00:01:09.900Well, thank you for having me, Andrew.
00:01:11.720So, again, I mean, normally I never want government to be mired in bureaucracy.
00:01:17.700In this case, I'll kind of make an exception for it here.
00:01:20.080But legitimately, what is the holdup here?
00:01:22.120Because originally, this was supposed to not just be in motion, but done by 2022.
00:01:28.340By May of 2022, there was supposed to be every one of these guns picked back up by the government.
00:01:33.340We're now two years beyond that, and not a single gun has been confiscated.
00:01:37.820Well, the holdup is that the challenge to doing a national buyback in a country like Canada, unlike, let's say, New Zealand, Canada is 10 million square kilometers.
00:01:50.260The government has tried a lot of different things, ended up being headed off at the pass, a lot of dead ends, right?
00:01:56.980First, they wanted Canada Post to do it.
00:01:58.540Well, first, they wanted the RCMP to do it, and they're like, no, thanks.
00:02:01.820We have to do this other thing that we're doing called policing.
00:02:04.640Then they wanted Canada Post to do it, and they're like, you want people in Canada Post outlets to be sitting on hundreds of apparently assault-style firearms,
00:02:14.560and our employees are the only thing between these firearms and the criminal element.
00:02:20.000And now they're asking gun stores to do it, which gets really, really tricky.
00:02:23.880Yeah, and I mean, you obviously have, I mean, gun stores, as you and I have spoken about it, as I've spoken about on the show,
00:02:30.820have been among those most directly harmed by this, because they've been saddled with inventory that they've been able to do nothing with,
00:02:37.440very little communication from the government, very little confiscation, or, well, consultation.
00:02:43.100But the one point that I would stress there is that they're also generally opposed to this.
00:02:47.840So they don't want to be agents of this confiscation regime.
00:02:51.560Well, it puts them in a really, really terrible position, if you think, you know, they can't sell handguns anymore.
00:02:57.680Handguns and handgun ammunition was big business for a lot of gun stores.
00:03:01.600They can't sell a wide variety of semi-autos that they used to.
00:03:06.820So their inventory, their possible inventory of the products that they can carry has been drastically, dramatically reduced.
00:03:14.480And then the government says, hey, you know, here's a revenue stream for you in helping us, helping people comply with the law.
00:03:21.620So I think that on one hand, you have a lot of gun store owners going, you know, I could really use the business.
00:03:27.320On the other hand, it's like, well, do I want to destroy my business by giving in and being an agent of confiscation on behalf of the liberals against the people who I want to be my customers?
00:03:36.520I'm glad I'm not in that position, but I would not be surprised if the overwhelming majority of gun store owners decide they want nothing to do with this.
00:03:45.200Yeah. And I think one thing that was really, really encouraging to see is Alberta and Saskatchewan take the stand they did and say, you know what?
00:03:53.240You may control the criminal law, but we control how police resources in our province are deployed.
00:03:57.700And we are not going to allow police to engage in this function.
00:04:02.080I was hoping, you know, just magically cause this national ripple effect and every province was going to do it.
00:04:09.340So right now, if the liberals had their way, we would still in the majority of the country see this brought to fruition whenever this program comes with, you know, legal appeals notwithstanding.
00:04:20.960Well, yeah, if the liberals had their way, I mean, but I think they're handling it like they handle most things, right?
00:04:26.200They'll come out with a big press release, full court press.
00:04:33.860And we're keeping Canadians safe and doing all this garbage that they've done for eight and a half years.
00:04:39.040And then when reality shows up, they completely fold like a cheap suit like that.
00:04:43.160That is that is that is exactly what the liberals have done, I guess, other than pot.
00:04:47.600But if you think of it, only the liberal government, the Liberal Party of Canada can lose money selling weed.
00:04:54.300But it's it's all been about press releases and, you know, I don't know, gaslighting, I guess you could say.
00:05:01.920But this time it's different because this time the challenge is so great that it would take a highly competent group of people to make this happen.
00:05:10.220And lucky, I guess, for gun owners for now that that doesn't exist in the liberal government.
00:05:14.520So I guess we're going to have to see where it goes from here.
00:05:16.820I just wanted to get you to give an update, if you could, on where the legal side of this is, because I know there were a couple of challenges going on.
00:05:24.320I know you've had some unsuccessful rulings, but is there still a glimmer of hope on that path?
00:05:29.320Well, we are appealing and I can't you know, I can't claim to say I'm not envious of what's what happened yesterday.
00:05:35.620But I think if if anything, what an interesting time in Canadian history to even just be monitoring the judiciary, right?
00:05:45.560On one hand, the government comes in because of a of a of a an unrelated event, which was the impetus for the assault style weapons ban,
00:05:55.760which was Nova Scotia, where this this perpetrator had smuggled all of his firearms that were used in those shootings from the United States illegally.
00:06:04.260And then Trudeau's like, we need to ban guns in Canada.
00:06:08.200And then you have a court saying, well, you have no property rights.
00:06:13.520That's another charter question that we asked.
00:06:15.620And we had a question that was very clear.
00:06:17.700And we still believe we clearly should have won on that, which is the government.
00:06:21.860It was the the OIC, the Ordering Council was was ultra varies.
00:06:26.140It's very similar to the ruling that came out yesterday.
00:06:28.360The government didn't have that authority.
00:06:29.940So they slap us all down on on all counts with a very scant decision.
00:06:35.920And then a month later, a federal court decides that it is unreasonable to unconstitutional for the government to ban plastic shopping bags and plastic straws.
00:06:50.540So it's the judiciary is all over the place.
00:06:54.140The the moral compass in this country and so many corners is spinning, can't find, you know, north anywhere, apparently.
00:07:01.620So I hope that we'll be successful on appeal because, again, property rights, self-defense issues and the role of government in our society, all at stake in that case.
00:07:11.880Well, the one point that I think has always remained important here is that a political solution is always available.
00:07:17.740It's always possible for the government to one day snap its fingers and say we're no longer proceeding with this.
00:07:22.800Now, that's unlikely under this government.
00:07:24.300But if this process is delayed and delayed and delayed until past the next election, another government, I mean, let's be real.
00:07:31.960The conservatives are the ones most likely at this point to form government could still say this is not happening and put it dead in its tracks.
00:07:39.100Well, it's going to take legislation on some it's really complicated how the liberals have done their OIC and Bill C-21 and C-71 before that the order in council that could be struck down.
00:07:52.480But anyway, it gets it gets quite complicated.
00:07:55.120So it may require legislation which will require a conservative majority government.
00:07:59.000But yeah, the in Canada, as I've said, ad nauseum in Canada, using the British parliamentary system, our government can do pretty much whatever it wants to anybody it wants.
00:08:10.800The the courts are I'm not going to say, you know, powerless, but they have a lot less power than they have, say, in the United States.
00:08:18.960And then, of course, they're influenced.
00:08:20.820I think we can all agree on that at some level.
00:08:22.840But the yeah, the whole system gets gets gets pretty complex.
00:08:29.140But what one government does, another government can undo is really the rule of thumb in our system, even though those powers are pretty dramatic.
00:08:37.760But that's a political solution is one easy.
00:08:41.000The easiest way, the easiest path, I guess you could say, to Canadian gun owners just being left alone and getting their property back.
00:08:47.820Rod Giltak, a head of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.