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TORONTO — The Canadian government will ban the importation of weapons into the country, officials said Friday, the latest in a series of gun control measures under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Because the vast majority of handguns in Canada are imported, the ban effectively limits the number of handguns already in the country to current levels without outright banning them.
The move, announced by Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, follows a bill introduced by the government in May to implement a “national freeze” on the purchase, import, sale and transfer of weapons
The regulatory measure announced on Friday allows the government to impose such a freeze without waiting for Parliament, which is on summer break until September, to approve such legislation. It is expected to take effect in two weeks, shortening the window for gun shops to stockpile merchandise.
Local media have reported that handgun sales have soared since the Trudeau government announced the freeze, prompting some lawmakers to express concern about an arms race by gun owners gun owners seeking to stock up before the legislation is passed.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new gun control legislation on May 30 that would put a “national freeze” on the import, purchase or sale of guns. (Video: Reuters)
Gun control enjoys broad support here. But critics say the focus on limiting handgun ownership unfairly targets law-abiding owners while doing little to eliminate the root problem: guns being smuggled across the border .
Toronto’s police chief said in November that roughly 80 percent of the firearms involved in gun violence in Canada’s most populous city come from the United States, which he noted has a significant gun culture, which makes it a “very difficult” subject to address.
Canada vows to ‘freeze’ handgun sales and buy back assault weapons
“The biggest problem we have in the city is the volume of guns coming across the border,” Chief James Ramer said.
The legislation introduced in May, known as C-21, also includes “red flag” laws that would allow judges to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed a danger to themselves or others, the removal of arms licenses to people who have committed violence and tougher penalties for arms smuggling and trafficking.
Both the legislation and the ban include exemptions for those, such as armed security guards, who have a Permit to Carry as part of their job, those who have a Permit to Carry for protection, and athletes and coaches authorized high-performance shooting sports.
Canada imported more than $28.2 billion in revolvers and pistols in 2021, according to government data, with nearly two-thirds of that volume coming from the United States. Total imports were up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, but down from a recent high of $34.7 million in 2018.
Canadian trauma surgeons called for gun control. Gun groups had an NRA-style response.
Mass shootings are relatively rare here compared to the United States, but the rate of gun-related homicides has risen since 2013, according to Statistics Canada data.
The government’s statistics agency reported that more than 60 percent of violent firearm-related crimes in urban centers in 2020 involved handguns. But he also said there were “many gaps” and limitations in the data, including the “source of the firearms used in the crime” and “whether a weapon used in the crime was stolen, illegally purchased or brought smuggled into the country.” No province requires investigators to submit weapons used in crimes for tracing.
The Canada Border Services Agency said it seized 1,203 firearms between 2021 and 2022. In May, a Yorkshire terrier named Pepper thwarted an attempt to smuggle 11 guns across the border from Michigan to Ontario with a six-rotor drone.
About 2.2 million people in Canada own licensed firearms, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported in 2020, and more than 1.1 million firearms are recorded
Canada Announces Immediate Ban on “Military Grade” Assault Weapons.
Trudeau’s government promised tougher gun control measures during last year’s federal election campaign.
In 2020, Trudeau announced a ban on 1,500 makes and models of “military-style assault weapons,” after a gunman posing as a police officer rampaged through Nova Scotia for two days of the week, setting fire to structures and killing 22 people, including a Royal Canadian Mounted. Police officer in Canada’s deadliest mass shooting.
Last week, the government outlined how much it proposes to compensate gun owners who surrender those weapons under a mandatory buyback program.
During hearings at a public inquiry this year into the “causes, context and circumstances” of the Nova Scotia attack, evidence was presented about the source of the shooter’s large stockpile of weapons.
Gabriel Wortman, a dentist, did not possess a firearms license and obtained his guns illegally. The commission heard there were “two, and potentially three”, cases where police received information about their access to firearms. Little, if anything, was done, according to the witness.
Gunman razes Nova Scotia in Canada’s deadliest mass shooting
Several of the guns were located and obtained from gun stores in Maine. A friend there told police that Wortman took one or more of the guns without his knowledge or permission, while giving the shooter a Ruger P89 “as a token of appreciation” for his help with “the withdrawal of trees and other occasional jobs at his residence.” “
An AR-15 came from a gun store in California, but Wortman first saw it at a gun show in Maine and someone else bought it for him. Witnesses told police after the shooting that Wortman would disassemble the firearms and roll them into the cargo bed of his pickup truck to smuggle them across the border.
Wortman was shot dead by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a duty station in Enfield, Nova Scotia, ending his rampage. Police have not charged any of the people who helped him obtain the weapons, including those who may have broken US laws.