The Canadian government is expanding its list of banned firearms, adding hundreds of additional makes, models and variants, effective immediately.
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Legal owners of these newly banned weapons will benefit from amnesty from criminal liability, with strict conditions, while they take the necessary steps to comply, before disposing of their weapons under the buyback program that has not yet been implemented.
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Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc made the announcement alongside Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Defence Minister Bill Blair in Ottawa on Thursday.
"The best thing we can do to honor the memories of those we have lost to mass shootings is to take action on gun control and limit access to the weapons that were used to commit these horrific crimes," said LeBlanc.
"Our goal is to ensure that no community, no family, is ever again destroyed by a mass shooting in Canada."
Prohibited firearms cannot be purchased, sold, loaned or imported. Today's announcement specifically revises the classification of "104 families of assault firearms, including 324 unique makes and models and their variations," according to government officials who briefed reporters.
The affected firearms all have a semi-automatic mechanism with rapid and sustained fire capabilities, according to the government, and are expected to be destroyed during the amnesty period, which ends on October 30, 2025.
The federal Liberals also plan to move forward with additional regulatory and legislative measures in the coming days and months.
That will include regulations to be introduced on December 13 to strengthen Canada's firearms classification regime. And, based on the controversial Bill C-21 passed by Parliament in December 2023, the government has promised to introduce "additional measures" to address the rate of gun violence in situations of gender-based violence and domestic violence, in January 2025.
"We will also introduce additional red and yellow flag regulations in early spring and high-capacity loading regulations later in March," LeBlanc said.
Blair also revealed that the federal government is in discussions with Ukrainian officials about sending firearms that the government plans to eventually collect to help Ukraine's war effort.
"We have been working closely with our friends in Ukraine to ensure that weapons intended for combat use can be made available to them," Blair said.
"The Department of National Defence will begin working with Canadian companies that have the required weapons from Ukraine and are already eligible for the assault-style firearms offset program to remove these weapons from Canada and deliver them to the Ukrainians."
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The federal Liberals' gun control announcement comes on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre (opens in a new tab). Before the news broke, the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights had already criticized the decision as harmful to licensed gun owners, "while doing nothing to improve gun safety."
Wes Winkel of the Canadian Sporting Gun and Ammunition Association said the announcement could be "devastating for our industry."
"Anger and disappointment would certainly be the two most appropriate emotions for this announcement," he said. "We very rarely see these types of firearms used in crimes."
"This is trying to reassure voters in Canadian cities ... there is no reason to be concerned about public safety for these weapons to be here," Winkel said.
The Liberals were under pressure to ban the entry into the market of additional firearms after 2020 and before the Liberals passed Bill C-21.
Gun control advocates who attended the announcement welcomed the news, saying it was a "significant step forward" that gives hope that the government will go further.
"I know I'm crying, but I'm also smiling because it's an important step forward and I truly believe that what remains to be done will be done," said a survivor of the École Polytechnique massacre and founder of PolySeSouvient. This decision follows a May 2020 announcement (opens in a new tab) in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed that the federal government is imposing a ban on more than 1,500 models (opens in a new tab) and variants of certain "assault-style" handguns that have been used in mass shootings in Canada and abroad.
The ban does not completely ban these weapons, but the government is offering current owners and dealers of these weapons the same opportunity to receive amnesty under specific, time-limited conditions while officials work on the mandatory compensation system.
So far, all the government has managed to get around the plan is for the "Assault Firearms Compensation Program" to be a commercial pilot phase, with the promise that all other businesses will soon receive instructions on how to join.
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The Liberals said the compensation amounts (opens in a new tab) for the newly banned firearms will be added by the end of January 2025 and that information on how individual gun owners can participate in the purchase will be released "later in 2025."
In response to the announcement, Conservative MP and public safety critic Raquel Dancho accused Trudeau of attacking "legal and controlled hunters, sport hunters and indigenous people who use firearms safely and legally, as they have for generations."
"Trudeau's latest sneak attack on law-abiding Canadians and his continued blindness to the real gun criminals is an insult to the thousands of gun crime victims who continue to be terrorized and lose their lives because of Trudeau's catch-and-release policies," he said.
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