Ontario to Feds: We Won’t Fund Your Gun Confiscation Scheme

Yesterday, the Ontario Solicitor General’s Office confirmed – in writing – the Ontario government will not pay for Justin Trudeau’s firearm confiscation scheme.

“Ontario recognizes that targeting Canada’s licensed firearms owners will not stop gun and gang violence. More than 90% of guns used in crimes are illegally imported into Ontario from the United States,” wrote Chelsea McGee, Director of Communications for the Honourable Michael Kerzner, Solicitor General of Ontario, in an exclusive email to the CSSA.

“At a time when crime is on the rise, Ontario’s police resources can’t be diverted to criminalize farmers and hunters. Punishing law-abiding citizens will not reduce crime while illegal firearms continue to be smuggled into Canada,” McGee continued.

“If the federal government wants to take serious action on gun crime, they need to spend the resources on securing the border.”One day later, Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety, “announced a federal investment of $28 million over three years to strengthen the Canada Border Services Agency.”[i]

Compared to the billions Minister LeBlanc will waste on confiscating over 2,000 makes and models of firearms owned by licensed firearms owners, $9.3 million per year for CBSA sounds more like a coffee run to Tim Hortons than a serious effort to defend our borders.

Adding to the flames is Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw, who is incensed at the City of Toronto’s proposal to cut the Toronto Police Service’s budget.

“Any reduction to our modest and below-the-rate inflation ask of 1.7 per cent will present an unacceptable risk to our ability to provide the adequate and effective police services that are required by legislation,” said Chief Demkiw.[ii]

“A $12.6 million cut will create unacceptable risks and imperil the Service’s ability to ensure public safety, to offer community policing and to proactively patrol the city.”

Trudeau underestimated the determination of Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick and the Yukon to defend licensed firearms owners in their provinces.

With Ontario now refusing to play ball, the Liberal government’s gun confiscation scheme seems destined for more treacherous waters than those that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Ontario’s refusal to pay for Justin Trudeau’s virtue-signalling scheme comes just days after Saskatchewan’s Attorney General announced that the province has applied to “intervene in legal challenges to the federal firearms ban currently before the Federal Court of Appeal.”[iii]

“We believe in the merits of this case on administrative and constitutional grounds,” Justice Minister and Attorney General Bronwyn Eyre announced at a Saskatoon Wildlife Federation dinner on Friday.

“The federal ban already includes up to 1,800 ‘variants,’ will cost billions of dollars, and directly conflicts with sections of the Criminal Code which state that firearms that can reasonably be used for hunting or sporting purposes cannot be banned.”

“Saskatchewan is firm in its opposition to the federal firearms ban, which unfairly targets law-abiding firearms owners and will have little impact on firearms-related crime,” said Paul Merriman, Minister of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety.

“We believe in taking tangible action, such as the measures included in The Saskatchewan Firearms Act and our ongoing investment in the Saskatchewan Firearms Office, to increase responsible firearms safety in our province.”

Justin Trudeau’s government is on the wrong side of this issue. That’s not news.

That Canada’s largest province refuses to support Trudeau’s harebrained scheme to harass licensed firearms owners most definitely is.

Justin Trudeau, five provinces and one territory have called your bluff.

Will you fold, or will you stick with your losing hand – all the way to the next election?