After Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Jagmeet Singh’s NDP shut down debate on Bill C-21, the Standing Committee on National Security and Public Safety (SECU) worked all day and night to ram the bill down Canadians’ throat.
Raquel Dancho, CPC Shadow Minister Public Safety and the rest of the Conservative team fought to make improvements during this two-day marathon. They were stonewalled at every turn by the Liberal/NDP coalition.
Last fall, after retracting the Liberal government’s last-minute amendments that would have imposed the largest hunting rifle ban in Canadian history, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said he was committed to “get this right”.[i]
Getting this right does not include fixing Bill C-21’s many flaws. The Liberal/NDP coalition showed zero interest in common-sense changes to improve the proposed legislation.
Getting this right does not include listening to women’s groups devoted to keeping women safe from domestic violence. The Liberal/NDP coalition ignored the pleas of these groups to fix Bill C-21’s flawed red- and yellow-flag laws.
Getting this right does not include listening to hunters, farmers, sport shooters or Olympic athletes. It does not include protecting our proud heritage of international shooting excellence.
Getting this right does not include listening to Chief Firearms Officers who do not toe the Liberal Party line. There are many measures to help stop drug dealers and gangs in our major cities. Banning hunting rifles is not one of them.
For Marco Mendicino, getting this right means ignoring everyone, including Liberal Members of Parliament who disagree with the government’s direction.
While Trudeau, Mendicino et al spout platitude after platitude about “keeping Canadians safe,” two things are as obvious as Justin Trudeau’s growing nose.
The Liberal/NDP coalition doesn’t care about stopping violent criminals.
If they did, they would listen to firearm owners, hunters, sport shooters and police officers. They would adopt measures to focus Bill C-21 on criminals instead of RCMP-vetted and federally licensed firearm owners.
The Liberal/NDP coalition doesn’t care about preventing domestic violence or keeping women safe when leaving abusive relationships.
If they did, they would listen to the many voices at committee who expressed their opposition to Bill C-21’s proposed red- and yellow-flag laws.
The fight over Bill C-21 has come to an end in the House of Commons. At the time of writing, Bill C-21 passed Third Reading this afternoon. The final vote was 207 in favour, 113 opposed.[ii]
That means the Senate is our last hope of stopping this atrocious legislation before it becomes law.
The responsibility to fix Bill C-21 is now in the hands of our Senators.
The Senate as a whole, as well as Senators individually, have the power to investigate and publicize the bad parts of Bill C-21 – of which there are many.
Our Senators, we hope, are open to fixing the many flaws of this proposed legislation, but Senators, like all politicians, must be encouraged to do the right thing.
All it takes for bad laws to pass is for good men and women to do nothing to stop them.
Please take a few minutes to write to your Senator(s) for your province or territory and ask them to correct Bill C-21’s many failures.
Find the Senators who represent your province or territory here:
https://sencanada.ca/en/senators/
To make it easier for you to write your Senators, we created four template letters (below) that you can download and modify to suit your personal writing style.
We recommend you revise these templates into your own words, as the impact of your letter is greatly enhanced when it’s the raw form letter below.
Your hand-written letter to your Senators will carry even more weight.
Download Senate Template Letters Here:
- https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/CSSA/C21/Senator-Letter-1.docx (firearm prohibition orders)
- https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/CSSA/C21/Senator-Letter-2.docx (focus on criminals, not PAL holders)
- https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/CSSA/C21/Senator-Letter-3.docx (the end of sport shooting in Canada)
- https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/CSSA/C21/Senator-Letter-4.docx (AB CFO Recommendations)
Also send a copy of your letter(s) to Senator Don Plett, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, at:
The Hon. Donald Plett, Senator
Senate of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A4
This is our last chance to make positive changes to Bill C-21 or to prevent it from becoming law at all.
But we must act today.
Contact your gun club and ask them to forward this commentary to every single member with a strong encouragement to take the actions above.
Share this commentary with your family, your friends and anyone you know who cares about freedom, liberty and the rule of law. Ask them all to write their own letters to their Senators, too.
Can we stop this horrific legislation from becoming law?
We honestly don’t know.
What we do know is this.
If every CSSA member, their family and friends do their part and stands against this atrocious bill, there is a chance.
If we, collectively, sit on our hands and do nothing, Bill C-21 will pass unchanged and become law.
Our only chance to stop that from happening is to spend the five minutes required to write your Senators and politely demand that they fix or kill Bill C-21.
Postage is free.
Write and send your letters to yours senators today, and email CSSA copies so we can learn from your approach and share your ideas with the rest of our CSSA family.
Thank you.
Sources:
[i] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawa-open-to-fine-tuning-gun-bill/
Doctors Who Hate Guns and the Politics of Fear