The rise in gun crimes in Montreal and elsewhere in the country is forcing the federal government to temporarily ban imports of restricted handguns beginning August 19, pending passage of Bill C-21 in House.
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This ban is temporary in that this law, designed to freeze the arms market, has not yet passed the Ottawa legislature.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said in an interview with the QMI agency that she had been working on the file for several weeks.
“I’m very concerned about the issue of gun control, and as a member of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, the shooting phenomenon is new to our area. It’s more than before,” she said.
The latest killing in this northern Montreal neighborhood came just days ago when a 48-year-old man, Mohamed Salah Benhaj, was attacked 24 hours ago by a crazed gunman earlier this week, resulting in three fewer casualties.
Beginning August 19, owners must obtain federal government approval to import these weapons. Import permits are processed by Global Affairs Canada.
“I have this power to say no to all permits. So I will refuse the permits and therefore under the circumstances that means we have an import ban,” Ms Joly says on the phone.
This announcement follows an investment of nearly $42 million by the federal government, announced the day before, to support projects that raise awareness of gun violence in local and Aboriginal communities.
“It’s an important step, but events like the ones that happened at home this week remind us that we need to pick up the pace and do more because it could happen anywhere in the country,” he replied via email Office of Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
Bloc Québécois public safety spokesman Rhéal Fortin “welcomed” the announcement, “which compensates for the government’s mistake.”
“It should have blocked handgun sales when Bill C-21 was introduced in May, as we requested because we’ve seen an explosion in handgun sales since then,” he said.
For PolySeSouvient, “This is an important and innovative move that will undoubtedly slow the expansion of the Canadian handgun market.”
This new ban will not curb the spread of handguns among the population overnight, as pointed out by PolySeSouvient’s Nathalie Provost.
Since the introduction of Bill C-21 last May, there has been a real rush for handguns, with authorized sellers struggling to meet demand. This increase in sales was one of the government’s reasons for tightening the ban, says Mélanie Joly.
“We must prevent the shelves of dealers that sell handguns from really filling up, while at the same time trying to restrict firearms and handguns in our communities,” the minister said during a news conference in Danforth, a Toronto suburb, on Friday.
A Statistics Canada study released in late May shows that “for most violent crimes committed with firearms, handguns were the most dangerous weapon at the scene, both from 2009-2014 (59%) and from 2015-2020 (59%)”.
– In collaboration with Félix Lacerte-Gauthier