00:00:00.000Saskatchewan's Firearms Commissioner reveals the province's strategy to protect gun owners.
00:00:05.220I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gun Show.
00:00:24.960Ottawa keeps telling us its gun bans are all about public safety.
00:00:30.000I think we all know it's not. Saskatchewan says they're targeting the wrong people.
00:00:35.060On tonight's episode of The Gun Show, I got to sit down with Saskatchewan's Firearms Commissioner Blaine Bevin to talk about the creative ways his province is standing up for law-abiding firearms owners while also pushing back against federal government overreach.
00:00:51.840Instead of accepting every new restriction from Ottawa without question, Saskatchewan has been using the authority it does have to protect hunters, farmers, ranchers, sports shooters, and other licensed gun owners who have done nothing wrong.
00:01:06.860Bevan explains how the province is challenging the federal approach, why Saskatchewan believes licensed firearms owners are being unfairly targeted, and what other provinces, like my own here in Alberta, could learn from its example.
00:01:21.840Can provinces actually push back against Ottawa's gun agenda?
00:01:43.860so joining me now is blaine bevin he's the saskatchewan firearms commissioner
00:01:55.520uh thank you for coming on the show um tell us a little bit about your background how did you end
00:02:03.060up as the firearms commissioner in saskatchewan yeah well that's a great question sheila thanks
00:02:08.280so um most people know that i'm a lawyer and i've been a lawyer for uh since 2010 uh practicing
00:02:15.000primarily in the area of criminal defense but also uh some public work and admin work like
00:02:19.320corners inquests which i did a number of um but in my background personal i started shooting
00:02:25.880recreationally as a child at the age of five it was a very common thing for me to uh start shooting
00:02:31.400at 22 with my my brother and my my father and and other family members and then when i was a teenager
00:02:37.560i joined the air cadet program and i actually shot competitively through that both an air rifle
00:02:42.360and in the biathlon program with 22 as i became an adult i think i got actually i got my miners
00:02:49.000pal i think when i was 12 or 13. so i hunted all through my teen years into my 20s when i lived up
00:02:55.800north doing uh working in various places and then i got into you know handgun ownership various
00:03:03.800types of rifle ownership sport rifle ownership recreational shooting as opposed to just hunting
00:03:09.320with them all through my 20s and into my 30s and then about 2022 bob freeberg my predecessor
00:03:16.040approached me about joining the office as their part-time legal counsel because they were just
00:03:21.080establishing the office or actually was 2021 he approached me they were just establishing the
00:03:25.400office in september 2021 and they wanted a lawyer and they were looking for full-time and initially
00:03:30.600said i can't do full-time unfortunately uh just with my law practice i wasn't willing to give that
00:03:36.760up so we settled on in the spring of 2022 i would start part-time and then i was a part-time senior
00:03:42.760legal counsel here managing the legal team up until my appointment as commissioner and i think
00:03:47.400just during that time the work i did especially the work i did around the legislation and this
00:03:53.160is general advice i gave the uh the firearms office and the you know the minister and the
00:03:57.720government on firearms issues positioned me well that when Bob decided to retire that they
00:04:03.740they were looking for a replacement and they asked me if I'd be interested and that's how
00:04:08.560I ended up in this in this position. Well it's interesting to hear somebody so experienced in
00:04:15.160the use of firearms working in firearms legislation because federally that's definitely not the case
00:04:21.880You know, when we hear Gary and Anna Sangry, our public safety minister, not know anything about firearms licensing or what an RPAL versus a PAL is, it's disconcerting as a firearms owner to have the person drafting the legislation that will go after you as a sports shooter, not even understanding what the legislation says.
00:04:42.860So very reassuring, I'm sure, for Saskatchewan firearms owners to hear that.
00:04:48.700But, you know, when you detail, you know, your experience with firearms, you are a sports shooter.
00:04:54.280And so you are personally affected by the bad legislation coming out of the federal government.
00:05:00.320Every gun ban that's been passed since I became a firearms owner has affected me somehow.
