Kenney slams federal gun plan for doing little to target criminals
EDMONTON Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has slammed Ottawa’s gun ban in an afternoon statement Friday, accusing the federal Liberal government of going after law-abiding gun owners and doing nothing to tackle illegal gun violence.
“Today’s order does little to target criminals,” said Kenney in a statement. “Instead Ottawa is singling out law-abiding gun Canadians who purchased their property legally.”
Kenney also said the province is considering replacing the federal firearms officer with the provincial chief firearms officer.
The announcement came hours after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, Justice Minister David Lametti and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freelance announced a wide-ranging crackdown on gun ownership, banning some 1,500 variations of firearms, saying they endanger public safety.
“Enough is enough. Banning these firearms will save Canadian lives,” said Blair, the former chief of police in Toronto, turned Liberal politician.
The program will include a twoyear amnesty, though use of the newly banned “assault style” firearms is banned as of Friday, with limited exceptions for hunting. As well, there could eventually be a buyback program, where government essentially buys guns from people. The Liberals promised this in their 2019 election platform.
Kenney slammed this, too, saying the federal Liberals will spend “vast sums of money to criminalize law-abiding Canadians.”
“That money would be far better used to pursue the smugglers and drug gangs that plague our society,” he said.
Alberta Justice Minister David Schweitzer called on the federal government in the statement to put in place tough mandatory minimums on illegal gun use.
The Alberta legislature, in November 2019, passed a motion in support of Alberta firearms owners. At the time, Environment Minister Jason Nixon compared it to the Liberals’ support of the energy industry.
“They sold out Albertans to Justin Trudeau and to the federal NDP leader. What are they going to do with firearm owners inside this province?” Nixon asked.
The motion said the legislature will “recognize and support the ability of Albertans to lawful and in a responsible manner own and possess firearms and to engage in permitted activities involving the use of firearms.”
Schweitzer said the province will “scrutinize today’s move by Ottawa and explore potential responses through this lens.”
The Alberta government’s own background documents say that most of the newly prohibited firearms exist in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. There are 2.2 million gun licence holders in Canada. There will be 90,000 newly affected firearms in the country that were previously restricted; it’s not known how many non-restricted guns will be affected since they’re unregistered.