Full Comment - The many deceptions of the Liberals’ gun ‘buyback’

00:00:00.000 canada's new so-called gun buyback program is it going to work or is this a pipe dream from

00:00:10.800 the liberals let's just put there to make it look like they're doing something hello

00:00:15.500 welcome to the full comment podcast my name is brian lily your host we've all heard by now the

00:00:20.860 audio or at least some of the audio of public safety minister gary and de sangri speaking with

00:00:26.380 a constituent someone who rents a property from minister and de sangri who is a gun owner and

00:00:32.580 unbeknownst to minister gary he was being recorded as he talked about the program that he was about

00:00:38.220 to roll out canada's gun buyback program more than five years after it was announced well what

00:00:44.940 happened we heard and de sangri downplaying the program claiming it wouldn't work saying it was

00:00:50.500 only for quebec and making comments that would make you think well the minister just doesn't

00:00:55.860 actually believe in this you know what you're asking i know a lot more i'm not an expert on this

00:01:01.460 right i'm not an expert quebec for example is in a very different place in ontario

00:01:06.600 i get it quebec is in a different place than other parts of the country so what is going on here then

00:01:11.680 is this all just political does this program have a chance of succeeding what will it mean for

00:01:17.280 legal licensed firearms owner ian runkel is a lawyer based in edmonton alberta he is also a popular

00:01:23.780 youtube host you can find him at runkel on the bailey and he comments often on these issues we

00:01:29.440 had a conversation about what this program means what the penalties could be do people have legal

00:01:35.980 recourse given what the minister has said to just ignore this and what is the cost going to be to

00:01:41.700 canadian taxpayers so ian we've got a gun buyback program i put the air quotes around that because it's

00:01:49.140 these are guns that the government never owned but they somehow feel like they can buy them back

00:01:53.920 we've got a minister who doesn't believe in it and says it won't improve public safety

00:01:59.180 from a legal perspective does the fact that the minister has publicly stated this won't work

00:02:05.240 and he'll bail people out if they get arrested over it or he'll compensate them for it does that have

00:02:11.060 any legal bearing because i've heard a lot of folks in the gun community saying well

00:02:15.460 if i get charged i'll just point and say well minister andis angry doesn't believe in this

00:02:20.200 why should you the thing is is that ultimately probably not although it may raise some issues

00:02:26.480 with regards to the minister's fitness to practice law because he directly encouraged his constituent

00:02:34.000 his tenant not to follow the law which he has since indicated will be enforced with amongst other

00:02:41.400 things raids he he said that in an in an interview so it's it's kind of interesting that he's telling

00:02:47.380 his tenant this law is bad i don't you know it's not how i would have done it but we're beholden to

00:02:53.780 quebec you shouldn't follow it i'll bail you out if you get caught not following it but also the police

00:03:01.800 are going to raid people if you know if they're not following it so that's striking like as a lawyer

00:03:09.280 we've got ethical limitations we cannot advise people to commit crimes and that's what he's

00:03:14.720 doing on that audio it's bizarre to me and he is our solicitor general i know we have restyled it as

00:03:22.480 the public safety minister but legally officially he is the solicitor general yeah it's um so i wonder

00:03:30.780 if like the law society of ontario is going to have an opinion on this but um we'll see it's

00:03:39.200 it's quite stunning but it doesn't actually provide any real protection for the average

00:03:44.480 citizen you're expected to follow the law even if the minister for public safety says ah go ahead

00:03:50.720 ignore it so the courts aren't going to view that as a shield for any sort of ordinary canadian and

00:03:57.800 certainly i wouldn't expect that the minister's offer to pay bail and to personally compensate

00:04:03.920 extends to anyone other than his tenant we're talking to a lot of people on this podcast who

00:04:09.920 are not gun owners who have never been around a gun have never shot a gun who don't know the legal

00:04:16.520 process that is involved in getting one in canada so help me walk through this for the layman um my

00:04:26.320 understanding is that everyone who has a gun license in the coming months after the uh the pilot project in

00:04:33.240 cape breton that everyone who has a gun license will get a letter from the government saying

00:04:39.000 please tell me all the illegal guns you have and then i'll consider we will consider whether to

00:04:44.280 compensate you for them i is that a fair assessment am i oversimplifying things that's my takeaway from

00:04:51.480 watching minister gary's news conference what they've told the public that they're going to do

00:04:57.000 is essentially give us an opportunity to sign up you know with letters and announcements and so forth

00:05:04.280 and the way that works is initially you contact them and you give them an inventory of all the

00:05:09.720 prohibited firearms and then they've said okay if you have done that that's a necessary step for

00:05:15.560 participating then later you can turn the guns in for compensation asterisk and the asterisk is that

00:05:23.720 they've said that there are no guaranteed payouts and already since the announcement since they've

00:05:31.000 published their list they've been revising the list of payouts so what you see as the payout for your gun

00:05:37.240 today may not be the payout when you actually go but they've also said that there's a cap and that cap

00:05:43.960 is 750 million in total project costs which includes the administration it includes security i'm told

00:05:53.000 the administration is about two-thirds of that yep so there's a little tiny pool for money

00:05:59.320 and when that is exhausted they will say well we never guaranteed you that you'd get any compensation

00:06:07.160 in fact you know sorry uh we're taking your gun but you're not getting paid for it and if you say

00:06:13.960 well no i'm not giving you the gun then they'll say it's illegal you've got to turn it over we'll arrest