00:05:07.120Now, you know, even earlier ones prior to these, these ones in May of 2020, some of the firearms I had were affected.
00:05:13.820So, no, it's something that, you know, it does affect me.
00:05:16.200And one of the things that we do in our office here in Saskatchewan, and maybe this is unique to government agencies,
00:05:23.280but we have it as a condition of employment that you have an RPAL and a PAL,
00:05:28.760not only because you will come into contact with firearms in our office.
00:05:31.960um you know it happens where the firearms office are our firearms officers are armed but also um
00:05:38.040if there's collection or surrenders that people are doing when they don't want property there's
00:05:41.320a good chance to come into contact with it uh we have a a strong shooting culture within the office
00:05:47.000of people who recreational recreationally shoot but the point is that if we're going to be working
00:05:51.960in this space we should be part of the community like we should know what what how laws affect the
00:05:57.800the community members that we're serving.
00:05:59.560And so that's a real drive that we have with our employment process here
00:06:03.480is to make sure that people are part of that community
00:06:05.240and have more than a theoretical idea of how the work we do affects people.
00:06:12.580Well, and you can speak on an issue with experience.
00:06:16.460Again, I go back to Gary Annan Sangri, our public safety minister,
00:06:19.900not even knowing the legislation that he oversees on a day-to-day basis.
00:06:24.220Even if you're not a member of the sports shooting community,
00:06:26.880you should at least know what you're legislating on. And I would venture to guess that very few
00:06:33.080people within the public safety minister's office really do. Yeah. And that's, that's a real
00:06:38.640loss on their part because you, you can't, I think, legislate effectively without that
00:06:45.100understanding. And that's why, you know, governments are supposed to have consultation
00:06:48.760processes when they pass legislation and get that voice from people. And, you know, I don't know how
00:06:53.580much of that was done with any of these OICs. You know, it seems pretty selective, unfortunately.0.93
00:06:58.200But yeah, it's an unfortunate space, I think, the federal government finds itself in and how
00:07:04.000they're legislating and, you know, putting in policy about this type of thing.
00:07:10.060Now, I want to talk to you about some of the focus that the Saskatchewan government has on
00:07:15.260firearms rights. I know that your office was created in advance of Alberta's chief firearms
00:07:21.320officer position. Saskatchewan has been really leading the way on some creative pieces of
00:07:28.120legislation to protect firearms owners, but I think that directive comes, you know, from a culture
00:07:35.540within the Premier's office. Yeah, and I think, you know, Sheila, I'm just going to make a joke
00:07:40.600here. You might have to switch that flag in the back if you talk about how we're leading with
00:07:44.980With regards to Alberta, but no, we have been basically one step ahead on the whole thing.
00:07:59.280But Saskatchewan really, it was the, my understanding, of course, I wasn't involved in the program
00:08:05.580at the time, but out of the 2020 OIC that dropped and how it was like a knee-jerk reaction
00:08:13.480to the Porta Peak shooting which as we all know were illegal firearms by somebody who didn't have
00:08:20.480a license and was known to police and really should have had there should have been intervention
00:08:25.460before it ever got to that point unfortunately and there wasn't so legislating after the fact
00:08:30.260won't fix any of those issues um and and obviously won't uh with what they've done with the the gun
00:08:36.400bans but I our government looked at that and said this isn't fair and we've got to do what we can
00:08:43.100to take some control. And so, you know, setting up, taking on our own provincially appointed
00:08:50.120chief firearms officer is one part of that. But the chief firearms officer is a legislated position
00:08:56.280within the Federal Firearms Act. And what control and powers they have are still circumscribed very
00:09:02.140much by the federal legislation. You know, a CFO can't say, oh, the federal government says these
00:09:08.400guns are banned, but I'm not going to enforce that in the province. There's no authority to do that.
00:09:12.620And neither is there in the commissioner role. But what we found was as we're looking at how we want to advance our priorities in government for people in Saskatchewan, it didn't make sense to have it all tied up with the CFO.
