Debates

“The program to buy back banned guns is a mess. People were told to mail in their guns, but delivery companies refused to take them. The government sent late boxes, missing supplies, and wrong addresses. I want the government to pay gun owners even if their guns arrived after the deadline because of these mistakes.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am here to follow up on a question I asked a few weeks ago in the House specifically around the Liberals’ firearms confiscation compensation regime, or the gun grab, and how they are paying back our law-abiding firearms owners. In particular, I identified, here in the House during question period, the fact that I have a number of constituents who were just notified, not even a month ago, October 1. They received communications from the the Department of Public Safety saying they needed to ship their firearms to the government here in Ottawa, I believe to an address somewhere on Bronson, via Purolator, FedEx or UPS in order to receive compensation for these legal firearms. However, as I pointed out during my question, they went to all three of these couriers and were told they could not ship these firearms without prior approval. When they ultimately reached out to public safety to say that they were sent this email, this letter, saying they needed to ship these firearms and were being told by the couriers that they would not take them without prior approval, they were met with question marks. They were given case file numbers. I am going to go through some of the specific feedback. Before I get into that, I want to point out the craziness of some of this. Here is a program that the government put in place for $750-ish million, of which it allocated only $242 million to actually compensating these law-abiding, vetted, licensed and trained firearms owners for confiscating their legal property. The Liberals needed $500 million to administer the bureaucracy around this confiscation regime. Now we are hearing stories that the whole regime is not even functioning properly. Here are a couple of the points I got directly from constituents. One constituent noted that the shipping kit was delayed in arriving. It was missing packing material. Purolator refused to ship it. Again, there were issues with the actual reimbursement of the shipping, which is a separate claim or submission that firearms owners have to submit. They were told initially it could take up to 14 days to get the kit, which would have put it after the October 17 cut-off. When it showed up, there was no wrapping paper and no packing adhesive tape, which they were told should all have been in the box. The retail outlet refused to ship it without authorization from its office. It was so confusing that they had no idea how to do it. Luckily, in this first case, the firearm was shipped off. Another constituent noted contradictory information from the government. At 4 p.m., they received a call with a reference case number. They went to Purolator, and Purolator could not do it. The individual wrote, “Once again the Government of Canada lied to me.” Another constituent received the wrong shipping address, not even the right postal code, in the email from the public safety department. I could go on. There are about six or seven more constituents who I am aware of in my riding alone. In light of all of these examples, and I am sure they are replicated across every riding in Canada, will the government commit to ensuring that law-abiding firearms owners who participated in this Liberal firearms confiscation regime will get their due compensation even if the firearms were received after October 17 due to the shortfalls of the administration of this $500-million program?”

“The parliamentary secretary is wrong to say the 2,000 banned guns are not for hunting or sport. I helped review the military's gun needs. Only one rifle on that whole list would ever be used by the military. I want him to define what he means by a 'military-style assault rifle'.”

“Mr. Speaker, first off, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for his personal commitment with respect to the deadline being extended should any legal firearms owners have any issues with shipping. I appreciate that clarification. If I hear from any of my constituents, I will be sure to hold him to it. I want to correct his speech a bit. He made a comment that many of these 2,000 models of firearms that were banned are not appropriate for hunting and sport shooting. He is completely factually incorrect. I helped review the military’s statement of requirements with respect to small arms firearms. There is not a single one, with the exception of one sniper rifle, on the whole list that would ever be used by the military. Therefore, in closing, I want to ask him the same question I have been asking the Liberal government for six years. Could he define what he means by a “military-style assault rifle”?”