New gun control bill doesn’t go far enough, leaves ‘significant loopholes,’ critics charge

Asurge in firearms-related violence in Toronto at the halfway point of 2018 comes after the federal government last week quietly passed a long-awaited gun control bill that critics say leaves “significant loopholes” in the law. Bill C-71 will now be referred to the Senate in the fall. However, key amendments proposed by gun control advocates — and supported by some Toronto-area MPs — appear not to have been considered, according to Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control and a professor at Ryerson University. She described the bill as “leaving significant loopholes in the legislation and failing to deliver on (Liberal) election promises.”

One of the proposed changes is reinstating controls on the transportation of handguns and restricted firearms, such as assault weapons, something the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police flagged as a concern.

In a presentation last month to the standing committee on public safety and national security, the association pointed out current gun laws allow a licence holder “to carry the firearm at all times if they were not forthcoming about their purpose and intent” and allow a person to claim their gun is being transported to a border crossing, a gun show or gunsmith, providing “an escape route to a person who is willing to break the law.”

The association’s president Mario Harel, who was joined by Toronto Police Service Supt. Gord Sneddon, told the committee there is a “very disturbing trend of gun violence” in Canada, despite declining crime rates.

Between 2013 and 2016, there has been a 30 per cent increase in criminal incidents involving firearms across the country, according to the police chiefs’ association. Gun homicides are up by more than 60 per cent.

“Troubling is the fact that about 50 per cent of all handguns used in crime, that we have been able to trace, have been diverted from legal Canadian firearm owners,” Harel told the committee on May 29.

“Without action, we do not see any changes to this growing trend. We need protections to help mitigate the impact of the worst outcomes of gun violence, even if those protections place requirements on lawabiding firearm owners.”

Cukier links the increase of Canadian-sourced crime guns to the “relaxation of controls over legal firearms,” that occurred under the previous Conservative government.

Nevertheless, the government failed to listen to address the police chiefs association’s call to strengthen Bill C-71 to provide police with easy access to records of gun sales, she says.

Last month, Harel told the public safety committee that since the end of the long-gun registry, the police have been “effectively blind” to the number of nonrestricted firearms purchased by licence holders.

“The absence of such records effectively stymies the ability to trace a nonrestricted firearm that has been used in crime,” Harel said.

A spokesperson for the police chiefs’ association said Monday that Harel is out of the country and not available to comment.

In the U.S., it is federally mandated that each store must track and keep records of firearms sales.

Cukier said the timetable for the legislation allowed for “limited consultation with groups supporting firearms control or gender based analysis.”

She also blames the U.S.-based National Rifle Association for helping the Canadian gun lobby to steadily erode domestic gun laws.