Thank you, Your Honour.

Before I continue with my speech, let me read a letter that was slipped under my door:

Dear colleagues,

As you know, the vote on the amendment to Bill C-71 was deferred to Monday, May 27. Consequently, and as per a new agreement, the final third reading vote for the bill, which was scheduled for yesterday, will also take place that day.

In light of this, I wish to remind you all that it is critical that you be present in the Chamber that evening to vote on this important piece of legislation. I would ask colleagues to make every effort possible to be present for the sitting.

It is also very important that the Leadership and the Secretariat have an accurate account of how many ISG members will be in attendance. I therefore ask that you please confirm your presence for the Monday, May 27 sitting as soon as possible by responding to this email.

I thank you in advance for your cooperation and wish you a wonderful break week.

I never sent a letter like that out, and I’m the whip, and I admit it.

Your Honour, I know I’m testing your patience, and my apologies to you and to others if they feel that way. I wanted to intervene a few moments ago.

I simply want to say that the correspondence I received from the liaison of the ISG implored us to be here for important government business votes and to inform us of those votes and for us to inform him of our attendance.

Many times I’ve received that kind of communication. Never have I been directed how to vote. In fact, most times it also includes a statement that says, “You’re entitled to vote the way you want. We’d just like you to be there.”

The point I want to make is that in Senator Plett’s earlier comments that preceded the last point of order raised by Senator Gold, he clearly said that we were directed to be there and to vote for the government bill. That is not the case. Once again, he is misstating the facts, and he has the evidence in front of him.

I didn’t hear a point of order raised by Senator Lankin. It seems she’s on debate, or is she speaking to a point of order?

Speaking to a point of order, yes.

Order, please.

Senator Lankin stood on what I was expecting to be a point of order. However, I did not hear a point of order. I heard a point of clarification.

Senator Plett, on debate.

Thank you. I seem to recall the week before last that someone who was interrupted asked that the duration of the interruption not be charged against their time. I trust that will happen here as well.

Your voting patterns on this legislation and on proposed amendments have not been based on the evidence or the arguments. They have clearly been based only on your loyalty to the government and the direction of your whip.

I am not standing here trying to change your minds. I know that is an effort in futility. I am standing here because there are millions of Canadians who care about this legislation. They care about what it was supposed to do. They care about dealing with gun and gang violence.

They may have believed the Liberal government’s campaign promises to do something about it. They deserve to know the truth about this legislation — that it is a sham and a farce, and it will do absolutely nothing to increase public safety.

I would like to review the Liberal Party’s election promise on the issue before us. What exactly did they promise, and does this bill fulfil that promise or even move us closer toward it?

In their platform, on page 54, the Liberal Party promised to do the following, on guns:

We will take action to get handguns and assault weapons off our streets . . . We will take pragmatic action to make it harder for criminals to get, and use, handguns and assault weapons.

That was the promise. Yet, if you look at Bill C-71, it has nothing to do with gangs. It has nothing to do with getting handguns and assault weapons off our streets. And it has nothing to make it harder for criminals to get, and use, handguns and assault weapons.

Instead, this bill harasses law-abiding gun owners while giving gangs and criminals a pass. Rather than fulfilling campaign promises, this bill breaks them.

Colleagues, no one is denying that there are very real concerns about gun violence in Canada. But suggesting that we are going to deal with these concerns by developing policies that target licensed gun owners is nothing short of fantasy.

If the government wants to live in a make-believe world, there is little we can do to stop it, this side of the election. But I urge you, colleagues, not to play their game.

From the very beginning of this debate, the Trudeau government’s insincerity has been evident. They have repeatedly claimed that this bill “prioritizes public safety and effective police work.” Yet when you scratch the surface, you quickly find out that it does neither.

It reminds me of an old proverb which says: Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts never given.

Justin Trudeau talks like he’s serious about dealing with gangs and crime, but his actions are little more than empty, fluffy promises that deliver nothing.

When Bill C-71 was introduced in the other place, Minister Goodale began by painting a grim picture. He said:

While crime rates generally in Canada have been on the decline for decades . . . However, offences involving firearms are bucking the positive trend.

Minister Goodale repeated this assertion both at the House of Commons committee and the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, when he insisted that:

While crime rates generally have been steadily falling in Canada for decades, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of criminal incidents involving firearms.

