Is Trudeau Still Pushing Forward the Gun Ban Despite Scandal and Pandemic?

Since May 1 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his ban on around 1,500 “assault style” rifles through an Order In Council (OIC) there has been little indication on what will happen next and when it will happen. 

In the aftermath of Trudeau’s announcement more models of rifles have been added to the gun ban list. MP Michele Rempel’s record setting petition against the ban gathered over 230,000 signatures, and firearms lobby groups like the CCFR and NFA have mounted court challenges against the Liberal government.

What hasn’t really happened yet is the proposed gun buyback the government was going to utilize to remove firearms from law abiding owners as an incentive to become compliant by April of 2022. 

This may cause some to assume the planned ban may have stalled a bit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the WE Charity scandal, and the proroguing of parliament, but Rod Giltaca from the CCFR warns against assuming the Liberals aren’t still hard charing on their anti-firearms plan.

Giltaca doesn’t believe massive deficit spending and debt accumulated by the Liberal government in the past several months likely won’t stop the Liberals from trying to fund their massive gun confiscation program. 

Giltaca said:

I don’t think the Liberal’s plan to confiscate firearms has stalled, at all. I also don’t think the funding is an issue. It’s clear that printing money is meaningless to the Liberals and they’ll create it for whatever political goal they have. What is startling though, is they seem to be short of money when it comes to fighting actual violence and crime.

When asked whether or not the Liberals may simply just deepen their current deficit spending to pay for the entirety of the firearms ban Giltaca said, “I fully expect the Liberal government to follow through with their plans entirely no matter how they choose to fund it.”

Giltaca touched on how despite the Liberals heavy emphasis on supposedly making Canadians safer through confiscating the firearms of law abiding citizens they have not at all increased funding for law enforcement. On the contrary some progressive politicians in Canada like Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, and Toronto Mayor John Tory, have proposed cutting police budgets.

The Liberals gun ban will not be a low cost item on the budget. The Fraser Institute when predicting the cost of the guy backpack program estimated it could cost between just $1.64 billion to $4.92 billion, and that’s only counting the government workers and facilities needed to run the program. 

The Liberals proposed $600 million budget to buy back firearms was deemed by the Fraser Institute to be completely inadequate for the amount of property they are going to try and force law abiding gun owners to sell to them. 

What does seem clear at this point is whether or not the Liberals have slowed their momentum on the gun ban the next election will have be placing firearms ownership as a centre stage issue, and the gun lobby groups know they cannot stop pushing back on Trudeau’s anti-gun ownership policies any time soon.