OTTAWA — An influential gun-control group says Mark Carney’s Liberals are the ones most likely to deliver additional measures needed to prevent firearm-related violence.
In a media statement issued Tuesday, PolySeSouvient cited past Liberal moves to ban firearms considered too dangerous for hunting or sport shooting, as well as measures to protect women and children from gun violence.
The Liberals are the party “most likely” to follow through with a federal plan to remove banned guns from circulation, outlaw large-capacity magazines and fully implement measures related to domestic violence, PolySeSouvient coordinator Heidi Rathjen said in the statement.
In Montreal on Tuesday, the group joined representatives of student associations and families of victims of the 1989 massacre of 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique to assess the actions and commitments of federal parties.
The evaluation was based on party positions, actions and votes on firearm legislation, public pledges by leaders to stakeholder groups and a survey sent to each party at the start of the current election campaign.
Canadians head to the polls for a general election on April 28.
Since May 2020, the Liberal government has banned more than 2,500 varieties of what it calls assault-style firearms -- semi-automatics with sustained rapid-fire capability.
Government officials say some 19,000 unique makes and models of non-restricted firearms remain available for hunting or sport shooting in Canada.
Early last month, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights called the latest move to ban certain types of guns “deceitful and deceptive” and rejected the argument that Liberal measures have had no effect on hunting or recreational shooting.
A federal buyback program would give current owners compensation for their outlawed firearms. The program is already available to businesses and the Liberals planned to begin expanding it to individual owners this spring.
At the dissolution of Parliament last month, the Liberals were still implementing some elements of gun control legislation that had already received royal assent, including provisions to better respond to instances of firearm-related violence involving intimate partners and families.
Nathalie Provost, who was shot at Polytechnique and worked alongside Rathjen, is now running for the Liberals in a Quebec riding.
PolySeSouvient said Tuesday that while the Liberals, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Greens have all committed to completing the planned gun buyback and implementing other outstanding measures, only the commitments made by the Liberals, Bloc and Greens are credible.
PolySeSouvient also said a vote for the Bloc would guarantee strong support from at least one opposition party for the Liberals’ gun control measures.
The group said the Conservatives did not respond to its survey.
PolySeSouvient pointed out that the Tories have been very clear over the last four years about their opposition to Liberal gun measures.
“We are going to repeal the Liberal ban on our licensed, law-abiding, trained and tested hunters and sport shooters,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre recently told an enthusiastic crowd of supporters.
He said the Conservatives would redirect the money saved into securing the border with scanners, watchtowers and more officers to intercept smuggled guns, drugs and stolen cars.
Several other voices for stricter firearm control issued a statement Tuesday as election day draws closer.
“We need to strengthen, not weaken, the evidence-based gun control laws that keep us safe,” said Dr. Najma Ahmed, a trauma surgeon and co-chair of Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns.
Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
