WELL, HELLOOOOOO, KITS!
If you read my most recent article Beyond Polling Numbers: The Eager Beaver Analyzes the Latest Federal Political Polls, you will remember me saying that one of the reasons — if not the reason — for the sudden stop in the Liberals’ recent public opinion growth spurt is “their botched handling of Bill C-21, better known as the gun control bill.”
When confronted with First Nations opposition to the Liberal Bill C-21 hunting gun ban, this Liberal MP claims that First Nations just can’t seem to understand the Bill. It’s time for Liberals to stop patronizing and start listening by scrapping C-21. pic.twitter.com/f0s9QaaunT
— Dane Lloyd (@DaneLloydMP) December 9, 2022
In that article, I stated that throughout their tenure as the governing party, “the Liberals have shown a particular adeptness (and an infuriating — for its supporters — habit) of scoring own goals, just as it seems they’ve managed to convince enough Canadians that they are indeed the better party.”
This was the case in 2017 when the Prime Minister, assuming there was first no need to check with the Ethics Commissioner whether it was OK for a long-time family friend, a pallbearer at his father’s funeral, and (made) Honourary Citizen of Canada (by none other than thankfully-former-PM Stephen Harper), the Aga Khan, to pick him up at the airport… in his helicopter. It was the case again, in 2019, with the SNC-Lavalin issue, which wasn’t so much a scandal as it was a somewhat foreseeable outcome of sloppy work when Liberals wrote their 2018 deferred prosecution agreement legislation without including straightforward and conflict-free process guardrails and guidelines to ensure that prosecutorial independence was seen to be maintained on occasions when Cabinet and the Prime Minister needs to communicate with Canada’s Attorney General — who also happens to be the Minister of Justice — about political issues surrounding the public prosecution of a legal matter, as expressly allowed for by the legislation. And, it happened again both in 2020 when the Liberals opted for expediency over caution when opting to direct source the contract to administer the $912 million Canada Student Summer Grant program to the WE Charity and in 2021 when the Prime Minister and his team did not communicate the reason for which he would not be seeking any spotlight at all on the first-ever National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
None of these were actual scandals, despite which the Chaos Party of Canada tried to gaslight Canadians into believing. None led to criminal convictions (as was the case for the HarperCons with former Cabinet Minister Dean Del Mastro), guilty pleas (as was the case for the HarperCons with the in-and-out scandal), trials (as was the case for the HarperCons with former Senator Mike Duffy), being found of contempt of Parliament (as was the case for the HarperCons for not providing documents on the cost of its planned purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters) or even police investigations (as was the case for the HarperCons with all of the above as well as many of its associates such as Bruce Carson, Arthur Porter, and former Senator Don Meredith). At worst, they generated the sanction equivalent of a parking ticket from Canada’s Ethics Commissioner, under a law that did not exist until PM Harper came along, a rule of which PM Harper’s government was never once found in violation, despite individuals who were a member of it or associated with it being criminally charged… But I digress…
To borrow a lyric from Britney: ♪ Oops, they did it again! ♫This time, the Liberals tripped over the flowers in the carpet pattern by flubbing an amendment to their legislation. As stated in the article: “How they introduced their amendment was, by any objective measure, an utter disaster. The NDP, which holds a healthy number of more rural seats in certain provinces, is thus having a much more nuanced discourse and policy position on the issue — it encompasses the views of rural hunters and more urban citizens — and is seemingly reaping the public opinion rewards.”
On November 17, 2022, about a week before the Prime Minister testified at the Public Order Emergency Commission, the Liberal member for Markham-Unionville, Paul Chiang, tabled an amendment to the bill — that was several times larger in page numbers than the bill itself, according to The National Post’s Matt Gurney — following its second reading in the House and subsequent referral to the Standing Committee for Public Safety for consideration.
