Feds Introduce New Gun Control Legislation
On Monday, the federal government made good on their promise to deliver new firearm legislation by introducing Bill C-21. The bill incorporates ideas from previous legislation that did not pass, and new ideas that were promised during the 2021 election campaign. The new bill will amend existing gun control legislation such as the Firearms Act, Nuclear Safety and Control Act, and the Criminal Code.
Changes proposed in Bill C-21 include:
Revoking an individual’s firearms licence if they have engaged in domestic violence, stalking, or have become the subject of a protection order. Protection orders are of significant importance as the bill would also prevent individuals who are currently or were subject to a protection order from being eligible to hold a firearms license.
‘Freezing’ handgun sales by preventing individuals from bringing newly acquired handguns into Canada and from buying, selling, and transferring handguns within the country.
Creating a new “red flag” law that would enable courts to require individuals considered to be a danger to themselves or others turn their firearms over to law enforcement
Deeming certain replica or unregulated firearms that “exactly resemble regulated firearms” to be prohibited devices which would disallow the selling, transferring, importing, and exporting of such firearms. Legal possession and use of such prohibited devices would still be allowed as long as it is not for the purposes of selling, transferring, importing, or exporting.
Creating a new offence that targets altering cartridge magazines to exceed its lawful capacity. This offence would carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison as an indictable offence or a maximum fine of $5,000 and/or two years less a day in prison as a summary conviction offence. Long-gun magazines will need to be permanently altered to ensure they can never hold more than five rounds to be considered lawful.
The creation of a new regime that would allow people to apply for a court-ordered emergency prohibition or limitation against another person to public safety reasons. This would either temporarily prevent someone from possessing firearms and other weapons specified in the order or impose specific terms and conditions on someone’s possession and use of firearms and other weapons specified in the order. These restrictions would be imposed where there are reasonable grounds to believe it is not in the best interests of public safety, or the safety of the person filing the order, to allow someone to uninhibitedly possess firearms and other weapons. These orders would take effect immediately after a judge’s ruling and would last for a maximum of 30 days.
Indictable offences such as weapons smuggling, trafficking, and other offences in sections 95,96, 99, 100, and 103 of the Criminal Code will not carry a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment; a 4-year increase from the previous maximum of 10 years.
Making it an offence for any business to advertise a firearm in a way that depicts, counsels, or promotes violence against a person.
Authorizing the Commissioner of Firearms, the Registrar, or a chief firearms officer to disclose certain information to law enforcement when there is a reasonable belief that an individual has committed a weapons trafficking offence and the disclosure of such information would assist in investigating or prosecuting said offence.
Expanding the responsibilities of nuclear security officers to preserve and maintain peace at high-security sites. Their new peace officer powers would be limited to verifying identities of individuals, conducting searches of individuals, arresting without warrants in accordance with the Criminal Code, and seizing anything that the officer reasonably believes to pose a risk to the security of the site or is related to an offence under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the Criminal Code, or the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
The federal government also promised to initiate a mandatory buyback program for the 1,500+ assault-style weapons they banned in 2020 with more details to come during the summer. The new legislation is definitely a step forward but it’s probably not enough to effect meaningful change. Statistics Canada has released a report that shows rates firearm-related violent crime are increasing in parts of Canada and that the majority of said crime involves the use of handguns. A key limitation on the report is that they are unable to track the origin of the guns used in criminal activity. It’s estimated that anywhere from 70 to 99% of guns used in crimes in Canada are sourced from the United States. Implementing a ‘freeze’ on the movement of legally purchased firearms will surely prohibit law-abiding Canadians from using their guns at all but it won’t do anything to stop the movement of illegally acquired firearms both across the border and across the country. Smuggling firearms is not a weekend-hobby; it’s a sophisticated, well-oiled machine that has been able to successfully avoid detection by the Canadian Border Security Agency and the United States Border Patrol.
In order to meaningfully curb the potential for firearm-related violence, the federal government must invest in the CBSA in order to give them the resources necessary to stop firearm smuggling across the border. This, too, may not be enough since the number of guns obtained legally from within Canada and then sold illegally have been surging. If the government is serious about curbing gun-violence, they need to get serious about their solutions. This would mean a comprehensive initiative that foremostly targets youth, attempts to build connections between youth and education, attempts to eliminate the link between socio-economic status and crime, cracks down on cross-border smuggling, is able to track firearms once they’ve been purchased and transported, emphasizes building relationships within communities, and probably much, much more.
This is not an easy issue to fix but we need to try, and we need to try our best. The measures adopted through Bill-C21 are a good start but will need to be substantially built upon if they hope to see any sort of success.