I saw that Trudeau took some new action on guns. Will this change anything?
Everything you need to know about what Bill C-21 would change if it passes.
Hey there, and welcome to the 19th issue of The Supplement, a newsletter that fills in the gaps of your other news intake. This is Sam, one-third of the Supplement team!
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This week, we’re tackling this question: I saw that Trudeau instituted some new action on guns. Will this change anything?
TL;DR: The federal government has introduced Bill C-21. It’s new gun control legislation that, if passed, would introduce a voluntary buy-back program for banned firearms, allow municipalities to ban handguns, increase maximum criminal penalties and more. The legislation is seen as mostly a win for anti-gun advocates, but the debate as to what will work and why is still polarizing.
This week, the federal government introduced new gun control legislation under Bill C-21. The amendments to the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act would:
Introduce a voluntary buy-back program for barred firearms (price tag unclear)
Allow municipalities to ban handguns (if their province permits it)
Increase maximum criminal penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking
Introduce “red flag” rules that would allow people to apply to a court for the immediate removal of someone's firearm, which the government says could be used in cases of suspected intimate partner and gender-based violence
It builds upon a May 2020 federal ban of military-grade “assault style weapons,” announced less than two weeks after the deadliest mass shooting in Canada’s history, the Nova Scotia gun massacre.
The two-year amnesty period for gun owners to return or export those weapons, tied to that date, ends April 2022. The exact number of them still in circulation in Canada is unknown.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also promised $250 million over 5 years for municipalities and Indigenous communities to support anti-gang programming and prevention programs for at-risk youth. Social justice advocates are quick to note that addressing the root societal causes of gun violence with socioeconomic opportunities and community led-initiatives will go a long way towards reducing that violence.
What do people think?
Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole says he doubts the program will curb gun violence, such as gang activity. Meanwhile, the NDP put its support behind last May’s ban, and leader Jagmeet Singh did say then that he believed gun owners should be compensated for their losses.
Some activists in favour of strong gun control have criticized the buy-back program for being voluntary — the Liberals’ reversed their original commitment, which was to make the program mandatory.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says the changes will also keep handguns off the streets, despite not specifically targeting handguns.
At the local level: mixed reactions. A few municipalities have already spoken up and said they will ban handguns if the federal legislation passes, such as Vancouver and Surrey, B.C.’s two biggest cities. Toronto Mayor John Tory had called for the federal government to ban handguns as well. But Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said a city-specific ban would be inadequate to address the broader problem of gun trafficking.
Some experts say that allowing cities to make decisions about whether they’ll ban handguns could be hard to enforce and understand; in Quebec, the bill has been slammed for this very reason.
What comes next? Bill C-21 still faces challenges in the House of Commons and must receive Senate approval before becoming federal law.
Though the potential changes have been boiled down nicely, reducing gun violence is far from simple. Last year, experts like Solomon Friedman, a criminal defence lawyer in Ottawa and an expert on the Firearms Act, commented that the federal government’s new strategy wouldn’t work without a US border crackdown.
In fall 2019, The Globe and Mail released an investigation into firearms tracing, seeking to answer the question of where the guns used in crimes come from. Journalists Patrick White and Tom Cardoso found that handguns are by far the most-used weapons in firearm-related homicides. They also discovered that many are legal weapons stolen in Canada or sold into the black market by legal owners, disputing the conclusion that most or all are coming from the US. Data on the origins of guns used in violent crimes is scarce and confusing, so this reporting is vital to grasping what we do now.
What’s clear is that this is a polarizing issue, made no easier by the fact that we sit right above the US and absorb so much of its own heated gun control debate. We won’t really know the possible efficacy of these pieces of legislation until they are passed and we can look at quality data.
Here’s someone to follow:
Kate Sosin is an LGBTQ+ reporter for The 19th News (which just celebrated its one-year anniversary!) focusing on transgender rights, incarceration, politics and public policy. Kate has also conducted deep-dive investigations into transgender prison abuse and homicides for NBC News.
Here’s a story to check out:
A few weeks ago, we answered a reader question about how much worse Canada’s opioid crisis has become since the start of the pandemic. This past weekend, The Globe and Mail published Portraits of Loss, a snapshot of 100 people who died of overdoses in 2020. It’s a humanizing, empathetic piece of interactive reporting from journalists Andrea Woo and Marcus Gee.
