Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre dodged questions Sunday about whether he would repeal the federal government’s handgun ban, a measure brought in to tamp down on the diversion of legal firearms into the hands of bad actors.
Poilievre hasn’t said much during this campaign about what he would do with the Liberal firearms legislation he voted against while in Parliament, but he has blasted the last government’s “assault-style” firearm buyback program as a “gun grab” that he would scrap.
Gun control advocates say any legislation to curb the flow of firearms is a worthy measure to try and reduce incidents of crime and violence. Firearms rights advocates meanwhile say the Liberal suite of policies only punish lawful gun owners who play by the rules.
In 2022, after a spate of violent gun crime and the Nova Scotia massacre, former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet introduced a “freeze” on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns. The ban was later codified in law with Bill C-21, the government’s controversial overhaul of firearms legislation.
Asked Sunday what he would do about the handgun ban specifically at a campaign stop in Surrey, B.C., Poilievre said most firearm-related crime is caused by illegal firearms coming up from the U.S. and he questioned whether there is even really a handgun ban in place.
“Criminals are able to get handguns everywhere they go,” Poilievre said. “The problem is illegal guns coming from the United States of America.”
Poilievre pivoted to his proposal to lock up criminals for longer, including those convicted of firearms offences. Poilievre is proposing life sentences for certain traffickers.
Poilievre avoids question about repealing the freeze on handgun sales
“The police have said that the current Liberal policies just prevent off-duty police officers and military veterans from practising their craft without going after the criminals who caused the crime,” he said.
Pressed by reporters if that means the handgun ban would be gone under a government led by him, Poilievre ignored the follow-up and moved on to the next question.
Poilievre told a Quebec firearms advocate in January that any firearms ban is “stupid” and he vowed to repeal C-21 — comments he hasn’t made in public since then.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney has pounced on Poilievre’s vague statements about firearms.
At the English-language leaders’ debate last week, Carney said Poilievre’s tough talk about tackling crime is meaningless if he doesn’t follow through with a commitment to rein in guns.
“Every single time there has been a vote in the House of Commons on gun control, Mr. Poilievre has voted against it. You can’t be tough on crime unless you’re tough on guns,” Carney said.
PolySeSouvient, a gun control advocacy group, has endorsed the Liberals, saying Carney is the best leader to deliver on its demands to remove “assault-style” firearms from circulation, ban large-capacity magazines and follow through with policies to curb domestic violence.
One of the group’s founders, Nathalie Provost, is running for the Liberals in Quebec.
“Saying no to U.S.-style gun laws in Canada — to keep our families and communities safer from gun violence for decades to come — starts at the ballot box,” said Heidi Rathjen, a spokesperson for the group that represents the survivors of the Polytechnique massacre.
Rathjen called Poilievre a “gun extremist.”
Some police unions, however, have criticized the Liberal policies as largely ineffective in stopping gun crime.
In a statement last fall on the two-year anniversary of the ban becoming law, the Toronto Police Association, the group that represents law enforcement members in that city, said Trudeau’s policies were bogus.
“Whatever you think you’ve done to improve community safety has not worked,” the group said.
The Surrey police association said the ban “fails to address the real issue: the surge of illegal firearms coming across our borders and ending up in the hands of violent criminals.”
CBC News reported in February that the flow of guns over the Canada-U.S. border is a major concern with border data revealing there’s been a spike in confiscated guns in recent years.
According to Toronto Police Service (TPS) data, the force seized 717 crime guns last year and 88 per cent of those were sourced to the U.S.
Of those firearms taken by police in Canada’s biggest city, 515 were handguns and 91 per cent of those were traced to the U.S., according to the data.