00:06:20.040 you if you don't have it we'll kick down your door and so it was actually really interesting

00:06:25.400 because carney on the uh the house of commons floor was being asked about this and he used he

00:06:31.320 made a little slip and people sort of jeered him for it but i think it was a freudian slip

00:06:37.000 what he said is this is why we need this registry and the reason why i think he made that slip is that

00:06:46.120 the initial phase of the buyback is essentially trying to create a registry of the prohibited

00:06:51.160 firearms by getting people to sign up because that's really what they're missing here for this

00:06:56.680 gun ban and it's it's interesting because for years critics of the long gun registry said listen

00:07:02.760 this is just the only reason you have this is as a shopping list for future bans there is no public

00:07:09.000 safety benefit it's not saving any lives and certainly they've never been able to point to like a life

00:07:14.760 saved off this registry but now they're trying to desperately rebuild one to solve this problem

00:07:23.560 so that seems to be what the project is i i've already heard from people who have been contacted

00:07:29.880 by police in recent months saying we understand you have this firearm and yet they're not prohibited

00:07:37.080 they're not restricted and there's no way that the government would know unless they maintained a copy of

00:07:42.600 the registry which we believe that they did in quebec but that's only supposed to be used

00:07:47.560 for issues in the province of quebec and and we know during the high river gun grab in 2014 that they

00:07:54.280 clearly had a copy of the registry and went around into homes that were flooded raided them seized guns

00:08:02.040 that were properly stored and and then said oh well too bad so sad so look that that is not going to

00:08:09.720 create an awful lot of sympathy from the general public maybe among the gun owning community maybe

00:08:14.440 amongst people like myself who see this as a civil liberties issue but

00:08:20.280 this idea that we're going to create a registry of guns and that will keep us safe meanwhile the border

00:08:27.320 is like a sieve makes no sense to me well the other thing we may see as a result of this is

00:08:33.400 people who had a firearm that has now been prohibited when the registry existed getting targeted for guns

00:08:42.040 they no longer have because they sold them because they whatever and so they may get a letter saying we

00:08:48.360 think you've got this gun because they it's it's been made clear that there are copies of the registry

00:08:55.160 notwithstanding the fact that it was supposed to be stamped out but what there isn't is a current up-to-date

00:09:01.240 registry it's it's sort of frozen in time as of that uh moment it was 2011 2012 something i'd have to look

00:09:10.600 it up so so it's more than a decade old and so there are going to be people whose names are on the

00:09:17.240 registry for having some sort of prohibited firearm who sold it who you know whatever happened and who

00:09:24.680 are going to get a letter saying we think you've got a prohibited firearm now what the government will

00:09:29.720 say is if you don't have the prohibited firearm tell us who does and i suspect most gun owners would

00:09:35.800 say listen that's none of your business i'm not required to tell you anything go away well and also

00:09:41.720 you know you could have sold me a gun and then i could have sold it to a friend and they could have

00:09:46.360 sold it to another friend in this time we're talking more than a dozen years yep 100 but you may see

00:09:54.600 people raided over um outdated stale information and these raids are not gentle like the minister

00:10:02.920 just casually said oh yeah you know we'll enforce it in various ways you know people will get caught

00:10:08.200 transporting them or there'll be some other issue at their house or there may be raids but these raids

00:10:15.080 you know they kick down people's doors they go in with guns drawn they pull people out of the house

00:10:20.040 they put them you know on their front lawn face down you know often with a gun to the back of their

00:10:25.320 head they're incredibly stressful people end up needing you know therapy and so forth to deal with

00:10:32.600 the fact of the violence of the raid and you know it might be you've got somebody who's like 80 and gave

00:10:42.120 all his guns to his kids because he's like ah you know i'm too old now i'm gonna pass them on to you

00:10:47.800 you know my my kids my grandkids and if the kids have or grandkids have licenses that's completely

00:10:53.720 legal oh yeah 100 like nothing illegal happens in this scenario but you may still get grandpa getting

00:11:00.760 raided and the the consequences of this ban including towards people who are completely you know

00:11:09.400 innocent by every sense of the word are going to be felt for decades um carney is basically aiming

00:11:17.640 the police at the general public people who have no criminal histories and who have been

00:11:23.880 sort of functioning members of society for forever and he's like this is who we need to go to war with

00:11:32.760 i kind of think maybe you should look at whose side he's on and maybe you should pick a side for

00:11:38.440 canadians and not something else there are so many bad trudeau era policies that the government has

00:11:48.040 decided to walk away from or quietly let slip away this should have been one of them we are

00:11:56.200 financially in a horrible moment and this 742 million dollar expense and i expect it will go higher

00:12:03.960 i don't believe the cap it always does i never do but you know they they could have said you know

00:12:09.400 what we we're in a different place now uh we we are in a tough spot we believe that it would be

00:12:16.520 better to focus on seizing illegal guns that are used in crime at the border rather than focusing on this

00:12:23.720 list they could have done that and they chose not to and that is clearly a partisan political

00:12:29.160 consideration because there's no public safety element here well and when they say oh this was

00:12:34.920 a campaign promise they dropped electoral reform like it was a hot rock uh they they promised that

00:12:41.320 they would keep up tariffs those are gone they promised that they would maintain the digital services tax

00:12:47.720 and i mean it's a good idea to get rid of it but they certainly promised that that was going to be

00:12:53.000 you know we're going to keep that that's gone so they've been shedding promises left right

