Nova Scotia mass shooting inquiry: Advice given to witness worries former judge

[Ron in Regina]

I also did not realize I had a regional accent until text to talk either. Well, not much of one anyway.

I know from having in-laws in Utah that we in Saskatchewan generally speak about half the speed that they do, but just the way we pronounce certain words really messes up text to talk. There’s a handful of words where we verbally substitute “n” for “m” creating completely different words when it’s actually written out, etc…or the “c” sound as a “p” sound, etc…

I’m not even all that bad either (regional accent, I mean) due to my exposure to a whole bunch of accents being in logistics, but it’s still there.

PS, when somebody from Utah is really excited they can speak about four times the speed of somebody from Saskatchewan, with what to us, sounds like a perfect pronunciation and diction, except after a short amount of time, it makes our heads hurt.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Lucki’s promise to have the details released, Campbell and others have testified, had been made to Bill Blair, the Liberal public safety minister at the time, and to the prime minister’s office.

The government’s plan to buy back thousands of legally owned firearms has been a boondoggle from the moment it was announced. In the wake of a horrific mass killing in Nova Scotia in 2020, the Trudeau government declared it was banning what it called “military-style assault rifles,” which is not an actual firearms designation in Canada.

And “the legislation” Campbell was referring to was the Liberals’ ban on assault-style guns announced just three days after the abusive meeting.

The shooter in that case had not obtained the weapons he used legally, meaning that a ban of this sort would not have prevented his rampage.

In other words, Lucki had agreed to help the Liberal government with its political agenda — something a police commander must not do.

Nevertheless, the issue was so urgent, according to the government, that it couldn’t wait for legislation to be passed in Parliament; instead, the government issued an order-in-council to “remove dangerous firearms designed for military use from our communities.”

Five years on, not a single one of those dangerous firearms has been collected from an individual license-holder (though 12,195 guns have been collected from businesses as of April 30). The program managed to spend $67.2-million by 2024, before it collected a single gun, and is now projected to cost $459.8-million in 2025-2026. (The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated in 2021 that the total cost could be over $750-million, plus administrative costs.)

The government was in the midst of drafting fresh gun control measures to reduce access to semi-automatic weapons in the days following the mass shooting. Campbell and Leather both testified this week that releasing the information on the guns would have interfered with the ongoing investigation into who provided the killer with the semi-automatic weapons.

Those costs would be defensible if there was some evidence – any evidence – that confiscating the guns prohibited in 2020 (and later, in 2024 and 2025) would meaningfully reduce rates of violent crimes involving firearms. But we know that the vast majority of violent crimes are being committed with illegal firearms; the Toronto Police Service has long reported that the majority of weapons seized by authorities have been smuggled in from the U.S. According to Statistics Canada, in 91 per cent of solved homicides in 2023, the shooter did not have a valid license for the firearm used.

The firearms used in the massacre were illegally obtained from the United States, but the inquiry recommended massive bans on legal firearms anyway.

Then there are the ongoing logistical challenges about how guns and gun components will be submitted for compensation. Canada Post is currently participating in the first phase of the buyback program by collecting and shipping prohibited firearms from businesses, but it has refused to take part in the second phase in which firearms will be collected from individuals, citing safety concerns.

The federal government might thus have to engage local and provincial police forces, as well as the RCMP, to set up dropoff depots akin to those used by New Zealand during its buyback program (which it announced and completed within the span of one year, though gun crimes continue to rise there).

Opinion: Mark Carney should add the gun buyback program to his kill list — The Globe and Mail

Program targets the wrong things in trying to tackle a problem it will not address

apple.news

Mr. Carney didn’t hesitate to kill a defensible policy in the carbon tax. The proposed buyback program, by contrast, isn’t defensible by any measure: it targets the wrong weapons, legally owned by the wrong people, to try to tackle a problem it will absolutely not address.

It is already overly bureaucratic, incredibly complicated, and exorbitantly expensive, but the one thing it has going for it is that it sounds good. Who wouldn’t want to ban deadly weapons, after all? Indeed, it’s the antithesis of the carbon tax in that sense, but the buyback program is equally deserving – and arguably, much more deserving – of a spot in the Trudeau-era trash heap.

 

[petros]

The government’s plan to buy back thousands of legally owned firearms has been a boondoggle from the moment it was announced. In the wake of a horrific mass killing in Nova Scotia in 2020, the Trudeau government declared it was banning what it called “military-style assault rifles,” which is not an actual firearms designation in Canada.

The shooter in that case had not obtained the weapons he used legally, meaning that a ban of this sort would not have prevented his rampage.

Nevertheless, the issue was so urgent, according to the government, that it couldn’t wait for legislation to be passed in Parliament; instead, the government issued an order-in-council to “remove dangerous firearms designed for military use from our communities.”

Five years on, not a single one of those dangerous firearms has been collected from an individual license-holder (though 12,195 guns have been collected from businesses as of April 30). The program managed to spend $67.2-million by 2024, before it collected a single gun, and is now projected to cost $459.8-million in 2025-2026. (The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated in 2021 that the total cost could be over $750-million, plus administrative costs.)

Those costs would be defensible if there was some evidence – any evidence – that confiscating the guns prohibited in 2020 (and later, in 2024 and 2025) would meaningfully reduce rates of violent crimes involving firearms. But we know that the vast majority of violent crimes are being committed with illegal firearms; the Toronto Police Service has long reported that the majority of weapons seized by authorities have been smuggled in from the U.S. According to Statistics Canada, in 91 per cent of solved homicides in 2023, the shooter did not have a valid license for the firearm used.

Then there are the ongoing logistical challenges about how guns and gun components will be submitted for compensation. Canada Post is currently participating in the first phase of the buyback program by collecting and shipping prohibited firearms from businesses, but it has refused to take part in the second phase in which firearms will be collected from individuals, citing safety concerns.

The federal government might thus have to engage local and provincial police forces, as well as the RCMP, to set up dropoff depots akin to those used by New Zealand during its buyback program (which it announced and completed within the span of one year, though gun crimes continue to rise there).

Opinion: Mark Carney should add the gun buyback program to his kill list — The Globe and Mail

Program targets the wrong things in trying to tackle a problem it will not address

apple.news

Mr. Carney didn’t hesitate to kill a defensible policy in the carbon tax. The proposed buyback program, by contrast, isn’t defensible by any measure: it targets the wrong weapons, legally owned by the wrong people, to try to tackle a problem it will absolutely not address.

It is already overly bureaucratic, incredibly complicated, and exorbitantly expensive, but the one thing it has going for it is that it sounds good. Who wouldn’t want to ban deadly weapons, after all? Indeed, it’s the antithesis of the carbon tax in that sense, but the buyback program is equally deserving – and arguably, much more deserving – of a spot in the Trudeau-era trash heap.

Dear Federal Gov't.

I lost all my pistols and rifles in a canoeing incident. I didn't report the loses because your moronic laws made it so they are no longer insured assets so why bother filling a report?

Peter R