By
November 25, 2021
-Western Standard
The Liberals are now saying they will work with any province that wants to ban handguns.
They had already said they would be willing to work with individual cities that want to ban handguns, but this week’s Throne Speech took it one step further.
And that’s on top of the gun grab announced earlier this year by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for nearly 1,500 “assault rifle style” firearms.
“The government will now put forward measures like a mandatory buyback of banned assault-style weapons, and move forward with any province or territory that wants to ban handguns.”
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendocino said the government will do whatever it can to end gun violence.
“We’ve seen too many innocent lives lost. And certainly, that is true in my hometown in Toronto and in many other parts of the country,” the National Post reported he said.
“If municipalities and provinces are ready to engage the federal government on looking at additional ways on how we can get illegal guns, including handguns, out of our communities, then my door and this government’s door will remain open.”
The Liberal gun buyback bill died when the election was called in August but they have promised to reintroduce it.
“If the government of Quebec wants to work with the federal government to take additional strong action against getting guns out of our communities, we’ll be there.”
It was revealed Wednesday the Liberals are increasing their spending on the gun buyback to $8.8 million, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).
“This is more evidence that the gun buyback is going to be a boondoggle,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director with the CTF.
“The feds haven’t bought a single gun yet and costs still continue to go up.”
The quarterly report is the first time Public Safety has put a hard number on the buyback spending.
“Until now, the CTF tracked previous spending via access to information requests,” said its release.
Those requests uncovered a contract with IBM Canada worth more than $1 million for advice on how to run the buyback program.
The CTF has obtained a copy of that advice.
“The heavily redacted documents include IBM’s recommendations for a payment structure. They also show the company developed a list of prices based on the pre-ban prices for the affected firearms, without including the price of accessories and parts for the firearms. According to the draft plan, owners disputing the price could ask an expert panel for an evaluation,” it says.
Public Safety said it’s still considering IBM’s advice.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated reimbursing gun owners could cost up to $756 million. That number doesn’t include administration costs which could add billions of dollars to the final tab.
When the Liberal Party first announced the policy, it told voters the gun buyback would cost about $200 million. In 2021, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair then said the costs would land “somewhere between $300 and $400 million dollars.”
“We continue to find more and more evidence of rising costs, and that should be a huge red flag for a government that is already more than $1 trillion in debt and hasn’t bought a single gun,” said Terrazzano.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needs to cut our losses and scrap his gun buyback.”
The new restrictions will also include new “red flag” and “yellow flag” laws that would allow people, such as concerned friends or relatives, to apply to the courts for the removal of a person’s firearms.
The program will pay some compensation to owners of firearms that were made illegal, but some experts say it will cost taxpayers billions of dollars and turn into a boondoggle.
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