1 A Brief on Bill C-21 for the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defense and Veterans Affairs Prepared by William J. Klassen Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Bill C-21 is seriously flawed and should not be passed by the Senate. If the Senate, in its “sober second thought” deliberations, decides to pass the bill, then it should make some substantial amendments.

I fully support the amendments suggested in the letter sent to you by the group of seven “researchers, policy experts, and subject-matter experts”. (Open Letter to Canadian Senate - Concerned Scholars (sencanada.ca) – A ccessed 11 -10-2023) I agree with our Yukon Liberal member of parliament who voted against Bill C-21. In my view, the current firearms laws, if properly enforced, are all that is needed to keep Canadian communities safe. I do, however, suggest an additional amendment to Bill C-21 near the end of this brief.

I have used and owned firearms since I was a boy on the farm, for pest control, target shooting, hunting for meat, and in my work. As a constable, as a game guardian (conservation officer) and as a wildlife technician I was authorized to carry a sidearm for protection. For the past 30 years I have also collected quality firearms. I am an active member of the Yukon Handgun Association and I write in part on behalf of its members.

Section 2 of the bill proposes to ban semi-automatic centerfire long guns with detachable magazines capable of holding more than five rounds. It is unnecessary. As you will know, all semi-auto centerfire long guns are already restricted to five round magazines. Some of the firearms proposed to be prohibited are already defined as “restricted” and may only be used at RCMP-licenced gun ranges. Other firearms that are also termed “assault-style rifles” that are not restricted are used by many firearms owners for entirely legitimate purposes such as hunting and target shooting. Why ban them?

Where is the evidence that such legally owned guns are used in crime or that banning them will make Canadian city streets safer? I suggest there is no such evidence.

2 Some of the firearms proposed to be prohibited are already on the Order in Council list of banned firearms which the government plans to confiscate, buying them from their current owners at some future date. Three years ago, the Yukon government purchased AR-10 type rifles (Sig Sauer model 716) for its conservation officers, arguing they needed to have semi-automatic firearms to deal with potential conflicts with dangerous wildlife. (Please see the attached Yukon Legislative Assembly Legislative Return dated November 23, 2020.) AR-10 rifles are on the list of banned firearms.

There have been at least three instances in recent years where Yukoners were killed by grizzly bears. Should Yukoners and other Canadians be deprived of owning the same types of firearms as our government believes are needed by conservation officers to protect themselves? Many Yukoners spend considerably more time in the bush than do conservation officers, but the ban will prevent them from owning and using AR-10 type rifles to protect themselves. In the early 1990s I was on a river trip along the Bekin River in southeast Russia in Amur (or Siberian) tiger habitat.

My guide was an Udege aboriginal “professional hunter,” the equivalent of a trapper with a registered trapping concession in the Yukon. He was carrying a semi- automatic SKS rifle (of the type this bill proposes to ban) for our protection should we encounter an aggressive tiger. Earlier I had visited a game warden in Chukotka in northeastern Russia. In his work and as an individual he was limited to the use of a double barrel shotgun. I asked him why that was the case.

He smiled and said, “Our government doesn’t trust us.” In totalitarian Russia it was the hunters who were allowed semi-automatic firearms, not the conservation officers. If such semi-automatic centerfire firearms are deemed by the Liberal minority government to be too dangerous for Canadians to own, why does the federal government continuously delay confiscating these firearms through the proposed “buyback program,” most recently to the end of 2025? If these firearms are considered so dangerous, why leave them in the care of their owners for this extended period?

Over the years I have collected more than a few handguns, three of which were the issue sidearms of RCMP non-commissioned officers with whom I worked. They have Yukon historical value as well as sentimental and real economic value to me. The freeze on handgun transfers by Order in Council last October has destroyed the considerable economic value of my collection

3 and those of many other Canadians. I may not transfer them to my children or grandchildren who are interested in them, and I may not sell them. I can donate them to a Yukon museum but even an income tax receipt will not come near to equalling their real value. My executor may well have to surrender many of the handguns from my estate to be destroyed. With respect to the ban on handgun transfers which took effect last October and which will be strengthened under this bill, where is the evidence that this ban will make Canadian communities safer? I have used and owned handguns since I was 19, so for sixty years.

I took Mounted Police handgun training in Regina but after I left that organization, I had to take further training with respect to handguns and their use from qualified instructors, had to pass written and practical tests, and had to have my wife’s signed approval to apply for a restricted firearms licence before it was issued to me. To continue to own handguns I must be a member of shooting club and I may only use my handguns for target shooting at RCMP-licenced shooting ranges. I must store my handguns with trigger locks in a locked container in my home.

In transporting these restricted firearms to and from the licenced shooting range they must of course be unloaded, have trigger locks in place, and be in a locked container. All the restricted firearms owners whom I know comply with all these licencing requirements and restrictions. The highly vetted and closely regulated licenced firearms owners in Canada are not the people responsible for shootings on Canada’s city streets. Taking away their opportunity to trade or sell or otherwise realize the value of their investment in these firearms will not make Canada safer.

