In this episode, we speak with Alberta s Chief Firearms Officer and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Dr. Jason Kenney. Dr. Kenney talks about his role as Firearms Officer in Alberta, his role in fighting against federal legislation, and the role he plays in dealing with straw purchasing and illegal firearm sales.
00:00:00.000So what I do want to get into then is Bill 8 that came out with the provincial government recently.
00:00:06.140It's sort of, I guess, in response to federal legislation, and it offers some different authority and powers to your role as the chief firearms officer in Alberta.
00:00:16.800Can you kind of expand on what that's about?
00:00:19.480Sure. So really the bill does two things.
00:00:22.860One is that when our office took over in September of 2021, I had a larger mandate than most chief firearms officers because I was supposed to advocate for change, something that's explicitly forbidden to many chief firearms officers.
00:00:42.060And that was only in a mandate letter. But this puts it actually in legislation so that it's entrenched, a stable continuity sort of situation where this will be definitely part of the job of the chief firearms officer of Alberta.
00:00:58.480And then the second thing that it does is provide us with a couple of ways of protecting Albertans in in case some of these federal laws that we've been opposing actually end up being passed, despite all the evidence indicating they shouldn't be.
00:01:18.300Okay, so would you be acting, I guess, like one of the first things that talks about the bill is limiting the municipalities and municipal police forces from entering into firearms related funding agreements with the federal government?
00:01:30.960Would your role be partially maybe a liaison with these municipalities and police forces so they understand where their role is going to be going forward with firearm legislation and enforcement?
00:01:39.900Well, I think that's probably somewhat outside my role, although just about anything related to firearms ends up being referred to me for at least some opinion.
00:01:52.840But the point of that part of the law is to ensure that there is some consistency, that you don't have one municipality going along with something and another municipality not going along and people getting a better deal in one place than they get in another place.
00:02:07.980So this ensures that there is some consistency on the side of the province in terms of however, whatever happens with this federal law.
00:02:18.920Yeah, and just to clarify things, I mean, again, you're supportive of people, of course, safely and legally owning firearms.
00:02:25.320But, you know, we're not looking to allow people to illegally own or obtain firearms.
00:02:31.200I mean, that still needs to be enforced against and, you know, isn't allowed in general.
00:02:36.980Like we're seeing a lot of misinformation coming out, unfortunately, with a charged bill like this.
00:02:41.660And I mean, part of your role as well, of course, is to make sure that we stop the proliferation of illegal firearms in the province as well, right?
00:02:49.260Well, actually, we do quite a lot of that.
00:02:52.620So you might recall that last September we obtained funding to expand our office in order to bring back some of the work that had previously been outsourced to New Brunswick in the past.
00:03:05.820And part of that expansion will be to create a unit specifically to coordinate with law enforcement on issues related to illegal trafficking, straw purchasing, 3D printing and so on.
00:03:18.200And so we're proceeding full speed ahead on that.
00:03:24.380And I'd also mention that, you know, we do a lot of outreach at gun shows and that's where we can monitor compliance.
00:03:31.040And if we see that people don't understand the law and therefore they're not complying with it, we can explain before it becomes an issue.
00:03:40.020Yeah. And you mentioned straw purchasing, you know, it's a have you and some people might not understand what this is.
00:03:45.880I think most firearm owners are kind of OK with licensing individuals.
00:03:49.120We want to make sure a person isn't a known criminal or violent person before we allow them to own a firearm.
00:03:55.520But something that does happen is sometimes a person who has a pal will go out and buy a firearm on behalf of somebody else and bring it to them.
00:04:04.660And I don't want to see a registry, but this is one of the areas where people say, well, that's why you need a registry.
00:04:10.780So, you know, who has the firearm and how they transfer it?
00:04:13.780How can we deal with straw purchasing without a registry?
00:04:17.500Well, I think that there are a couple of things that we can do.
00:04:22.720And one is that we there are a number of things that we can do.
00:04:27.080So one thing is which we do and which also in West, the which is a specialized law enforcement unit on illegal firearms trafficking.