00:09:27.980and that's where this commissioner position was created which is a bigger policy broader view
00:09:35.820than the chief firearms officer which focuses really on the regulatory public safety licensing
00:09:40.940aspect of their duties and it allows the commissioner to be more broad like things
00:09:45.980like setting up a ballistics lab setting up our evaluation portal you know indigenous outreach
00:09:52.140stakeholder outreach so those are the type of things that I do as opposed to a CFO
00:09:56.940And I know Alberta has a slightly different process.
00:10:45.640And of course, the provincial government can't be obstructionist to another level of government.
00:10:49.800that's not how governments work or how they they interplay but i was going to say it usually goes
00:10:54.840the other way yeah yeah yeah it's uh fairness is not always uh equal but um what we what we looked
00:11:03.960at and and i was involved with some of the drafting of this and i i'm in no way i want to be very
00:11:09.000clear i'm in no way taking credit for we had an amazing team of lawyers both in justice in
00:11:15.640legislative drafting legislative consulting as well as just stakeholder engagement on how
00:11:21.640we want to draft this and what we need to capture but when we first passed the act back in april of
00:11:26.3602023 before the amendments on bill 42 when we looked at the seizure agent licensing what it
00:11:32.520was really about was we have no plan from the federal government how they're going to do this
00:11:38.360buyback and we're not saying they can't do a buyback they they have the authority under the
00:11:44.600constitution and under the division of powers to do these things um i mean although we'll see what
00:11:49.800the supreme court of canada has to say about that but there's you know they have the jurisdiction to
00:11:54.360do these things so we're not um saying they can't do them but if you're going to do it you have to
00:12:01.240do it in a way that complies with uh saskatchewan laws around public and public safety and property
00:12:08.280and so that's where the seizure agent licensing the valuation process really came in there and
00:12:13.000their requirement for testing one of the interesting things is if we're being told these
00:12:16.920guns are really dangerous and and uh you know could be used in crimes well let's test them
00:12:21.160before we destroy them because why would you destroy all that data so that's why we have a
00:12:24.840testing requirement and then obviously storage requirements because you know back in 2022 and
00:12:30.280even today the plan for how these firearms might be collected was everything from oh they're going
00:12:36.760to hire amazon drivers to they're going to take them to post offices they're going to do this
00:12:40.600you're going to do that real security risks real storage risks real risk of theft and diversion
00:12:46.920that um you know from a public safety perspective the idea of lawful gun owners turning over their
00:12:52.440firearms to somebody who say maybe has ties to organized crime but has a contracting business
00:12:58.760you know and then and then completely untrained in safety yeah and takes those guns and they're
00:13:03.960diverted or an accident happens or something like that like these were you know as we sat around
00:13:08.760thinking about this these were things we wanted to really put a limit on to ensure that it was as
00:13:13.000safe as possible so we we did the seizure agent licensing uh regime uh surprise surprise the
00:13:18.680federal government did not apply for a seizure agent license um they had no intention to comply
00:13:23.160with our legislation but then as we were sitting back and uh thinking more and that's one of the
00:13:29.160important things about a uh you know government is that you're always thinking about how you're
00:13:32.360serving your people and how you can do it better and we were looking at what was coming out of
00:13:36.920the processes that we were that we were seeing from the federal government with the declaration
00:13:41.560periods things of that nature what we're expecting in a november of 25 we put forward some amendments
00:13:47.320because it was very clear they weren't going to come to saskatchewan it was very clear that their
00:13:51.960view was first come first served which seems really disingenuous when for five years you've
00:13:57.400been telling people everyone will get paid and so we said well in saskatchewan that's not okay
00:14:02.120if you're going to tell people that their property is now illegal that they bought
00:14:06.280they bought legally you're going to pay for it and so that's where we brought in the amendments
00:14:11.800in bill 42 as you described which really focused on this notion of deemed seizure or deemed
00:14:17.000expropriation or constructive expropriation I should say which is where although they are not
00:14:23.720taking the firearm because they're not going to come into Saskatchewan and do that they've rendered
00:14:27.960it valueless they've made it so it has no value which affects individuals property rights which
00:14:32.920something the province's jurisdiction over and we've created this process whereby it you know
00:14:38.120it specifically says that the the government of canada in doing this um owes these individuals
00:14:43.320the fair market value and then we developed of course the process with our firearms verification
00:14:47.960application um or an appraisal service that allows people to get a valuation at no charge to them
00:14:53.960for the value of their firearm and eligible accessories now that's not where it stops though
00:15:00.760Because from what I understand from my friend Tracy Wilson at the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights, the Saskatchewan government is involved in a class action lawsuit against the federal government for fair treatment of people who are subject to the seizure of their firearms rights and market value as opposed to the diminished value given that their firearms are now just stranded assets.
