Western Standard - Canada handgun legislation & Bill C21

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Tony. It's good to see you back on the show again. It's been a while. As usual,

00:00:04.140 it's under bad circumstances sometimes. Well, unfortunately, Corey, but that seems to happen

00:00:09.560 to us a lot these days. It's just something to do with those guys in Ottawa, I think.

00:00:14.840 I think it does. You might have caught part of my rant. I'm not typically very happy with them

00:00:19.280 anyways. But I mean, you guys are national and rightly so, because I mean, there are firearm

00:00:25.480 owners who are having their rights stepped on from coast to coast in Canada. This isn't just

00:00:30.200 a Western issue. This is nationwide. I guess we'll start with it because I mean, the development of

00:00:35.920 C-21 is a little newer. But first of all, I'd like to talk about you guys have launched a challenge

00:00:40.920 when it comes to that handgun freeze, basically. Yeah, actually, the challenge is against not just

00:00:47.720 the handgun freeze. The challenge is against all of C-21, because quite frankly, it wasn't written

00:00:53.520 properly. There's a bunch of things that are black letter law in the writing of legislation.

00:00:59.100 You have to do A and B in order to get C, and they have completely messed it up. We think we have

00:01:06.440 decent grounds to declare the legislation null and void, and we're going to pursue that on a technical

00:01:13.220 basis. But also, one of the things they did in there with the handgun legislation was the first

00:01:20.040 thing they did was they reduced our handguns to a value of zero. And they did this because you can't

00:01:25.480 transfer them in any way, shape, or form. So by making them untransferable, they now have a value

00:01:32.700 of exactly zero. And when you pass away, the handguns obviously go to your next of kin, except this time

00:01:42.240 they don't. They go to the federal government, and they don't have to pay compensation because the

00:01:48.760 value is zero. Now, this is absolutely wrong, because they were the ones who made the value zero.

00:01:54.600 And in doing so, they trampled all over existing Canadian legislation in this. And that's why we

00:02:01.000 launched the challenge, because these things are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, we're

00:02:07.640 looking right now, 1.1 million handguns in Canada, give an average price of about $1,500, and do the math on

00:02:15.420 that one. And you're quickly over a billion. And this is unconscionable that you can take,

00:02:23.180 you know, $1.5 billion of generational wealth that belongs to the citizens of Canada, and make it

00:02:30.600 disappear by going, poof, that's ridiculous. Who the hell thought that up?

00:02:36.540 And firearms, I mean, they're property, they're an investment. I mean, some of them were handed down

00:02:41.460 from people prior to us, some of us saved our money, and we purchased them. I mean, the property

00:02:46.760 right aspect alone, I mean, never mind all the rest of whether this is effective legislation or

00:02:50.680 making anybody safer or any of that. It's our property. And the government, as you said, I mean,

00:02:55.760 it's a roundabout way to, I talked earlier, and I feel it's a theft, even if they compensate you for

00:03:00.460 it. But their way of, okay, we're just going to turn the value to zero. Because as you said, if you can't

00:03:04.120 transfer or sell something, it is de facto zero, then they'll take it for nothing. It's beyond the

00:03:11.240 pale. Well, sure. And they're stuck in between a rock and a hard place, because there's legislation

00:03:17.880 that's gone through the Supreme Court years and years ago, that say that if they're going to take

00:03:23.640 your property, they got to compensate you fair market value for it. Well, these son of a bitches 1.00

00:03:29.340 just reduced fair market value to nothing. Like, this is insanity. And we don't think this will

00:03:36.560 withstand a court test. Courts tend to be pretty practical for the most part.