AN EAGER BEAVER CIVICS MOMENT
According to the Our Commons website, “The role of the committee—standing or legislative—is to review the bill’s text and approve or modify it. It is at this stage that the minister sponsoring the bill, in the case of a government bill, and witnesses may be invited to appear before the committee to present their views and answer members’ questions.
Once the witnesses have been heard, the committee proceeds to a clause-by-clause study of the bill. At this point, each clause is considered separately, and members may propose amendments. Once all the parts of the bill have been considered and adopted with or without amendment, the committee votes on the bill as a whole.
Once the bill is adopted, the chair asks the committee for leave to report the bill to the House.”
HOW WE GOT HERE
During the federal election campaign of 2015, then-leader of the third party, Justin Trudeau, promised he would get tough on guns. Once elected, he attempted a comprehensive overhaul of Canadian firearms regulation with Bill C-71, but, according to Gurney — and I’m not sure here whether this is fact or an editorial comment from him — it ultimately didn’t change much. He views it as a tacit acknowledgment that our gun control laws were doing quite well that which they were intended to: regulating the lawful domestic sale and usage of guns by licensed people.
It is quite possible that the manner in which Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, efficiently passed her gun control legislation following the March 15, 2019 shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, which ended the lives of 51 people and injured 40 more, inspired Prime Minister Trudeau to attempt to do more, as she, in the eyes of many progressives, had set the standard. According to Wikipedia: “The Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines, and Parts) Amendment Act 2019 was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 1 and passed its first reading the following day. The final reading was passed on April 10, supported by all parties in Parliament except ACT, and it became law by the end of the week.”
Before the most recent federal election, the Liberals got busy trying to bring Bill C-21 into being, but most of the time was spent in consultation. The bill remained on the order paper, unpassed, upon dissolution of the House when the writ was dropped.
The bill’s previous version was unpopular with gun and gun control advocates.
According to The National Post: “In March 2021, survivors and family members of victims of the Polytechnique Montréal 1989 massacre told Trudeau he was no longer welcome to any of the event’s commemorative events because they were so disappointed in the first iteration of C-21.”
On the gun control advocates’ side, a big issue with the bill’s first iteration was that its buyback provisions were voluntary rather than mandatory. That was modified in the current version and, according to The Daily Hive: “Present at the announcement were survivors of several Canadian mass shootings, including École Polytechnique, the Québec Mosque shooting, the Danforth shooting, and the Portapique rampage.”
“This bill is the most promising legislation since the long gun registry was abolished in 2012. And given the strength of the measures that have just been proposed, we remain optimistic,” said Polytechnique shooting survivor Nathalie Provost, at the time of re-tabling the bill.
“For five long years, we have been advocating for a ban on handguns, as this is the weapon that allowed one hateful young man to kill six of our brothers, severely wound five others, and traumatize dozens of witnesses, including children, all in less than two minutes,” added Boufeldja Benabdallah, the co-founder of the Québec Mosque where six Muslim men were murdered during a shooting in 2017.
At the end of May this year, the Liberals tabled a reworked Bill C-21 in the House of Commons.
The updated version of the bill was announced shortly after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives. Canadians are united in wanting to do more to keep communities safe and prevent suicides and gender-based violence.”
“This is about freedom. People should be free to go to school, the supermarket, and their place of worship without fear. Gun violence is a complex problem, but the math is quite simple: the fewer guns in communities, the safer everyone will be.”
The original bill was supposed to legislate a national freeze on the purchase, sale, transfer, or importation of handguns only. It also sought to limit the capacity of rifle magazines, ban a new list of firearms, and give power to municipalities to ban handguns on their territory.
The current version of the bill would also:
- grandfather current owners but limit their ability to sell or transfer the weapon to an authorized business only;
- force assault weapon owners to sell them back to the government through a mandatory buyback program;
- amend the Criminal Code to create a “red flag” law allowing any person to ask a judge to immediately order the removal of firearms for 30 days from an individual who poses a danger to themselves or others;
- amend the Criminal Code to create a “yellow flag” law granting the RCMP’s chief firearms officers authority to temporarily suspend a person’s license if they receive information “calling into question their license eligibility;.”