00:12:58.920 and center when they say oh we're keeping this one because it was a campaign promise well first they

00:13:04.600 were pretty quiet about it on the campaign trail they made a couple of comments here and there

00:13:10.200 mostly in quebec mostly in quebec and um and they also did the classic thing where they'd say

00:13:19.080 they'd include the line en français and then leave it out of the english version of what they were saying

00:13:25.400 but um why you know when they say oh this is a campaign promise it's clearly not that because

00:13:33.800 they they have no problem dropping those it's clearly this is something ideological they want

00:13:39.640 to punish a group of canadians who they see as voting for the other side and you know that isn't how

00:13:48.520 that isn't how our country should work our politicians should not be identifying canadians into

00:13:54.360 groups of supports us and opposes us to punish the groups that oppose us you know that's very much

00:14:02.680 that's a dark path for a government to follow ian i i remember being up in the ottawa valley uh

00:14:10.040 was up around deep river chalk river and that place had been liberal for decades until the gun

00:14:15.080 registry came along and then in the 90s it switched to canadian alliance and then conservative

00:14:20.120 um and and i remember talking to people i'm you know up visiting friends and this guy says do you

00:14:26.520 want to see my never vote liberal again card and i said what's that he pulled out his gun registry

00:14:32.440 card and and this was an area that was one of the most reliably liberal areas in eastern ontario and you

00:14:41.080 can find these across the country and and they stopped voting liberal because the liberals decided well you're

00:14:47.320 not worth it anymore but quebec is and so if we can talk about that i know you know you're approaching

00:14:53.320 this from a legal point of view but you're also a gun owner you're also an advocate um how frustrating

00:14:59.400 is it to hear minister and to sangri just openly say that they're doing this because of quebec well

00:15:07.240 i'll actually say it was a bit of a relief to see him say something honest for once because since then

00:15:12.600 you know he's been going on his media tour saying oh it was a joke um if you hear the audio it clearly

00:15:19.080 was not a joke i've got the original audio and it clearly was not a joke you can find that on my

00:15:23.960 channel um it's just it's it's plainly not um we're actually hearing what they really think about it

00:15:33.000 and quite frankly it's it's nice that we finally get to see it you know delivered honestly but i don't

00:15:39.640 think anybody would be voting for them if they had to be honest about what they were doing here

00:15:45.240 like we have parceled out the voters and these voters are important and these other voters um

00:15:52.440 they're kind of you know they're bad people and there's this cycle where they're like

00:15:57.080 we're gonna punish gun owners for not voting for us and so gun owners don't vote for them and so then 0.89

00:16:02.760 the liberals want to punish them even harder there's a lot of firearm owners who were saying hey you know

00:16:09.400 no this government doesn't look so bad right up until this government was you know going full bore

00:16:15.880 on gun bans and in fact um you know this probably isn't the end because poly who have been really

00:16:24.280 driving the show here uh it's that is a um let's give the full name of the group uh policy event that's

00:16:31.320 the yeah the group related to a coal poly technique it's a small group of people but they've got an

00:16:37.320 incredible degree of power over this government over the liberal party and you know it's they're

00:16:44.840 an unelected sort of pool that they just sort of threaten the government the government jumps but

00:16:50.440 they've said we want the sks included in this ban we demand that and previously trudeau had said well

00:16:57.240 we're going to grandfather in all these guns until police said well no we demand that they be destroyed

00:17:04.840 and that's why they're on this course now because poly made that further demand and so for for people

00:17:11.160 that don't know guns the sks is um an eastern european you know uh rifle it's a bolt action

00:17:20.520 it's used by a lot of it's semi-automatic it's semi-automatic sorry yes yeah um but it's used by

00:17:27.400 a lot of uh people who it's a cheap rifle to buy um it's basically a mostly failed world world war ii

00:17:35.480 design yeah and but a lot it's used by a lot of people who are just getting into it uh into shooting

00:17:42.520 or into hunting and and it's used in a lot of indigenous communities and that's why trudeau was

00:17:48.120 reluctant to back away from it because the indigenous community said hey wait a minute

00:17:52.840 don't you take that rifle away from us it's it's incredibly common in canada because they were

00:17:59.080 available very inexpensively they're they're semi-automatic but they have a fixed magazine

00:18:05.000 and those magazines in canada are pinned to five rounds and they they can be used to reliably hunt

00:18:12.440 a deer or a moose or an elk they're not the best choice for it but they're an inexpensive choice

00:18:18.760 which made them amongst other things incredibly popular on reserves where people may not have a

00:18:24.760 a whole lot of money a few years ago they were going for 249 yeah now they go for like a thousand

00:18:32.840 they're oh really their their prices have gone up and they're gonna go way up now because they're one

00:18:38.840 of the few semi-automatic rifles still left but um they also have the advantage of functioning

00:18:46.120 very well in cold temperatures cold weather like really cold like canada gets can actually be quite

00:18:53.640 rough for a gun and one of the things that you'll see is metal parts bind to other metal parts

00:19:00.360 so many bolt actions for instance you might go to cycle the action and find that it's just

00:19:06.200 absolutely jammed shut so the um the canadian armed forces have had this problem with you know arctic

00:19:14.360 firearms in that there's only so many guns out there that can actually function if you are say you know

00:19:22.120 northern alberta well the sks reliably performs including in those circumstances and so it's become

00:19:31.400 a very favored firearm for a lot of people in those circumstances where it's like we need something

