Officially, the decision announced on Monday, May 30, by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to toughen gun control in Canada has nothing to do with the Uvalde massacre, which occurred in Texas a few days earlier and which revived the debate on firearms in the United States. It is to combat the outbreak of armed violence that is hitting major Canadian cities that the Liberal government claims to have chosen to strengthen its legislative arsenal by announcing in particular a « national freeze » handguns. But the victims’ associations were not mistaken: “These are effective, historic steps that will put Canada back on the right track, in line with our values and our common desire never to take the path of our neighbor to the south”reacted immediately Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the massacre at the Ecole polytechnique de Montréal, the first mass feminicide which killed fourteen people, in 1989.
A first draft of a firearms control bill, tabled in February 2021, had left victims’ defense associations unsatisfied: the Liberal government had certainly prohibited 1,500 models of assault weapons, but had left the buy-back program for these military-style weapons to the goodwill of the owners. He had, moreover, delegated to cities and provinces the task of legislating the prohibition of handguns on their territory.
The “moral duty to act”
The apprehension of seeing the debate on weapons become polarized on this side of the border prompted Mr. Trudeau to pick up the pace. “We face a level of gun violence in our communities that is unacceptable, did he declare. We have a moral duty to act. » In addition to banning the purchase, sale or import of handguns – there are said to be 1 million in circulation in Canada – the Prime Minister also announced that the assault weapons buy-back program would be made mandatory , and no longer optional. The government also wants to be able to revoke firearms licenses for anyone involved in domestic violence. A special legislative provision, known as the “red flag” law, should finally allow the courts to require that people considered to be a danger to themselves or to others to hand over their weapons to the courts.
The new bill is expected to pass as early as the fall session of the House of Commons and the Senate. Qualified for “the most significant action taken in Canada on gun violence in a generation” by the Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino, the text was greeted by the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, whose city has been shaken for several months by shootings. Also satisfied, the mayor of Toronto, John Tory, nevertheless hopes that the government will go as far as a complete ban on handguns in its final text. “Most of the armed violence [au Canada] is due to a still unacceptable flow of illegal weapons from the United States », he explained, emphasizing the need to take “stricter border measures”. The Trudeau government is committed to this, notably by promising to strengthen criminal sanctions against arms traffickers.