On Day One of his presidency, Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL Pipeline without so much as a whimper from Prime Minister Trudeau in defence of Albertan jobs.[i]
Trudeau’s refusal to fight for Western Canadian jobs will likely be offset by his zeal to ban more guns from licensed owners in the weeks and months ahead.
Trudeau is a follower, not a leader.
When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stole the ‘progressive’ crown from him by banning most semi-automatic rifles in New Zealand, Justin Trudeau was green with envy.
That envy led directly to the Liberals’ 2019 election platform and the May 2020 gun ban by Order in Council.
Similarly, Justin Trudeau will want to out-progressive his new American counterpart.
Like Joe Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “knows how to make progress on reducing gun violence using executive action.”[ii]
That means we can look forward to another gun ban by Order in Council that may make the May 1st, 2020, OIC look like child’s play.
Drug and gang-related violence will continue unabated, of course, but the Liberals will claim they’re ‘doing something’ and two thirds of Canadian voters will happily eat the lie as if it were their favourite candy.
The Liberal Party’s election platform, likely to be released in the next month or two, may contain the following:
- A ban on online sales of firearms, ammunition and gun parts
- More bans on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns
- A possible ban on all handguns
These platform promises will contain more insincere platitudes about Firearm Confiscation Compensation, but since the last promise shows no sign of forthcoming cash, there is no reason to believe the next promise of compensation will be honoured either.
Here’s one thing you won’t see in the Liberal Party’s platform even though it’s a fundamental promise in Joe Biden’s campaign:
“Create an effective program to ensure individuals who become prohibited from possessing firearms relinquish their weapons.[iii]”
“Federal law defines categories of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms, and the federal background check system is an effective tool for ensuring prohibited persons cannot purchase firearms. But we lack any serious tool to ensure that when someone becomes newly prohibited – for example, because they commit a violent crime – they relinquish possession of their firearms.”
Like America, Canada has few tools to remove firearms from the hands of criminals who are banned from possessing them. If the person subject to a firearm prohibition order is not a client (their words) of the Canadian Firearms Program they are seemingly ignored by Canadian law.
We’ve repeatedly called on the Trudeau government to fix Canada’s broken firearm prohibition order system yet our pleas continue to fall on deaf ears.
When even the progressive left in America is willing to take guns out of the hands of criminals who are prohibited from possessing them, it baffles us why Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government steadfastly refuses to do the same.
Sources:
[i] https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2021/01/20/statement-prime-minister-canada-united-states-decision-keystone-xl
[ii] https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/
[iii] ibid
Open letter to Canada’s Media – Why gun bans can’t stop gang violence