00:15:30.760I'm going to have to be very direct here on this. We are not involved in that.
00:15:35.520There may be some confusion. So with the Supreme Court of Canada case that the CCFR is taking, we are interveners on that.
00:15:42.900And we are putting forward a position, I think, that aligns with what the CCFR is suggesting, which was that the federal government didn't have the authority to or did not properly follow processes to ban these firearms.
00:15:52.880On the class action, we have no involvement. And you're going to hear me say that a couple of times if it comes up again.
00:15:58.020we're not involved in the litigation we are not funding it we are not coordinating it we are not
00:16:05.220directing it we have no involvement we support gun owners and obviously philosophically who wish
00:16:11.840to do that we have passed legislation that I would say provide support for gun owners who
00:16:19.640wish to sue the federal government for loss of value and obviously we philosophically support
00:16:24.780that and we think people should be able to get um fair value for what they they have lost uh and
00:16:32.540all day every day but uh we are not involved in the class action yeah i'm glad you cleared that
00:16:37.500up and it's probably my misspeak i understand it's on behalf of saskatchewan firearms owners
00:16:43.260for whom you advocate for yeah but yes um so now you've mentioned the uh intervention in the ccfr's
00:16:53.260Supreme Court challenge of the order in council, what specifically is the Saskatchewan government's
00:17:01.800involvement as an intervener there? So I can tell you that I'm not involved in the specific
00:17:08.720representation on that. We have lawyers from our constitutional law and civil law department that
00:17:13.540are working on that. Really what it comes down to with when you have a provincial attorney general
00:17:19.200that's intervening they can make submissions on matters of constitutional nature as well as
00:17:24.800administrative law nature is what we're similar to what we did at the court of appeal when we
00:17:30.640intervene there at the court of appeal our focus was a lot on how the Canadian bill of rights
00:17:36.160requires certain actions by a government before you devalue property that we're not complied with
00:17:42.480unfortunately that wasn't successful at the federal court of appeal and nobody has pled that
00:17:47.040with regards to how they want to challenge the case at the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:17:51.920So I think our lawyers are looking at other administrative law concepts like reasonableness,
00:17:57.760fairness, things of that nature, and clear processes, and that'll be the focus of their
00:18:03.200arguments. I don't want to speak too much for them because I'm the client in that sense,
00:18:08.400in terms of providing any direction or any guidance. I let the lawyers deal with that,
00:18:13.840But I do, of course, maintain a close look at it.
00:18:17.140I think it's fair to say, though, that the Saskatchewan government as an intervener is supporting the view and adding our own, I think, flavor to why it was inappropriate for the federal government to ban these firearms in the way that they did.
00:18:33.440Well, and just as a non-legal outsider looking in on it, some six years later, six and a half years later, nearly at this point, it's real hard to make the case for pressing public safety issues to ban these from firearms owners.
00:18:50.160But now we have over half a decade worth of statistics that continue to say that firearms owners are not the problem here.
00:18:57.040Yeah. Well, and the other somewhat, you know, disingenuous thing that we would see a lot of the media appearances with Public Safety Canada where they talk about we're taking these firearms off the streets.
