The Senate has voted 60–24 to pass Bill C-21, legislation that cements handgun restrictions, increases penalties on firearms traffickers, and implements new “red flag” provisions.
Additionally, the legislation increases the maximum penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking from 10 years to 14 years in prison.
The Liberal government was forced to back down from a previous version of the bill in February that would have added hundreds of firearm types already exempted under the 2020 Orders in Council—some of which are used for hunting—to the prohibited list.
Cabinet then introduced an updated version of the bill and announced it would revive the Firearms Advisory Committee to review the classification of existing firearms. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told senators in October that the review would exclude guns legitimately used for hunting.
Critics of Bill C-21
In reacting to the bill’s passage, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on social media that the Liberal government was “going after trained and tested, law-abiding Canadians instead of gangs and gun smugglers,” and warned that it was planning to ban hunting rifles.“Common sense Conservatives will stop the Liberal hunting rifle ban and go after the real criminals instead,” he said on Dec. 14.
PolySeSouvient, a gun control group that represents survivors and families of the École Polytechnique massacre, said they welcomed the passage of Bill C-21, which “contains solid measures to better protect victims of domestic abuse from gun threats and violence.”“These measures represent concrete and effective progress and will [save] many lives, in particular, due to the new automatic prohibition preventing an individual who is subject to a protection order from owning guns,” said Nathalie Provost, survivor and spokesperson for PolySeSouvient in a Dec.14 statement.
Tracey Wilson, vice president of Public Relations at the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 14 that legislation should instead focus on gang violence and illegal gun smuggling over the Canada–U.S. border. Instead, she said, the government enacted more gun control on the “very people not committing” gun violence.
Ms. Wilson warned that the red flag provision would put the onus on victims to go to court to flag problems instead of “allowing law enforcement to do their job.” She said Canada’s sports shooting sector would be harmed despite its “long, storied history of marksmanship and Olympic excellence on the world stage.”
Police officers would be made to attend the homes of legal handgun owners’ homes upon their death, and forcibly confiscate their property from their grieving widows and children, without compensation, Ms. Wilson said.
