Canadian military defence planners are modelling a scenario where Canada can’t win a conventional fight against the United States, so national defence depends on guerilla-style civilian resistance.[i]
While the military schemes this out, Mark Carney’s Liberal government launched its long-promised firearms confiscation scheme to seize and destroy lawfully-owned firearms from licensed gun owners.
Those paths collide in one obvious but overlooked question.
Why does the Canadian military believe that civilians, the people Mark Carney’s Liberal government is so intent on disarming, would be willing to defend that Liberal government against invading American soldiers?
Matt Gurney said the obvious part out loud.
You cannot confiscate civilian firearms and plan a guerrilla resistance at the same time.[ii]
Gurney is right, but the deeper problem sits underneath that point.
Homeland defense models that lean on civilian resistance assume two things:
- Civilians have the means to resist.
- Civilians have the will to resist.
Mark Carney’s Liberal government is actively undermining both.
The means problem is simple.
A government that spends generations banning, confiscating, and stigmatizing lawful firearms ownership does not get to depend on armed civilians as a strategic asset later.
But the will problem is the one Ottawa refuses to name, because it exposes what confiscation does to the country.
Gun Owner Loyalty is a Faulty Assumption
A government can ask people to sacrifice when that government has treated them as valued citizens.
A government cannot spend decades telling the public that licensed gun owners are a threat, then expect those same licensed gun owners to become the backbone of your national defense strategy.
The Liberal government has, for generations, framed gun confiscation as a moral victory over the wrong kind of Canadian.
It has now assigned the RCMP to collect property from compliant owners.
It has sold the program as “public safety,” while sidestepping the real issues it cannot or will not face honestly: smuggling networks, organized crime, and violent repeat offenders.
That is not how trust is built.
That is how trust is burned to the ground, while the Liberal government calls the ashes “progress.”
If Canada ever faced a serious external threat, many Canadians would defend their families, neighbors, and communities, because that instinct runs deep.
But do not confuse love of Canada with trust in Mark Carney’s federal Liberal government.
That distinction matters because the firearms confiscation scheme was never framed as a shared national project. It’s always been punishment for choosing a specific set of values and way of life.
So when defence planners talk about civilian backed resistance as a deterrent, the question becomes practical.
Who exactly do you think will show up?
Do you really think that the people you spent decades demonizing and stigmatizing will now forget that terrible treatment and volunteer to defend Canada’s borders after the military falls after two days?
What incentive do they have, when that same Liberal government threatens prosecution and incarceration if they do not surrender their legally-owned guns?
Deterrence Needs Credibility, not more Public Safety Political Theatre
Every serious deterrent rests on credibility. Sure, alliances, geography and military capability matter, but credibility depends on the unity of the country’s population.
Mass gun confiscation drives Canada in the opposite direction.
- It signals Ottawa does not trust its own citizens.
- It normalizes the idea that compliance is mandatory and penalties are real, even when compensation is uncertain.
- It deepens the divide between institutions and the public they claim to serve.
Then the Liberal government, through its military, wants those same citizens to stand in the gap if Canada is threatened.
You can’t brow-beat millions of people and then expect them to stand between you and an enemy’s army.
That’s delusional thinking, if it can be considered thinking at all.
Clarity Matters
If armed civilians are essential to Canada’s national defence, then Mark Carney’s Liberal government should start treating lawful firearms owners like partners instead of the targets of social engineering experiments and partisan political theatre.
If Ottawa wants a credible homeland defense posture that relies on armed civilians, the stop destroying the social contract that makes civilian national defence possible.
Abandon the firearms confiscation scheme, then publicly and meaningfully reconcile civilian firearms policy with your desired homeland defense strategy.
The question Ottawa cannot dodge
When Ottawa refuses to trust licensed gun owners with their legally-owned property in peacetime, why do they believe those same Canadians would be willing to shed their blood for this Liberal government in wartime?
[i] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-military-models-canadian-response-to-hypothetical-american-invasion/
[ii] https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-should-probably-stop
5 Comments
Dave
Every firearm imported and sold in Canada was approved by RCMP under the government watch
We have invested a lot of money into our sport with these legally obtained firearms .
If these are such a problem why were they allowed into Canada in the first place .?
Why are we not being fully compensated ?
Where is the evidence showing legal gun owners are the problem?
Tom
There is no evidence. That is their problem. This government is making bad policy based on activist rhetoric, not facts. Rewind and watch any committee hearing on this subject, in either chamber, and you’ll see nothing but disinformation and stonewalling by the lib membership and chair. Combine that with the traitorous behavior of the ndp members back in the day, and you arrive at the present point in time. It is not as if property was being confiscated to expand an airport, a highway, a hospital, for the greater public good. This government is only in the business of boogeyman vote-pandering scare tactics, pulling the wool over the eyes of Canadians.
Elad
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the government is interested in having vetted and experienced gun handlers as citizens. Only criminals can be trusted to do the right thing.
Mike Ackermann
Survey link not working.
We get a “Site can’t be reached” message.
Tom
You must remember that approx 50% of your fellow citizens continue to vote for the wrong party, the party that has started all of this. You then need to assess who you would be “fighting for”, and determine whether that investment (including laying down your life) is actually worth your while. When you consider that over 50% of the country is so far gone so as to fully embrace communism, repeatedly thanks to continuous media spin, you will find yourself between a rock and hard place: On one hand, yes, you would absolutely fight for your family and the country (the physical country itself: the lakes, the rivers, the plains, the mountains, etc.). On the other hand, why would you fight for a tyrannical government and over half the population that is enthralled with being fully controlled by it. The call is coming from inside the house…as a Canadian citizen you only have the rights and freedoms that the government allows you to have (and that it can curtail/eliminate when it is convenient for the government), and that is the fundamental flaw of this system of government. The entire thing needs to be overhauled (torn down) and rebuilt as a constitutional republic – but you have over half of the population not wanting that! This is a no-win situation and requires outside influence (of one form or another).