Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on Bill C-71, An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms.

After a study in the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence where a broad cross-section of witnesses and amendments were proposed, this chamber chose to reject the amendments we voted on. I would like to focus on one of the amendments lost as a result of this vote.

This particular amendment addressed the new requirement in Bill C-71 to require every holder of a restricted or prohibited firearm licence to obtain a separate Authorization to Transport each time they transport their firearms for a lawful purpose.

Senators should be aware that under the current law, it is only possible to transport restricted or prohibited firearms for very specific legal purposes. These purposes, laid out in legislation, include transportation to a gun range within the licence holder’s home province, transportation to a gun show, transportation to a border point of the province, transportation to a gun show, transportation to a border point in the province, transportation to the police for either verification or disposal and transportation to a gunsmith for the purpose of repair or maintenance. No other transport that is not specifically approved of in the act is ever authorized. And transportation, when it occurs, must always involve the firearm being unloaded and double-locked.

What the government has proposed in Bill C-71 is that these licenced firearms owners should be required to call the firearms centre each and every time they want to transport their firearms for any one of these lawful transport activities. The only exception that has been made is the transport of a firearm to a gun range. Officials have confirmed that about 95 or 96 per cent of all legal transports were, in fact, to a gun range.

For some reason, the government has decided that in the remaining 4 or 5 per cent of circumstances, a special call to the firearms centre should now be required. It is even now a new requirement to obtain special permission to transport a firearm to the police for disposal or verification.

Under Bill C-71, firearms licence holders will now need to call the firearms centre to get special permission to do this. In other words, one will have to obtain the approval of the police at a firearms centre to transport a firearm to the police. The public safety benefit has never been adequately explained here.

Second, Bill C-71 requires licensed firearms owners to obtain special authorization to transport their firearm to a gun show. Again, what exactly is the public safety benefit? Local police know when there is a gun show in the community, and they know exactly how long it will run. They are usually at the gun show themselves. The gun show has been approved through local permits. Yet every firearms owner who is displaying a firearm at that same show will now have to call the firearms centre to get approval to transport his or her firearms to that very show. Once again, what is the value-added public safety measure here? This has simply never been explained.

Third, the legislation requires that approval be obtained to transport a firearm to the border of a licensed firearm owner’s province. Again, what is the public safety benefit? It is also unclear.

If one is planning to export one’s firearm to the United States, major paperwork is required from U.S. authorities, in particular from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the ATF. Anyone who does not have this paperwork is not taking their firearm across the border. Requiring a separate and special phone call to the firearms centre in order to undertake such a transport is only adding a box-checking exercise that serves no valuable purpose.

Last, we have the most counterproductive provision of all: the requirement to call the firearms centre every time a licensed firearms owner takes their firearm to a gunsmith. Many witnesses argued that this provision, in particular, will not only make transport to a gunsmith needlessly more difficult, it also has public safety implications. For example, competitive shots often take place on weekends. Should a firearm be in need of repair, it may not be legally possible to transport the firearm for repair if the firearms centre is unable to be reached on a timely basis. If the firearms centre cannot be reached, then they will be left with a firearm that can neither be transported nor repaired.

Allocating resources to these unnecessary tasks will mean that fewer resources will be available elsewhere, such as to support background checks, for example. Enabling licensed firearms owners to transport their firearms for lawful purposes outlined in the act — to a gunsmith, a gun show, the police for verification and the border of their province  — without requiring special permission each and every time one undertakes such tasks is only what is reasonable. Incorporating a new box-checking exercise to undertake these routine tasks is inherently unreasonable. This will not stop a single offence nor a single crime.