The Liberal government has withdrawn a series of controversial amendments to pending firearms legislation, Bill C-21, that some firearms owners say would have unfairly targeted hunters and farmers.
Faced with fierce opposition from Conservative, NDP and Bloc MPs and firearms rights groups, Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed said Friday the government is withdrawing a long list of guns that would have been classified as “prohibited” as part of a push to ban “assault-style” weapons.
The amendments, which were quietly tabled by a Liberal backbench MP in November, would have banned these weapons under the Criminal Code, rather than through regulation. That change would have made the prohibition much more difficult for future governments to reverse.
The government is scrapping clauses that effectively would have banned any rifle or shotgun that could accept a magazine with more than five rounds — whether it actually has such a magazine or not.
The government also intended to ban long guns that generate more than 10,000 joules of energy, or any gun with a muzzle wider than 20 millimetres — two rules that would have rendered many firearms illegal.
These amendments would have had the effect of banning a number of long guns in wide use by hunters.
C-21, as originally drafted, was designed to ban handguns. The amendments expanded its scope.
Because the amendments strayed so dramatically from how the bill was initially written, opposition parties questioned whether the changes were even admissible under parliamentary rules. Those concerns are moot now that the government has backed down.
The government will still push ahead with C-21, which enacts a handgun sales ban, cracks down on gun smuggling and automatically revokes firearms licences held by domestic abusers.
While backtracking on some of the more contentious elements, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said Friday the government would try to revive some parts of the now-defunct amendments package.
Among other changes, the withdrawn amendments would have defined “assault-style firearm” — a term often used by the government that has no definition in law.
In an interview with CBC’s Power & Politics, Mendicino said the government will pursue some sort of ban on firearms “designed for the battlefield that have no place in our communities.”
What’s needed in this minority Parliament, Mendicino said, is support from either the NDP or Bloc — parties that withheld support in the face of backlash from rural dwellers and some Indigenous peoples.
Mendicino conceded the government bungled the process.
“We’ve got to accept responsibility from where we’re at. The step we’ve taken today is about resetting the narrative,” he said, promising the Liberal government still intends to ban firearms used in mass casualty events, like the semi-automatic weapon used in the Quebec City mosque massacre.
Mendicino had defended the amendments before Friday, saying the changes were necessary to reduce gun violence in Canada.
Critics said a ban on popular hunting rifles would do little to make Canadians safer when many crime guns are handguns illegally smuggled over the U.S. border.
Mendicino said the proposed amendments prompted “considerable discussion about the best way to move forward” and “legitimate concerns” were raised by critics “about the need for more consultation and debate.”
“We hear those concerns loud and clear, regret the confusion that this process has caused and are committed to a thoughtful and respectful conversation that is based on facts, not fear,” he said.
Mendicino said the government didn’t draft the amendments to punish rural Canadians, hunters or Indigenous people who rely on these firearms.
“As we’ve said time and again, the government’s intent is to focus on AR-15s and other assault-style weapons. Hunting isn’t just a proud Canadian tradition, it’s a way of life for communities across this country. Bill C-21 isn’t about targeting hunters. It’s about certain guns that are too dangerous in other contexts,” he said.
PolySeSouvient, a gun control group, said it was “shocked” by the government’s decision.
“It is clear that the misinformation propagated by Conservative MPs and the gun lobby has won,” said Nathalie Provost, a spokesperson for the group.
Provost said she wants the Liberal government to work with the NDP and Bloc Québécois to table legislation to deliver on its promise to ban assault weapons.
The Liberal government has already banned what it calls “assault-style” firearms through an order-in-council — a directive from cabinet enacted in May 2020 after the Portapique massacre in Nova Scotia.
The intent of the now-withdrawn Bill C-21 amendments was to codify that assault ban in law (an order-in-council can easily be revoked by another government) and add many more makes and models to the list of illegal firearms.
MP Holland: ‘More work had to be done’ on gun amendment
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Government House Leader Mark Holland said the government “needs more time” to consult with the firearms community before reviving some of the amendments that were scrapped — including a section that would have banned “ghost guns,” which can be bought online and assembled at home.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, a firearms lobby group, called the Liberal reversal “a small win in a bigger battle.”
