Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 19th. Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press
Ottawa will reveal this week whether it will force all owners of banned weapons of attack to give up those firearms after an earlier, unaccepted bill that would have made the broadcast optional has provoked intense criticism from proponents of gun control.
The new, tougher mandate, if implemented, will be contained in the firearms bill, which the liberal government must submit as early as Monday. The bill is expected to mark a kind of revival of Bill C-21, a proposed gun control law that died in the procurement document when federal elections were called in August.
The Liberal Party promised during the 2019 election campaign to introduce a repurchase program for “all military-style assault rifles legally purchased in Canada” only to develop a voluntary – not mandatory – repurchase program unveiled when C -21 was introduced in early 2021. This bill proposes an increase in penalties for arms smuggling and the creation of a criminal offense to change the magazine’s capacity beyond legal limits. He also suggested allowing municipalities to ban guns.
Bill C-21 would also allow existing rifle owners to keep banned weapons under Grandpa’s trial. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier last year that his government had decided on a voluntary system after examining and rejecting measures introduced in New Zealand. The government there has banned and ordered the repurchase of tactical-style rifles following a mass shooting in Christchurch in 2019 that killed 51 people.
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The bill was met with harsh criticism at the time, especially by gun control groups, who felt it did not go far enough. “It was a complete failure,” said Heidi Rathen, coordinator of the PolyRemembers, created on Sunday by survivors of the 1989 shooting at the École Polytechnique, which killed 14 women. “The Bill C-21 was an empty shell designed to do as little as possible and provide points of conversation for politicians.
During the 2021 election campaign, after the C-21 died, The Liberals have promised to make it mandatory for owners of banned submachine guns to either sell firearms back to the government for destruction or render them inoperable at the expense of the federal government.
The federal government has given various other indications that the buyout program should be introduced in its new firearms bill. will be required. The measure is specifically mentioned in the mandate letter of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to his Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino. In March, Ottawa extended the amnesty for possession of banned firearms until the autumn of 2023, which Mr Mendicino said was needed to finalize a mandatory program that could launch this spring, “if not as soon as possible”.
A spokesman for Mr Mendicino declined to comment new the content of the bill and said the minister was inaccessible. During a performance on CTV Period of questions on Sunday, Justice Minister David Lametti offered no further clarity on whether the grandfather clause would reappear in the new bill. He said he would not be ahead of the details of the legislation, adding that “there are a number of different measures that we have signaled as well as what we have done” with Bill C-21. “Everything is still on the table,” he said.
The bill arrives at a particularly busy time after mass shootings in Uwalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, this month. The killings have intensified the political debate south of the border over the tightening of gun laws. Liberals warned in their election platform in 2021 that “American-style gun violence is on the rise.”
On Friday, Statistics Canada reported that violent crime involving firearms increased from 2013 to 2019, after several years of decline. In 2020, there were 29 victims of violent gun crimes per 100,000 people in Canada, compared to 19 victims in 2013, based on police reports.
The Statscan warned that there were “data gaps” regarding firearms, including the fact that “there is no consistent definition of shooting applied by the police.” The agency also said it was gathering “little information” on firearms linked to crimes.
Rod Giltaka, chief executive of the Canadian Firearms Coalition for Firearms Rights, said he feared the new bill would restrict the rights of licensed gun owners and have little effect on public safety. “We support all measures that hold criminals accountable or obviously increase public safety,” he said.
The Statscan report says 59% of violent gun crimes are related to guns in 2020, with a higher percentage in urban centers. Several groups are hoping for a federal gun ban, not bans imposed by lower levels of government.
“This does not mean shifting responsibility to the cities. This does not mean shifting responsibility to the provinces, “said Wendy Cuquier, president of the Coalition for Arms Control.
The Liberal government has spent more than $ 920 million since 2016 on various arms control measures.
In the spring of 2020, he banned more than 1,500 models of attack-style firearms, including the VZ58 rifle, one of the weapons used in the 2017 shooting at a mosque in Quebec that killed six Muslim worshipers.
Earlier this month, he introduced final regulations requiring gun companies to keep records of sales and inventory, verify the identity of buyers and ensure they have valid firearms licenses. The regulatory change comes three years after the main bill C-71 received royal consent.
The regulations drew criticism from the Federal Conservative Party, which said in a statement that the government was returning the National Register of Long Arms, created by Jean Chrétien’s liberal government in the 1990s and completed by Harper’s government.
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