Over time this freeze on transfers will amount to a slow ban on the ownership of handguns in Canada. Younger people who may be interested in the sport of competitive handgun shooting will be prevented from participating because they will not be legally able to purchase a target pistol. As has been pointed out to your committee, the exemption for Olympic-level pistol shooters to own and use handguns is meaningless. One does not suddenly become an Olympic pistol competitor. It requires a very large base of competitive pistol shooters, some of whom will rise to the Olympic level.

How is Canada to have any Olympic pistol shooters if young people may not purchase handguns and practice to improve their shooting ability? As other witnesses have mentioned to your committee, as the numbers of Canadians who own restricted firearms diminishes it is highly likely that there will be fewer licenced shooting ranges. The gun club to which I belong is run by volunteers who maintain the range so that it continues

4 to meet licence requirements. Besides our members, our range is used for firearms training by members of the RCMP, Fisheries officers, Brinks guards and others who must maintain their proficiency in the use of firearms. When these volunteer-run ranges close I expect that Canadian taxpayers will have to pay for those agencies to develop and maintain their own ranges.

Section 111 of Bill C-21 violates the English common law principle of knowing your accuser. In criminal cases, “The accused has the right to defend himself against an accusation that he committed a crime. … “The prosecutor must inform the accused of all evidence against the accused before the trial begins, including the names of the witnesses who will testify.” Rights of a Person Accused of a Crime | Éducaloi (educaloi.qc.ca) (Accessed 10-26-2023.) Why should this same standard not apply when someone applies to the court to have some other person’s firearms removed?

Why should that person not know who her or his accuser is, so that they may defend themselves from what may be a spurious or malicious accusation? As has been pointed out to your committee by other witnesses, once a restricted firearms licence is revoked that former licensee will not be able to obtain another restricted firearms licence and will have to surrender their firearms for destruction. I am also opposed to the following sections in Bill C-21: 1

(1) The definition replica firearm in subsection 84(1) of the Criminal Code is replaced by the following: replica firearm means any device that is designed or intended to exactly resemble, or to resemble with near precision, a firearm that is designed or adapted to discharge a shot, bullet or other projectile at a muzzle velocity exceeding 152.4 m per second and at a muzzle energy exceeding 5.7 Joules, and that itself is not a firearm, but does not include any such device that is designed or intended to exactly resemble, or to resemble with near precision, an antique firearm;

(2) Section 84 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (3.1): Certain firearms deemed to be prohibited devices

(3.2) For the purposes of sections 99 to 101, 103 to 107 and 117.03, a firearm is deemed to be a prohibited device if (

a) it is proved that the firearm is not designed or adapted to discharge a shot, bullet or other projectile at a muzzle velocity exceeding 152.4 m per second or at a muzzle energy exceeding 5.7 Joules; and (

b) the firearm is designed or intended to exactly resemble, or to resemble with near precision, a firearm, other than an antique firearm, that is designed or adapted to discharge a shot, bullet or other projectile at a muzzle velocity exceeding 152.4 m per second and at a muzzle energy exceeding 5.7 Joules. What this means, if I understand it correctly, is that an air pistol which is a near copy of a Colt Python .357 magnum caliber revolver will essentially become illegal. Where is the evidence that banning air pistols by redefining them as “prohibited devices” will somehow make Canada safer?

Section 88(1) of the Criminal Code already makes it an offence to use an imitation of a weapon in the commission of an offence, so how does making look-alike air pistols “a prohibited device” reduce the likelihood of their being used in the commission of an offence? Should someone use such an air pistol in, say, a robbery, it would already be an offence under

section 88(1). The restrictive and punitive measures in this bill should only be written to address a problem in society. There is a problem of gun crime in Canada, I agree, but this bill only further restricts and penalizes those of us who are not responsible for that problem. This bill does not address that problem. More than that, it is an insult to firearms owners like me who comply with current laws. It tells me that the government does not trust us. If the federal government does not trust us, why should we trust it?

The federal government knows that gun crimes in Canada are almost entirely committed with firearms smuggled in from the United States due to the proximity and the vast length of physical border. A retired member of the RCMP who worked in Federal Policing in BC, specifically in Border Integrity and with the CBSA, told me the influx of unrecorded firearms (underground black-market guns) was enormous and almost impossible to police. I suggest Bill C-21 be

6 amended to make possession of unrecorded or undeclared firearms intercepted at the Canadian border an indictable offence (as well as a lifetime entry ban for the person doing the smuggling, if they are not a Canadian resident), as well as ensuring a significant mandatory minimum sentence for such an offence. This would do much more to combat illegal guns and gun crime in Canada than will further penalizing licenced and law-abiding owners of restricted and registered handguns.

Lastly, by way of background, my working life included being a constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a little over six years, a few years as a Yukon game guardian (or conservation officer) and wildlife technician, and as an environmental protection biologist. I later held senior positions in the Yukon government including being deputy minister of the department of health and social services and the department of environment. After I left government, I was involved for many years in environmental impact assessment in the Yukon, NWT, BC, and Alberta.

I served as the federal environment minister’s appointee on a Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) panel reviewing an open pit gold mine in BC, and as the federal environment minister’s appointee to a joint CEAA/Alberta Energy Regulator panel reviewing a proposed open pit oil sands mine in Alberta. I also spent some time trying to develop an ecotourism business in the Russian Far East. I am now retired. William J. Klassen Box 20183 Whitehorse, Y .T. Y1A 7A2