The CSSA Congratulates Erin O’Toole on his victory as the new Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
The CSSA would like to extend a hearty welcome to old friend Erin O’Toole on his victory as the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Erin is a fine man and a very capable politician, and we have every faith that he will be an excellent Prime Minister.
Erin O’Toole was born in Montreal. He enrolled in the RCAF when he was 18 and attended the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, ON. He did basic training in Chilliwack, BC; got his wings in Winnipeg, MB; and served out of Halifax, NS. Erin participated in search and rescue missions as a tactical navigator on a Sea King helicopter. He is bilingual.
After 12 years of service, Erin retired from the military and spent the next decade working in the private sector as a corporate lawyer. He is a founding member of the Board of Directors for the True Patriot Love Foundation, a charity that serves veterans and military families across Canada.
He has been elected 3 times in Durham (2012 by-election, 2015 and 2019). He served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade before becoming Minister of Veterans Affairs, a beleaguered file he successfully turned around within 10 months at the end of the Harper government.
For the last two years, Erin has served as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. Erin is married to Rebecca and they have two children, Mollie and Jack.
We know that Erin’s firearms policies mean a lot to our membership so here is a verbatim reprint from his campaign website:
- Oppose efforts to reverse the former Conservative government’s policy advances on firearms, including the Trudeau government’s new proposals to confiscate legal firearms.
- Oppose regulations that do not advance public safety and instead penalize law-abiding firearms owners. This includes the arbitrary reclassification of firearms and magazines.
- Conduct a review of the Firearms Act with participation of law enforcement, firearms owners, manufacturers, and members of the public, and then update legislation by introducing a simplified classification system and codifying it in law, so that it is clear what types of firearms fit into each category and classification decisions can, therefore, be made quickly, and with the public and firearms owners having confidence that they are not arbitrary. The legislation will also – for the first time – contain definitions of currently ambiguous issues like the term “variant”.
- Harmonize rules for discharging firearms on your own property so that restricted firearms are treated the same as non-restricted, where the local municipality allows the discharge of firearms.
- Mandate a return to the 180-day period for the re-designed classification system to release firearm import decisions and put final authority for classification decisions back in the hands of Cabinet.
- Focus the resources of the federal government on criminals engaged in the trafficking and use of illegal firearms instead of imposing more layers of bureaucracy on law-abiding Canadians.
- Amend firearms laws to ensure that no administrative expiry could lead to criminal charges or the seizure of a licence holder’s firearm(s). Until an expired licence is renewed, it would remain illegal for licence holders to acquire new firearms or ammunition.
- Support specialized illegal firearms enforcement led by the CBSA and RCMP working closely with American authorities in the United States, to target smuggling operations before illegal firearms reach the border.
- Develop a suicide prevention strategy that encourages people – including legal firearms owners – to seek help when they need it. The current system actually discourages firearms owners from seeking help, due to the fear that the police will show up at their door, and the Trudeau government is making this worse, putting lives at risk.
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