Liberals move to restrict committee work, House debate on gun control Bill C-21

The federal government is trying to limit how much time MPs have left to consider changes and debate the Liberal gun control legislation Bill C-21.

Through what’s known as a programming motion, the Liberals are trying to set in stone the House of Commons’ plans related to this bill before voting to send it to the Senate, including issuing marching orders regarding the bill’s scope and outstanding amendments to the committee currently studying it.

This move from Government House Leader Mark Holland, on a piece of legislation that has now been before the House for almost a year, comes just one week after Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino put forward a series of revised amendments that seek to significantly expand the range of proposed gun control measures in the bill.

The latest ways the Liberals are trying to change the wording of Bill C-21 includes inserting a new prospective Criminal Code “technical definition” of what constitutes a prohibited assault-style firearm meant to “cement in law” a permanent ban on future models. This move has already sparked ire from both gun control and firearms rights groups.

The minister’s rethink came after withdrawing an initial amendment package that sparked considerable backlash last fall, largely due to trying to inject an “evergreen” definition for assault-style weapons that would have prohibited hundreds of gun models currently on the market, including some commonly used for sport and hunting. Since pulling the plug on the problematic proposals in February, the legislation had largely been languishing until last week.

If the Liberal programming motion passes as drafted:

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  the House Public Safety and National Security Committee would be granted the power to expand Bill C-21’s scope to allow them to approve the Liberals’ latest proposed provisions related to ghost guns and the assault-style firearm definition;
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  the committee would be given priority access to House resources to hold a pair of marathon hearings from 3:30 to midnight on two successive days in order to move through all outstanding amendments to Bill C-21;
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  during these hearings the committee will not permit more than 20 minutes of debate on any clause or amendment moved before the chair forces that matter to come to a vote, and come midnight on the second day, any amendments they don’t get to are to be sped through; and
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  after the committee is done with Bill C-21 amendments, it be reported back to the House right away where only one further sitting day of debate will be permitted at report stage and third reading, the final two legislative phases before it passes into the Senate.

MPs on this committee have already begun working through the Liberals’ latest amendment package, as well as more than 100 other proposed amendments to Bill C-21, through a process known as clause-by-clause. 

During a meeting last week, opposition MPs on the committee raised questions around whether they had the ability to, and what would happen if they passed the Liberal amendments and in effect expanded the scope of the bill considerably from what the House of Commons had signed off on when it passed the bill at second reading last June. 

When Bill C-21 was initially tabled in May 2022, the legislation focused on tightening gun laws to include “red flag” provisions related to a gun owner posting a risk to themselves or others. It also sought to impose a “freeze” on the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns in Canada.

Defending moving to stitch in other firearm policies into Bill C-21 alongside accompanying regulatory plans, Mendicino has said the Liberals are committed to go further “than any government in the history of this country,” when it comes to gun control.

The House of Commons began debating this Liberal proposal on Monday, but the vote on it has yet to be scheduled.

The government is expected to have the backing of the New Democrats to see the motion pass, after NDP House leader Peter Julian suggested at committee last week, that working at the current pace it could take the panel of MPs years to complete clause-by-clause.

The Conservatives however, staunchly oppose what they called Monday a “huge blow to the democratic debate that we’ve been having in committee.” That was how Conservative MP and public safety critic Raquel Dancho put it, addressing reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons as debate kicked off.

“The fact that they’re trying to force through debate, and severely limit our ability to scrutinize Bill C-21, which will impact 2.3 million gun owners… I think is deeply, deeply concerning,” Dancho said. “We’re going to do everything we can to stop it.”