00:19:37.560 that works in the cold we need something that's been inexpensive developed by the russians who have

00:19:43.080 siberia go figure yep exactly and so um in many ways it's canada's gun i'm actually you know sort of

00:19:52.680 working on that as a thesis for a video but um there were sort of two firearms that um we got lots of

00:20:00.040 at one point and that include that's the lee enfield and the sks and arguably the sks has

00:20:06.120 had a much greater role including on reserves than the lee enfield ever did it's um it's a very popular

00:20:15.720 firearm and there's just so many of them out there but if they ban that and if they say we're going to

00:20:21.480 do this you know buyback they're going to be arresting indigenous people for the next 30 years over this

00:20:28.360 ban so and jailing them let me ask you this because my understanding is the sks like so many of the

00:20:36.440 firearms now banned was unrestricted and yeah so the government doesn't know who has those

00:20:44.920 and that's why they have to send out a letter and say please tell us all the guns you have that are

00:20:50.360 banned they really don't know what is out there do they i'd add an asterisk to the they don't know who

00:20:58.200 has an sks because almost every licensed firearm owner in canada has an sks they're that common

00:21:05.560 and when i say on sks it might be two or three they're just everywhere so if they go ahead and ban

00:21:13.720 the sks that's going to be so many people including everybody who they you know there's the few people

00:21:20.200 who they always find for a quote saying i'm fine with this ban well they're not going to be fine with

00:21:24.680 it when they when their sks gets banned and the the expense just in terms of like even if they didn't

00:21:34.360 pay a single dollar for the sks's even if they said we're not paying anything the expense of rounding

00:21:40.760 up and dealing with all of them would be immense and most there's going to be

00:21:47.240 like thousands and thousands of these that never get turned in i don't think for instance that uh

00:21:55.880 you know the mohawk out near oka i don't think they're going to turn in their sks's they um 0.94

00:22:03.000 they know that the their land out there really isn't a golf course precisely because they had firearms

00:22:10.520 and it's um we're not going to see great turn up especially in indigenous communities both by

00:22:20.680 because there's less um free flow of information but also i just think that there's going to be a

00:22:26.200 lot of people who say we're not doing it we're just going to keep hunting with what we've always

00:22:30.040 hunted with and the number of people who get jailed the um just the cost of imprisoning people for

00:22:38.280 violating these bans over the years you you can't even put a dollar figure to it it's going to be

00:22:44.840 absolutely insane in um before we take a break i want to ask you about the uh the idea that there

00:22:51.080 are no hunting rifles on here i got a an email from a reader howard who said that he owns a ruger number

00:22:58.360 one chamber in the caliber 45 70 a cartridge which dates back to 1873 this is a single shot

00:23:08.280 breech loading lever operated rifle produced by the u.s based firearms manufacturer stern ruger and

00:23:14.680 company um it's a modern he has a modern reproduction of the the gun from the 1870s he describes how

00:23:23.640 difficult it is to reload this gun and this is the type of gun that is favored by people who are

00:23:28.920 hunting big game and believe that you should have one shot because by the time you chamber another bullet

00:23:35.160 the animal's gone now or this is a classic bear gun too it might be gone or it might be on top of you

00:23:42.600 might be on top of you um but what we're told by this government and the previous trudeau government

00:23:48.440 is well these are weapons of war these are military style assault weapons i'm sorry but a single shot

00:23:57.320 ruger number one is not a a weapon of war turns out there's a bunch of them that are chambered in

00:24:04.520 lower uh uh you know you'll know the right term lower uh great cartridges yeah lower caliber

00:24:12.040 cartridges um and they're going to be fine but because his is powerful gives over 10 000 joules

00:24:17.960 it's going to be banned this is not a something that is going to be used in crime ever and yet the

00:24:25.560 government is banning this and there are many examples like this so are they trying to gaslight us

00:24:30.920 and saying there's no no hunting rifles on there no duck guns no you know but these are all weapons

00:24:36.920 of war i i i've looked at the list and i don't think any army is going to want to go into battle

00:24:43.800 with these maybe that's why ukraine said no thanks we don't want these after you collect them the vast

00:24:49.000 majority of these guns are perfectly suitable for hunting and in fact this includes the firearms that

00:24:54.840 for instance they give fish and wildlife to protect them from bears so you know if it's good enough

00:25:00.920 for fish and wildlife and when the government hires hunters to deal with problem deer they are equipped

00:25:07.160 with items on this prohibited firearm list so when the government hires professional hunters

00:25:14.440 they're equipped with things that the government says are not suitable for hunting which is very strange

00:25:19.720 um the ruger number one is a really interesting sort of case study because it's a bit of the government

00:25:26.360 playing fast and loose on that as well they've said well we've only banned the really high you know

00:25:34.280 the you know high caliber ones but the thing is is that those are very suitable for for instance bear

00:25:40.520 defense um polar bears are a thing in canada uh you know this kind of thing but the way the language is

00:25:47.880 written it actually defines the ruger number one as a firearm that is banned entirely so what i expect

00:25:55.880 we'll see is that initially they'll say well we're only covering some models of the ruger number one

00:26:01.480 because right now they don't want the ruger being used as an example of them overstepping but later

00:26:08.280 we're going to see them saying well actually the text of the law is that all ruger number ones are banned 1.00

00:26:15.400 and we're going to take your ruger number one chambered in 22 because you could have it re-chambered

00:26:21.560 into something bigger and so we're just going to take all of those and all of the people who are

