Cory Morgan: Alberta’s Refusal to Participate in Gun Confiscation Program Puts Feds in a Tough Spot

Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Todd Korol

Commentary

It appears firearm rights will cause the latest battle between Alberta and Ottawa, and it may spell the end of the RCMP as the primary police force in Alberta. It really was only a matter of time before this issue came to a head.

The Trudeau government’s blanket ban of 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms in response to the mass shooting in Nova Scotia in 2020 was arbitrary and not well received in Alberta. The clock began ticking with a two-year amnesty period for firearm owners, and time has run out. The government wants those firearms, and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has requested that the Alberta government support efforts to locate and seize the remaining weapons. Alberta’s Justice Minister Tyler Shandro pretty much told Mendicino that wasn’t going to happen, and the standoff begins.

Alberta had already been preparing for this fight by creating the position of a provincial chief firearms officer and appointing Teri Bryant to head it. The province has staked ground as the authority on firearms and has increased the 2023 budget for Bryant’s office to more than $7 million per year in anticipation of an expanding role in local firearm regulation.

Shandro has sent instructions to the RCMP to dismiss the direct orders from the federal government to enforce the firearms ban. This will put to the test who really oversees provincial policing. While the RCMP is a federal force, they operate under a lease with the provincial government. Alberta taxpayers pay the bill for the RCMP, and Shandro feels Article 23 of the Provincial Police Service Agreement gives him the authority to instruct the RCMP not to participate in the firearms ban and buyback program.

This puts the federal government in a tough spot.

If the Trudeau Liberals accede to Alberta’s demands, they may as well toss their proposed gun ban into the trash. The law would be unenforceable in any province. Not only that, but they would lose face in a jurisdictional battle.

If the federal government somehow compels the RCMP to start enforcing the ban within Alberta, the provincial government will launch court challenges and move swiftly to end the contract with the force and form a provincial police force. Alberta has been studying the formation of a provincial force for some time now.

Alberta will have a new premier in early October when the United Conservative Party leadership race to replace Jason Kenney ends. The new premier will be facing a general election in the spring of 2023 and polls indicate it will be a tight one. Getting into a fight with Ottawa is always a sure way for a premier to bolster support within Alberta, and the scrap over the firearms ban will be a political boon for the UCP.

Citizens who don’t want to part with their firearms will be very unlikely to volunteer to give them up, especially if it appears the federal government won’t be able to take them. Albertans already have an established mistrust of the RCMP when it comes to firearms rights due to the botched gun grab the force inexplicably pulled off during the 2013 floods in the town of High River. Firearm owners in Alberta aren’t eager to cooperate with a force that appears so determined to seize their property at the drop of a hat.

If Alberta stops paying for the RCMP, will the federal government continue to pay the force and direct them to act within the province to enforce the firearms ban? Support for independence in Alberta recently dropped to a low of 23 percent, but that number can and would explode if the province saw dueling police forces acting on the orders of two different governments having it out. Rural crime has been a growing problem in Alberta, with RCMP response times in farm communities being as high as 40 minutes on average. Rural citizens won’t respond well to a force that is dedicating time to disarming law-abiding firearm owners while crime continues unabated.

It’s hard to see how this conflict will be resolved, and the skirmish could ignite a conflagration of secessionism if Ottawa insists on using a federal force in defiance of the will of the Alberta government. One of the prime factors in Premier Kenney’s ouster was a perception among UCP members that he was too weak in standing up to Ottawa. Whoever replaces Kenney will know all too well that capitulation to the government on the firearms ban isn’t an option.

This battle is just beginning, and it could impact unity across the entire nation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.