- give new powers to revoke gun licenses from those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking; and
- increase maximum prison sentences for gun smuggling or trafficking charges from 10 to 14 years.
The current version of C-21, pre-amendment, sought to establish new technical standards upon which to base the level of restriction, and for the most part, did an excellent job of it, which is the reason why most Canadians weren’t hearing much opposition, other than from the most extreme groups, such as the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights — it’s important to note here that the Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that firearm ownership in Canada, unlike the USA, is merely a privilege and not a right — who shamefully, in the lead up to the 33rd annual commemoration of the École Polytechnique massacre, was offering 10% off purchases if one used the discount code: “POLY.” [Insert unimpressed face here]
HOW THEY SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT
But somewhere along the way, likely following the shooting deaths, within one month between September and October of this year, of 3 police officers, Andrew Hong, Devon Northrup, and Morgan Russell (the last two shot by a person armed with an SKS), the Liberals decided they wanted to enshrine into law their May 1, 2020 Order in Council banning a few dozen models of firearms and their many multiple variants, for a total of about 1,500 variants of weapons. “What we’re trying to do is embed the order in council as part of the Criminal Code so that a future government can’t repeal it, which is precisely what the Conservatives have said they will do,” recently affirmed Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendocino.
Currently, thanks to a bill passed during the PM Jean Chrétien-era, Canada’s gun control laws crudely classify weapons into three categories: non-restricted (basic shotguns and rifles for which one needs a license), restricted (which includes most handguns as well as some rifles and come with more stringent storing conditions, stricter licensing requirements, more training safety exams, and background checks), and prohibited (assault rifles for which one can no longer obtain a license, though those grandfathered could retain theirs).
25 years. Canada child benefit. Kyoto ratification. Gun control. Same sex mariage. And goes on and on and on. #lpc #cdnpoli #chretien #jeanchretien #liberal pic.twitter.com/aEZJJNAu3i
— Zita Astravas (@ZitaAstravas) October 26, 2018
However, over time, primarily for political reasons, there have been so many reclassifications and carve-outs that the law is a confusing mess, even for those who pay close attention and are very responsible.
However, enshrining the Order in Council into law is described as an attempt to create a fourth category for so-called “assault-style” rifles. The major stumbling block, of course, is how to define what constitutes an “assault-style” rifle and this in a manner that satisfies gun control advocates without raising the ire of actually responsible firearms owners.
That’s where comes in the November 17, 2022, amendment to Bill C-21, tabled by the Liberal member for Markham-Unionville, Paul Chiang. And Kits, it’s been a hot mess ever since.
When it was announced, government talking points were not substantive, and those delivering them did not appear to be particularly well briefed. Worse yet, while the Indigenous community, for which hunting, in many cases, is a way of life, was adequately consulted on the bill itself, absolutely no consultation whatsoever was done with it as it pertains to the amendment. In the current era of Reconciliation, this is a monumental error. “Nothing about us, without us” most definitely applies here. Not having taken care of that part before tabling the amendment guarantees that the amendment would go nowhere until these essential criteria are met appropriately and meaningfully. As a result, the AFN recently passed an emergency resolution not to support the amendment until such consultation had been completed.
“Our young hunters that are growing up, they don’t send them up to the bush with a gun. There’s a whole process that has to do with our customs, our values, our traditions,” asserted Chief Tammy Cook of Lac La Ronge Indian Band in Saskatchewan.
"Our young hunters that are growing up, they just don't send them up to the bush with a gun. There's a whole process that has to do with our customs, our values, our traditions," said Chief Tammy Cook of Lac La Ronge Indian Band in Saskatchewan. https://t.co/iRL9G68Z5d
— John Cutfeet (@cutfeetj) December 9, 2022
“No government has a right to take that away from us and regulate that. That is our job as mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and hunters.”
