Federal Court Dismisses Lawsuits Against Ottawa’s Firearms Ban

Rifles and shotguns on display in an Ottawa hunting store, in a file photo. (Jonathan Hayward/CP Photo)

The federal court has dismissed multiple lawsuits challenging the Liberal government’s May 2020 decision to ban 1,500 firearms.

The policy had been implemented through an Order-in-Council (OIC) made by cabinet. Justice Catherine Kane said in her Oct. 30 decision that in doing so, the government had not exceeded its authority granted by Parliament.

“The decision of the Governor in Council to promulgate the Regulations is reasonable,” wrote Justice Kane.

She agreed with the government that the prohibited firearms are not reasonable for use in hunting or sport shooting.

The government had announced the new firearms ban would curb gun violence. It came shortly after the April 2020 mass shooting in Portapique, Nova Scotia, which claimed 22 lives. The shooter did not have a firearms license and the firearms used in the tragedy had been obtained illegally, including three smuggled from the U.S.

Different groups and individuals challenged the ban in court and their applications were heard jointly last spring.

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Some argued the delegation of authority by the OIC to a RCMP branch in charge of inscribing firearms to the prohibited list deprives owners of procedural fairness. Adding unnamed firearm variants to the Firearms Reference Table without reasons or notice and no review mechanism would expose owners to criminal liability, they said.

“The Governor in Council does not owe a duty of procedural fairness to firearm owners affected by the regulations,” wrote Justice Kane.

The May 2020 ban was accompanied by an amnesty for gun owners finding themselves with newly-designated prohibited weapons, as the government would work to put in place a buyback program.

The amnesty was due to expire on Oct. 30, but a two-year extension was announced earlier this month. The buyback program, expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, has yet to be implemented.

No Rights Violated

Justice Kane also shot down claims of breaches of various charter rights. “The Regulations do not infringe section 7 of the Charter; the Regulations are not vague, overbroad or arbitrary,” she said.

Section 7 refers to the right to “life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

The judge said that even if the court had found the regulations did not follow the principles of fundamental justice, it would have deemed the infringement a “reasonable limit” as per Section 1 of the charter.

“The overriding goal of public safety outweighs any possible infringement on the rights of firearm owners who are now more limited in their choice of firearm for hunting and sporting purposes,” wrote Justice Kane, who also said there were no infringement of the Canadian Bill of Rights.

Gun rights advocates argue that current laws are already robust to govern firearms in Canada and that most related crimes are committed with illegal firearms. Some hunters also say they depend on certain types of banned firearms for extra support.

Haida Nation member Laurence Knowles declared in his application to the court that he owned four prohibited firearms for hunting and wildlife management on Haida Gwaii, in B.C. The application said these “activities provide for a significant portion of Mr. Knowles’ food, and having the proper equipment, including the prohibited items, often means the difference between eating or not.”

Mr. Knowles was part of the application with the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR) and firearms companies.

The CCFR said in an online statement it would analyze the court’s decision in the coming days to determine if it would appeal. “We promised we would fight this unjust and irresponsible action by this Liberal\NDP government, and we will continue to do just that until every avenue and opportunity is exhausted.”

Gun control group PolySeSouvient, which represents survivors and families of the École Polytechnique massacre, applauded the ruling. “This ruling should propel the Trudeau government to rapidly implement its repeated campaign commitments to ban all military-style assault weapons not reasonably used for hunting,” said spokesperson Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the tragedy.

C-21

The Liberal government has pressed forward with its gun control agenda. Bill C-21 is currently being studied in the Senate after being adopted in the House of Commons last spring.

It aims to create an evergreen definition to ban firearms that discharge centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner, and which are designed to hold a magazine of six or more cartridges. The definition would only apply to firearms manufactured after the bill comes into force, and will not impact current owners of these types of firearms.

The government, in February, walked back a previous iteration of the bill which caused an uproar in Parliament and civil society, with the Conservatives, the NDP, and First Nations group coming against it. It would have added hundreds of rifles, many of which are used for hunting, to the prohibited list.

In the new iteration of the bill, the government instead aims to create a firearms committee to decide which weapons should be banned. The bill would also put into law the current freeze on the transfer of handguns.

Bill C-21 seeks to implement red flag provisions to allow anyone to make an application in provincial court to prevent someone from possessing firearms and other weapons, “if the person believes on reasonable grounds that it is not desirable in the interests of the safety of the person against whom the order is sought.”