The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - April 29, 2023


Standing up for law-abiding gun owners


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

185.22601

Word count

2,520

Sentence count

179

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Tracy Wilson of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights (CCFR) joins me on the Alberta Roundup to update us on how the case against the Trudeau government went, and what she expects the outcome of the case to be.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host, Rachel Emanuel.
00:00:17.320 Today, I'm joined by a very special guest, Tracy Wilson of the Canadian Coalition for
00:00:21.400 Firearms Rights. You guys likely remember that in May 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's
00:00:26.600 government banned over 1,500 models of firearms through an order in council. Well, Wilson and
00:00:31.800 the CCFR spent much of last week in federal court challenging that ban. And she has an update for us
00:00:37.580 on how that went and what she expects the results to be. I'm joined by Wilson now. Tracy, thank you
00:00:42.900 so much for joining me today on the Alberta Roundup. So we were just chatting a little bit and you've
00:00:47.140 pretty much spent the last two weeks in federal court where the CCFR is challenging Ottawa's
00:00:52.280 firearms ban. Can you give me a little update on what some of the arguments the CCFR has made
00:00:57.320 and how you feel about the court proceedings?
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00:01:30.660 Yeah, well, thanks for the opportunity.
00:01:32.480 So we've been in court April 11th through the 20th.
00:01:35.440 We had an eight day hearing here in Ottawa in the federal court, which is inside the Supreme
00:01:40.860 Court building downtown on Wellington Street.
00:01:43.240 And this was an opportunity for us to finally bring forward our case.
00:01:46.800 We've been under case management for about two years now, working with Associate Chief
00:01:52.660 Justice Jocelyn Gagné.
00:01:54.660 And now this was our, you know, our time to plead our case.
00:01:58.880 So the CCFR challenge is pretty complex, actually.
00:02:02.400 There's about seven parts to it.
00:02:04.260 There's a couple of charter arguments in there, some administrative law.
00:02:08.000 And basically, we're just sort of picking away at the way the Liberals did this.
00:02:12.400 For the most part, it revolves around the fact that they used an OIC, an ordering council,
00:02:18.420 which for American listeners is sort of like an executive order.
00:02:22.200 And that's not the appropriate way.
00:02:24.580 It circumvents the democratic process and parliament and the procedures it's supposed to go through.
00:02:31.700 So yeah, we've got them on that.
00:02:33.740 And then some charter stuff.
00:02:34.840 I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I think all Canadians should be interested to know
00:02:39.040 the answer to the question of whether or not the government can step into your life,
00:02:44.020 despite the fact you've done nothing wrong or nothing to warrant it,
00:02:48.180 and take property that you acquired legally and have owned for decades without issue.
00:02:54.060 I need to know that.
00:02:55.400 I want to know if the government can do that.
00:02:57.560 So we're going to find out.
00:02:58.700 So the Alberta government, as I covered a few weeks ago, was actually one of what sounds
00:03:02.900 like the only people who are granted intervener status in this case.
00:03:06.740 Of course, the province of Alberta has been one of the biggest champions for firearms right,
00:03:10.780 arguably the largest champion for firearms rights of all the provinces.
00:03:14.540 What arguments did they make in court?
00:03:17.540 Well, they spoke a lot about jurisdiction.
00:03:19.640 And I just want to say I am grateful, eternally grateful,
00:03:23.040 to the government of Alberta and the province of Alberta for stepping in on this.
00:03:27.200 They were granted intervener status.
00:03:29.520 Interestingly enough, there were other applicants who did apply for that status,
00:03:34.720 like Wendy Secure from the Coalition for Gun Control.
00:03:38.000 However, she was denied intervener status, and Alberta was granted it.
00:03:41.880 So it was really nice to have them there on our side.
00:03:44.960 They argued some jurisdictional stuff about the federal government, you know,
00:03:49.640 imposing their will on Albertans and the province of Alberta.
00:03:54.400 So they had some great arguments.
00:03:55.720 They got along great with our legal team.
00:03:57.580 And I know on the final day, all the legal teams, you know, on our side of the courtroom type thing,
00:04:04.720 all went for lunch afterwards.
00:04:06.500 And they were taking selfies outside.
00:04:08.760 And it was just really nice to see.
00:04:10.520 But Alberta has been an overwhelming champion for gun owners on multiple levels.
00:04:17.560 And I'm grateful to the government as a whole, to Tyler Shandro for standing up, and of course, to the Alberta CFO.
00:04:25.200 She's just great.
00:04:26.020 So you've obviously described, you know, a very happy attitude between your two legal teams there.
00:04:30.080 You and I were actually in the same Twitter space just last week,
