(Ottawa) Hunters will finally be heard in the Parliamentary Assault Weapons Ban Committee. The Bloc Québécois received the necessary signatures to call an emergency meeting on Thursday. The Liberals’ last-minute proposed definition and list of banned weapons affects certain hunting weapons, causing controversy.
Posted at 12:12 p.m
“We will negotiate who we want to bring to the committee as experts, when to receive them and whether we want to go beyond the number of sessions, but I have made sure there are two sessions as before, like our first request,” she explained Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud, who sits on the parliamentary committee in charge of studying Bill C-21.
The Bloc Québécois is hoping a hunters’ association will testify. “Experts must come and sit down in front of the parliamentarians and make a clear statement and manage to define where the line is between hunting weapons and assault weapons,” demanded the party leader, Yves-François Blanchet, the on-call service.
The emergency meeting is expected to take place on Tuesday. The parties must then agree on the number of additional sessions and the number of witnesses they wish to hear. The Conservatives, who oppose gun control, had called for 20 more sessions earlier this week in what was seen as a delaying tactic.
When introduced in May, Bill C-21 initially banned handguns. The government wants to expand the scope to also ban offensive weapons. He tabled two related amendments two weeks ago, one proposing a new definition of banned weapons and the other a little over 300 pages list of models that would be banned.
These new changes have provoked a violent reaction from pro-gun lobbies in Canada as well as the hunting community. Last Saturday, Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price also made a controversial appearance by openly criticizing the law and supporting a pro-gun group days before the commemoration of the Polytechnique massacre in Montreal.
The last-minute maneuvers carried out by the government after the conclusion of the deliberations in the parliamentary committee also met with criticism from the opposition parties. The Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party consider this a “clumsy” maneuver. The Conservative Party tends to believe that the Liberals want to ban hunting guns entirely.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday accused the Conservatives of being “under the influence of the pro-gun lobby”, “spreading misinformation” and “spooking people”. The government is trying to “draw the line” to ban offensive military weapons.
“We focus on specific firearms that have no place in Canada and we don’t go after shotguns and rifles,” he reiterated.
Mr. Trudeau indicated that he would not budge from the expanded definition of a prohibited firearm. It bans semi-automatic firearms, including shotguns, whose magazine can be modified to hold more than five rounds, those capable of firing projectiles with muzzle energy greater than 10,000 joules, and those with a barrel bore of 20 millimeters or more more.
He reiterated that he was ready to amend the list of banned models to remove hunting weapons found there.
In 2020, the government had already banned 1,500 assault weapons by decree, including those used in the Polytechnique massacre. Bill C-21 aims to close the loopholes to prevent manufacturers from bringing new models of weapons to the market at the limit of what is allowed.
With Lila Dussault