Colleagues, the evidence says this assertion is nonsense. No matter which metric you look at — overall crime rates, the violent crime rate or the crime severity index — the last 20 years of statistics clearly show that gun crime and overall crime rates follow the exact same arc: When crime goes up, gun crime goes up with it; and when crime goes down, gun crime goes down as well. The suggestion that gun crime is rising while overall crime is dropping is simply not true.

However, as I said earlier, this does not mean we don’t have a problem. We do. But if you look at the evidence, you will find that it has nothing to do with making sure law-abiding gun owners get special permission to take their restricted firearms to the gunsmith. It has nothing to do with taking away their only real avenue of appeal when their firearms get reclassified and are rendered valueless. It has nothing to do with the fact that background checks currently cover five years instead of a lifetime.

It has nothing to do with any of these things. Bill C-71 is chock full of feel-good, aspirational notions that are designed to leave the impression of taking action, while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Colleagues, I encourage you to take a closer look at Statistics Canada’s reports on homicide by firearms. If you do, you will see that at least three things stand out. Number one, there has been a failure to enforce our existing gun laws; number two, there is a disproportionate homicide rate by Indigenous persons; and number three, we are suffering from rising gang violence. Yet Bill C-71 completely ignores every single one of these.

Consider the following: Between 2014 and 2017, 66 per cent of homicides by firearms were committed by people with criminal records. This tells us that up to two thirds of gun homicides could be the consequence of a failure to properly enforce our current gun laws. Because in many cases, it is already illegal for someone with a criminal record to possess a firearm.

In every case where a gun homicide was committed by a person who was ineligible to possess that firearm, more regulation would have done nothing to save these lives. The problem was a lack of enforcement from our existing gun laws.

Second, over the same period — 2014 to 2017 — 68 per cent of all homicides were committed with a restricted or prohibited weapon, and yet restricted and prohibited firearms are already registered and tightly controlled.

This should be a red flag for anyone who is paying attention. If gun control measures for restricted firearms are not working, what makes us think that more regulations for non-restricted firearms will suddenly be effective?

Third, according to Statistics Canada, 38 per cent of all homicides in 2017 were committed by Indigenous persons. In the vast majority of these homicides, the victims were Indigenous as well.

When you consider this in context of the size of the Indigenous population, it means that across Canada, an Indigenous person is 12 times more likely to commit homicide than a non-Indigenous person. Broken down by province, it works out to 11 times more likely in Alberta, 13 times more in my province of Manitoba, and 43 times in Saskatchewan.

Minister Goodale has gone out of his way to point out that the problems with firearms violence is not just because of gangs in Toronto, noting that it’s also found in rural areas — especially in Prairie provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan. What he didn’t bother to tell you is that, in Manitoba, 67 per cent of homicides with a firearm in rural areas are committed by Indigenous persons. In Saskatchewan that number is 77 per cent.

Colleagues, if you haven’t looked at the evidence, then these numbers might shock you. But don’t misunderstand me. I am not blaming Indigenous people for firearms violence.

What I am doing is pointing out that there is a tragedy unfolding in slow motion in Indigenous communities and families right before our eyes. Yet the Liberal government is ignoring this tragedy, pretending to be oblivious to the fact that there are much deeper societal issues at play here that will not be addressed by simply piling on more gun laws.

Frankly, I am at a bit of a loss as to how my honourable colleagues from Manitoba believe this bill addresses any of the root issues behind these tragic numbers. Why are all Indigenous senators opposite not opposing this bill and demanding real action and real answers that would actually help to reduce firearms crime and the resulting victimization? And if you’re not going to oppose it, then where are the amendments? Where are the improvements?

Honourable senators, the other thing we learned from Statistics Canada is that between 1991 and 2017, 90 per cent of homicides were solved, but only if gangs were not involved. When homicides are gang-related, the solve rate drops to 44 per cent.

If we look at the years 2014 to 2017 again, this means that with an average of 206 homicides committed with a firearm each year, about 70 were left unsolved each and every year. Approximately 57 of those 70 unsolved homicides would have been gang-related. In other words, between 2014 and 2017, approximately 280 murderers have been left to roam free on our streets and the majority of these — 228 — are gang members. You might want to let that sink in.

