Trudeau promises more gun control and goes on the attack against Scheer
- Thread starter IronNoggin
- Start date
IronNoggin
Well-Known Member
Canada gun grab: Amnesty expiration nears as top officials sow confusion
Canada’s Liberal government has consistently and misleadingly used “buyback” to describe the 2020 mandatory “assault weapon” confiscation law in an attempt to make the scheme appear less hostile to property rights and Canada’s responsible gun owners and more palatable to the general public. Recent pronouncements on the gun ban and confiscation have now veered even further down the road of disingenuous political messaging.In a Sept. 10 interview with Alberta podcaster Ryan Jespersen, Prime Minister Mark Carney went so far as to describe the scheme as “voluntary.” “This is not about confiscation,” Carney said. “This is about voluntary return of firearms for compensation. … We’re not confiscating guns. People aren’t going around confiscating guns. … That is a mischaracterization. What it is, is an opportunity for Canadians to return guns for compensation.”
A day later, a Juno News reporter asked the latest federal Public Safety Minister, Gary Anandasangaree (who oversees the department responsible for implementing the gun ban and confiscation law) about the prime minister’s comments. Anandasangaree agreed with Carney and said, moreover, that “it’s always been voluntary.”
Carney’s interview included another whopper, with the Prime Minister claiming that the ban does not affect hunting rifles or sporting firearms. “We are not talking about hunting rifles. We’re not talking sports shooting or anything like that. We’re talking about assault rifles.” Automatic firearms have been classified as “prohibited” firearms in Canada for decades, so the gun ban list of prohibited firearms and devices almost exclusively features semi-automatic firearms (not just rifles, but shotguns and handguns) along with many bolt action and pump action models. It was obvious from the start that the ban covered “hunting rifles” because it includes an explicit exception (here and again in 2024, here) “for Indigenous peoples’ exercising a right under section 35 of the Constitution Act, as well as those who use firearms for sustenance hunting, which enables them to continue to use their newly prohibited firearms to hunt.”
One could speculate that either this language is a cynical PR exercise to misrepresent the ban as applying solely to dangerous and unusual “military grade assault weapons,” or Carney is unaware of just how far-reaching the gun ban actually is.
Certainly, his public safety minister has demonstrated a lack of knowledge about the basics of Canada’s gun laws and the confiscation scheme. A podcast by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) featuring Kris Sims and Gage Haubrich (both firearm owners) examined an exchange between Anandasangaree and conservative member of parliament Andrew Lawton. Asked by Lawton about how many prohibited firearms are liable to be collected under the confiscation scheme, Anandasangaree responded that the “anticipation is about 179,000.” The podcast notes that Anandasangaree’s latest figure is at odds with a 2021 report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which indicated that the number of impacted firearms is unknown but could exceed 500,000. (To mix things up even more, in late 2023 Canadian gun rights site TheGunBlog.ca reported that the Liberal government gave an estimate of 144,000 rifles and shotguns to be destroyed, based on a document prepared for the public safety minister at the time.) Due to the significant expansion of the prohibited firearms list in 2024 and again in 2025, the 2021 and 2023 figures are likely obsolete and call into question the minister’s new estimate.
In response to Lawton’s follow-up questions, the public safety minister admitted he doesn’t know what an RPAL or a CFSCis. (An RPAL is the possession and acquisition license necessary to lawfully acquire and possess a “restricted” firearm, like handguns and certain long guns; the CFSC is the mandatory Canadian firearms safety course that all would-be gun owners must complete successfully to be eligible for a PAL.) The minister, as the podcasters note, “doesn’t seem to know a single thing about the thing he is supposed to be in charge of,” akin to a Health Minister “who has never, like, seen a band-aid.”
The most alarming part, however, was Anandasangaree’s retort to a question about whether he understands the classes or other safety demands required of law-abiding gun owners, in which he stated, “this (the gun ban law) is not about law-abiding gun owners.”
That answer pretty much sums it up.
The gun ban amnesty and compensation scheme apply exclusively to legal owners of the now-prohibited firearms. In fact, as the government’s own website notes, the only individuals eligible to claim compensation are those who “held a valid firearms licence on May 1, 2020 (and who have maintained that licence in good standing).” To echo the CTF podcasters, does the minister really believe that Canadian gun rights groups would be advocating in favor of criminal gun possession — that “there would be this big hullabaloo if this was about criminals not getting guns? Like, nobody would be opposed to this…of all the really dumb answers he gave there, him saying that this wasn’t about law-abiding gun owners was the most mind-blowing.”
As for the claims that the confiscation is “voluntary” and has “always been” voluntary, the current Public Safety Canada website on the now-prohibited firearms states, unequivocally, that the gun ban “takes effect immediately” and the “Government will not provide any option for owners to grandfather these weapons as it intends to bring forward a mandatory buyback program” (emphasis added). To the extent that an owner has any other options, it is the Hobson’s choice of surrendering the gun to authorities without compensation, permanently deactivating the gun, exporting the gun “in accordance with all applicable legal requirements, including the legal requirements of the country to which it is exported,” or face criminal prosecution and sanctions.
There is other trouble on the horizon. Anandasangaree disclosed earlier this month that provincial law enforcement in Canada’s most populous province has refused to participate in the government’s gun confiscation program. According to the news source, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is “responsible for more than a quarter of the policing in Ontario;” the refusal compels the federal government to now convince local governments with their own police to implement the confiscation, while looking for an alternative in places without local law enforcement. According to the article, though, that doesn’t appear promising: representatives for several such local forces either indicated that they had no active plans regarding participation or declined to respond. Further, the office of Ontario’s solicitor general, Michael Kerzner, has lately advised that “Ontario police services do not have the resources to attend residential addresses to confiscate previously lawful but now prohibited firearms from lawful gun owners.”