00:03:41.160 Well, I certainly hope not. I mean, I guess this is something we want to get this resolved as fast

00:03:46.980 as possible. But it's not the same as an immediate illegalization or seizure. So people still can hang

00:03:53.380 on to their property until hopefully when this court challenge goes through and hopefully wins. What

00:03:57.560 sort of timeline are you looking at with that? Well, you're looking for the challenge probably

00:04:03.120 a year and a half anyway. I mean, there's all kinds of things that could happen. There's many,

00:04:08.760 many, many chess pieces moving politically right now on this. Just yesterday, Saskatchewan said they

00:04:16.540 aren't going to play and they're not going to let the citizens of Saskatchewan play either. So they're

00:04:23.500 not even going to do anything with this thinking legislation. And we're expecting our friends in

00:04:28.980 Alberta will do the same, possibly even New Brunswick, Yukon and Manitoba. We're still working

00:04:35.120 on Ontario. And we still get a no comment out of the Ontario government. They're still not

00:04:40.660 willing to stick their neck out far enough to say that we should be spending the billions of dollars

00:04:46.920 it will cost to collect all these firearms and actually spend it on crime control.

00:04:53.200 Well, yeah, I mean, there's again, so many levels. I mean, the amount of money being wasted on every

00:04:58.540 level and kind of move on to the other firearms they're going after too. And we're talking about

00:05:02.640 billions of dollars. I remember making this case a long time ago with the failed registry when they

00:05:06.940 spent $2 billion on that, that pointless endeavor. How many crimes would have prevented perhaps if they'd put

00:05:14.500 $2 billion into substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment or support, things like that?

00:05:20.700 That's how you prevent crime. That's how you make people safer. Instead, they flushed it away on a

00:05:25.280 $2 billion bureaucracy that served nobody. That's right. And when questioned under oath, the

00:05:30.920 commissioner of the RCMP when asked, how many crimes has this solved? They said none that they were aware

00:05:38.960 of. I mean, it's just, it's just one of these ultra left woke ideological things. That's a lot like

00:05:48.660 unicorns and tooth fairies and stuff like that. And, and they think that because they, they put a

00:05:55.340 regulation on it, criminals will stop misbehaving. I mean, it, it, it's just wishful thinking on, on every

00:06:02.480 part. And you, you know, you can base your policies on, on fairy dust and unicorn snot, but quite

00:06:08.180 honestly, it's not going to go anywhere. Right. And Canadians are buying into this. This is the part

00:06:14.820 that's so absolutely amazing. The Canadians are buying into this nonsense. And we have to inform.

00:06:22.260 I mean, it's just the reality is okay. The firearms owners are now a minority within the country,

00:06:27.680 but it doesn't mean that they shouldn't have their abilities in that, but it does mean that

00:06:31.720 the majority doesn't necessarily understand what comes with responsible ownership or the mindset

00:06:36.320 again, with the vast, vast majority of people never want to hurt a fly. That's not why they

00:06:41.160 got any firearms. Just actually one of my commenters also pointing out, you might've seen that video

00:06:46.500 in a Calgary LRT station. They were shooting each other with a flare gun. Like criminals will find ways

00:06:51.980 to get dangerous no matter what laws you put in place against the law abiding.

00:06:57.080 Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, democracy is not based on the rights of the majority.

00:07:03.260 Democracies are based upon the rights of the minorities. And, and quite frankly, we, we expect 1.00

00:07:09.280 our governments to protect the rights of minorities. And if we're minority, that just means we need

00:07:15.140 even more protection than we did before. Absolutely. And I wrote about it last week as well, because

00:07:20.520 I've always felt it's been the liberal agenda since Cretchen's days and into today. They want to disarm.

00:07:25.640 They want to take every firearm out of every Canadian's hands. And this is just the new move 0.73

00:07:31.800 on to it. So rather than the registry route, now they're incrementally doing it through things like

00:07:36.280 C-21 and they're taking advantage of tragedies. I mean, the timing's no mistake. Every time they make

00:07:40.500 another grab is just after another tragedy.

00:07:42.860 Yeah, that's right. So this time they're going after they've expanded it in committee. So this

00:07:49.580 won't even get discussed in parliament. Basically hunting rifles.

00:07:54.860 Right. And, and, you know, when you, when you look back at this, you're absolutely right. The goal is to

00:08:01.580 completely disarm Canadian society. But if the people that they're disarming aren't the ones that are

00:08:07.740 committing the crimes and they're not, and that all these people produces no positive effect

00:08:16.220 on criminal activity in the country in any way, shape or form, and it doesn't,

00:08:21.180 you have to ask yourself the big question. Why are they spending so much time and money to do this?