If the government was serious about preventing homicides by firearms and prioritizing public safety, getting known murderers off our streets, would that be their top priority? But it is not. This bill will have zero impact on gangs and criminals. Instead, Minister Goodale is busy making scapegoats out of law-abiding gun owners, saddling them with more paperwork, more hoops to jump and more threats of criminal charges, all the while pretending that this will get criminals off our streets.

The assertion is absurd and gun owners are tired of the charade. Instead of taking substantive action to deal with real issues, the Liberal government is splashing around in the shallow end, pretending to do something important. This is not the time to be playing politics. This is a time to understand what is really going on and to take meaningful action to change the current trajectory and actually save lives.

Colleagues, facts, research and statistics matter, but the problem we have seen in this debate is that it is too easy to simply quote a study that supports your position. This is true on many subjects, but it is particularly true when it comes to the question of the effectiveness of gun control. One person will hold up a study that says gun control works. The next person will hold up a study that says it doesn’t. People pick the one that best aligns with their view and use that to endorse their position. So how do you know what the truth is?

In 2016, the B.C. Centre for Public Safety and Criminal Justice Research did something different. Rather than simply producing another study on the matter, they undertook an extensive literature review of all the existing studies. These studies examined, “the various strategies and processes that have been tried in Canada and internationally to reduce or remove illegal firearms from circulation, particularly from offenders.” The focus of the review was on “research published in English that evaluates legislative attempts, police-led, and community-led programs, tactics, or interdictions designed to address the issue of illegal firearm possession and use.”

So instead of just producing one more study, in order to review their findings, the centre took a step back and looked at all studies that had already been published. You cannot easily dismiss such an approach if you’re interested in the facts.

At the end of the review, they concluded the following:

. . . the lack of reliable empirical data on firearms and violence, including suicides, makes it virtually impossible to undertake comparative analysis or the ability to develop more effective responses. In sum, the current evidence is generally inconclusive and suffers from a range of methodological challenges and limitations.

If you’re one of those who likes to argue for more gun control based on an isolated study here and there, this will not come as good news. But these are the facts: “the current evidence is generally inconclusive.”

The good news is that something can be done about gun violence. The review found the following:

The research literature. . . . demonstrates that gun violence can be reduced by the police when they engage in sustained, strategic, and intelligence-led enforcement practices that targets prolific offenders and gangs, and prolific locations where gun violence occurs.

Colleagues, this is exactly what a Conservative government would do. Instead of fiddling on the margins with ineffective measures based on evidence that has been found to be “generally inconclusive,” a Conservative government would take clear and decisive action to deal with gangs, illegal guns and criminals. Contrast with this Justin Trudeau, who has softened Canada’s approach to tackling gang crime by reducing its penalties to as little as an administrative fine.

A Conservative government would end automatic bail for known gang members, making them prove to a court that they should be eligible for bail. It would deliver tougher sentences for ordering gang crime and new sentences for violent gang crime.

This is the kind of leadership Canadians need. Instead, here’s where we find ourselves today: In just a few minutes we’re going to have a vote on Bill C-71. And in spite of the fact that this bill is not supported by the facts, the evidence or the research, the majority of senators in this chamber will vote in favour of it. In spite of the fact that it ignores the real problems, fails to listen to either the gun owners or the victims of gun violence, this chamber will send it back to the other place unamended.

This is a tragedy, colleagues, because it is not only law-abiding firearms owners who are not being heard; it’s also the communities being rocked by crime; it’s the families that have been torn apart; and it’s the moms and dads, sisters and brothers, friends and acquaintances of victims of gun crime.

Honourable senators, you and this government are failing them by passing this legislation, because although the Liberal promise was a good one — “we will take action to get handguns and assault weapons off our streets” — this bill does not take even one tiny baby step toward fulfilling that promise.

If that was not bad enough, it gets worse. This bill implements a back-door gun registry. Now I know there is a little clause in the bill that says it’s not introducing a registry, but this, quite frankly, means nothing. In the words of committee witness Dr. Teri Bryant, “Is a duck a duck if you don’t call it a duck?” Colleagues, this is a duck.

