The conservative leader Pierre Poilievre dodged the questions on Sunday about whether would repeal the prohibition of the federal government gun, a measure caused to reduce the diversion of legal firearms in the hands of bad actors.
Pailievre has not said much during this campaign about what he would do with the liberal legislation of firearms with which he voted while in Parliament, but has criticized the program of repurchase of firearms “assault style” of the last government as a “grip of weapons” he discarded.
The defenders of arms control say that any legislation to curb the flow of firearms is a decent measure to try to reduce the incidents of crimes and violence. Meanwhile, defenders of the rights of firearms say that the liberal suite of policies only punishes the owners of legal weapons who play for the rules.
In 2022, after a series of violent crimes against weapons and the massacre of Nueva Scotia, the cabinet of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced a “freezing” in the sale, purchase and transfer of guns. The prohibition was codified later in the law with the bill C-21, the controversial review of the Government’s Firearms Legislation.
When asked on Sunday, what would he do with the prohibition of the gun specifically at a campaign stop in Surrey, BC, Poilievre said that the majority of the crime related to firearms is caused by illegal firearms that arise from the United States and questioned whether there is even a gun prohibition.
“Criminals can get guns wherever they go,” said Poilievre. “The problem is the illegal weapons that come from the United States of America.”
Pailievre turned to his proposal to enclose criminals for longer, including those convicted of crimes of firearms. Pailievre is proposing perpetual chains for certain traffickers.
Speaking in Surrey BC, heading to the last week of the campaign, conservative leader Pierre Poilievre dodged a journalist’s question about whether he would repeal the freezing of gun sales in Canada introduced by the liberal government, on the other hand, saying that the problem is that illegal guns cross to Canada.
“The police have said that current liberal policies only prevent police officers from out of service and military veterans practicing their trade without prosecuting criminals who caused crime,” he said.
Pressing by journalists if that means that the prohibition of the gun would be under a government directed by him, Pailievre ignored the follow -up and went to the next question.
Pailievre told Quebec firearms defender in January that any prohibition of firearms is “stupid” and promised to repeal C-21, comments he has not made in public since then.
Liberal leader Mark Carney has leaned in Poilievre’s vague statements about firearms.
In the debate of the English leaders last week, Carney said that Pailievre’s difficult talk about addressing crime makes no sense if it does not follow the commitment to control weapons.
“Every time it has been a vote in the House of Commons on weapons control, Mr. Poilievre has voted against. You cannot be hard with the crime unless you are hard with weapons,” said Carney.
Polysesouvient, a weapons control defense group, has backed the liberals, saying that Carney is the best leader to meet their demands to eliminate “assault style” firearms of circulation, ban great capacity magazines and follow the policies to curb domestic violence.
One of the founders of the group, Nathalie Provost, is postulated for the liberals in Quebec.
“Say no to American -style weapons laws in Canada, to support our safer families and communities in armed violence in the coming decades, it begins at the polls,” said Heidi Rathjen, spokesman for the group that represents the survivors of the Politechnique massacre.
Rathjen called Pailievre a “weapons extremist.”
However, some police unions have criticized liberal policies as largely ineffective to stop armed crime.
In a statement, the past autumn on the two -year anniversary of the prohibition of becoming law, the Toronto Police Association, the group that represents police members in that city, said Trudeau’s policies were false.
“What you think you have done to improve community security has not worked,” said the group.
The Surrey Police Association said the prohibition “does not address the real problem: the increase in illegal firearms that meet our borders and end in the hands of violent criminals.”
CBC News reported in February that the flow of weapons on the border with Canada-United States is an important concern with the border data that reveal that there has been an increase in the weapons confiscated in recent years.
According to the data of the Toronto Police Service (TPS), the force seized 717 weapons of the crime last year and 88 percent of them were obtained to the United States
Of the firearms taken by the police in the largest city in Canada, 515 were guns and 91 percent of them went back to the United States, according to the data.
