Trudeau’s handgun ban did not curb gun smugglers, says police union
Statistics Canada data shows that ‘firearm-related violent crime’ is higher now than ever before. Police unions have openly condemned the Trudeau government’s ’handgun freeze’ for not targeting illegal handguns, which are responsible for most violent crime.
Canada’s police unions are at their wits end with the Trudeau government, who claimed its handgun ban stifled violent gun crime. One Ontario police department cited evidence to the contrary, noting illegal imports are responsible for crime skyrocketing.
“Approximately 90 per cent of (the) firearms that we seize are directly traced back to the U.S. And I can say in reality the remaining 10 per cent are likely also from the U.S.,” Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah told reporters on October 28. The latter 10% had their serial numbers removed, he notes.
Ten years ago, Peel Regional Police said using black market handguns to carry out illicit activity “was doable, but required a lot of work.” Mississauga and Brampton, the areas which they serve, is home to countless firearms.
Project Sledgehammer, a police operation tackling gun smugglers, seized an illegal firearm once every 30 hours, on average, confirmed Duraiappah. That represents an 87% increase over the year prior.
“The availability of firearms has just saturated the community,” the chief said, noting this concerning trend has gripped other localities nationwide, amid a spike in fatal shootings.
York Regional Police found that shootings rose a whopping 92% year over year, reported CBC News.
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ushered in the second anniversary of his “handgun freeze,” earning condemnation from police unions across Canada.
Handguns have long been classified as “restricted firearms,” which stipulates that they have to be either locked up at home, at a licensed gun range or lawfully transported with a permit.
The October 2022 “handgun freeze” further toughened those measures by outlawing the “sale, purchase, and transfer” of handguns, but only those obtained legally.
“We choose your safety over the gun lobby — every time,” Trudeau said in a statement to X, formerly Twitter.
Statistics Canada data from 2022, the most recent statistics available, showed that “firearm-related violent crime” is higher now than in any year prior since they started tracking it in 2009.
In 2022, the rate of firearm-related violent crime was 36.7 incidents per 100,000 population, an 8.9% increase from 2021 (33.7 incidents per 100,000 population).
The Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights (CCFR), told Rebel News that even the prime minister knows full well the “handgun freeze” is not about public safety.
“Any informed observer knows that the handgun freeze affected exclusively licensed gun owners, not the people shooting up the streets of Toronto or Vancouver,” said Rod Giltaca, CEO & Executive Director of the CCFR.
StatsCan analysts corroborated those remarks, stating, “… the firearms used in homicides were rarely legal firearms used by their legal owners who were in good standing.”
In Toronto, which represents Canada’s largest census metropolitan area (CMA), the proportion of firearm-related violent crimes (4.7%) was the second-highest among CMAs. Its rate of firearm-related violent crime (43.2 incidents per 100,000 population) rose 36% from 2021 and 93% since a low in 2013.
In Vancouver, the rate (23.6 incidents per 100,000 population) increased by 24% from 2021.
Giltaca further says the “handgun freeze” was about “scaring urban Canadians” into voting Liberal.
“The Liberals certainly know that gun control is too complex a topic for urban Canadians to sort out for themselves. So on occasion, it does work quite well for them,” he told Rebel. “With the police going against the Liberal's approach on gun violence so overtly, this could be a real problem for the Liberal's traditional election sloganeering around gun control.”
Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.
