Rick Egersich of the National Firearms Association gives testimony before the Senate about Bill C-21, which would ban most, if not all, of Canada s handguns and entrench a ban on handgun ownership. In his testimony, he humanizes the cost of the bill, arguing that it will strip firearms from law-abiding Canadians.
00:00:00.040For the second time in recent history, we are finding out that the Liberals' latest gun grab is going to cost way more than they told us it would.
00:00:09.280I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gun Show.
00:00:11.660My name is Rick Egersich. I'm the president of Canada's National Firearms Association.
00:00:33.940I'm here today representing the members of my organization and other law-abiding Canadians.
00:00:38.680I want to speak specifically about two parts of this bill.
00:00:43.620The handgun freeze that will eventually lead to confiscation of personal property.
00:00:48.760I would also like to comment on the government's creation of the Firearms Advisory Committee.
00:00:54.320I am neither an academic, nor a bureaucrat, nor a lawyer.
00:00:57.380I am simply one of the many Canadians that Bill C-21 will directly affect.
00:01:02.100As a third-generation firearms owner, I have several family heirlooms, including handguns that have been passed from my grandfather to my father, and finally to me.
00:01:13.060My grandfather, a First World War veteran, was a farmer who legally carried a handgun in his daily activities on the farm,
00:01:21.740whether it was for predator control, to dispatch injured or wounded livestock, or just to do some plinking at a tin can under a shade tree while he ate his lunch, which was a common practice in that day.
00:01:33.880My father was a competitive shooter in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, and a Dominion marksman who competed in the Olympic trials in his youth.
00:01:45.220I have followed in his footsteps, becoming a competitive handgun, IPC rifle, and shotgun competitor.
00:01:51.160I am also an avid collector and am passionate about the pieces that hold significance in Canadian history and heritage.
00:01:58.460If Bill C-21 becomes law, I will be the final chapter in that book.
00:02:05.260Upon my passing, regardless of age or sentiment, my firearms will be slated for destruction.
00:02:11.660The history, the time-honoured traditions, national pride, and the legacy of countless Canadian icons will come to an end.
00:02:19.920This saddens me deeply, along with countless law-abiding firearms owners who share my position.
00:02:25.920Despite proven statistics that we are one of the most vetted and law-abiding demographics in Canadian history,
00:02:34.020and our hope that the government would treat us fairly, we will unfortunately fare the brunt of these measures.
00:02:40.460What you just saw there is a clip from my friend, good friend of the show, Rick Igersich of the National Firearms Association,
00:07:17.940But when you take the statistics out of the equation, because the liberals don't seem to really actually care about the facts, right?
00:07:24.660But if you take that out of the equation and you say that these are family heirlooms, trusted family heirlooms,
00:07:31.620these are part of not just my family's heritage, but the heritage of this country that the liberals are, I suppose,
00:07:42.100happy to throw in the garbage because they really don't want to do the tough thing of dealing with crime in progressive-run cities in this country.
00:07:51.720You know, that was my point of Bill C-21, too.
00:08:47.880And she pointed to the fact that it violates justice, which was one of the arguments made to the federal court, even though the federal court basically upheld Bill C-21.
00:09:03.120But Terry Bryant said it violates justice because it confiscates precious personal and family belongings and destroys household wealth.
00:09:12.000It weakens public safety because it prevents people from getting life-saving tools and training.
00:09:16.860And frankly, it undermines the whole concept of gun regulations because it invents arbitrary policies designed to criminalize and confiscate property from honest citizens instead of promoting safety and security in Canada's progressive-run cities.
00:09:33.360And there's more to it than that, you know, it's affecting sport shooters, for example.
00:09:38.180You know, people go out with their families, enjoy firearms in a safe manner.
00:09:46.580You know, there was a lot of talk in the Senate at all, you know, it's not really affecting long guns.
00:09:50.840But when you look at the Firearms Advisory Committee, with the open end side of the Firearms Advisory Committee, they could, the government could add any firearm they want to this list without due process.
00:10:03.700A prime example of government overreach.
00:10:06.060You know, there's so many parts of this bill that, you know, affects so many Canadians.
00:10:27.700I hope that some of the senators, I'm hoping all of the senators took to heart what I had to say because, you know, we are, there's more to this than the anti-gun side.