On June 29, 2012, the Conservative government registered a regulation that stated the following:

A person cannot be required, as a condition of a licence that is issued under the Firearms Act, (a) to collect information with respect to the transfer of a non-restricted firearm; (b) if they collect such information, to keep a record of it; or (c) if they keep such a record to keep it in a form that combines information that identifies the transferee with information that identifies an individual firearm, links such information, or enables such information to be combined or linked.

At the time, then-Justice Minister Vic Toews appeared before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee to explain why this regulation was necessary to ensure that such information should not be collected. This is what he said:

The real purpose of this regulation is simply to clarify the effect of Bill C-19, that is, to prevent the establishment of another long-gun registry through other means, whether it is through information collected through CFOs or otherwise.

Bill C-71 is specifically designed to override this regulation.

So how is it that Minister Toews could clearly see that collecting information about the transfer of non-restricted firearms creates a long-gun registry by other means, and yet Minister Goodale claims to be oblivious to this fact?

Colleagues, this legislation fails on not one but two counts: First, it completely fails to implement the government’s promise to “take action to get handguns and assault weapons off our streets.” Second, it cynically breaks the government’s promise to not create a new national gun registry.

There is only one appropriate response for this chamber to take in such a situation. This bill should be defeated.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with this thought: Gun control advocates often — and we heard it here in this chamber — like to use the expression, “If it saves one life then it’s worth it.” What they fail to recognize is that if the same amount of effort and money utilized in a different manner would save 10 lives, then refusing to do so and saving only one is criminal.

Yet this government has repeatedly refused to acknowledge what gentlemen all know to be true. Public resources are limited, and the budget will not balance itself. Tax dollars should be allocated in the most efficient, effective manner possible in order to achieve the greatest possible impact and the best public policy outcome.

Colleagues, it is indisputable that Bill C-71 utterly and tragically fails to do this. It needs to be defeated.

Are honourable senators ready for the question?

Will Senator Plett accept a question?

Yes.

Senator Plett, at the end of your speech, you referred to the register. According to the Toronto police, 50 per cent of the guns used to commit crimes in Toronto are domestically sourced. A study by the ministry of public safety and Solicitor General of British Columbia shows an increase in the numbers of legally purchased firearms diverted by straw purchasers to illicit markets. Why do you oppose the obligation made to the sellers to keep the names of those to whom they sold the guns?

I apologize, Senator Dalphond, I got that big percentage of guns in Toronto are obtained domestically; I have no argument with that. That doesn’t make them legal. They are obtained domestically.

I have no issue, Senator Dalphond, with us clamping down on illegal guns, gang violence and gun crime. I support that. I think I said that throughout the entire speech and had said that all along. I think all gun advocates support that. This bill does nothing to address gang violence. It does nothing to address illegal guns.

My question was really to help the police track the straw purchasers. Isn’t that useful to have the names from the sellers to whom they sold the firearms?

Again, Senator Dalphond, the majority of these guns are not registered guns. They are brought in from other areas. They are unregistered guns that have serial numbers scratched off. There is no method of tracking. There is already a number of hoops that you have to jump through right now and we’re not opposing any of those, but to just simply implement more registration is not going to be the answer.

Honourable senators, as I said, I will be brief. I feel it’s important to add my voice to this debate as an urban Canadian who has lived in Vancouver for more than four decades. I just came from Creston, B.C., a rural part of my province where most nights we were around a fire pit. I know there were gun owners around the circle, gun enthusiasts like my husband and yet in this community, people leave their doors open and there is a real sense of community.

I don’t claim to be in any way an expert in firearms and all of the rules and regulations already surrounding it, even before the adoption of this bill, if that’s what we end up with as the outcome. However, I felt that what was important for me to add to the debate, as an urban Canadian who has never owned nor tried a firearm, though I’m married to someone who is a bit of a Kootenay boy at heart, even though he was born in Richmond, B.C., and he and his friends at times go shooting at gun ranges.

As an educator of 21 years, I saw some of the gang violence and the peer influence on some of these kids. I taught one of the notorious Bacon brothers, who was the leader of a gang in the Fraser Valley. He was shot outside a casino in B.C. I taught him in Grade 11 when he was an impressionable young man. To think about what happens to these kids. There is gang and gun violence in my city, in the Metro Vancouver region. I know that when we were in government one of the areas we focused on, including what Senator Plett mentioned, was on prevention and money that would be invested in youth to get them attached to things other than this culture of violence.

