought in the long-gun registry, and we know what that caused in this country: great debate.
I'd also like to talk about safe storage and proper handling of such things as BB guns and pellet guns. For the edification of those here, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters works in partnership with the Ontario government in delivering the hunter safety courses. Of course, because they support this legislation, one would have to assume that their partners in education also would support this piece of legislation, which I agree with you is simply bringing common sense back. Here's what you would have.
We have, of course, mostly young people using BB guns and pellet guns. I know my two grandchildren have received gifts of those, and their fathers go out with them to teach them proper firearm safety such as you talk about. The opposition talk about the value of education. I'd like to talk about the value of education as given by mom and dad. We don't need the big hand of the state in every form because in some legislators' eyes you can't trust mom and dad to do the good thing but have to have the state do it. My dad taught me firearm safety beginning with BB guns. So I have to agree with you there.
Here's the problem I have with the current legislation, if we don't adopt this bill to deal with a flaw in the law. We potentially could have a lot of young people ending up in young offenders court because they put the BB gun in a closet and didn't lock it up or didn't put a trigger lock on it. That's what would happen, as far as I'm concerned, because police officers, like anybody else, each interpret the law, and that's why all the laws say a police officer “may” charge.
When I became a police officer, we were told that you lay a highway traffic offence when a warning won't suffice. I can tell you, having a son in the police, that the education is completely changing. It's that you charge people first, unless you think a warning will suffice. So there is a change.
I have to agree with you. When any private member of Parliament sees something that they think needs to be corrected in law, it is their right to bring legislation forward. To suggest that any member of Parliament bringing a private member's bill forward who happens to be part of the governing party shouldn't bring it in, that it should be the party that does so.... You're right: we have a duty as legislators to do it.
If you wouldn't mind, given what we heard about injuries that could be sustained by BB guns and pellet guns, could you talk about the injuries that could be sustained by knives or baseball bats? I wonder whether you'd like to talk about any of the subjects that I've just ranted over.
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I agree with everything you've said, Mr. Norlock. Of course, Mr. Norlock, you're one of the strongest defenders of the outdoors community, and your bill proves that.
Anything can be used in an inappropriate way, including these particular devices. To your point about families being teachers, about parents mentoring their children, those are very profound and intimate experiences that last a young person an entire lifetime. Again, to your scenario of a young person, if the law stayed the same and the judge's ruling were allowed to stand, what would a child being thrown into court because their BB gun was stored the wrong way do to that child, in terms of their willingness to participate in the outdoors and perhaps willingness even to participate in conservation activities?
Again, that conclusion may be tenuous, but for me and millions of others who got their start in that particular way and ended up in careers in conservation, as the and the did, this is a very profound chain of events that can truly enrich a person's life, as it did mine.
Your points are very well taken, Mr. Norlock.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sopuck, thank you for being here.
I think it's fascinating that the government is using the public safety committee to impute motives to the opposition parties. I thought there was enough time in the House of Commons for that. This is a strange forum for these kinds of comments.
The riding I represent, , is a rural riding where hunting and fishing are especially important. In fact, the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs has its headquarters in my riding, in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures. I have developed some very strong relationships with those groups. We hold interesting and meaningful discussions on firearms and other issues.
That brings me to my question. I heard you talking about groups you have consulted. But those groups only seem to consist of people who already approve of your proposal. You don't seem to have actually consulted police forces from across the country. I'm not sure you have consulted any people who might raise issues with regard to your bill.
Could you give us more details on the consultation process you used? What groups have you consulted in Quebec, where there are special sensitivities around the firearm issue? I would be very curious to find out who you talked to in Quebec, in particular regarding your bill.
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Thanks, Bob, for coming.
I'm pleased to be a member of the hunting and angling caucus as well. You talked about BB guns. I go back to when I was a young lad and I got my BB gun, and the first thing I was taught was safety. That carried through. As I got a little bit older—I was about 14 as I recall—I actually got my first .22 and I joined a shooting club and there again I was taught safety. I think that culture had already started. We were taught never to aim it at anybody and make sure that it was never left loaded. Those are the kinds of things that I think parents teach their children, and it's the right thing to do.
On the storage and transportation, just in terms of the paintball guns and trigger locks, we have a huge paintball area just outside of Medicine Hat, and I know there are a lot of people who go there. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about the use of paintball air guns and also what you see in terms of storing those and the paint pellets.
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For the department, on many occasions that has not taken place. However, everybody has the availability of calling the witnesses they do wish to hear. I will simply go now to our other business. Thank you very much.
There are three issues that the chair will be considering, and I wish to draw them to your attention so you have some input thought out before we move forward.
The first issue is the witnesses for Thursday's meeting. The chair does not have a complete confirmation on the number of witnesses yet. It is the chair's intention if we have a lesser number than we expected to simply go for one hour. However, I'm at the will of the committee, so I will leave that with you. That is one point of consideration the chair is going to take under advisement.
The second issue is the budget implementation legislation. It's my understanding there may be potentially six divisions that may be referred to this committee. I give you that just for your information, and you can start to make some preparations based on that. The chair has no indication yet of what they are. Once it's been referred to the chair, the clerk or I will give that information to everybody for consideration. That is an issue that may come before this committee for committee business.
The third issue I will raise is that we've had a request for a meeting with the Czech delegation. They are also requesting a meeting with defence. It's a high-level delegation. Defence is willing to meet with them. We may meet with them as well, depending on this committee's thoughts. We either need to meet with them as a full committee or as members of the committee, whatever your preference is. We're exploring options right now to see whether we would potentially join with defence at the same time for the hour, or whether we would do a stand-alone after our meeting.
Those are some thoughts that you can stew over for a little bit. Going forward, the chair would appreciate some input, and we'll make some decisions.
Yes, Mr. Easter.