00:10:39.360You know, you know, the anti-gun side, you know, you know, they come up with this, you know, domestic violence stuff.
00:10:47.580And some of the ridiculous stuff they were quoting was unbelievable.
00:10:50.960But if you look at, you know, and I don't want to quote statistics, but if you look at the statistics, it's not us, you know.
00:10:57.380And I made a suggestion when I was questioned by one of the senators, you know,
00:11:03.220and they said, you know, something to the effect of, you know, if we got rid of guns, then people would feel safer.
00:12:04.620But the liberals seem hell-bent on saying, okay, well, everybody's just going to feel safer.
00:12:08.920If Sheila, who didn't do anything, has to lose her guns to make some left-wing feminists feel better about, I don't know, sleeping with her cat at night.
00:13:08.520Okay, so the liberals, the people who trotted out an actual Nazi, which is pretty hard to find these days because the supply doesn't really meet the demand.
00:13:19.120They dusted off a geriatric Nazi, brought him into the House of Commons, gave him a hero's welcome, and these people have the audacity to tell you you're not vetting your members?
00:13:37.360It's a crazy world, and it's, you know, for a body that's supposed to be balanced and bipartisan, the Canadian Senate is not, in my opinion.
00:13:51.700I mean, Justin Trudeau created his independent senators, and they're independent only insofar as they don't carry the liberal name, but they vote, by and large, consistently with the liberals.
00:14:03.540Let's talk about something that, as we're recording this on Tuesday morning, it'll go to air on Wednesday.
00:14:10.400This unsurprising news came out Monday.
00:14:15.700So the liberals' documents, so this is the liberals' own documents.
00:14:20.160And the liberals have said all along, the gun buyback program, and I say gun buyback, that's because that's what they call it.
00:14:27.780It's the compensation for confiscation program, because you can't buy back something that was not yours.
00:14:35.420But liberals' own documents now project the liberals' compensation program to cost nearly $2 billion, double the minister's first estimates.
00:14:46.520The government still has yet to release public figures on what the confiscation program would cost taxpayers.
00:14:53.760So this is their so-called assault rifles, which included a 410 bird gun.
00:15:01.040At first they said it would cost $400 million, then it was $600 million, then I think it ballooned up to $800 million.
00:15:06.880And of course it's double, and I think it's going to be even double this again, because they don't know how many of these firearms are in the country.
00:15:17.240Because that's what happens when you move guns from completely unregistered all the way to prohib.
00:15:22.700A lot of these guns were gun show first purchases for a lot of highly vetted individuals.
00:15:29.080And so the government has no real record of who has these guns or where they are.
00:15:35.360And so there's only one solution, and that's to send the RCMP door-to-door looking for these things.
00:15:42.920We've heard in Alberta, our RCMP are not going to do that.
00:15:46.080I think a lot of RCMP members are going to object to doing that too.
00:15:49.840But of course, of course the liberals have no idea how much this is going to cost,
00:15:54.320because they don't know where these guns are, who has them, or how many of them there are.
00:15:57.940All right. Our original projections were between $3 billion to $4 billion.
00:16:03.020You know, they said, oh, there's no way it's going to be that much.
00:16:05.460I realistically think it's going to be more than $4 billion now.
00:16:09.000I think you're right when you say, you know, it'll double again.
00:17:39.780I do think because the Liberals are about 10 points down consistently behind the Conservatives,
00:17:46.600and those numbers seem to be holding, you know,
00:17:49.760I think previously we've seen fluctuations where the Conservatives are up and then the Liberals go back up again in the polls.
00:17:58.180But it's been month after month now consistently the Liberals are down 10 points on the Conservatives.
00:18:03.940And of course, they they trot out this cudgel where they pit urban people against the firearms community and rural people and the West because they don't stand to lose any votes in the West.
00:18:18.060This is a basically something directed at this is an issue directed at Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver.
00:18:25.980Do you think Canadians are going to buy this or are they just completely over it?
00:18:29.600Because I think if the Liberals even believed that these firearms were so deadly, they had to get out of the hands of law-abiding Canadians,
00:18:38.100they wouldn't have kicked the can down the road five years before their confiscation program kicks in.
00:18:43.380You know, if if you look at some of the talk at the Senate, and it was almost like they're trying to cause a rift between the urban and the rural people.