00:26:26.440 affected by that later reclassification and if you say it could never happen it's happened repeatedly

00:26:32.360 already where they've said that a gun that they considered legal they then change their mind and

00:26:38.040 consider it to be prohibited um and that's without like a further ban that's just the rcmp changing

00:26:44.600 its mind all of those people when they go and say well where's my compensation can i participate in the

00:26:52.120 buyback now they'll say no you missed your chance you were supposed to participate in the buyback

00:26:59.320 back when we were telling you that your rifle is still legal but now that we're telling you that

00:27:05.000 it's not and never has been since the ban you should have known we were wrong and you should

00:27:11.400 have participated in the buyback so it's unreal all right we do need to take a quick break in but

00:27:19.080 when we come back i want to ask you about grandfathering it's something that we used to do all the time

00:27:23.800 it's something that we were supposed to do on this one now we're not we'll talk about that back in moments

00:27:29.560 this is tristan hopper the host of canada did what where we unpack the biggest weirdest and

00:27:34.760 wildest political moments in canadian history you thought you knew and tell you what really happened

00:27:40.680 stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes

00:27:45.000 if you don't want to stick around make sure you subscribe to canada did what everywhere you get

00:27:50.280 podcasts when we've banned guns in the past in canada ian going back to uh the banning of fully

00:27:58.120 automatic a lot of people might be surprised to learn it used to be legal to have a fully automatic

00:28:02.520 firearm in this country uh when we went banned a bunch of guns in the lead-up to the gun registry at

00:28:08.520 various times there have been grandfather clauses in the legislation and in fact it's still there and we've

00:28:16.360 just said okay uh you can't buy this anymore you can't sell it you can't give it to anyone but or in

00:28:23.160 some instances you could pass it on to someone else with a similar proper license but you couldn't

00:28:28.520 import anymore and if you didn't have one of these already you know you're not going down to the local

00:28:33.480 gun shop and buying them yeah initially in the may 2020 order in council essentially an executive order

00:28:44.760 justin trudeau was governing like donald trump off the desk with an executive order on that

00:28:49.400 it amounts to the same thing when trudeau did that initial order in council there was a grandfather

00:28:56.040 clause and then it was taken out why was it taken out and and why did we do this before and we aren't

00:29:02.200 doing it now so initially trudeau had floated you know we'll grandfather these in um and a grandfathering

00:29:10.120 is really just a slow ban but it does tend to diminish the sort of level of anger that we're seeing right now

00:29:16.280 now but um then uh police suviens told trudeau we are super upset about the grandfathering we do not

00:29:25.240 approve and we will disinvite you from our sort of memorial events unless that's right they did

00:29:35.560 disinvite him one year they disinvited him and then they re-invited him because he said well we're

00:29:41.000 going to go back we're not going to grandfather and so um interestingly you know they basically

00:29:48.200 blackmailed our government and our government folded very quickly and said okay well we'll

00:29:55.800 i guess we'll you know we'll just turn around on this it's amazing just how much control this very

00:30:03.160 small you know special interest group has but um that's why we're not seeing here no no i've i've

00:30:10.920 i've read the media in this country ian i know the truth it's the gun lobby you guys you gun lobbyists

00:30:17.880 you have all the power well i'm not actually a lobbyist i'm a lawyer and i'm a guy who's got his own

00:30:24.280 opinions but um i'm you know that's it but it's um it's striking and you know so they initially had

00:30:33.320 it in there and then pulled it out the grandfathering clause they um they actually put in all

00:30:38.840 sorts of provisions to allow them to grandfather which they then pulled back on so um and they could

00:30:46.440 still go and say hey we're going to grandfather these they could still make that decision they just

00:30:51.960 have no actual interest in doing so at this stage so um they've made the decision that they want to

00:30:59.240 arrest people a reader who has been sending me note after note declaring that you don't know anything

00:31:07.080 about the the law on this none of the lawyers that you talk to know anything about this uh ian runkel

00:31:12.680 doesn't know solomon friedman doesn't know ed burlow tracy wilson rod giltaka tony tony bernardo

00:31:18.840 none of you know anything the grandfathering's there already we don't have to comply with it's

00:31:23.640 not in there no there is no grandfathering your reader is wrong they're pointing to the previous

00:31:29.800 legislation that has grandfathering clauses in the firearms act and claiming that this applies and

00:31:36.920 none of us know how to read now so what's your advice to someone who is believing this sort of thing

00:31:43.320 that is out there on on the internet if the legislation goes through if everything stays

00:31:48.520 as is um what's your advice to someone who would believe that uh do some more research and listen

00:31:55.720 to the subject matter experts on this one including like the government has been very clear that people

00:32:01.720 will be raided if they don't comply with this so um now the interesting thing is as you mentioned there

00:32:10.360 are people who are grandfathered in for including fully automatic firearms and that's not covered

00:32:15.560 by this there are people who have like full auto firearms that will continue to be able to have

00:32:21.480 those full auto firearms and in fact with a guy who's got an fn the the first first firearm i trained

00:32:28.760 on in the military i would love to go out and shoot it can't yep but he's grandfathered

00:32:33.320 and i mean interestingly because of some of the things i do i've got a business firearms license

00:32:40.040 that allows me to have prohibited firearms so there is the possibility if i decide to participate in the

00:32:46.920 buyback that some of that money might be used to buy like actual full auto like weapons of war and

00:32:55.400 that kind of thing but um you know for the average person who doesn't have that very unusual and

