Wednesday, April 10, 2019

The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has the honour to present its

TWENTY-FIRST REPORT

Your committee, to which was referred Bill C-71, An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms, has, in obedience to the order of reference of December 11, 2018, examined the said bill and now reports the same with the following amendments:

1. Delete clause 1, pages 1 and 2.

2. Clause 2, page 2:

(a) Replace lines 4 to 10 with the following:

“2 (1) Subsection 5(2) of the Act is amended by strik-”; and

(b) replace line 32 with the following:

“(2)Section 5 of the Act is amended by adding the”.

3. Delete clause 4, pages 6 and 7.

4. Delete clause 6, page 8.

5. Delete clause 8, page 9.

6. New clause 11.1, page 10: Add the following after line 21:

“11.1 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 94:

94.1 (1) The Commissioner shall provide to the Minister, no later than February 1 of each year, a written report for the immediately preceding calendar year that sets out the decisions and recommendations made by the Commissioner regarding whether a firearm is a prohibited firearm, a restricted firearm, or a non-restricted firearm, the reasons for those decisions or recommendations, and the actual or anticipated costs to firearms owners and businesses of those decisions and recommendations.

(2) The federal Minister shall cause each report received under subsection (1) to be tabled before each House of Parliament on any of the first 15 days on which that House is sitting after the federal Minister receives it.”.

7. Delete clauses 15 and 16, page 11.

8. Delete clauses 18 to 21, page 12.

Your committee has also made certain observations, which are appended to this report.

Respectfully submitted,

GWEN BONIFACE Chair

Observations to the twenty-first report of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence (Bill C-71)

In order to ensure that businesses do not experience economic harm when firearms in their inventory are classified as prohibited, that the Government of Canada consider providing compensation for businesses that lost revenue as a consequence of the provisions enacted by this Act.