00:04:33.340 and you mentioned that you were feeling pretty positive about the case.
00:04:35.780 I think you ranked it like a 7.5 out of 10% chance that the case would go your way.
00:04:40.280 Are you still feeling that positive about it?
00:04:42.580 And if so, you know, why do you feel so confident that the court is going to rule in the CCFR's favor?
00:04:48.540 Yeah, I still feel that way.
00:04:50.420 So I think the best thing we can do, of course, you know, like I said, there's seven parts to our court battle.
00:04:59.720 Some of it's charter stuff.
00:05:01.240 Some of it is administrative law.
00:05:02.860 And some of the more boring stuff that's not as exciting when you're listening is the stuff that we'll probably win on.
00:05:09.060 And the reason I feel so hopeful is both the final day of the hearing and the second last day,
00:05:15.120 the government lawyers, the team for the Crown, stood up and approached the judge and said,
00:05:20.620 you know, when she does come back with a decision some months from now,
00:05:24.180 if she rules against them and rules in our favor, you know, 0.99
00:05:27.560 they want an opportunity to speak with her about if there's a domino effect from doing that.
00:05:32.700 Because normally when you get a decision, it'll set case precedence.
00:05:37.640 It's case law, right?
00:05:38.900 So I think they're worried that if and when we win this challenge,
00:05:45.220 if it will have an impact on other gun bans or other things that were done through OIC.
00:05:50.600 And the truth is it absolutely will.
00:05:52.880 So I see why they're worried.
00:05:54.880 So I was a little shocked to see them kind of say that out loud and put their cards on the table.
00:05:59.900 But yeah, between all the teams, they did an incredible job sort of tearing down the arguments
00:06:07.940 from the Liberal government's lawyers.
00:06:11.600 And yeah, I feel pretty confident about it.
00:06:13.840 Yeah, that certainly sounds like quite the omission from the federal government.
00:06:17.460 They seem a little bit nervous, definitely, by asking that question.
00:06:20.280 And it's funny that you were very aware of that.
00:06:21.980 I'm caught on to that.
00:06:23.320 I know my viewers are also wondering, when can we expect the ruling on this case?
00:06:26.840 And if it doesn't go your way, if the court doesn't rule in favor of you,
00:06:30.920 where do we go from here?
00:06:33.080 Right.
00:06:33.700 So, I mean, you know, a federal court decision of this size and complexity
00:06:37.640 will probably take a number of months.
00:06:40.320 You know, the standard is usually one to six months,
00:06:43.480 but on average about three months for a decision.
00:06:45.860 They're very long and complicated.
00:06:49.320 So, you know, and it'll explain different parts, maybe what we went on.
00:06:53.360 How it does work, though, is the judge starts working through all the evidence.
00:06:57.820 She doesn't just have the eight days of testimony.
00:07:00.080 She's got probably five, three-foot stacks of paper, all the affidavits,
00:07:05.480 everything that we put forward.
00:07:07.020 The government didn't really have any evidence,
00:07:09.740 but we had, I think it was over 2,800 pages that we provided to her.
00:07:14.360 So she's got a lot of reading and work to do.
00:07:17.320 It'll take her a number of months to do that. 1.00
00:07:20.100 But how it works is she starts working through that evidence.
00:07:22.660 And when she gets to a point that she says, oh, okay, this person won,
00:07:27.940 whatever side it is, that's where she stops.
00:07:30.160 There's no real need to go through the rest of it.
00:07:32.860 So it could be as soon as one month, but I would guess about three months.
00:07:38.140 And a lot of people have asked, well, what if we don't win?
00:07:40.440 I mean, there's no guarantee and it's impossible to predict an outcome.
00:07:45.200 And the truth is, if we don't win, then expect it to go to the appeals court
00:07:49.720 and then onto the Supreme Court.
00:07:51.480 We promised gun owners right from the beginning that we would leave no stone unturned,
00:07:56.760 nor avenue unexplored, and we meant it.
00:07:58.940 So we're going to go all the way.
00:08:00.320 And is it fairly safe to assume that if it does go in your way
00:08:03.120 and it doesn't go in the way of the federal government, we'll see the same thing.
00:08:06.080 It'll go to the appeal court and then onto the Supreme Court.
00:08:09.240 I suspect they're not just going to let the issue rest, or am I mistaken on that?
00:08:12.260 I think they will probably also appeal it, but more for the sake that it would bide them
00:08:17.520 a little more time.
00:08:18.920 At the end of the day, they have no idea how to carry out the second part of their gun ban,
00:08:23.800 which is the confiscation end of it, the buyback program, they call it.
00:08:28.320 They have no idea how to do that.
00:08:29.920 It's been almost three years.
00:08:31.060 These are supposedly guns so dangerous that the average Canadian can't own them,
00:08:36.460 regardless of the fact we've had them for generations.
00:08:39.820 And yet here we are almost three years later, and they're still sitting in my gun safe.
00:08:43.640 So I think they're struggling to figure out how they're going to go about confiscating them.
00:08:49.580 I've said right from the beginning, it's logistically impossible.
