No Coincidence the Liberals are Trying to Grab Guns While Taking Away Free Speech

Written By Wyatt Claypool, Posted on July 13, 2021

One of the best arguments that firearm rights in Canada are absolutely fundamental freedoms and the government knows it, is the lockstep timing of the Liberals’ newest attacks on Canadian gun owners (Bill C-21) paired with their proposal for new legislation to undermine free speech rights (Bill C-36).

Governments don’t push out legislation in a random fashion, with each new bill having nothing to do with one another, rather everything proposed and passed around the same time tends to feed into the same immediate agenda. Clearly, the Liberals, and their NDP allies, recent agenda since the beginning of 2020, has been the consolidation of power over the Canadian public.

Bill C-21, if passed, would have the federal government empower local municipalities to be able to ban legally-owned handguns, put in place an overbearing “red flag” law regime that would have guns confiscated from an owner based on the word of anyone who knows them, and implements tighter restrictions on current firearms that can be sold even going as far as to limit the supposed “glorification of violence” in firearms marketing.

That still isn’t even half of the ridiculous regulations in C-21, which can be further read on the government’s own website.

Liberal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.

It should also be noted that recently even a City News-created documentary pointed out that none of the regulations in C-21 would help with curbing gun smuggling or gang violence in any significant way. Especially since C-22, passed right after C-21, did away with many mandatory minimum sentences for gun-related crimes.

Now pair C-21 up with the latest anti-free speech legislation proposed just back on June 23, Bill C-36 which is such draconian “hate speech” legislation it would allow anonymous complaints of hate speech to cause someone to be hauled in front of the Human Rights Commission. That same anonymous person can even report you on the suspicion that they fear you may commit “hate speech” in the future and can place ridiculous restrictions on your behaviour, movement, and force you to submit to random drug tests.

The National Telegraph contributor Daniel Bordman details more about C-36 in the video embedded below.

We are seeing a full assault on Canadians rights and freedoms and the government seems to know that undermining firearms rights just before hitting Canadians with authoritarian speech regulations is a necessary step in their centralization of powers in the federal government.

Just as the government has turned firearms ownership from what was an unquestionable freedom Canadians possessed more than a decade ago into a government-granted privilege, they are now doing the same to speech. Yes, you can still own guns and still speak freely, just as long as it doesn’t upset Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals’ left-wing sensibilities.

It also would not be a surprise if the CRTC, now empowered with new regulatory powers over internet content given to them in Bill C-10, would heavily downgrade the distribution of firearms content on the internet, even if it checked all the boxes of what “Canadian content” is defined as being. Especially if the government arbitrarily says such content “glorifies violence” and thus does not qualify as “Canadian content”.

The National Telegraph reached out to Rod Giltaca, the CEO and Executive Director of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights, for comment on the degrading state of rights and freedoms in Canada, in relation to the issue of firearms.

Giltaca stated that:

Despite what many anti-gun folks say, firearm ownership may legitimately be a right for Canadians because we should be able to own things and not be deprived of them without factual justification.This is the idea behind property rights.

In response to the developments on the undermining of free speech rights, Giltaca responded by acknowledging the deliberate attempt in Canada by leftists governments to culturally undermine rights before officially taking them away.

Giltaca explained that:

Over the last 40 years, we’ve seen an increasing disregard on behalf of the government when it comes to fundamental rights. Whether it’s property rights, free speech, or the completely reasonable idea that you can defend yourself from violent attacks, the government seems to put a significant amount of effort into convincing people they shouldn’t have any rights at all. Unfortunately, many Canadians now agree with the government on this topic.

It would be proactive for those advocating against the ongoing Liberal gun-grabbing and strict regulations to make the well-evidenced case that firearms rights and free speech rights are connected, and even those Canadians who aren’t firearms owners have a stake in upholding the right to gun ownership in Canada.

If one fundamental freedom goes then the others will surely follow.

Wyatt Claypool

Wyatt is a student at Mount Royal University, where he is the president of its Campus Conservative club. In his writing, he focuses on covering provincial and federal politics, firearms regulation, and the energy sector. Wyatt has also previously written for The Post Millennial.