“It’s imperative we crush #C21 in its entirety. The Liberals are retreating, now is the perfect time to push forward and #ScrapC21 altogether,” Tracey Wilson said. “Good work. Now, let’s refocus and scrap it all.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Friday he “forced Trudeau into a temporary and humiliating climb down.”
“He desperately wanted to ban hunting rifles — it was a sucker punch to our lawful and licensed firearms owners,” Poilievre said of the amendments. “He’s doing this because he got caught. We will not let up. Conservatives will never allow Justin Trudeau to ban hunting rifles.”
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says his team forced a temporary halt to the contentious firearms legislation amendments.
Poilievre said he described the Liberal backtracking as “temporary,” adding he expects Trudeau will be back with another plan to target rural Canadians, Indigenous peoples and sport shooters who used these firearms.
“God forbid if he ever got a majority — he’d ram it through,” Poilievre said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he supports both a national handgun ban and a move to restrict “assault-style” weapons, but he described the government’s management of the file as a “failure.”
Liberal management of firearms file was ‘horrible’
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh reacts to the withdrawal of gun legislation amendment that would increase number of prohibited firearms.
“It is clear that the Liberal government did not do the necessary work and they mismanaged the entire issue. That is clear,” Singh told reporters, adding the government bungled Indigenous consultation on the issue.
“They endangered the work we need to do to protect our communities.”
HALIFAX – If Nova Scotia’s Liberal Party is elected to govern on Tuesday, leader Zach Churchill says that within the first 100 days he would call for a meeting of the Atlantic premiers to discuss replacing the federal carbon tax.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday at Liberal campaign headquarters in Halifax, Churchill said he would try to sell the other premiers on his plan to use a regional cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions.
Churchill has said newly elected New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt is interested in the idea, though she has yet to commit to such a plan. He said there’s an opportunity persuade Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Mark Furey.
“We know it isn’t the right policy for pollution pricing in Atlantic Canada,” said Churchill, who has distanced himself from Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government introduced the carbon price.
“We’ve got four governments that do not want the carbon tax, and we have an alternative that can lower prices at the pump while doing our part to reduce emissions.”
He acknowledged that if the federal Liberals lose the election slated for next year, the carbon tax will likely be eliminated, negating the need for a cap-and-trade system.
Churchill said that within 100 days of taking office, a provincial Liberal government would also alert Ottawa to its plan to reduce the harmonized sales tax to 13 per cent from 15 per cent; appoint a minister of women’s health; and recall the legislature to table a budget with income tax cuts and plans to build 80,000 new homes.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia’s three main political leaders were scheduled Thursday to take part in a “roundtable discussion” organized by CTV News in Halifax. Churchill was expected to be joined by Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston, who is seeking a second term in office, and NDP Leader Claudia Chender.
The 90-minute exchange, moderated by CTV News anchor Todd Battis, is to be televised at 6:30 p.m. local time.
Last Thursday, the leaders appeared together on CBC TV, and they also sparred during an event hosted earlier this week by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce.
At dissolution, the Progressive Conservatives held 34 seats in the 55-seat legislature and the Liberals held 14 seats, while the NDP had six and there was one Independent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.
Wednesday is Transgender Day of Remembrance, which focuses on trans people who have lost their lives because of violence. Here is what to know.
What is Transgender Day of Remembrance?
Transgender Day of Remembrance is marked every Nov. 20 and began in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a trans woman who was killed in Massachusetts.
The day marks the end of Transgender Awareness Week, which is used to raise public knowledge about transgender people and the issues they face.
The Williams Institute at UCLA Law estimates that 1.6 million people in the U.S. ages 13 and older identify as transgender. And it says transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violence, including rape and assault.
Candlelight vigils, memorials and other events are held to mark the day. The Human Rights Campaign also released its annual report on deaths of transgender people in conjunction with the day.
How many transgender people have lost their lives to violence?
At least 36 transgender people have died from violence in the 12 months since the last Day of Remembrance, the Human Rights Campaign said in its annual report. Since 2013, the organization has recorded the deaths from violence of 372 victims who were transgender and gender-expansive — which refers to someone with a more flexible range of gender identity or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system.