00:04:36.360One of the things we do is educate retailers so that they're aware of the kind of situations that present themselves when somebody is doing straw purchasing.
00:04:47.960So there's certain behavioral cues that they present.
00:04:54.320Another thing that we can do is right now there is a since last July, there has been a requirement that people who are doing individual to individual transfers of non-restricted firearms obtain a reference number to demonstrate that they have verified that the person's pal is valid.
00:05:16.440That it's not an illegal, you know, a counterfeit pal or a stolen pal or one that has been revoked, but somebody hasn't turned in.
00:05:27.780And so the way that that that in principle is a good idea.
00:05:31.680But the way they did it made it very hard for a lot of people to comply if you aren't very computer savvy, because most of these transfers happen either in the evening or on the weekends when you can't own this office in Mirabishi that gives the numbers.
00:05:46.000So what we've arranged to do with the cooperation of the registry is that I have now have staff at virtually every gun show along with me, and we are able to call in on their behalf and obtain these reference numbers so that people can be sure that the person they're selling to has a valid pal that it's not lost or stolen or somehow otherwise illegitimate.
00:06:09.000Well, that's great, because, yeah, I mean, I'll be going to the big firearms show at the Seven Chiefs Center, for example, in early April.
00:06:16.540And I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of vendors there.
00:06:18.620And these are people who are, you know, aficionados, enjoy their firearms.
00:06:21.760But as you said, they're not necessarily tech savvy or or immersed in that sort of thing.
00:06:26.180So, I mean, if we can help them along with those sorts of confirmations without being overbearing, that's a good proactive initiative.
00:06:33.640Well, this is the kind of thing that we want to do, because, as I've said a number of times, my whole goal is compliance through credibility, not compulsion.
00:07:35.640On the one hand, I have to supervise the administration of the Firearms Act, like all the licensing of businesses and ranges and so on and so forth.
00:07:48.400But also the second part, which is something that is really only in our case and in Saskatchewan's case, the second part of my role is to advocate to make the law actually make sense.
00:08:03.660And that's actually probably the bigger problem, because most of our laws right now have only a tenuous connection to common sense or public safety values.
00:08:13.520Yes, and I'm glad you're speaking up to those.
00:08:16.540Because, again, I mean, part of your role also isn't just speaking to firearm owners, but non-firearm owners who don't understand the issue in general.
00:08:23.260So to be able to reach out, you mentioned Saskatchewan.
00:08:25.760They brought in a similar firearm legislation as well.
00:08:28.780Have you been in much communication with your Saskatchewan counterpart on this?
00:08:31.680Well, we talk all the time, usually several times a week.
00:08:35.760And I spoke to CFO Freeburg just this morning.
00:08:39.540So, you know, it's we each have different circumstances because the nature of our provinces are different and the nature of the law enforcement challenges are different.
00:08:53.180But we share a common goal of ensuring that the public is kept safe and that the law-abiding firearms community doesn't suffer a bunch of needless intrusion from people in Ottawa who don't know what they're doing.
00:09:13.120I mean, trying to help people in Ottawa who don't know what they're doing understand what they're doing is a big task.
00:09:19.260And I appreciate your work on that file.
00:09:22.060And, of course, you're coming on today to talk to us about it a bit.
00:09:25.000Is there anything more you'd like to add before I let you go?
00:09:28.020Well, I think one of the key things, you know, when you look at our bill, our bill will enable us to do two things.
00:09:35.240One is if the worst comes to worst and the feds do end up passing this bill, we'll be able to prevent some frauds through the licensing of anybody who's involved in it.
00:09:47.820And we'll also be able to create a body to provide legitimate, unbiased, solidly, empirically grounded estimates of the value of firearms so that if the feds try and take somebody's gun, that they will be under a lot of pressure to actually pay what it's worth.
00:10:07.160Well, I guess we could hope they don't take it in the first place.
00:10:10.960But if it does come about, then the compensation has to be somewhat fair.
00:10:15.300So thank you very much for coming on to talk to me today.