Last week, the freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns took effect across Canada as part of the federal government’s push to combat gun violence.
The national handgun freeze was announced back in May alongside Bill C-21, legislation that the Liberals are calling “some of the strongest gun control measures in a generation.”
Bill C-21, formally known as An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms), would effectively overhaul laws around the marketing of handguns, stricter gun license regulations, and increase the criminal penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking.
While handgun regulations make up a focal part of Bill C-21, the Liberals introduced temporary legislation to expedite the freeze in order to protect Canadians from gun violence while the bill continues to be debated in Parliament. The freeze prevents people from buying, selling, or transferring handguns within the country. Additionally, individuals are prohibited from bringing newly acquired handguns into Canada.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared alongside Eileen Mohan, who lost her son at the age of 22 to a stray bullet in 2007.
According to Trudeau, the number of handguns in Canada has increased by 70 per cent since 2010, with firearm-related homicides increasing by nearly 40 per cent since 2011. One of the more harrowing statistics Trudeau referred to is the fact that one of every three girls and women killed by an abuser is murdered with a gun.
Slamming the Stephen Harper Conservative government for cutting nearly $1 billion in funding from law enforcement agencies before 2015, Trudeau affirmed the Liberal Party’s commitment to “reinforcing our borders and giving law enforcement the tools they need to stop illegal gun smuggling.”
Trudeau also announced further funding for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to pay for new technology “like scanners that can x-ray an entire truck in a matter of minutes.”
The national handgun freeze represents the choice of life over death for Mohan.
“It takes a political will and a political courage to make it happen,” she said. “It is not a popular law. It has not made some people happy, but leaders are not chosen to make people happy. They are there to lead and to act for the future generation.”
Advocates provide further recommendations
For gun control advocacy organization, PolySeSuivent (PolyRemembers), the national handgun freeze marks a baby step in the wider process of preventing gun violence in Canada. The group is made up of students, graduates, families and loved ones of the victims of the 1989 misogynistic massacre of 14 female students at the University of Montreal’s engineering school, Polytechnique.
Last week, PolySeSuivent presented a brief to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security as part of Parliament’s review of Bill C-21. According to their filing, the organization’s mission is to “reduce the number of accidents, suicides, homicides, threats and other crimes carried out with firearms.”
The organization, noting that owning a handgun is not a right but a privilege, acknowledges that firearms are designed for killing, while also pointing out that “guns don’t kill people; people with guns kill people.”
The 23-page brief includes dozens of recommendations to address gun reform, including the need to expand the definition of prohibited weapons in the Criminal Code to ban all military-style weapons, implement a three-year phase-out for modifiable magazines currently in circulation, and eliminate exemptions for firearms and magazines.
The brief also calls on the federal government to require a valid Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) to purchase magazines, the storage and feeding device on a gun. According to the RCMP, applicants are generally required to have passed the Canadian Firearms Safety Course as a prerequisite to acquiring a PAL.
Does Bill C-21 go far enough to protect victims?
PolySeSuivent’s filing concludes that the current iteration of Bill C-21 doesn’t do enough to protect victims of stalking or intimate violence.
They recommend implementing the requirement of a mandatory follow-up telephone interview with the partner of a gun license applicant, as well as both references, as a method of ensuring guns don’t get into the wrong hands. Another recommendation would see the definition of “domestic violence” expanded to include “all intimate and family violence, as well as non-physical forms of violence like coercive control and threats of violence.”
The group is also calling for several sections of Bill C-21 to be removed that would introduce an ex-parte option for victims to go to court themselves to try to have an abuser’s firearms confiscated — something PolySeSuivent believes could open up a victim to the threat of further violence.
PolySeSuivent’s recommendations might seem heavy-handed to gun owners, but they’re informed by both evidence and lived experience. According to the organization, intimate partner violence that involves a firearm is 12 times more likely to result in death than similar incidents not involving a firearm.
The brief also referred to a 2019 study from the University of Texas that found individuals who had access to a firearm were roughly 18 times more likely to have threatened something with a gun.
Rather than the falsely-held public perception that gun violence is connected to mental illness, PolySeSuivent concludes that access to firearms are the primary reason gun violence is so prevalent, pointing out that gun access in homes triples the likelihood of homicide, with the risk of suicide multiplying by five.
“The law is a tool,” the brief concludes. “Unfortunately, it is not being used adequately to protect victims against abusers and potential abusers.”
Provinces oppose mandatory buy-back of guns
One of the more controversial aspects of Bill C-21 is the mandatory buy-back of assault weapons, a move that provincial governments in N.B., Sask., A.B. and M.B. opposed earlier this month.
Provincial leaders are calling on the federal government to end plans to use RCMP and municipal police resources “to confiscate over 100,000 legally acquired firearms from Canadians,” arguing that law enforcement organizations are already being stretched too thin.
“We have made it clear to the Government of Canada that we cannot condone any use of those limited resources, at all, in their planned buyback program,” said N.B. Public Safety Minister Kris Austin in an October 14 release.
The provinces are also urging the federal government to ensure that no funding for the Guns and Gang Violence Action Fund or other public safety initiatives are diverted to a federal firearms confiscation program.
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