As the Trudeau government deepens their crackdown on the legal ownership of handguns, evidence continues to emerge showing that Canadian handgun crimes are committed almost exclusively with smuggled U.S. weapons.
Ministers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba agree with Alberta's Tyler Shandro, who earlier this week called the program wasteful
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In February, Toronto Police Deputy Chief Myron Demkiw testified to a House of Commons committee that the guns on Toronto streets were not “domestically sourced.” “Our problem in Toronto is handguns from the United States,” he said.
In July, a
profile by Reuters cited 2021 data from Ontario’s Firearms Analysis and Tracing Enforcement program to show that 85 per cent of handguns used in crimes in the province had U.S. origins.
“We really think that restricting lawful handgun ownership doesn’t meaningfully address the real issue, which is illegal handguns obtained from the United States,” Evan Bray, chief of the Regina Police, told Reuters at the time.
Saskatchewan and Manitoba have followed Alberta’s lead and informed the federal government they won’t use local resources to enforce a federal initiative they don’t support.
Christine Tell, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety, wrote a letter to the highest-ranking RCMP officer in the province telling them not to use provincial resources for the program.
Despite all this, the Trudeau government’s most public moves against gun violence have mostly been in the realm of tightening restrictions on legal firearms owners. Most recently, this has included a push to “freeze” the legal sale of handguns.
“The Government of Saskatchewan does not support and will not authorize the use of provincially funded resources for any process that is connected to the federal government’s proposed ‘buyback’ of these firearms,” she said in the letter.
She said the government has heard often from the RCMP that they don’t have enough resources.
“It would seem to be counter intuitive to take our front-line resources from our provincial policing service to carry out a federally mandated administrative program.”
Handguns in Canada are already subject to much tighter restrictions than rifles and shotguns. With rare exceptions, pistols can only legally exist in one of three places: Locked up at home, at a licensed range, or in a car moving between those two locations.
Manitoba’s attorney general Kelvin Goertzen posted on Facebook that he had also written to federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to oppose the program.
“We feel many aspects of the federal approach to gun crimes unnecessarily target lawful gun owners while having little impact on criminals, who are unlikely to follow gun regulations in any event,” he said. “In Manitoba’s view, any buyback program cannot further erode precious provincial police resources, already suffering from large vacancy rates, from focusing on investigation of violent crime.”
Jason Watson, a spokesperson for B.C’s public safety minister said they’re willing to work with the federal government.
“The government supports any measures that are proven to enhance public safety and we will continue to consult with our federal counterparts,” he said in an email.
But Watson said the program is not a top priority for the B.C. government.
While the RCMP is a federal police force it provides contract policing to eight provinces and three territories with only Quebec and Ontario having their own provincial forces.
In general, larger cities have their own police forces, but smaller communities in those eight provinces rely on the RCMP for policing, with the federal government covering 30 per cent of the costs and provinces covering the rest.
Alberta was the first to oppose the federal buyback program earlier this week, with the province’s justice minister calling the program wasteful and unnecessary.
“It’s important to remember that Alberta taxpayers pay over $750 million per year for the RCMP and we will not tolerate taking officers off the streets in order to confiscate the property of law-abiding firearms owners,” said Tyler Shandro.
But the Liberal plan would tighten restrictions still further by
banning the sale or transfer of handguns outright. In August, this began with a temporary halt on legal handgun imports into Canada.
The instruction, the Alberta government said in a news release, falls under a section of its contract with the Mounties allowing the province to set the “objectives, priorities and goals” of the mounted police officers working within its borders. Mr. Shandro suggested that if the Mounties didn’t heed the provincial government, it would challenge the force through a dispute settlement system also outlined in the contract.
The federal government immediately dismissed the idea that either provincial government could order the Mounties to circumvent federal gun law they oppose.
Mendicino said earlier this week that Shandro’s statements were regrettable, and called them an “abdication of responsibility.”
He said the weapons in question need to come off the street.
“As we look to get these assault style rifles, which again have carried out extensive, massive casualties in our country, it is imperative that we work together collaboratively.”
He said Shandro’s stance was disappointing.
“To simply say that you’re not going to cooperate, you’re going to resist does not allow us to move forward to accomplish the objective of this program,” said Mendicino.
Mendicino also pointed out courts have consistently ruled that firearms regulation is in the hands of the federal government.
While the Mounties, of course, are a federal police force, Mr. Shandro said that he had the authority to issue the directive because the force, as is the case in most provinces, also acts as Alberta’s provincial police under a contract with Alberta.
“Alberta taxpayers pay over $750 million per year for the R.C.M.P., and we will not tolerate taking officers off the streets in order to confiscate the property of law-abiding firearms owners,” Mr. Shandro said at a news conference.
According to the Saskatchewan firearms officer, that means the RCMP will have to make some decisions going forward because the police services get more than $200 million from the provincial government for their policing operations in Saskatchewan.
The Saskatchewan government is trying to put its foot down when it comes to guns. In 2020, the federal governm...
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In his February testimony before the House of Commons Public Safety Committee, Toronto Police Deputy Chief Denkiw said that the freeze would do little to curb the city’s recent spike in gun crime. The legislation “is certainly not going to deal with the crime problem we’re facing in Toronto as it relates to criminal handguns and the use of criminal handguns,” Denkiw told MPs….
While the RCMP is a federal police force it provides contract policing to eight provinces and three territories with only Quebec and Ontario having their own provincial forces.
In general, larger cities have their own police forces, but smaller communities in those eight provinces rely on the RCMP for policing, with the federal government covering 30 per cent of the costs and provinces covering the rest.
Minister Christine Tell wrote to the Saskatchewan RCMP it would be “counterintuitive” to use policing resources on the federal program.
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Tyler Shandro, the Alberta provincial minister of justice and solicitor general, said that he had instructed Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki, the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Alberta, to “refuse to participate” in the program, which will require owners of more than 1,500 models of rifles that are now illegal to turn them in to the police.
Christine Tell, Saskatchewan’s public safety minister, soon sent a similar letter to the head of the Mounties in her province expressing the government’s opposition to police involvement in the new gun control program.
Tell wrote the Saskatchewan RCMP is already “extremely burdened” with other tasks, noting the police service has indicated it needs additional resources.
With that in mind, she stated the dollars could be better used.
“The Government of Saskatchewan nor the ministry feel that using our already precious and highly trained, heavily tasked police resources assigned to providing policing in our province is an appropriate use of resources, enhancing public safety in any way or in the best interest of the people of Saskatchewan,” she wrote.
Tell stated that while the government supports anti-crime programs related to illegal firearms, it can’t stand behind the federal program that she says only impacts law-abiding citizens.
Shandro, the Albertan Justice Minister has reportedly ordered the RCMP to not carry out the federal gun buyback program in the province.
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Bill C-21 Update: November 2022 The Federal Government introduced a significant amendment to Bill C-21, which expanded the definition of a prohibited firearm, effectively banning millions of hunting and sporting […]
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To get an opinion from the RCMP on this issue you have to go back to January:
RCMP union questions the federal government’s strategy to reduce gun crime through the pending buyback of semi-automatic centrefire rifles.
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