00:08:27.260 Why do they need the public of Canada so effectively helpless?

00:08:33.900 It's, it's, it's ideological. And, and, uh, I do believe, I mean, I, I, you know,

00:08:39.500 an authoritarian is always nervous if the population is able to fight back if they push things too far.

00:08:45.260 Right. Yeah. But what do you think they're going to do that's so bad

00:08:50.700 that the Canadian people would rise up against them? I mean, this just, if you think about this,

00:08:55.660 they're doing this for a reason. They're spending billions of dollars over decades to do this.

00:09:01.900 And I don't think it's just because they've been influenced by a Hollywood movie. There's more to

00:09:06.300 it than this. And they're not telling us what it is. No. And they're failing. I mean, the public,

00:09:11.500 the firearm owners, we don't trust them. They, they can, uh, you know, re-categorize and legalize

00:09:17.660 whatever they like. I suspect, and I won't counsel people to commit crimes, but a whole lot of people

00:09:22.620 are not going to turn in their firearms. What it will do is turn those people into criminals,

00:09:27.500 as far as the law is concerned. I mean, in reality, they're not harming anybody,

00:09:31.660 but I, I can't see wide compliance with this. Not when it comes down to the hunting rifles now.

00:09:37.340 No. And, and, you know, some, some of the firearms they've taken are, are put on the list. Incredibly

00:09:43.420 common firearms. Absolutely. So common. You wouldn't believe it. And, and some of them,

00:09:48.940 there's like half a million examples of one type of firearm and are all non-restricted. So how do you

00:09:55.500 know where they are? Well, the answer is you don't. And, you know, when you're talking about

00:09:59.900 compliance, well, you know, my office is sort of like a hub of what's happening with compliance.

00:10:07.340 I haven't had a single person yet that say, oh yeah, I'm going to march right down there and give

00:10:11.500 them my guns. And, you know, the, this compensation thing, this is wishful thinking. Like we, we put

00:10:17.580 compensation into our lawsuit, not because we expect the government to give us money,

00:10:23.580 but how else do we restore the value of the guns that they've devaluated? If there's a compensatable

00:10:30.860 amount, when, when you perish, at least they're worth something at this point in time. And I think

00:10:37.820 that the average Canadians here would stand straight up if they honestly found out how much money we're

00:10:44.140 really talking about. With all the long guns that they've got now added into this and the handguns,

00:10:50.460 we're looking at about a third of the guns in the entire country. And my guess, eight to ten billion

00:10:56.860 dollars. Billion with a B.

00:10:59.820 That's just the bio. That's not the administration figuring out how to get these things, how to

00:11:04.620 process, how to deal with it. I mean, and that's something to keep reminding Canadians of. Even if you

00:11:10.140 don't have the firearms, even if you don't care if it's taken away from your neighbor. Okay. But are

00:11:13.820 you ready to reach into your own pocket to pay for it? Because this is going to cost you.

00:11:18.220 Well, at this point, I guess it's reaching into your great grandchildren's pocket, isn't it?

00:11:22.300 Yeah, there is. That's kind of a different discussion altogether. And I mean, I wonder about

00:11:28.380 some of the other hiccups. I mean, this is kind of out of the blue, but have you ever been in

00:11:32.220 communication with some of the First Nations communities? Like somebody had pointed out that

00:11:35.340 apparently a lot of First Nations people use SKSs for hunting. I mean, it's a low priced,

00:11:41.980 you know, very common actually carbine that people use. It's utilitarian. And that's a tool for their

00:11:49.020 livelihood and survival on those isolated communities. You're going to be taking away

00:11:53.820 something very important to them. And I don't think the government's thinking that through on the

00:11:57.260 problem they'll have going after those. No, they aren't. And I don't even think they care.

