Liberals bow to pressure, drop amendments to gun-control bill

Nunavut NDP MP Lori Idlout said she was “a little bit celebratory” Friday after a Liberal MP announced the withdrawal of controversial amendments to its Bill C-21 gun legislation.

The amendments, introduced in November at a meeting of the public safety committee currently studying the proposed law, would have banned some rifles and shotguns commonly used by Inuit hunters.

The amendments proposed to ban firearms that can accept magazines with a capacity of more than five rounds, and semi-automatic firearms that don’t have detachable magazines.

But after strong pushback from MPs across the country, including Idlout, on Friday Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed announced the government is withdrawing its list of guns that would have been classified as “prohibited” firearms under the proposed amendments.

Bill C-21 was originally drafted to ban the sale of handguns; the government is still moving forward with that.

Idlout credited her NDP colleagues MP Alistair MacGregor and Peter Julian for “a lot of great work” on the committee “to resolve the mess that was made by the Liberal party.”

“I give them all the credit for the Liberals listening, and making sure to focus their efforts on what the original intent of the bill was, which is to address gun violence in urban centres,” Idlout told Nunatsiaq News Friday.

Idlout voted in favour of Bill C-21 at second reading last June. That was before a Liberal MP added the amendments at committee.

While the amendments have been dropped, Idlout did not say Friday how she will vote when Bill C-21 comes up for third and final reading.

“We still need to pay attention, we still need to make sure that we don’t have any surprises while Bill C-21 is still being studied,” she said.

With the government having previously asked national organizations including the RCMP to help implement the buyback program for Bill C-21, gun control expert Noah Schwartz said passing the bill may have increased the number of hostile interactions between Indigenous people and the police. (Photo courtesy of Bryan Gagnon)

Noah Schwartz, a gun control expert and assistant professor at University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, said even if Bill C-21 had gone through with the amendments, it would have been difficult to implement in a territory like Nunavut.

This is because the bill proposed a buyback program for gun owners to hand over their rifles and shotguns and be financially compensated in return.

Schwartz said that would be a challenge, especially in smaller, more remote communities in the territory.

“It would be a huge logistical difficulty, especially in places where you have a lot of gun owners spread across a huge amount of land,” he said.

“I think at the end of the day, you’re relying on people to make a tremendous effort to comply with this ban.”

The government had asked national organizations, including the RCMP, to help implement the buyback program. Schwartz said that practice might have led to increased hostile interactions between Indigenous people and the police.

“It [would] come down to the government creating the proper incentives so that people comply. And if not, what happens?” he said.

“What happens to people who don’t comply with the ban? Are we going to send police officers to those people’s homes? What kind of danger does that put people in?”

For Idlout, the next step involves continuing “to pay very close attention to the discussions by the public safety committee and making sure that Indigenous Peoples’ rights aren’t being infringed upon.

“[We need] to make sure that the focus remains on protecting Canadians who deserve to be protected from gun violence, which was our original intent with this bill.”