00:19:13.040I'm sorry, these firearms are not on the streets. These firearms are locked up in people's gun safes where you've told them it will be a crime if they don't do that.
00:19:20.900and they've complied um these guns are not being used in crimes these guns are not on the streets
00:19:27.060and you're not making anything safer by banning these firearms taking them away from people who
00:19:31.620are licensed who are vetted who are trained and who followed all the legal processes to uh purchase
00:19:37.780and acquire and use these guns so you know i think it's uh i think you're right about that the the uh
00:19:43.620there is a lot of data now over six years to say like really what's the point on this like you
00:19:48.100You haven't moved the needle on public safety and everybody's done what you said, like whether they're in somebody's safe or whether they're cut up, they're not being used and the crime hasn't changed.
00:19:58.660So, you know, what did you accomplish? Yeah.
00:20:02.360Well, and I think that brings me to my last question for you, you know, just as a.
00:20:08.460Again, as a layperson, I see this gun grab.
00:20:13.200People call it a buyback, but the firearms were never theirs to begin with.
00:20:17.160And people aren't being fairly compensated as it is. But it seems like an enormous waste of money and police resources to go after people who are complying with the law as criminals run amok in this country and continue to be just caught and released back into the community.
00:20:37.540So where do you think the focus of the federal government's resources should be as opposed to firearms owners?
00:20:44.240well and uh i'm going to preface this with saying you know i'm i'm not the minister of justice i
00:20:51.440don't really work in this space i'm not going to make comments about catch and release on bail but
00:20:56.160i i think what's important is focusing on the root causes of crime and uh what we know you know my
00:21:01.760practice in my experience as a defense lawyer for 15 years was a root cause of crime is um economic
00:21:09.520situation you know we would see you could you could you could set your watch by it economy goes bad
00:21:15.440property crimes go up you know property crimes go up um and addictions issues increase violent
00:21:21.360crimes increase as well like it's it's it's a multi-faceted problem there's no one simple approach
00:21:26.400but focusing on um strategies that might effectively reduce crime uh like dealing
00:21:34.080with addictions dealing with mental health um assisting uh those and also i think focus on
00:21:41.120rehabilitating people that are in custody and working on those types of situations
00:21:45.760with regards to firearms specifically uh you know we know and and toronto city of toronto
00:21:52.480has even said the most recently that hey it's not licensed gun owners out of the problem so let's
00:21:57.520focus on how are we dealing with people who use guns incorrectly or illegally how are we holding
00:22:02.240them to account and also what are we doing to stem the flow of firearms from the u.s because it's it's
00:22:08.400you know you can you can ban everyone's handguns in toronto i guarantee you there will still be
00:22:13.360illegal handguns in toronto um they're going to uh come in there because they're coming in illegally
00:22:19.440and we've got to get a way to deal with that better and what the answer is that i don't know
00:22:23.280i'm not a border specialist but there's got to be something that can be done yes especially when they
00:22:28.080they know exactly how and where they're crossing the border yeah you know yeah um i realize that
00:22:34.940you're a very busy man and i want to thank you for the time that you've taken on this interview
00:22:38.980today and i just on behalf of firearms owners everywhere just thank you for your hard work and
00:22:43.760here's to alberta stealing more saskatchewan good ideas yeah hey we we send them our homework they
00:22:49.680can use whatever they want but uh no i appreciate that um thanks sheila i'm going to uh yeah thank
00:22:56.660you and thank you to your listeners for uh their interest in this and and uh appreciate your you're
00:23:02.440always reporting on this and getting the message out about um what can be done better in firearms
00:23:06.720and supporting firearms rights and firearms owners property rights
00:23:10.520as always last segment of the show goes to you the viewer at home because without you of course
00:23:22.380there is no rebel news. We don't take any money from the government. We are fiercely protective
00:23:27.040of our independence and it would just taint our work. You would look at us with the same suspicion
