Parliamentary Committee Notes: Other Federal Firearms Measures

Proposed Response:

Background:

In 2020, while firearm-related violent crimes have been a small proportion of all police-reported violent crime in Canada, the rate of certain violent offences specific to firearms increased for the sixth consecutive year (a 15% increase compared to 2019 according to Statistics Canada’s police-reported crime statistics). Firearm-related homicide doubled from 2013 (134) to 2020 (277).

In 2019, 51% of firearm-related homicides were related to gang activity, the majority committed with handguns (78%). The number of victims of police-reported intimate-partner violence where a firearm was present increased 65% from 2013 (401) to 2019 (660). Further, suicide by firearm also continues, with over 500 deaths identified in 2019. Canada has experienced nine high-profile mass shootings in urban and rural areas which have captured public attention, including l’École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, Dawson College in Montreal in 2006, Moncton in 2014, the Quebec City mosque in 2017, and Nova Scotia in 2020. Assault-style firearms were used by the perpetrators in these mass shootings.

Former Bill C-71

An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms (former Bill C-71) received Royal Assent on June 21, 2019. Two elements were brought into force via an Order in Council on July 7, 2021: 1) expanded background checks to determine eligibility for firearms licences from the previous five years to the entirety of a person’s life, as well as additional screening criteria to consider, including a history of harassment, whether the applicant was ever subject to a restraining order, and whether they pose a risk of harm to any person; and 2) re-instatement of the requirement for a separate Authorization to Transport when transporting restricted and prohibited firearms to any place except to an approved shooting range or to bring the firearm’s storage place after purchase.

The Order in Council containing two additional measures – licence verification and business record-keeping – was pre-published in Part I of the Canada Gazette for public comment on June 26, 2021 and came into force on May 18, 2022. Individuals and businesses transferring or selling a non-restricted firearm will need to confirm the recipient’s identity and check the validity of their firearms licence with the Registrar of Firearms prior to completing the transfer, including by providing the recipient’s licence number and any other information requested. Firearms businesses will also be required to retain sales and inventory records related to non-restricted firearms for a minimum of 20 years, as was the case until 2005. This will make it easier for law enforcement to trace crime guns. The records will be held by businesses — not government — and police will need reasonable grounds to get access to them, often with judicial authorization.

Guns & Gangs Programming

In March 2022, the Government announced new federal investment of $250 million through the Building Safer Communities Fund (BSCF). The fund will help municipalities and Indigenous communities prevent gun and gang violence by tackling its root causes by supporting prevention and intervention programs.

This builds on the previous investments of $358.8 million, beginning in 2018-19, to help support a variety of initiatives to reduce gun crime and criminal gang activities under the Initiative to Take Action against Gun and Gang Violence. The majority of resources, approximately $214 million over five years is allocated to provinces and territories (PTs) to combat the issue of gun and gang violence in communities across Canada, under the Gun and Gang Violence Action Fund (GGVAF).These resources complement existing efforts under the National Crime Prevention Strategy through the Youth Gang Prevention Fund, which received additional $8 million over four years, beginning in 2019. Further, to support detection and interdiction efforts, the Government provided $32.1 million to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and $92.9 million to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) under the Initiative to Take Action against Gun and Gang Violence to enhance firearms investigations and strengthen controls at the border to prevent illegal firearms from entering the country. This funding also supports CBSA investments in an all-weather detector dog training facility, additional detector dog teams at key highway crossings, expansion of x-ray technology at postal centres and air cargo facilities, and key training in the detection of concealed goods in vehicles crossing our borders.

Comprehensive Suite of Firearms Measures

In Budget 2021, the Government announced an investment of $312 million over five years, starting in 2021–22, and $41.4 million per year ongoing for PS, CBSA, and the RCMP to enhance Canada’s firearm control framework. This funding includes program measures that will:

Efforts to Combat Firearms Smuggling and Trafficking

The cross-border smuggling of firearms poses a threat to the safety and security of Canada. Given the availability of firearms in the United States (U.S.), including firearms that are strictly controlled or prohibited in Canada, most firearm seizures happen at the Canada-U.S. land border. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) seizes large quantities of firearms every year from U.S. citizens, mostly from non-compliant travellers attempting to retain their personal firearms while travelling. In 2021–2022, CBSA has reported seeing a large upward trend with 678 firearms seized to-date in the first half of the fiscal year compared to total firearms seized in 2018–19 (696), 2019–20 (753) or 2020–21 (548). With the removal of COVID-19 restrictions at the land border, CBSA anticipates that this trend is likely to continue. The total number of firearms successfully smuggled into Canada is unknown.

To help address this challenge, Canada and the U.S. have formed the Cross-Border Firearms Task Force (CBFTF) to identify the primary sources of illicit firearms and to disrupt their flow and the exchange of illicit commodities for such firearms across the shared border.

Large Capacity Magazines

As part of its comprehensive strategy to keep communities safe from gun violence, and consistent with Minister of Public Safety’s mandate letter, the Government intends to bring forward regulations that will require the permanent alteration of large capacity magazines so that they can never hold more than five rounds, and prohibit the sale and transfer of magazines capable of holding more than the legal number of bullets. More information on these changes will be available at a later date.

The Minister of Public Safety’s 2021 mandate letter includes two commitments with regard to magazines: 1) requiring the permanent alteration of long-gun magazines so that that they cannot hold more than five rounds; and 2) banning the sale or transfer of magazines capable of holding more than the legal number of bullets.

Magazine capacity is limited by law because prohibited large capacity magazines pose a public safety risk as they enable certain firearms to have sustained fire with less frequent reloading, thus increasing the perpetrator’s killing and injury capacity. Mass shootings that have occurred in Canada illustrate that individuals armed with semi-automatic rifles and large capacity magazines cause many casualties and injuries in a matter of minutes. Examples include the shooting at the École Polytechnique in Montréal in 1989 where the perpetrator used a Ruger Mini-14 and one 30 round large capacity magazine, and in Moncton in 2014 where the perpetrator used a Polytechnologies M305 and two 20 round large capacity magazines.

It is a criminal offence for individuals to possess and import magazines that exceed the legal limit. The new firearms bill will create a new offence to penalize the alteration of a cartridge magazine to exceed its lawful capacity (i.e., removing methods of permanent alteration such as a pin or rivet).

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