The number of victims is likely higher because many deaths often aren’t reported or are misreported, or misgendering of the victims leads to delays in their identification.
The Human Rights Campaign said there was a slight increase from the previous year, when it identified at least 33 transgender victims of violence.
A large number of the victims tracked over the past year were young or people of color, with Black transgender women making up half of the 36 identified. The youngest victim identified was 14-year-old Pauly Likens of Pennsylvania.
Two-thirds of the fatalities involved a firearm, the organization said. Nearly a third of the victims with a known killer were killed by an intimate partner, a friend or a family member.
What is at stake politically?
This year’s remembrance follows an election where advocates say victories by President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates who focused on issues like transgender athletes dealt a setback to trans people’s rights.
It also follows a wave of measures enacted in Republican states this year restricting the rights of transgender people, especially youth.
Half the states have banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in a lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s ban.
Advocates say the legislation and rhetoric is creating fewer safe spaces for transgender people, and they worry it could spur more violence against trans people.
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Associated Press writer Jeff McMillan in northeastern Pennsylvania contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — In 2022, New York City’s jails commissioner, Louis Molina, issued a dire warning to local lawmakers: fentanyl was pouring into Rikers Island through the mail, he said, spurring an overdose crisis among the jail’s detainees and putting guards at risk.
As evidence of the insidious threat, Molina passed around a child’s drawing of a reindeer, one of hundreds of seized items he said had been “literally soaked in the drug and mailed to people in custody.”
But that claim was based on faulty drug-testing kits with a stunning 85% false positive rate, according to a report released Wednesday by the city’s Department of Investigation. The report found the city vastly overstated the prevalence of fentanyl sent by mail to detainees.
When investigators retested 71 pieces of mail initially flagged by field tests as containing fentanyl, only 10 actually showed traces of the drug. The drawing of a reindeer highlighted by Molina was fentanyl-free.
Field tests indicating an influx of fentanyl-laced mail to Rikers Island fueled a yearslong campaign by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to bar people in city custody from receiving physical mail.
As a replacement, city officials proposed redirecting mail to an offsite vendor, who would then upload it digitally for the incarcerated person to read on a tablet — a practice used in other correctional systems, including New York’s state prisons. So far, the proposal has been blocked by a jail oversight board.
Jocelyn Strauber, the commissioner of the Department of Investigation, said the city should reassess its ongoing effort to bar detainees from receiving mail, given the report’s findings.
“The field tests don’t support a concern that a high rate of fentanyl-laced objects are coming in from the mail,” she told The Associated Press. “To the extent policy determinations are based on flawed data, they ought to be reconsidered.”
Detainee advocates have long contended that drugs primarily enter the jail system via employees, who can easily smuggle them inside and sell them to gang leaders. In recent years, dozens of correction officers have been charged in multiple investigations of smuggling rings on Rikers Island.
In its report, the Department of Investigation said corrections officials had failed to implement many of the department’s previous recommendations aimed at screening staff for contraband.
In an email statement, a Department of Correction spokesperson said the agency would review the report and continue refining its testing processes. “Field tests are a tool used to quickly assess potential threats, and while not perfect, they play an important role in our safety protocols,” the statement said.
Such field tests have gained popularity in recent years alongside a spike in opioid overdose deaths nationwide, allowing law enforcement officials to bypass the lengthy lab process to determine if a substance contains narcotics.
But experts have long raised questions about the strips’ effectiveness. Under federal regulations, manufacturers are required to include language on their packaging indicating that results are preliminary until confirmed by a lab — something that rarely happens in correctional settings.
Last November, New York’s state prison system was found to have wrongly punished more than 2,000 detainees due to false positives from drug tests manufactured by Sirchie Finger Print Laboratories.
For years, the test strips used on Rikers Island, the city-run jail system, were also provided by Sirchie. But after complaints about the reliability of the tests, the Department of Correction switched to kits made by DetectaChem last April.
The review by the Department of Investigation found DetectaChem’s test strips had a false positive rate of 79%, while Sirchie’s were wrong 91% of the time.
Inquiries to Sirchie were not returned.
Travis Kisner, the chief operating officer of DetectaChem, said the company was still reviewing the report, but added: “We stand behind our product.”