I took a bit of the lead from Senator Petitclerc who, during the Bill S-5 debate on the vaping bill, told me she had gone into these places and met with people in the industry. Things were way ahead and the science was still catching up and I remember saying I was opposed to that bill, but I hadn’t done that kind of homework. I thought with Bill C-71, this was going to be passionate. It has been a passionate debate where I need to do that kind of homework.

I still have some remnants of what happened to us on the Hill a few years ago, so the sound of gunfire really alarms me, but I decided to go and do my homework. I went to the Ridgedale Rod & Gun Club in Abbotsford, B.C., the home of these notorious gang members. As well, in the Tri-Cities area, I went to Port Coquitlam & District Hunting & Fishing Club, which has become one of B.C.’s largest outdoor ranges serving both civilian and government since 1956. For new members, they are required to attend a four-hour mandatory class followed by a written examination at the end and must achieve 90 per cent or above to be successful.

Even though I am not a gun enthusiast — and I don’t know if I will or not, but I don’t see myself trying a firearm in the near future — I find even in the cities, there are people who have licensed firearms and belong to these clubs. Sometimes it’s people you don’t expect. When we talk about rural and urban Canada, we can’t just assume that this is a rural issue or the gang violence is an urban issue. I think this touches all Canadians across our country.

What made an impression on me at these clubs is the respect with which I was met by the members of the club, the kind of research and homework that they had done to present me with facts and evidence and other compelling examples. When I asked Senator Pratte the question about the small business owners, there were some examples. I won’t go into it again, but it dawned on me as I was meeting these individuals that these law-abiding Canadians, who are hunters or sport shooters, who possess these firearms, are grandfathers and grandmothers, parents, business owners, teachers, care workers. I have met these Canadians in the overall process that we have undertaken.

As Senator Plett outlined, we have heard from a lot of individuals. We have all received emails and phone calls. We’ve stood to talk about why we support or do not support this bill. I am going to say for the record the distinction that I’m making in not supporting this bill.

I’m very disappointed that some of the good amendments were not adopted so I’m going to say, for the record, that the distinction I’m making in not supporting this bill is that I know that legislation is a real blunt instrument at the best of times. What I see is the difference between the gangs and gun violence and law-abiding, taxpaying Canadians who are already so regulated and follow the rules to the “T.” I saw the safety protocol and the respect with which they interact with one another.

So in drawing that clear distinction, I do not feel this bill achieves the aim outlined, and I do see how unfairly Canadians in cities and in rural places will be overburdened yet again.

It doesn’t seem fair to me that this bill should achieve something that I think all of us would oppose, which is to overburden a group of Canadians who are doing their best to follow the law and take all of the safety measures and courses to respect one another and to respect the laws that we have in place already. Bill C-71 will, in turn, add additional paperwork when they are already doing so much.

I draw this distinction based on the homework that I have done and the debate that has happened in this chamber. I do acknowledge the incredible work of the committee, the sponsor, our critic and everyone who has spoken.

I wanted to put on the record that I will be voting against Bill C-71.

Are senators ready for the question?

Senator Dean?

I will refer to Senator Tkachuk’s response about the background checks. I know that there are already measures in place to check someone’s background, but to do a lifetime check seems to be beyond reasonable.

In terms of the commitment made to tackle gangs and gun violence, I commend the government on that. I know that we had such a commitment and we should continue to do that, and preventive measures are very important.

The third item that you had raised, senator was —

That’s what we’re saying; it is sort of a back-door registry. What I have read is that in terms of asking the store owners to keep such records over — was it 20 years? — if they were to sell the business and somehow didn’t ensure that these records are passed on and kept, there could be penalties. Small businesses, as we know, are already overburdened, and if that’s what the government is doing, they should do it and not put the onus on the businesses.

That’s my support of small businesses. They are already overextended and will have to further stretch their resources.

Those are my responses and that is my position.

Are senators ready for the question?

It was moved by the Honourable Senator Pratte, seconded by the Honourable Senator Wetston, that the bill be read a third time.

Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

All those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “yeas” have it.

Do we have an agreement on the bell?

We will defer the vote to the next sitting of the Senate.

The vote will be deferred to 5:30 p.m. tomorrow.