00:12:02.540 They're, you know, that they'll make a policy where they're not going to prosecute it in certain

00:12:07.340 spots and on other places they will, but mostly it'll be a charge laid as opportunity presents

00:12:14.620 itself to lay the charge. The thing with the SKSs, like I say, half a million of them in Canada right now,

00:12:21.660 online restricted. I can tell you, honestly, both my kids got their first deer with an SKS. 0.68

00:12:28.780 These things are absolutely perfectly acceptable hunting firearms. They work. They always work.

00:12:36.540 They're inexpensive and very, very common. On First Nations, the first thing they banned were

00:12:43.740 the Ruger minis, the series of mini rifles. And those minis were not banned in the first round of

00:12:51.020 this gun control legislation. And the reason they weren't banned back then, I was around back then

00:12:55.980 working on the legislation. The reason was, was because they were so ubiquitous within the first

00:13:01.260 nations and they didn't want to get the first nations all riled up at them. And so they left

00:13:07.340 the minis off the list, even though that was the time when it was still hot and fresh from the Montreal

00:13:12.300 massacre. But now they've gone ahead, banned all the minis and banned all the SKSs. And quite frankly,

00:13:20.220 I think they've got a tiger by the tail on this one. I don't think compliance will be anything.

00:13:26.620 No, I mean, provinces won't cooperate. Our Chief Firearms Officer in Alberta, she's fantastic,

00:13:32.780 actually. She's quite outspoken. She's not going to be helping along with this in Saskatchewan and

00:13:37.500 certain other provinces. They don't want to take on this headache. They got better things to do.

00:13:42.220 Well, I mean, all we can do though, we got to keep fighting back or we will lose. I guess,

00:13:45.980 kind of before I let you go, I really appreciate the work you guys are always doing,

00:13:48.780 keeping people up to date. I like reminding people to the CSSA has, you do stuff other than

00:13:52.860 lobbying. I mean, you've got all kinds of resources there that a member has as a firearm,

00:13:56.780 whether it's videos for say firearm operation or different sports or things like that.

00:14:02.940 Your organization where I let you go. And the best insurance products for firearms owners

00:14:08.940 anywhere in the country. We also ensure firearms and hunter safety instructors all over the country.

00:14:15.420 And we have some really fantastic products. We're also offering the only, you know, first aid

00:14:22.380 courses that are developed specifically for shooting ranges. Lots of stuff. There's so many things I

00:14:29.020 can't take all this time to say them all, but we're always working hard for our members.

00:14:33.580 Right. And I just really appreciate the work you do. And again, I just like to remind everybody,

00:14:37.420 it's more than just lobbying. I mean, if you're a firearm owner, that's a resource. As you said,

00:14:41.180 everything from the insurance to safe firearm use. And yeah, like anything you take seriously,

00:14:46.220 you should join an association of others and then work together. Because if we don't stand up for

00:14:49.740 ourselves together, we're done for. Well, our track record speaks for itself. In 62 years of existence,

00:14:56.460 we have had exactly zero fatalities on our shooting ranges. Yeah. Excellent.

00:15:01.340 I bet you the police can't say that. You can't have a ski hill claim that. No, exactly. Exactly.

00:15:09.580 Yeah. So we're very, very safe. It reflects in our insurance rates. And you know, it's a wonderful

00:15:16.060 pastime for those people who've never tried it. They really should get out there and try it. They

00:15:20.540 fall in love with it right away. Great. Well, thank you very much for joining us today,

00:15:24.860 Tony. And I know you got a lot to do. We'll, we'll be keeping an eye on it and we'll hopefully win

00:15:29.500 this in the long run. Thank you, Corey. Great. Thanks.

00:15:35.980 Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long,

00:15:41.820 long ago. These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms

00:15:47.740 regulations and legislation in Canada. And more importantly, educating the public about how we

00:15:53.340 keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people to become a member. It's absolutely worth every penny.

00:15:59.500 The current Lethbridge feed grain prices are as follows. Cash barley remains at $4.50.

00:16:05.980 Feed wheat is steady at $4.64 and corn is unchanged at $4.57 per tonne. In the milling wheat markets,

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Western Standard - December 02, 2022

Canada handgun legislation & Bill C21

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