Stop ducking a handgun ban
The Canadian government’s plan to allow municipalities to ban handguns is not “an overreach,” as Alberta politicians have labelled it.
But it would be an ineffective gesture at a time when cities desperately need help to curb rising deadly gun violence.
That’s why Justin Trudeau’s government needs to drop its plan, reiterated most recently in the Throne Speech, to download the responsibility for banning handguns to thousands of cities and towns across Canada.
That responsibility — and the power to implement such a ban — properly rests with the federal government. Trying to get around that fact is a recipe for more delay and inaction and the deadly consequences that come with that.
The federal government has already taken steps to ban military-style assault rifles, albeit not as effectively as they should have. It’s long past time it tackled handguns, which constitute Canada’s biggest gun problem.
Even COVID-19 hasn’t slowed down the handgun-fuelled violence that plagues too many city streets. Amid a pandemic that has changed almost everything, Toronto is experiencing the continuation of a five-year trend of increasing gun violence that has seen a surge in the number of people injured and killed.
If the government wants to limit gun violence, it must tackle the proliferation of handguns. And it won’t succeed in that task with its current plan. In fact, the Liberal plan amounts to little more than pretending to tackle the handgun problem by fobbing it off on cities that don’t have the necessary power and knowing full well that provinces intend to stand in the way.
Saskatchewan has gone so far as to pass legislation that specifically prohibits municipalities from placing any restrictions on firearms.
Alberta is so against all of Ottawa’s gun control measures that it has created a government committee to support firearm ownership with a mandate to recommend provincial policies to “support law-abiding gun owners.”
Even Ontario, which has adopted a new and welcome collaborative tone when it comes to Ottawa, hasn’t shown the least bit of interest in budging from its opposition on this issue. Premier Doug Ford has stated that handgun bans are “not the solution” to reducing criminal activity and “I wouldn’t support a ban on handguns.”
All this provincial opposition makes the government’s plan dead in the water and it’s absurd that the federal government is the only one that doesn’t see that.
Toronto, the city hardest hit by gun violence, which would dearly love to see a handgun ban, knows this isn’t the way forward. Municipalities are creatures of the province, and while Toronto and other big cities are keen to get more powers and independence that’s about being able to handle their own increasingly complex responsibilities better not hoping to take on a new and thorny federal one.
In last month’s Speech from the Throne, the Liberals vowed to press on with commitments, including “giving municipalities the ability to further restrict or ban handguns” and “strengthening measures to control the flow of illegal guns into Canada.”
The government certainly should do more to stem the flow of illegal guns. Even with a handgun ban that’s a vital measure. As is doing more to address the underlying causes of gang shootings, poverty and inequality.
As critics are always quick to point out, a ban on legal guns doesn’t magically rid us of the illegal ones. It does reduce the overall number that can fall into the wrong hands by accident, theft or intent. It is one piece of a puzzle.
But the ban that Trudeau’s Liberals currently envision is pointless — and possibly even worse than that.
Instead of taking a decisive step that moves us forward, their plan keeps us in limbo while providing fresh fodder for conservative politicians and the gun lobby to rage about government overreach and gun-owning rights as though we were Americans.
It’s time to bite the proverbial bullet and draft federal legislation to ban private handguns in Canada.