This obfuscation on the law from the highest officials in the land is exacerbated further by the imminent expiry of the already twice-extended amnesty period. The amnesty is all that stands between responsible gun owners and criminal liability for the possession of their lawfully acquired, but now illegal, firearms. Even so, at the time of writing Public Safety Minister Anandasangaree was prevaricating over whether another extension was in the works — “his government is not ready to announce when and for how long its gun amnesty program will be extended,” states a Sept. 17 news report from the CBC. Given that the confiscation and compensation program for individual owners is still not operational, this seems to be the latest example of the government’s directionless drift on this blatantly ineffective, pointless and likely unworkable law.
Canada gun grab: Amnesty expiration nears as top officials sow confusion | Buckeye Firearms Association
Canada’s Liberal government has consistently used “buyback” to describe the 2020 mandatory “assault weapon” confiscation law in an attempt to make the scheme appear less hostile to property rights and Canada’s responsible gun owners and more palatable to the general public. Recent pronouncements...
IronNoggin
Well-Known Member
IronNoggin
Well-Known Member
Opposition mounts as assault-style gun buyback program launches in Cape Breton
Opposition is mounting to a federal pilot project that launched Wednesday in Cape Breton, N.S., aimed at buying prohibited assault-style firearms from gun owners.Police and government officials say the buyback program is already drawing interest, but opponents are planning a demonstration in Sydney on Thursday, hoping the government will reconsider the gun ban.
"I don't think that you can just call something assault style, convince the public that it's scary and then not expect any pushback," said Anna Manley, one of the rally organizers. "There are [.22-calibre guns] on that list. That is a small entry-level rifle. It is absolutely ridiculous that they're calling that assault style."
Manley, a Sydney lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for the federal Conservatives in the last election, said banning those guns will not reduce crime.
Mark Voutier, a gun owner in Cape Breton, said he's not happy with the idea, but he will take the federal government's buyback offer and turn in his banned assault-style rifle.
However, he also said the program is not going to have any effect on gun crime and the government is wrong to call it voluntary.
"It's not voluntary," Voutier said last week. "It's turn it in now for this offer or else."
Voutier legally bought a .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle that holds a magazine with 21 bullets and is now on the federal government's list of prohibited firearms.
He said after the program ends and there are no more buybacks, police will know who still has banned guns, so he may as well comply now and get something for it.
"I want to take them up on the offer now, because they're just going to come and get it eventually anyway."
Besides, he said, anyone found with a banned firearm can lose the gun without compensation and lose their licence and ability to own a gun.
'Waste of money'
Still, Voutier said the buyback program doesn't make sense and the federal public safety minister confirmed that in privately recorded comments just before it was announced.
"Who [came] up with the value of some of the guns on the list? You know, they're offering $7,000 for guns that retail for $1,100 is just one prime example.
"It's just a waste of taxpayers' money. It was so poorly thought through right from the beginning, I think it was just an election promise and that was it."
Voutier said he'll take advantage of the program to purchase a semi-automatic rifle that only holds 11 bullets instead of 21, but is not prohibited.
"There are similar guns that aren't on the list," he said. "Almost identical guns. So I'm going to take their money and I'm going to go buy a very similar gun that's not on the list."
Talal Dakalbab, senior assistant deputy minister for crime prevention with Public Safety Canada, said Wednesday the federal government has already changed six entries on the banned list, citing the $7,000 gun as one example, to get ready for the pilot program launch.
He said the values were determined in consultation with gun owners and retailers and he's confident the list is fair.
Dakalbab also said polling shows most people, including gun owners, agree with the ban and buyback program and he's confident they will work.
"Some people have already returned their guns, by the way, without compensation ... because they don't want to have a prohibited gun at home," he said.
The pilot program launched Wednesday in Sydney, North Sydney and Glace Bay, where there are about 200 banned guns. The government expects most if not all will be turned in, Dakalbab said.
Buyback voluntary, law is not
"I am very confident that the 200 will be collected through the pilot, but that is something that we will have to monitor and see and ensure that if we don't collect the 200, then we will have to discuss with the people who were contacted to understand better what is their intention to comply with the law before the end of the amnesty order," Dakalbab said.
He also said the buyback during the amnesty period, which expires next year, is voluntary.
"Abiding by the law by the end of the amnesty order is not voluntary, it's mandatory," Dakalbab said. "But how to dispose of the guns, that's where it's optional and the buyback is one option that the government put in place."
He said people can choose to hang onto their guns and pay to have them deactivated.
On Wednesday afternoon, Cape Breton Regional Police Chief Robert Walsh said the buyback program had only been open a few hours and gun owners had already started looking to cash in their prohibited weapons.
"We are hearing that there are people that are interested in participating in the collection program and they have already contacted us to make arrangements to dispose of their firearms."
Walsh said the police headquarters on Grand Lake Road will be closed to the public on Thursday because of the rally, but services such as criminal record checks and accident reports could still be taken over the phone.
"We did this because we anticipate there could be a large number of people here and we didn't want to cause any disruption to people that may be coming for those services."
The closure is not out of any concern for safety, he said.
Manley said the rally is also being organized by the Port Morien Wildlife Association and will include speakers from the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
She said the protest is simply to let the police and government know they want changes to the ban and buyback program, especially when it comes to guns she said are not assault-style firearms.
"We're there for a very serious reason. It's very close to a lot of our hearts, but I mean we're not planning on shaking anything up, or doing anything violent. That's just not the purpose of this protest."
