Every Wednesday, our parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa Marie Vastel analyzes a federal political issue to help you better understand it.
Many politicians like to say, when there is a prima facie consensus on an issue (as much as possible in politics), that “no one is against apple pie”. This old adage applies particularly to the reduction of gun crime, a goal to which no one opposes. But this unanimity always inevitably crumbles, both at the federal level and in Quebec, because no one agrees on the perfect recipe.
This difficulty in legislating for greater control of firearms has persisted since the 1960s, observes Francis Langlois, associate member of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair and specialist in the issue. “It’s not very profitable politically,” he sums up.
However, across Canada as in Quebec, popular opinion is often in the majority. A recent Angus Reid poll revealed that two-thirds of Canadians (67%) want a Canada-wide ban on handguns, compared to 33% who oppose it.
After first proposing a municipal and then provincial ban, both rather unwelcome, Justin Trudeau’s government ended up announcing last week that it would go further than expected with a Canada-wide “freeze” on the purchase, the sale and import of this type of weapon. Which pleased groups like PolySeSouvient, but which remains below the complete ban demanded by the cities of Montreal and Toronto, among others.
In Ottawa, we believe we have found a happy medium, without infringing the rights and leisure of handgun owners who like to use them on the shooting range.
The Quebec political sphere has long seemed unanimous, with motions condemning a Conservative federal government that sought to relax gun control. But when the debate culminated in the National Assembly, following Stephen Harper’s abolition of the federal long-gun registry, the same fault lines were exposed. Rural elected officials said they feared — like their federal colleagues before them — the grumbling of their constituents. And this, in all parties.
A Léger survey, at the time of the debate on Bill 64 creating the Quebec registry of long guns in the spring of 2016, however reported there too that 69% of Quebecers were in favor of a provincial registry, against 26% opposed. At the time of the final vote, the Liberal Party of Quebec forced its elected officials to support it, the recalcitrant PQ members sided, and only seven CAQ MNAs and a former CAQ member who became independent formally opposed the creation of the Quebec register. An outcome similar to that of the debate in the Commons on the abolition of the federal register, where all the elected representatives of the opposition except a handful of New Democrats ended up opposing it.
“It seems that the Quebec consensus has crumbled slightly and that we find, in a homeopathic dose, a cleavage that exists with a much greater intensity throughout Canada,” observes constitutional expert Patrick Taillon.
Legault shy on the issue
The Coalition avenir Québec government has repeatedly urged Ottawa to do more to fight gun violence. But Prime Minister François Legault for his part avoided commenting.
When Justin Trudeau proposed to leave it to municipalities that wish to ban handguns on their territory (in the previous Bill C-21), Mr. Legault never publicly clarified whether he would allow them to do. And when Mr. Trudeau promised, during the election campaign, to financially help the provinces that want it to ban them themselves, Mr. Legault did not comment either.
The Legault government has shown itself to be generally satisfied with the new C-21 and to see Ottawa “take its responsibilities” in terms of criminal law.
Would he himself have regulated the possession of handguns, as the Canadian Constitution and criminal law already allowed him to do? The question is “hypothetical”, we answer, specifying that we would in any case not have formally opposed the federal government allowing it, as Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario have done.
The CAQ had negotiated with the owners of firearms, at the beginning of the mandate, so that they respect the new Quebec registry and register their weapons. The context has however changed, a few months before a new Quebec election, analyzes Francis Langlois.
Professor Taillon sees this as a missed opportunity for a resolutely autonomous CAQ government. “There was a federal government that was looking for asymmetrical solutions and to pass the hot potato. There was an opportunity for self-reliance. The CAQ prefers the approach of police repression to the legislative framework, which it leaves to federal criminal jurisdiction.
The consensus is complicated
New Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino is more determined to tighten gun control than his predecessor, former Toronto police chief Bill Blair. He therefore did not rule out that the freeze be followed by a municipal ban where this would be desired.
But until the freeze comes into effect, normally at the end of September, sales of handguns are increasing in the country. The granting of new possession licenses being slowed down by tight supervision, the number of owners will probably increase little, but the number of weapons owned by these existing owners will grow, explains Mr. Langlois.
Despite this, the Trudeau government has probably found the best possible compromise, according to this expert.
Gun violence will be curbed first by tackling illegal guns rather than the legal ones already in circulation. The federal freeze will have in this sense only “little impact”, confirms Mr. Langlois, like former police officers. And the federal government did not have infinite human and financial resources to offer to buy back handguns, in addition to assault weapons whose compulsory buy-back program will be announced later.
Federal and provincial elected officials may all agree on the fact that the increase in firearm violence on the streets of Canada and Quebec is unacceptable, but the complexity of the solutions to respond to it systematically means that no one wants case when he lands in his political backyard. And apple pie often turns into bland hot potato.