Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Conservative MP Alex Ruff says he was surprised, and also not surprised by the sudden withdrawal of the federal Liberals’ amendments to gun legislation Bill C-21.
“It was finally a political recognition that they’d overstepped here, and that Canadians were calling them out on it,” says Ruff.
Last autumn’s proposed amendments G-4 and G-46 would have banned a list of firearms so long, they took up hundreds of pages and contained an ‘evergreen definition’ of an ‘assault style firearm’ that would have seen hundreds of firearms used for various purposes fall under a ban.
The amendments had been strongly opposed by Conservative MPs but also opposed by some Bloc, NDP, and even some Liberal MPs.
Friday morning, Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed withdrew the amendments at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
Ruff has been vocal about his opposition to banning lawfully owned firearms since he was first elected in 2019.
When the amendments were introduced last year at the security committee, he and other opposition MPs took part in the committee’s meetings to ask about the impacts the amendments would have on hunters, trappers, farmers, First Nations, even military history reenactment enthusiasts and collectors.
Ruff says, “Kudos to the firearms community, to the hunters, to the First Nations peoples out there. Kudos to a lot of my colleagues, because we were the loudest voices on this and very consistent on this from day one—who made sure Canadians understood exactly what the Liberal government was trying to achieve which is, at the last minute to basically go after hunting rifles across this country. That was unacceptable.”
Ruff believes a consultation meeting Minister Mendicino held in the Yukon in January alongside Yukon Liberal MP Brendan Hanley to hear the concerns of firearms owners who had written to Hanley on the issue may have had an impact. “He (Mendicino) received nothing but negative backlash over the amendments,” says Ruff.
Ruff adds, “I don’t say this as all liberals, or even all liberal MPs, but there’s a huge percentage, especially within this current Liberal cabinet in government that ideally, they want to remove firearms from Canadian society completely, and I think this was a recognition that they showed their cards and they got caught.”
The announcement Friday was unexpected for opposition MPs. Ruff says, “I’m surprised and I’m not surprised. I’m ecstatic that common sense and, as my colleague Doug Shipley from Barrie-Springwater- Oro-Medonte stated in public safety committee it looks like the light bulb finally went on in the minister’s head over the holidays and they saw the light, and realized that they’d overstepped in going down and targeting law abiding firearms owners. It’s not going to do anything to help with public safety in Canada and so common sense prevailed.”
With those amendments withdrawn, Bill C-21 will continue to be discussed by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
Liberal House Leader Mark Holland told reporters Friday, “Remember, we’re still moving through the committee process. This is why we have a committee process. The intention of our system isn’t to have a perfect bill with no mistakes in it, and just to walk around the committee in an exercise in ticking a box. The purpose of committee is to have these kinds of discussions and this kind of deliberation. We should celebrate in our system that changes get made, that we listen to one another and that we improve legislation.”