The Liberals’ gun control bill burdens fall “overwhelmingly on already heavily regulated law-abiding firearms owners,” instead of the criminals who commit violent crimes, Alberta’s Chief Firearms Officer Teri Bryant told senators at a Senate committee Monday.
Those who provided testimony before the Senate included Dominic LeBlanc, minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs; a lawyer from Justice Canada; the acting commissioner of the RCMP; an official from Canada Border Services Agency; and firearms officials from Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Ms. Bryant said the entire federal bill is premised on prohibiting “specific types of firearms” rather than being focused on crime, and called for all Canadians to oppose the legislation, even if they do not own firearms themselves.
Bill C-21 has a definition of what the government will consider a prohibited “assault-style firearm”: a gun that is not a handgun; that discharges centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner; that was originally designed with a detachable cartridge magazine with a six-cartridge or more capacity; and that is designed and manufactured on or after the day on which the legislation takes effect.
The legislation would only apply to new firearms and not affect any existing firearms in the Canadian market, according to the Liberal government. The bill would reinstate a committee to classify all new guns that will be sold on the market and will enshrine a handgun freeze into law where it was previously instituted by regulations.
Ms. Bryant said the bill shrinks the entire industry but also impacts the rights of Canadians. She said anyone “concerned with property rights should be gravely concerned by the hundreds of millions of dollars of lawfully acquired property that has been rendered effectively unsaleable at any reasonable price,” she told the Senate committee.
She added that Bill C-21 will “prohibit long guns based on the date of manufacture, rather than by any proven objective criteria.” According to Ms. Bryant, despite a clause in the bill that is supposed to allow exemptions to the handgun ban if an individual trains, competes, or coaches in shooting sports, not one exemption has been granted or responded to by Ottawa.
Robert Freberg, Saskatchewan’s chief firearms officer and commissioner, a former Olympic target shooter, said his province has experienced “exactly the same” from Ottawa.
“We’ve sent in the same exemption requests to the registrar to allow people to have firearms, specifically for Olympic target shooting, and we have not been able to get any paperwork pushed through,” said Mr. Freberg. He said they have even had a lawyer send formal letters.
“But they refused to send the refusal, because then the individual can go and file an application, and [go] to court to have it overturned. So we’re not getting any paperwork, it’s just getting sat on.”
Mr. Freberg said the increased gun crime in Saskatchewan is the result of stolen firearms—particularly modified long guns like rifles and shotguns, and single-shot firearms—specifically obtained by gangs and unlicensed individuals through illicit means.
He said criminals are “certainly not going into a store with a PAL [license] or an RPAL [restricted license] and buying them.”
Public Safety Minister LeBlanc gave testimony earlier in the committee, stating that his government was “aiming to tackle gun violence head-on,” and that Ottawa has “engaged” with First Nations, Inuit, and Metis organizations, rural and northern communities, victims groups, the firearms community, and sports shooters.
He said that the bill now stipulates that nothing will take away the constitutional rights of indigenous people “and includes protections for firearm owners who respect the law.”
According to Mr. LeBlanc, in addition to the bill, Canadians can expect “regulation changes” to be made. One example he cited was making it compulsory for the RCMP to physically examine all new models of firearms before they can enter the Canadian market.
“I don’t think that indigenous peoples ... oppose this bill. And I don’t think ... that hunters or sports groups oppose this legislation,” said Mr. LeBlanc, who was given his position in the summer.
Conservative Senator Don Plett raised concern that the proposed legislation isn’t targeting criminals, but rather legal gun owners.
“Bill C-21 is dealing with legal guns in the hands of hunters and sport shooters,” Mr. Plett said.
He asked why, if the federal government was “so set on combatting gun crime,” did the government pass Bill C-5, which repealed mandatory mimimum sentences for firearms crimes.
A firearms advisory committee will be resurrected to review new firearms that come on the market and review existing models proposed to be prohibited by the bill. The Liberal government will move ahead with regulations to ban large-capacity magazines and ghost guns, which include firearms printed with a 3D printer.