00:33:02.840 difficult to get license um they are covered by the bands they and even if they're grandfathered in

00:33:11.080 in other categories like even if you're allowed to keep the you know the fn the ak-47s whatever they

00:33:18.520 might be sitting on this new ban is not grandfathered there's no grandfathering in for that so um it might

00:33:27.800 be we'll have people in the very strange scenario of being told you can keep your ak-47 but you have

00:33:34.120 to give up your gsg-16 which is you know a semi-auto 22 long rifle firearm suitable for shooting rabbits

00:33:43.560 and grouse but nothing bigger than that tin cans um so

00:33:48.680 it's all very frustrating um if you don't comply my understanding is that you would face serious

00:33:59.160 penalties how serious are the penalties you know beyond the raids which as you've pointed out can

00:34:05.000 be traumatic can be awful what kind of time in jail are you facing for the you know if you just say you

00:34:12.920 know what i'm not going to comply and then you're caught well typically possession of a prohibited

00:34:18.440 firearm and ammunition because most of the owners will also have ammunition on hand um is measured in

00:34:25.160 years not days previously that used to be something that had a three-year mandatory minimum that was struck

00:34:32.280 down by the supreme court but the supreme court struck it down but they said in most cases the three

00:34:38.600 years will be appropriate and i don't know what how the courts will deal with this the courts may

00:34:45.560 say listen this is an unusual circumstance we're going to impose lesser penalties but

00:34:51.800 you don't necessarily know that the courts may look at this and say people knew this ban was coming

00:34:56.840 they chose to willfully defy the government and therefore higher bans are like higher penalties are

00:35:04.120 appropriate so i can actually see i can actually see the courts giving stiffer penalties for people

00:35:10.360 who defy the ban than the folks that are running around the streets of toronto where i'm sitting

00:35:15.560 right now with illegal guns and because at the toronto sun we're constantly reporting on people

00:35:21.960 getting very light sentences who are repeat violent offenders with gun crimes and you look at the sentence

00:35:28.200 and you say how is this feasible it's their third conviction and and they're putting public safety

00:35:33.960 at risk but i can see courts giving a a harsher sentence to someone who defies the government

00:35:39.800 on a ban than defies the government on the criminal code it's it's very much possible and you know you

00:35:46.120 see the um the government has been making some big asks for sentencing lately on people who are sort

00:35:53.480 of perceived as defying the government i don't know if they'll get it but they'll certainly uh they may

00:35:58.840 be going in saying we think this person is willfully defying the government and they may say compliance

00:36:05.640 with the ban has been low so therefore we need to impose stricter penalties in order to pressure

00:36:12.520 other people who haven't yet complied to get them into agreement so um that's um

00:36:20.440 um you know that's kind of the issue there so um yeah you talked about compliance tell me if you've

00:36:29.240 heard this the government made it clear that they're hoping to get about 200 firearms out of cape breton

00:36:36.680 um talking with some people who are much closer to this issue than i am who said well the actual

00:36:45.640 number is probably in the thousands but they're going to claim victory if they get 200 and they're

00:36:53.000 not really looking for high compliance they just want a political win have you heard that sort of

00:36:59.240 chatter as well that they're not really looking to seize everything they just want to be able to tick

00:37:04.040 off a box and say we did this the 200 they're basically doing as a little pilot project and they

00:37:10.920 intentionally set a number that is way below the number of firearms that exist in that community

00:37:18.280 and so basically what they're doing is they're setting it so low that if they get

00:37:22.760 minimal compliance they'll be able to say this is a rousing success we got 200 guns

00:37:29.000 it's like if you decided to ban honda civics and you said we will consider it a great success if we

00:37:34.440 get 10 honda civics turned in well there's 10 honda civics in my building yeah and so this is the thing

00:37:42.040 right they can say we've you know we ex you know we sold out of our 200 slots um they're gonna they're

00:37:49.640 gonna pitch it like it's a concert you know sold out in like two weeks or whatever and but it's still

00:37:57.880 it's a way to sort of polish minimal compliance in ways that um you know that um are interesting there

00:38:07.560 so yeah so in terms of enforcement um you know we we've got the government of alberta saying

00:38:18.200 no our police are not participating uh you've got the government of saskatchewan saying the same thing

00:38:24.280 um in ontario they haven't been as forthright but you know the opp has said we're not really

00:38:32.360 participating in this the ford government hasn't really stepped forward to say much

00:38:37.000 uh the rcmp nationally you know in most communities that they're in they're in contract policing and so

00:38:44.280 if the governments in alberta or saskatchewan say don't do this um you know this is not one of our

00:38:49.640 priorities they're not going to do it not in any significant way and and you've got you know peel

00:38:55.720 police major urban or suburban uh police force in ontario saying we don't have the resources so this

00:39:03.800 is not a you know a priority for us is there really any ability to enforce compliance on this if the

00:39:13.160 cops aren't buying in if the provincial governments are saying no is this just a political exercise

00:39:20.600 at that point well interestingly the cape breton police union has said wait you didn't could you

00:39:27.320 know you didn't actually consult us we're opposed to our participation in this you know buyback and one

00:39:35.320 of the groups that's targeted by this you know buyback is actually police because when you think

00:39:42.440 about who was buying ars a lot of them were either canadian military or canadian police wanting

00:39:50.120 something similar but not the same as what they use on duty so that they could practice off duty

00:39:57.320 and so that they could train with it there's a lot of police who own ars just a ton of them and so the