According to the CBC, none of Public Safety Minister Marc Mendicino, Justice Minister David Lametti, Indigenous Services Minister Patti Hajdu, or Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller addressed the chiefs and proxies’ concerns over the legislation when speaking to the assembly. For his part, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that a bill review would not target legitimate gun use.
Though the bill will not affect the great majority of hunting rifles and shotguns, hunting advocates and shooters groups say the amendment constitutes overreach as some of their weapons will fall afoul of technical rules, such as the width of a gun’s barrel or maximum power of a bullet (a ceiling of 10,000 joules). Historical groups, re-enactors, and collectors such as the Toronto Artillery Foundation and the Royal Canadian Artillery Foundation claim some of their weapons would be affected by unintended consequences of the amendment as initially proposed.
Owners of SKS rifles — initially designed for the Soviet army in 1945 — which have never been restricted due to the fact they do not have a detachable box magazine, will likely be affected by the new rules. Given its low price, it has been widely sold. Owners of semi-automatic Remington 742 or upgraded 7-400 rifles will likely be affected by the new rules because it has a detachable box magazine. However, it holds only five cartridges (semi-automatic rifles with more than five rounds are already banned). Still, it can easily be modified to hold up to 30 (which would make it a prohibited firearm). In other instances, some 120-year-old single-cartridge rifles could be banned because their bore diameter exceeds 20mm. As well, given the buyback provisions are not explicitly spelled out, owners of big game hunting rifles (which can cost over $50,000) wonder how well they will be compensated if forced to sell their firearms back to the government. The same goes for firearms retailers when disposing of their inventory.
Being far from an expert on the technical aspects of firearm classification, I refer you to a beautiful article written by a friend of The True North Eager Beaver, retired naval officer Hugh Culliton.
Canadian Government’s “Changes” To Bill C-21 Are “Unproductive And Self-Defeating”
THE POLITICS OF IT ALL
NDP House Leader Peter Julian, who supports the handgun freeze and Bill C-21’s anti-smuggling provisions, states: “I don’t think they were competent in offering the amendments. The amendments themselves have confused people; there’s no doubt. I agree that the Conservatives are exploiting this. They love to fundraise off these problems that the government has, but the reality is that the Liberal government, I think, did a bit of a disservice to what was something where there is a consensus around a handgun freeze.” And exploiting this, the Conservatives are!
The Conservatives are adopting the position that hunting rifles and shotguns that have been used widely by hunters for decades are now hunting rifles and shotguns regardless of the fact they may have originally been designed for use by an army. The truth is that just because a rifle is used for hunting doesn’t mean said rifle is solely a hunting rifle.
They are also claiming the Prime Minister is using this as a way to deflect from what they alleged is his failure to curb crime while trashing Bill C-75, which brought bail reform, as having created a revolving door of criminals and the revocation of (still thankfully) former PM Stephen Harper’s mandatory minimum Bill C-5 to give sentencing discretion back to judges.
They want the whole amendment repealed. “What I don’t agree with what the Liberals are doing is looking to use the deaths of 14 people in the Polytechnique massacre; they also did this with the Nova Scotia mass shooting; we litigated that for the last six months, where they’re looking to take advantage and exploit the deaths of Canadians to further their political agenda, this time on hunters and farmers. We find that that’s very crass politics,” stated Raquel Dancho, the CPC’s Public Safety Critic, who drew lots of attention to herself by deliberately getting herself ejected from the House for saying “liar,” which is a no-no.
CPC MP Raquel Dancho got kicked out of the House earlier today for not apologizing for saying Liberal MP Vance Badawey was lying over the Liberal gun bill.