00:18:52.800I believe right now Canadians have had enough of this.
00:18:56.180You know, I think they're trying to bring it back to light.
00:18:58.720And, you know, they're they're quoting, you know, you know, city there's there's more guns in rural Canada than there is in the cities, which is a falsehood,
00:19:06.520because in Ontario, there's a lot of shooters and gun owners and collectors in the cities.
00:19:11.360And I'm sure it's like that in Edmonton and Calgary also.
00:19:14.640You know, there I don't even know where they're getting their data from, you know,
00:19:18.060but if you listen to them, it's almost like they're purposely trying to cause a rift between urban and rural people.
00:19:25.060And people aren't going to people aren't going to fall for that anymore.
00:19:28.320I believe I believe this this gun issue has been drug through the wringer for so long,
00:19:35.240so many times that people are getting tired of it and aren't going to be thinking about that when they go to the polls.
00:19:41.240No, I don't think so either. And this is just indicative of how the liberals govern.
00:19:45.380They govern through division. It's how they got through covid.
00:19:49.940You know, those people are dirty, even though they all they did was made and make a different health choice
00:19:54.300than the people around them. And right now they're scapegoating law abiding gun owners for the crimes that are happening
00:20:00.660largely in the progressive run cities and because the liberals refuse to secure their border,
00:20:06.220because a lot of the gun crime in this country is caused through smuggling.
00:20:10.860These are not really domestically sourced guns.
00:20:14.320And if they are domestically sourced, they are in the hands of the wrong people,
00:20:20.000largely because somebody was robbed of them.
00:20:23.400So right now, the liberals, if you look at how they are are legislating,
00:20:27.940when they point to domestically sourced guns, it's not straw purchases.
00:20:32.620It's scapegoating the victims of a robbery for what's done with the the property that was stolen from them.
00:20:40.160And we would never treat vehicle owners the same way.
00:20:43.240Like we don't hold vehicle owners responsible if their car is taken from their driveway
00:20:47.740and used in the commission of a crime. We don't turn to the original owner and say,
00:20:51.520well, you did something wrong. We don't do that. But we do that with firearms.
00:20:55.040Yeah. You know, and the data they're using is so skewed because they take into account air guns,
00:22:02.980I have I have four vetted peer reviewed reports that that are accurate.
00:22:10.140But you asked, you know, and they're coming up with rebuttals to these reports.
00:22:14.560But none of their stuff is peer reviewed that I know of.
00:22:17.060It might be. But as far as I can see, it's not peer reviewed.
00:22:20.780And the statistics, the statistics they're quoting are ridiculous.
00:22:24.440One senator said that that 65 percent of firearms owners in Canada are in favor of this handgun freeze and something like 75 percent of Canadians are in favor of this assault weapon ban.
00:22:42.500And number one, an assault weapon, they've been they've been there hasn't been any of those in Canada since, you know, 1979, you know, and long before that, 79 in some cases, you know, what definition are they're using?
00:22:57.800That's my question. You know, they're throwing these statistics at me.
00:23:00.860I've traveled coast to coast across Canada on several occasions and talked to thousands of firearms owners.
00:23:08.800Not one, not one, Sheila, has said they're in favor of this handgun freeze, this handgun seizure or the Order and Counsel.
00:23:15.460So where they're getting these numbers, I don't know.
00:23:17.840No, and I think a lot of firearms owners who didn't own handguns are all of a sudden having a bit of a come to Jesus moment when, you know, previously they said, well, you know, this sort of doesn't concern me.
00:23:53.160Yeah. And confiscation without compensation, because that's what it's going to come down to.
00:23:56.940You know, we were talking some figures, you know, they're saying two billion, you know, we're saying four billion or more.
00:24:02.560Where's this money going to come from?
00:24:03.800If there's no money there, if they decide to go through with this confiscation, there isn't going to be any confiscate compensation for these people, you know.
00:24:13.460And I try to stay out of that when I when I when I gave evidence at the Senate, I try to stay out of the money into things.
00:24:20.640And, you know, I did mention, you know, tax losses and businesses closing and stuff like that.
00:24:25.700But I try to stay out of the money into things because at the end of the day, the liberals don't care about money.
