Parliamentary Committee Notes: Complementary firearms and gun violence measures
Date: August 2023
Classification: Unclassified
Branch / Agency: CPB
Proposed Response:
- Our Government has introduced the most significant changes to gun control legislation in more than 40 years.
- However, we know that no single program or initiative can tackle the challenge of gun violence alone.
- This Bill is one part of our comprehensive plan to address gun violence in our communities and in our homes.
- Combating gun violence is also about prevention and community support. The Government has taken resolute steps to deliver on this promise to Canadiansby providing over $1.3 billion in funding since 2016 to address the root causes of violence and reduce firearms smuggling at our borders.
- We have invested more than $860 million in initiatives to tackle gun crime and support community-led projects, including $250 million through the Building Safer Communities Fund to support municipalities and Indigenous communities as they work to combat the issue of gun and gang violence through anti-gang and intervention initiatives.
- We are investing more resources and tools to support the RCMP and the CBSA to better detect and disrupt firearms smuggling and trafficking and trace crime guns.
- We continue to enhance the sharing of intelligence at our borders to reduce the flow of smuggled firearms. We are working actively with U.S. counterparts through the Cross-Border Firearms Taskforce to share intelligence, co-ordinate investigations and leverage new technologies.
- We are committed to doing more to address criminal access to firearms.
- We are working to are address concerns with large capacity magazines and closely monitoring developments related to illegally manufactured firearms, including those that are manufactured by 3D printing, assembled from unregulated components, or other emerging technologies.
- Addressing gun violence in Canada requires the collaboration among multiple partners – provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous communities, and community service providers – in order to make lasting and impactful changes.
- We look forward to continuing to establish and strengthen these partnerships as part of implementing our comprehensive firearms agenda.
Background:
The Government of Canada is taking a comprehensive approach to tackling gun violence in Canada. Bill C-21 is one part of this comprehensive strategy, which includes measures to remove prohibited assault-style firearms from our communities by making it mandatory for owners to deactivate or surrender them, increasing capacity to better detect and deter firearm smuggling, trafficking and other criminal firearm-related activity, increase awareness among Canadians of gun violence and gun laws and support municipalities and Indigenous communities address the root causes of gun violence.
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 firearms seized at ports of entry are uncovered 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. While the total number of firearms successfully smuggled into Canada is unknown, CBSA reported a total of 1,034 firearms seized in 2022–2023 as compared to 1,250 in 2021-2022. For earlier years, CBSA reports total firearms seized as 695 in 2018–19, 753 in 2019–20, 548 in 2020-2021, and 1,203 in 2021-2022.
To support detection and interdiction efforts, the Government has provided $125 million through Initiative to Take Action against Gun and Gang Violence (ITAAGGV) to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the CBSA to enhance firearms investigations and strengthen controls at the border to prevent illegal firearms from entering our 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. Building on this, the Government is investing an additional $312 million over five years, beginning 2021-22, to enhance our federal capacity to enhance Canada’s firearm control framework identify and prevent firearms from entering the illicit market. Of this amount, the Government is investing $15 million over five years to increase the RCMP’s capacity to trace firearms and $40.3 million over five years for anti-smuggling activities, including a national system to allow for the flagging of bulk purchases of firearms.
Further, 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. In March 2023, the CBSA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will allow all partners within the CBFTF to establish networks and channels of communication to share information directly on files/intelligence and actions/events occurring or expected to occur at the border. Recent focus and success on such robust sharing arrangements has demonstrated our intent and investment in future bilateral cooperation.
Guns & Gangs
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. In May 2023, the Government announced a further $390 million for provinces to help fight gun crime and invest in anti-gang programs. This builds on previous investments of $358.8 million over five years under ITAAGGV to help support a variety of initiatives to reduce gun crime and criminal gang activities. The majority of financial resources, approximately $214 million over five years, are directed to provinces and territories to combat the issue of gun and gang violence in communities across Canada by distributing to partners within their jurisdiction.
Since 2016, over $1.3 billion dollars has been announced in various initiatives to help reduce gun and gang violence across Canada, better detect firearms trafficking, and trace crime guns.
Contacts:
Prepared by: [REDACTED], Policy Advisor, Firearms Policy Division, [REDACTED]
Approved by: Talal Dakalbab, Assistant Deputy Minister, Crime Prevention Branch, 613-852-1167
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