Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price called “unjust” the Liberal government’s pending legislation aimed at further restricting legal access to shotguns and semi-automatic rifles. He added that he supports the organization Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights.
“I love my family, I love my country and I care for my neighbour. I am not a criminal or a threat to society,” Price wrote in an Instagram post on Dec. 3. “What [Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] is trying to do is unjust.”
The words captioned a picture of Price standing in a field wearing full camouflage gear and holding a hunting rifle.
“I support the [Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights] to keep my hunting tools. Thank you for listening to my opinion,” he wrote.
Price, 35, has played for Montreal for all 15 seasons of his National Hockey League (NHL) career. However, the former all-star net-minder has been sidelined with a knee injury since early last year, which limited him to just five games in the 2021–2022 season.
Price was also the starting goalie on Team Canada’s gold-medal-winning national hockey team at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, as well as on Canada’s international champion team at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey in Toronto.
Bill C-21, the gun-control legislation Price was referring to in his Instagram post Saturday, received a number of amendments on Nov. 24 that are currently under consideration by the House of Commons public safety committee.
If passed, the legislative amendments will ban 300 to 400 types rifles and shotguns, in addition to the 1,500 firearms already banned by the Liberal government through an Order in Council in May 2020.
Reaction
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and a number of other MPs from the party have voiced support for Price since his post Sunday.“Carey is absolutely right,” wrote Poilievre in a Twitter post on Dec. 3. “Hunting is a great Canadian tradition. Trudeau’s attempts to ban hunting rifles are an attack on rural and Indigenous people. We must stop him.”
Conservative public safety critic Raquel Dancho thanked Price “for standing up for Canada’s hunters” in her own Twitter post on Saturday.
Dancho previously said that the Liberal government’s new gun-legislation amendments are “going after Grandpa Joe’s hunting rifle instead of gangsters in Toronto,” to which Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino replied by saying the Conservatives are “fearmongering” over the amendments.
“The government has no intention—no intention whatsoever—to go after long guns and hunting rifles, and this is simply Conservative fearmongering,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press on Nov. 28.
Dancho said in a subsequent Twitter post responding to Mendicino’s comments that there has been “uproar from hunting, wildlife, and farming communities across Canada” because of the amendments.
“The Liberals are banning some of Canada’s most commonly used hunting rifles with their amendments,” she wrote on Nov. 28.
Marnie Cathcart contributed to this report.