00:24:32.220Of course, they don't care if Canadians are losing money.
00:24:34.900They don't care if, you know, you've got your grandfather's firearms there and you're going to, you know, it's more than the money, of course, is, you know, sentimental value.
00:24:44.060But some people, you know, are we're banking on this as a retirement fund.
00:24:48.080But the liberals don't care about that.
00:24:49.720And that, in my opinion, has always been the case.
00:26:07.640Like I say, right now, Solomon is, Solomon Friedman, our lawyer, is reviewing things.
00:26:12.760And we haven't made that decision whether to appeal or not.
00:26:16.160I know other orgs say they're going to appeal.
00:26:18.220But I just don't know if we want to use members' resources to go out there for an appeal and not, you know, and be in the same position we are.
00:26:28.860At the end of the day, what we need is a change in government, which Pierre Polyev has assured me personally that he is going to, you know, get rid of the order of counsel and this handgun freeze ban.
00:26:42.220So, you know, I'm taking his word, I'm taking his word for it.
00:26:46.920You know, we're, as far as our group, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to kind of run behind the scenes in this election.
00:26:53.900We don't want to, we don't want to give the liberals any, you know, we take something, they spin it and they use it against us.
00:27:00.700So, you know, we're going to, we're going to put the information out there of what each candidate has in mind, what their platforms are.
00:27:07.940We're, we're not going to endorse anybody, we're going to let people make up their own minds.
00:27:13.880Like I say, we are, we are looking at an appeal, but we have to be very careful how we use our members' resources.
00:27:20.620You know, and I think the conservatives must commit to taking away this undemocratic power from the firearms advisory committee and the ability of the government to just reclassify guns without actually ever having to be accountable to the owners of these things.
00:27:45.660There's too much power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats right now, and that must change.
00:27:51.520That firearms advisory committee is the biggest government overreach item that I've ever seen.
00:27:59.620It's basically an open door to do whatever they want.
00:28:04.080You know, they're doing whatever they want, they want by abusing the order and counsel.
00:28:07.820But, you know, with it, with this firearms advisory committee, that just opens things right up for them.
00:28:12.640And, you know, it's, it's another tier, you know, we've talked about their tiered approach to getting rid of guns in Canada.
00:28:19.360That's another tier in the approach to getting rid of all firearms in Canada.
00:28:24.020You know, and that firearms advisory committee, it, it abuses its power, even when the conservatives are in charge.
00:28:34.120We must never forget how owners of the CZ 858 went to bed one night with their lawfully acquired firearms and then woke up in the morning to find out that their firearm had been banned and they were all of a sudden in possession of a prohibited weapon, which is a serious offense here in Canada.
00:28:52.200And that was all because of something happening at the firearms advisory committee.
00:28:57.620Thankfully, the Harper government gave an amnesty on that.
00:29:04.180But amnesty should never have had to have been given because some bureaucrat outlawed your property while you slept.
00:29:11.460And so, you know, that, I think, as you rightly point out, it's one of the biggest undemocratic power vestiges in this country.
00:29:25.140You know, with the firearms advisory committee, I think what a lot of people don't realize, and there was a lot of talk of this at the Senate.
00:29:32.620They're also talking about parts and accessories of firearms, you know, magazines, you know, you know, the big thing is, you know, if we need to stop, we need, we need, we won't be able to fix our firearms anymore because they want to ban the flow of parts because somebody could take a part and allegedly 3D print a gun and make a ghost gun and stuff.
00:29:53.520So, you know, and that's going to be, you know, as far as this firearms advisory committee, you know, I think, I think that might be another, another thing where the, where they'll set their focus is onto accessories and parts of firearms.
00:30:08.080You know, it's, it's so open-ended that nobody really knows how much power it's going to have if they, if they do put it in place.
00:30:15.580Now, Rick, I could probably talk to you all day about how unfair the gun legislation is in this country and what we must do to fix it.
00:30:26.160But please tell us how people can get involved in the NFA because you really are a grassroots organization working hard for people like me out there.
00:31:54.360And a, and a way this country rethinks what they feel about their friends and neighbors in the firearm zoning community.
00:32:02.900Because for the last, going on eight years, Justin Trudeau has scapegoated them and treated them as though they are the violent criminals in the community.