00:40:04.280 question is is are the police going to be enforcing this against the police are the police going to be

00:40:11.160 enforcing this against the military like is the are these the groups that we really want to be going

00:40:17.640 after right now in times of stress and turmoil do we really want to be picking a fight with the

00:40:24.120 canadian military and the canadian police and you might say well they don't all own these things the

00:40:29.720 problem is is if you raid one canadian armed forces member right and you go and you kick down their

00:40:37.160 door you take their ar-15 you put them up for discipline you've just made enemies with like 0.63

00:40:44.040 50 people for that one guy because his friends are not going to approve their friends are not going to

00:40:50.360 approve it's this giant bizarre fiasco it's this weird fight that they that they're insisting on

00:40:57.640 picking for like no reason well okay first off for anyone that doubts you that you know it's kicking in

00:41:06.200 doors um that is exactly what will happen it it's a kicking in of doors it is you know the the big heavy

00:41:13.800 hammer that goes through and and knocks the door over but um in in terms of ars correct me if i'm wrong but

00:41:22.680 i can remember two instances of significance of that firearm being used in crime in canada one

00:41:30.360 was a botched mob hit here in the toronto area years ago and that was an illegal ar-15 brought

00:41:36.840 in from the united states and the other one is the nova scotia mass casualty and gabriel fortman brought

00:41:42.840 in his ar illegally from the united states he had been reported for having illegal guns many times and

00:41:48.680 the rcmp did nothing so you know we've got two instances of the ar-15 being used in crime in

00:41:55.720 canada both of them illegally smuggled in and yet that is the focus of this ban because well it's used

00:42:03.400 a lot in mass shootings in the states where it's the most common gun perhaps in the united states

00:42:09.960 everything about this from beginning to end was all about optics and politics and emotion and importing

00:42:17.320 american storylines into canada to yeah feed a particular political narrative i feel like a lot

00:42:23.800 of these people really like often when i say i like firearms they'll say oh why don't you go to the us

00:42:30.840 but i feel like a lot of these people really wish they could go to the us and fight the us's problems

00:42:37.000 because these have not been canadian problems uh when we look at the two instances of an ar-15 being

00:42:45.160 used in a homicide in canada neither of them were legally owned as you mentioned one of them was

00:42:50.440 literally like organized crime and if you don't think organized crime can get access to contraband

00:42:55.960 i don't know what to tell you but the other one was an individual who had no firearms license and the

00:43:01.480 police got repeated notices like this guy and he had a ban on owning guns and they they police got

00:43:09.480 repeatedly told this guy is dangerous this guy has a bunch of illegal firearms you need to go deal with

00:43:15.400 this guy and they sat there and they did nothing and they did nothing and they did nothing and so we

00:43:23.080 get this ban largely it appears to cover for the police having failed to act in critical ways because

00:43:31.720 as a gun owner like if i go and start posting things about like you know whatever um they can

00:43:39.000 actually go and ban me from having guns they can say we're taking your license away for that 0.93

00:43:43.960 it happens if you're posting photos on social media of you acting like a gangster with your guns

00:43:51.640 you're probably going to lose them if someone reports you i've seen people get firearm revocation notices

00:43:58.040 because they were a law-abiding gun owner but they went to vegas and they shot at a vegas range and

00:44:04.440 they shot full auto and they took video of themselves doing it and posted it to their facebook

00:44:10.200 and somebody reported this guy's got full auto and they get you know they get raided because they

00:44:16.680 went to a range in vegas um you know so there was no investigation no hey what were you doing buddy before

00:44:24.360 they well they don't want to send them a hey what were you doing buddy like phone call because then

00:44:30.280 the person might you know get advance notice they specifically want to make sure this person gets

00:44:35.000 no advance notice so they don't send out a letter they just go and you know they just go and raid to

00:44:42.840 take like to find this thing and then later go oh maybe we're wrong people get posts like stuff posted

00:44:49.240 for um you know not even threats like not even criminal offenses but you'll get people who have

00:44:55.880 a tense motion or tense moment when they are um you know doing a handoff of their kids right they'll

00:45:04.840 get people who get um you know who get fired at work and storm out and find that their guns are taken

00:45:13.560 away um all of these things can result in firearms licenses being taken away any mental health issue

00:45:20.600 right can and the liberal parties made it even easier such that if you confess you know any sort

00:45:27.160 of mental health concerns to your doctor your doctor is able to report those and have your firearms

00:45:33.880 license taken away and which i think is kind of counterproductive it'll make people less willing to

00:45:39.960 seek help but that's its own point um i actually think that if the you know if workman had been a

00:45:48.200 licensed firearm owner they probably would have taken his guns away but because he wasn't a licensed gun

00:45:55.720 owner they didn't take those steps and that like this should be the the message there is that they already

00:46:05.800 had the tools to prevent this they didn't use them but of course the blame can never fall on inadequate

00:46:11.880 policing the blame has always got to be on you know on the people who didn't do anything so

00:46:20.040 but they very much want to solve u.s problems they see a shooting in the u.s and they say oh well you

00:46:25.720 know we got to prevent that from happening here it's not happening here it's never been the canadian problem

00:46:31.800 we we have a very different gun culture we have very different gun regulations storage laws all of

00:46:37.800 that and and most of those laws by the way um the canadian gun owning community is fine with

00:46:44.680 i'm sure there are some things on on the margins they'd like to change they definitely don't like

