(Ottawa) The Trudeau government must go further than simply prohibiting the purchase, sale, transfer and import of handguns into the country. A voluntary buy-back program must also be considered to reduce the number of these weapons in circulation, believes the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet.
Posted at 4:43 p.m.
According to estimates by federal authorities, there are more than one million handguns in circulation in the country. Over the past decade, some 55,000 handguns have been registered on average each year in Canada, according to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.
While he agrees that the new version of the bill aimed at tightening gun control is a step in the right direction, Mr. Blanchet believes that there is room for improvement. A “national freeze” on handguns is not enough.
The Bloc Québécois therefore intends to propose amendments to Bill C-21, in particular by insisting that we set up a voluntary handgun buy-back program.
“Like a certain number of groups, a certain number of players, we have observed that there is progress. […] There is progress in capping the number of handguns in the territory, which is approximately one million. It’s still huge. Our work will try to improve this bill,” said Mr. Blanchet in a press scrum.
In the bill unveiled Monday by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and four of his ministers, Ottawa plans to move forward with a mandatory assault weapons buy-back program. In the previous reform, the purchasing program was voluntary.
Such a program should be seriously considered for handguns and it should be voluntary from the start, according to the Bloc Québécois.
“Even the Prime Minister and his Minister of Public Safety agreed that one million handguns in circulation is way too many. […] The objective is to reduce the number, establishing that there is a probability link between the number of weapons in circulation and the risk of attack, the risk of homicide and femicide. We cannot rely on attrition,” he stressed.
Mr. Blanchet also argued that the federal government is not doing enough to stop the smuggling of handguns from the United States. He again advocated the creation of a mixed squad bringing together police officers from Quebec, Ontario, the Akwesasne reserve and New York State to tackle this scourge.
“The bill does absolutely nothing about smuggling except to increase the penalties.”
The NDP also indicated that the bill represents progress if we compare it to the measures that were proposed in the previous bill which could not be adopted before the last election.
For its part, the Conservative Party has argued that the bill is another attack by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals on gun owners who abide by gun laws. He also maintained that we are not attacking the source of the problem of armed violence that is shaking cities like Montreal, Toronto or Ottawa, which is the smuggling of firearms.
In addition to measures affecting handguns, Bill C-21 also provides for the prohibition of long gun magazines with more than five rounds and tougher penalties for offenses related to the illegal importation and arms trafficking.
The Trudeau government intends to fight domestic violence with a “red flag” law that would allow courts to require people considered a danger to themselves or others to turn in their firearms to law enforcement. The identity of the person making such a request to the court would be protected.
To ensure the speedy implementation of the national handgun freeze, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino on Monday tabled regulatory amendments in the House of Commons and the Senate that will take effect in the fall, even though Bill C-21 has not yet passed.