Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree said in a recent recording the Liberal government’s gun policies were chosen for political reasons and likely can’t be properly enforced.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
This space has long argued that the federal Liberals’ gun-control policies – in particular a buyback program targeting assault-style rifles announced in 2020 but never launched – have very little to do with public safety and everything to do with cynical politics.
We said those policies were a wedge salad of empty promises, half-baked ideas and outright incompetence tossed together in the hope of winning a few seats.
Well, you don’t have to take it from us any more. Just ask Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who has been charged by Prime Minister Mark Carney with the task of finally getting the buyback program for individual gun owners off the ground this week.
Mr. Anandasangaree was surreptitiously taped by a disgruntled gun owner earlier this month saying that the Liberals were determined to see the buyback through for one reason: “this is something that [is] very much a big, big, big deal for many of the Quebec electorate that voted for us.”
He also said that, were he able, he would redo the program “from scratch,” and that he had doubts that “municipal police services have the resources to [enforce] this.”
At one point he tells the man, “Don’t ask me to explain the logic to you on this.”
Oh, but you already have, Mr. Anandasangaree.
Opinion: The Public Safety Minister accidentally tells the truth about Canada’s gun-buyback program
Ever since a heavily armed man killed 22 people in Nova Scotia in April, 2020, the Liberals have used gun control to manage their electoral fortunes while doing next to nothing to make the public safer.
“Canadians deserve more than thoughts and prayers,” Justin Trudeau said shortly after the Nova Scotia massacre, but he only ever delivered poorly conceived legislation and calculated delays.
He began in 2020 by announcing an immediate ban on the possession and sale of a long list of assault-style semi-automatic rifles and accessories – a list the Liberals added to twice after that. It now sits at 2,500 varieties.
He also said that year that the government would launch an obligatory buyback program and announced a two-year amnesty for gun owners while the program was set up.
Two years later, the Liberals extended the amnesty for a year, and then extended it again for two more years, placing its end after what would have been the fixed-date election scheduled for October of this year – as cynical a move as any politician ever executed.
Mr. Trudeau never made it to that election, of course. He was forced out of office by his own party in January and replaced by Mr. Carney, who called an early vote in April.
And now the end date for the amnesty period is March 1, 2026 – almost six years after the events that triggered it.
Public Safety Minister says leaked comments about Liberals’ gun policy were ‘misguided’
The repeated failure to launch the buyback program for individual gun owners has not been the Liberals’ only failing.
In 2021, they proposed in a gun bill that Ottawa give municipalities the power to ban handguns, instead of doing the responsible thing and enforcing a national ban. It was a ludicrous and unworkable idea that they eventually dropped. They embarrassed themselves again in 2022, when they had to backtrack after sticking last-minute amendments into a new gun bill that appeared to outlaw popular hunting rifles.
The only things the Liberals have done to reduce the number of guns in Canada have been an assault-style firearms buyback for businesses that received 12,195 claims for compensation, and a freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer by individuals of handguns – a move that does nothing to eliminate the estimated 1.2 million handguns still in Canadians’ possession, a number based on a 2023 report from Mr. Anandasangaree’s department.
Mr. Carney’s decision to press ahead with the buyback for individuals is more of the same half-baked baloney. There are doubts about how successful a voluntary program can be, and whether the amounts the government is offering will entice people into applying for compensation.
Meanwhile, the Ontario Provincial Police and the municipal police in Montreal say they will not take part in the program. Alberta and Saskatchewan say they will not enforce the buyback, while Manitoba is on the fence.
Perhaps that is why this week’s launch is a pilot program limited to collecting 200 firearms in parts of Cape Breton. It took five and a half years to get to this, which is completely on brand for the Liberals. No wonder Mr. Anandasangaree would rather not bother.