Mr. Speaker, the question I asked the public safety minister in a question period recently stemmed from a rather bizarre exchange I had with him during committee of the whole, in which the minister responsible for overseeing Canada's gun laws admitted that he did not know what a firearms licence was. He admitted he did not know about the Canadian firearms safety course that all Canadian firearms owners must pass to get their firearms licence. I suspect if I had a bit more time, I might have learned that the minister did not even know what a firearm was, but unfortunately we will have to save that for the next committee of the whole.

Why this is important is that the Liberal government's firearms confiscation regime is predicated on misinformation. It is actually predicated on the idea that law-abiding firearms owners are the source of gun crime in Canada. I was not actually surprised that the minister responsible for the scheme did not know anything about guns and gun owners, because if he did know, the Liberals' plans would not exist; they would not make any sense, and they would be aware of that.

We know that the vast majority of firearms crime in Canada is the responsibility of guns that have been illegally smuggled across the Canada-U.S. border. It is guns that are very connected to organized crime and gangs. It is not Grandpa Joe's hunting rifle. It is not the firearm of a law-abiding, licensed firearms owner like I am and like many of my colleagues in the House are.

What I asked the minister in question period was whether he would commit to actually learning about his file, and, because he clearly did not know anything about it, whether he would commit to scrapping the Liberal government's firearms confiscation regime. Now, the minister has had a couple of weeks to bone up on this; maybe he has, or maybe he has not, but what I can tell members is that Canadian gun owners have been attacked by the government, which does not know that they are statistically less likely to commit a crime, and less likely to have any connection to gun violence or gun crime by virtue of having gone through the rigorous vetting, training and examination that the Canadian firearms program requires of gun owners.

The firearms that were banned by order in council five years ago, and the Liberals have added to this list continually, are firearms that were used by hunters, sport shooters and collectors, without any issue and without any connection to gun crime whatsoever.

I represent a riding that has a lot of rural communities where, unlike perhaps for the Laurentian elites across the aisle, firearms are a way of life. Firearms are a way of life for people in Aylmer, people in St. Thomas, people in Central Elgin and some Londoners as well, because they understand that firearms are a hobby and a pastime that has deep roots in Canada. Therefore, when the Liberal government passes its measures on firearms based on misinformation, it should take the opportunity to be educated and to learn. Only when the Liberal government and the minister responsible for the firearms program learn about guns will they apparently realize that its regime is based on complete and utter falsehoods.

I am here to ask once and for all whether the Minister of Public Safety will commit to scrapping the confiscation scheme that only, not majorly, not generally, but only, targets law-abiding gun owners.

Andrew Lawton