(Ottawa) The group that campaigns for better gun control fears that the amendments to add the ban on assault weapons to Bill C-21 will not pass. After the hunters, it was the turn of the Assembly of First Nations last week to oppose it.
“It scares us,” admits in an interview the survivor of the Polytechnique mass feminicide, Nathalie Provost, and spokesperson for PolySeSouvient. “For us, it was sine qua non and it is a request that dates back a very long time. »
An emergency meeting is to be held Tuesday afternoon to determine how many groups can be heard in the parliamentary committee. The amendments that broaden the scope of the bill were tabled in November by the government after the various groups had been heard by elected officials, raising an outcry. Originally, Bill C-21 banned handguns, but not assault weapons.
The definition and the list of prohibited weapons proposed at the last minute by the Liberals affect certain weapons used for hunting. The Conservatives thus accuse the Liberals of wanting to ban hunting weapons, which the government denies.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is open to modifying the list of prohibited weapons, which is more than 300 pages long, but not the definition. This bans semi-automatic weapons, including shotguns, whose magazine can be modified to hold more than five cartridges, as well as those that can fire projectiles with a muzzle energy of more than 10,000 joules and those whose inner surface of the barrel is 20 millimeters or more.
PolySeSouvient says it is open to compromise. “We are not against weapons, we are not against hunters and we are not against hunting, affirms Mme Provost. So let’s work together to have a list that excludes weapons that should be recognized as reasonable hunting weapons from the regulations. »
The government had already banned in 2020 by decree 1,500 assault weapons, including the one used in the Polytechnique massacre. Bill C-21 aims to plug the loopholes to prevent manufacturers from releasing new models of weapons at the limit of what is allowed.
Further details will follow.