00:08:52.220 So I think for them, if they could just bide a little more time, they could probably reuse this
00:08:59.160 as a new election promise down the road when it's election time and say, look, if you give us a fourth
00:09:05.000 mandate, this time we'll do it right.
00:09:07.260 Instead of through an OIC, we'll table it in proper legislation.
00:09:11.400 And if you really want these guns banned, you better vote for us one more time.
00:09:15.100 So that's what I expect to happen.
00:09:17.980 You know, we're in it to win it.
00:09:19.660 And I think they're in it just to just to kick the can down the road a little further.
00:09:24.280 And Tracy, you mentioned this a little bit at the beginning of the show.
00:09:26.760 But obviously, you know, firearms owners are just feeling so frustrated.
00:09:29.880 This is property that they have purchased.
00:09:32.300 They have acquired it legally.
00:09:34.000 Firearms owners already have to jump through a lot of hoops to be able to own these weapons.
00:09:38.200 And it seems like the federal government is very easily able to just, you know, retract their ownership.
00:09:44.080 They're able to retract their property.
00:09:45.860 At least that's what the federal government is seeking to do right now.
00:09:48.340 You're obviously working to stop that.
00:09:50.740 What can firearms owners really do to protect themselves?
00:09:53.140 Is it just a nature of who they vote in for their government?
00:09:56.680 Or is there actually other things they can do as well?
00:09:59.720 Yeah, well, I mean, voting, of course, is ultimately we need a political solution here.
00:10:04.640 And of course, there's no law that's ever truly evergreen.
00:10:08.280 So I know a lot of people say, you know, if we get a conservative government,
00:10:11.480 we've got to ensure that they put something in place that we don't keep going back and forth like this.
00:10:16.220 And the unfortunate truth is that there is no such thing as evergreen legislation to protect you for all eternity.
00:10:23.960 We're not the United States.
00:10:25.220 We don't have a Second Amendment.
00:10:27.080 Having said that, though, there's a lot that gun owners can do besides just voting.
00:10:31.900 First of all, they've got to vote.
00:10:34.100 Whenever we do get an election, see if you can book the day off.
00:10:37.680 See if you can go out there, drive people to the polls, speak to five people, talk to five family members,
00:10:43.760 email everybody on your list right now.
00:10:46.440 There's a bunch of pre-advocacy we can do like that.
00:10:50.000 And then more importantly, get out there and volunteer, whether it's for your firearms organizations
00:10:54.720 or for your local conservative candidate.
00:10:58.140 Or I know there in Alberta, you guys have an election coming up.
00:11:00.920 And I can't even fathom looking at the polls, how close it is with the NDP and the UCP.
00:11:07.120 And to me, that's absolutely terrifying.
00:11:09.420 It's like people have forgotten.
00:11:10.460 It would be like bringing Kathleen Wynne back to Ontario.
00:11:13.760 I literally left the province when she was here.
00:11:16.620 So, you know, I think people, unfortunately, for the most part, gun owners just want to be left alone.
00:11:22.740 But we're not in that position.
00:11:24.800 So we are forced to be politically active to organize.
00:11:29.120 And of course, you can always volunteer with the CCFR and check out all the work we do online at ccfr.ca.
00:11:35.640 But I think it's going to take a little more than that.
00:11:38.500 I think we're going to have to do more than just vote.
00:11:41.580 We're going to have to get up and volunteer.
00:11:43.560 We're going to have to put our boots right to the ground.
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00:12:00.700 Yeah, I think that's great insight.
00:12:05.500 I really appreciate it.
00:12:06.320 I know my viewers will as well.
00:12:07.720 I think what you mentioned about gun owners really just wanting to be left alone is really a conservative principle.
00:12:12.580 You know, conservatives just want to be left alone.
00:12:14.740 But what you just mentioned about needing to get involved in politics and volunteer is very astute and very relevant, especially over here in Alberta.
00:12:21.120 As you mentioned, we are heading into an election.
00:12:23.380 The rate is going to drop in just a couple of days.
00:12:25.480 So I really appreciate you coming on the show and giving us this update.
00:12:28.420 And I know my viewers will as well.
00:12:30.400 Again, that was Tracy Wilson from the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights.
00:12:33.780 Thank you so much for joining us today.
00:12:35.860 Thanks, Rachel.
00:12:36.320 Okay, everyone, that's all I have for you today.
00:12:38.320 Thank you so much for joining me this week on the Alberta Roundup.
00:12:41.340 As always, please comment on the video below and let me know what you thought of this week's interview.
00:12:45.560 If you have some suggestions of other guests you would like to see on the show, feel free to let me know as well.
00:12:50.400 As well, if you're able to support independent media, please head over to donate.tnc.news.
00:12:55.180 Thanks so much for listening.
00:12:56.300 Have a great weekend and God bless.
00:13:06.320 Thank you.