00:46:48.600 the current ban or the quote-unquote buyback but you know most of the the rules were were were not

00:46:57.160 things that people were complaining about um they were okay fine yeah i'll comply with this

00:47:04.280 and yet you're right we we seem to have a political class that wants to solve american problems in canada

00:47:11.480 well and some of these things may end up causing bigger problems here um they've imported some u.s

00:47:18.280 style systems that have been problematic in the u.s like red flag laws and the red flag laws are

00:47:25.080 right for abuse i mean because to a degree we already had them as you say if you you you could

00:47:31.960 lose your firearms over you know several different uh uh reasons and courses we did but this is

00:47:38.680 expanding further the police used to have to be involved in the system and so um as an example there is an

00:47:46.840 individual who has recently been um declared vexatious um and the police know him to be vexatious but also

00:47:56.120 the police believe that he wants to kill me like they gave me a duty to warn letter as a result of that

00:48:02.840 now if he goes into a courthouse and they don't recognize him they don't know who he is

00:48:09.000 if he ex parte decides to bring an application to have me prohibited from having firearms and the court

00:48:14.280 doesn't figure out who that is that comes with a police raid so anybody who has a grudge and is

00:48:21.320 willing to lie in court can theoretically go into a court and swat any other canadian just by going

00:48:30.040 in and and making up a story and before the police had to be involved in that process so the police had

00:48:37.720 to be the ones initiating it and so before you'd go to the police and you'd say i have these concerns

00:48:44.920 and the police could investigate them the police could say and for instance the police could look

00:48:50.600 at the person who is bringing those concerns and say this person has a record for assaulting the person

00:48:58.760 they're targeting this person has a record for stalking you know this person has several different

00:49:04.760 things the court won't see your criminal record if you go in the court won't see that you are

00:49:11.640 um you know a person who makes false police complaints every 10 minutes they won't know

00:49:16.200 any of that because they don't have access to those databases it's very much um ripe for abuse and

00:49:26.680 you know these are the kinds of things they're putting in without thinking about it

00:49:30.680 by looking at like what does the u.s have in some states the most restrictive states and we'll just

00:49:37.480 do that here without actually looking and saying has this gotten people killed in the u.s and the

00:49:43.240 answer to that is yes it has and it will here too at some point it's funny just the other day in response

00:49:49.640 to a question on bail reform from peer polyev uh mark carney accused the conservatives of trying to import

00:49:56.520 american style justice and bail reform when in reality the 2019 bill reforms that made release

00:50:04.680 default was an american import brought about by left-wing academia and it it caused it was implemented

00:50:13.960 at the same time in the u.s new york state walked away from it other democrat states walked away from it

00:50:19.960 and we've held on to it so yeah the the the uh the liberals love to you know throw that around there

00:50:26.360 you're importing american things but they love to do it themselves ian uh it's been a great conversation

00:50:31.640 as always uh people can check out your youtube channel uh runkel on the bailey uh just google uh

00:50:38.040 ian runkel look up what he is saying if you want to get educated on this issue thanks for the time

00:50:43.560 thank you so much for having me all right full comment is a post media podcast my name is brian

00:50:48.680 lily your host this episode was produced by andre prue theme music by bryce hall kevin libban is the

00:50:54.360 executive producer please hit subscribe and leave a comment review help us out share this on social

00:51:00.200 media thanks for listening until next time i'm brian lily here's that clip from canada did what i promised

00:51:09.560 castro would end up occupying a space in the trudeau family similar to that of a beloved uncle

00:51:19.400 they went diving they smoked cigars together they gathered sea urchins for beach cookouts

00:51:25.720 informal talks at an island hideaway intensified their respect for each other and their mutual

00:51:31.960 enjoyment of skin diving added to the rapport in addition to a well publicized 1976 summit meeting

00:51:38.920 trudeau took three separate vacations to visit castro after his time in politics had ended i can

00:51:44.760 make you know you know just one uh reference to uh pure trudeau's sons uh to show the closeness of

00:51:54.360 the relationship the nickname that that the trudeau's sons had for fidel castro was papa fidel

00:52:00.840 so that gives you an indication of of the closeness of the bond that existed between

00:52:07.160 a communist dictator you know thorn in the side of every american administration for the past 50 years

00:52:15.080 and pure trudeau when trudeau's youngest son michelle died in an avalanche in 1998 castro called the family

00:52:22.200 in tears to express his condolences as an eight-year-old michelle had referred to fidel castro

00:52:28.520 as his best friend when pierre died fidel declared three days of mourning in cuba

00:52:33.880 and flew to montreal to act as an honorary pallbearer every time trudeau went down to cuba

00:52:40.600 um all the people in south florida the the you know the exiles were thinking why is this western

00:52:46.120 leader giving comfort uh to a murderous dictator you know who is oppressing their people in cuba and

00:52:53.720 saying you know good things about about fidel castro and as i've mentioned to have him in

00:52:59.400 the pew at trudeau's funeral in the front row um as as a as a as a dignified person when he had been

00:53:08.280 um he'd been such a a brutal leader says more about pure trudeau than it does about fidel castro here's

00:53:17.160 where we should probably touch on what castro had done and what he was continuing to do while going on

00:53:22.680 beach vacations with the trudeau family if you want to hear the rest of the story make sure you

00:53:29.080 subscribe to canada did what everywhere you get your podcasts

Full Comment - October 06, 2025

The many deceptions of the Liberals’ gun ‘buyback’

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