00:32:10.420Instead of just the people that you play hockey with and see on the street every day.
00:32:15.540Rick, thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:32:17.280We'll have you back on again very soon because until there is a change of government, I think this is going to be a topic that we will constantly be talking about.
00:32:29.940And like I say, we'll, we'll speak again.
00:32:32.140There's a lot of things that are going to be happening in the next few weeks.
00:32:35.260So we'll be in touch again and to take this discussion a little further.
00:32:40.420Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show where I invite your viewer feedback.
00:32:51.240I know, I know regular viewers of the show will find this little bit, this little preamble redundant, but we get new people here all the time.
00:32:59.300We have to tell them how the rules work.
00:33:01.220So if you want to send me viewer feedback on the show today or any show, just send me an email to Sheila at rebelnews.com.
00:33:09.560Put gun show letters in the subject line because I do get dozens, if not hundreds of emails a day, depending on what controversial thing I've weighed in on to make half the internet angry at me.
00:33:21.940But also, if you're watching the free version of the show on YouTube or on Rumble, thanks for sitting through those ads, by the way.
00:33:32.940But leave a comment in the comment section.
00:33:37.600I do go poking around over there sometimes or even on the free version of the clips of the show that we release on YouTube and Rumble.
00:33:47.200If you don't feel like sitting through the whole version of the show, you can just watch some interesting clips.
00:33:52.700And that is exactly where I get today's comment from.
00:33:56.780And it is on my show last week that I did with Corey Morgan from the Western Standard.
00:34:02.340And we were talking about the new legislative session here in Alberta and what sort of things our freedom-loving Premier Daniel Smith, who just loves fighting with the federal government, what she has on her legislative agenda.
00:34:15.880And one of the things we talked about was how Justin Trudeau very recently has given a tax break, by and large, to Atlantic Canada by exempting home heating fuel from the carbon tax, while leaving it in place for cleaner burning fuels, if you care about those sorts of things, like natural gas, which is what we burn on here in Western Canada.
00:34:41.200And of course, Justin Trudeau did this for political reasons and not environmental reasons, because home heating fuel is actually a less clean burning fuel.
00:34:51.220But liberal MPs are starting to break ranks with the rest of their party on issues of the carbon tax in Atlantic Canada, because they say it's all too punishing for their people there.
00:35:04.840Now, as Chris Sims, my friend from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, points out, Western Canada actually pays more carbon tax on natural gas as a net sum than they pay on the carbon tax on home heating fuel in Atlantic Canada.
00:35:26.260Not the liberals care about those sorts of things, but actually we do pay more.
00:35:29.980But the people who pay less on a dirtier fuel, again, if you care about that sort of things, they're the ones getting the carbon tax break.
00:35:37.240Because, of course, Justin Trudeau stands to lose nothing in Western Canada.
00:36:19.720It's a barn, but I think it's more of a storage building with a barn.
00:36:23.900And it's got some wash bays there for vehicles, I think, which, okay, fine.
00:36:30.300But basically, it's a steel Quonset, which you see all over the place, at least out here in Alberta.
00:36:39.300And it was built by the National Capital Commission, which are like the parks and property managers for the properties owned by the federal government in the national capital region, so in Ottawa.
00:36:55.320And so they are in charge of the property, let's say, at Rideau Hall, where the governor general lives, which is where this barn is.
00:37:04.660And the barn is $8 million for a steel Quonset.
00:37:13.480I know a little something about what barns cost, especially like steel machine sheds.
00:37:19.100And probably, probably, they could have done this for like one one-hundredth of the cost.
00:37:30.880But the National Capital Commission had to put solar panels on the top of the barn.
00:37:39.500And so that added enormously to the cost.
00:37:43.420And so to answer your question, how is this thing heated, well, according to the National Capital Commission, with solar panels.
00:37:51.020But according to reality, whatever it's heated with is not solar panels because it would naturally have to have a backup, which is usually clean burning natural gas because green energy is unreliable.
00:38:05.820I can't even imagine who they have to pay to climb up on top of this steel Quonset to sweep off the solar panels on a snowy Ottawa January day to get three minutes of electricity out of these solar panels until they ultimately break and then leach into the soil.
00:38:31.300And then we have to pay for the very expensive remediation of the soil on a National Historic Site.