00:23:33.700that I look at the mainstream media who have 30% of their salaries funded or backstopped in some
00:23:41.520way by the federal government. Now you can send me your feedback on my interview with the Saskatchewan
00:23:46.740Firearms Commissioner Blaine Bevin at my email address, sheila at rebelnews.com. Put gun show
00:23:52.980letters in the subject line so I know why you're emailing me, but don't let that be the only way
00:23:57.240that you get in contact with us. If you see any of our work, including clips of today's show
00:24:03.040on either YouTube or Rumble, leave a comment. I go looking at those to see what you think about
00:24:08.960our work. And in the theme of Saskatchewan, because today's show is all about Saskatchewan
00:24:16.820and the interesting things that they're doing there, including my t-shirt, my Colter Wall
00:24:21.960t-shirt, who is, I think, one of the world's greatest country folk singers and also the
00:24:28.960son of former Premier Bradwall. I'm taking a look at the comments from my friend Lise
00:24:34.940Merle's video about girls in Saskatchewan who have been essentially pushed out of their own
00:24:45.540bathrooms and change rooms in Saskatchewan and small Saskatchewan town. She initially sat down
00:24:56.100with a mother involved and then that prompted some girls involved to come forward and let's
00:25:06.300take a look what you have to say bob matt 1966 writes it's insane that one person's rights0.87
00:25:12.980overrule the rights of many is that what equality is now disturbing that those young ladies are
00:25:17.740scared and concerned but they get no protection who says canada isn't broken the young ladies0.51
00:25:24.560do not want to use the washroom with a self-identified trends individual and it's to
00:25:33.520the point where they are either not drinking fluids at school or going home to use the washroom
00:25:41.980because they don't feel safe but they feel uncomfortable they want their privacy and the
00:25:49.940school isn't providing it to them or accommodating them in any way catch 22 again says common sense
00:25:56.420says just provide a trans toilet so why don't they do this great question
00:26:05.300donalda 7216 is transgender washrooms locker room sports and beauty contests
00:26:13.860yes private stalls from ceiling to the floor and doors that locks with showers and toilets
00:26:20.260girls and women deserve to have feelings about transgender people in their spaces
00:26:24.120it's not just the trans genders feelings that matter yeah there are ways to accommodate
00:26:30.760this issue that don't involve violating the privacy of girls it's just that
00:26:39.380the girls seem to be the sacrifice here they need to get over it all of them as opposed to
00:26:49.480the one individual who could be easily accommodated in some other form1.00
00:26:53.120bardic entropy pu3rv says we've always had these laws about bathrooms they just stopped enforcing
00:27:04.400them. That is true. M J L I R T three N says, congrats to those two girls for their boldness
00:27:15.000and intellect. Hopefully they will inspire others. Uh, yeah, it, it takes a lot, especially in a small
00:27:21.740town to put yourself out there. And they did, and hopefully they feel supported by their community
00:27:27.460because, uh, putting yourself out there as a young lady, 18 years old, that ain't easy. And then
00:27:33.780putting yourself on the internet like that um when we know what the gender mob will do1.00
00:27:41.000to go after you to shame you to push you out of the digital public square good for them for being1.00
00:27:49.320brave enough to stand up for themselves but you know give voice to the other girls involved in0.99
00:27:54.360this. Dana Hart, 7014 says, how many girls' voices equal one boy? Yeah, I guess all the
00:28:08.360girls' voices will never equal the one boy. All of them, it sounds like. Maddie2U says,0.92
00:28:19.000as a 70-year-old, if these were my granddaughters, I would give a whole new version of helicopter0.97
00:28:23.780grandparent i would be hovering around that school all day long and escorting her and the other girls0.65
00:28:29.380to the washroom or accompanying them to washrooms off the school property hell has no fury than a
00:28:35.780grandparent whose grandchild is threatened and they would get so sick of my face um i think
00:28:43.380that's a wonderful solution i'm a big fan of the pop-in to the school you know they have your child
00:28:50.020or in this case, your grandchild for seven hours a day, I'm coming by just to check.
00:28:56.820Pretty soon, they start to realize that you're just going to come by and check and not take