'Nuclear option': Conservatives decry Liberal move to limit debate on gun bill

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.

It's a move the Conservatives called a "nuclear option," but one the Liberals and New Democrats say is needed to fend off Official Opposition obstruction.  

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.

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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:

• 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;
• 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;
• 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
• 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, and the battle lines were quickly drawn.

The Conservatives came out clearly staunchly opposed to what Conservative MP and public safety critic Raquel Dancho called a "huge blow to the democratic debate that we've been having in committee."

"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," she said, addressing reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons as debate kicked off.

Taking the lead for her party in debating the motion in the House, Dancho questioned why the Liberals were taking this "nuclear option" when work was progressing at committee to move through close to half of the proposed amendments already.

Dancho called the Liberal motion "a slap in the face" after her party, she said, was "acting in good faith" at committee, despite shooting down previous suggestions that the committee hold extra meetings to move through the stack of proposed amendments.

Liberal MP and public safety parliamentary secretary Pam Damoff said during debate in the House that it has been clear since Bill C-21 was first introduced that "the Conservative party had no interest in advancing this transformational legislation."

"Rather than asking relevant questions to officials last week, Conservative members of the committee spent over three hours of the committee's time parroting speaking points of the gun lobby. In addition to their previous obstruction tactics, it made clear that the committee was going to be bogged down with unnecessary delays," Damoff said.

Questioning why the Liberals are feeling the urgency now after letting months go by with no movement on Bill C-21, Bloc Quebecois MP and vice-chair of the Public Safety and National Security Committee Kristina Michaud said this move shows the Liberals are "incapable of working together."

"One year usually leaves enough time for the government and the opposition parties to debate a bill, but that's not what happened with [Bill] C-21. We had the debate in the House and then it was referred to committee and then once the experts had been consulted on the bill, the government came up with new amendments on assault weapons. The communications were bungled, and the amendments were withdrawn," Michaud said. "It could have been amended in committee, but it couldn't be done because the government wasn't ready."

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, he confirmed to reporters on Monday that his party will provide the votes needed for this motion to pass.

"The Conservatives just need to stop filibustering, 20 minutes per amendment is sufficient. Conservatives spent five hours on an amendment that was seven sentences," Julian said during a scrum on the Hill. "And I'll just remind Conservatives that under the Harper government, we had one minute per amendment… So the Conservatives have been hypocritical all along on this, they really need to get where law enforcement is, which is adopting this bill."