Dancho withdrew the remarks but after a long wait, she wouldn't apologize, so Anthony Rota kicked her out #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/PhKTXZNfhX
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) December 8, 2022
The Liberals are taking a hit in the Territories due to this. The Liberal MP for Yukon, Brendan Hanley, has gone on the record stating he will not support the amendment. Caroline Cochrane, the Premier of the Northwest Territories, has also spoken out against the amendment.
And even gun control advocates are not happy with how this was done. Heidi Rathjen, who was just 21 years old when a shooter walked into her class at École Polytechnique and killed 14 women, lamented. “For us, if this amendment doesn’t pass, it’s the end of the road because we’re not going to have another opportunity like this, with a good measure that bans assault weapons. If we can’t get it after 33 years of fighting, we’ll never get it, and our decades-long campaign to ban assault weapons will fail.’
So now the Liberals find themselves trying to spin this, after the fact, as just part of the normal legislative process. The amendment, all along, was going to be consulted on, and the government is open to changes to get the bill precisely right. People will be invited to provide expert testimony on the amendment at the Standing Committee on Public Safety.
“We’re hearing a lot of feedback around concerns that hunters are saying about guns that they use more for hunting, hunting rifles or shotguns, and that’s what we’re listening to feedback on now to make sure we are not capturing weapons that are primarily hunting weapons, but we all know that guns that we need to make sure that guns that are designed to kill the largest number of people are quickly as possible have no place in Canada,” stated the Prime Minister.
“It was in part because of the advocacy of groups like Poly, of groups like the Danforth Families, of groups like the Women’s Coalition for Gun Control, that we said when we tabled bill c-21 that we would be open to inviting an amendment to close some of those loopholes to be sure we were getting all of those guns that were designed with one purpose, and one purpose only, and that was to exert the greatest amount of lethal force in the shortest period. And that is precisely the work that the committee is doing right now: looking very carefully at the language of the amendment, making sure that there’s an alignment between the government’s intent, which is — I want to be clear about this — not to go after law-abiding guns owners, but rather to target those guns which have been used in some of the most awful and heinous shooting tragedies in the history of our country and that is precisely what we’re going to continue to do,” assured Public Safety Minister Marco Mendocino, adding that: “As we get into the technical language, and admittedly, it is a very detailed and particular piece of legislation, the Committee is doing its work, and what I have said all along, I will be inviting of any amendment that will make that bill better, including if there are some models there that are commonly used for hunting than obviously, that will continue to be a red line for us.”
Politically, it’s not like this thing is unsalvageable. Proper consultation, judicious amendments, and a buyback program that offers market value plus a touch more to create incentives can all combine to make this a decent bill, but, in many ways, the damage has already been done. This unforced error is a gift to Conservatives who, no matter what the Prime Minister and his party do from this moment on, can and will spin this as “but you saw what it was he tried to get away with… until he was caught”. It’s not a good look.
But the thing is, if normal legislative process indeed was being followed, — no matter how sincere and well done these allegedly “we intended to do this the whole time” consultations on the amendment, especially with the Indigenous community — said consultations would have been done before the amendment being tabled. The proof is that nobody from the governing party can answer the painfully obvious follow-up question: “Why was this not done before?”
Until we next see each other, be kind to and gentle with yourself,
Your Eager Beaver
The True North Eager Beaver is also a podcast. We have a live morning show every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 a.m. (Eastern) that you can find on our YouTube channel or live-streamed on our Twitter feed.
Episode 27 of The Not Quite Daily Beaver: Liberal Own Goal
On this (just a nibble) episode, we talk about the Liberals making an unforced error on their gun control legislation, that which the latest polls have been telling us, and; Old Dan-Yeller’s pretense that she’s not just looking for any pretext at all to cast Alberta in the role of victim in the Ultimate Crybabies Party’s effort to bait PM Trudeau into a fight being as flimsy as a soggy paper straw.
PS: If you like what we do and wish to encourage us to do more, our tip jar can be found here, or you can get your Eager Beaver merch here.
