New Federal Firearms Legislation

Ontario’s police leaders support the position of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) regarding new firearms legislation by the Government of Canada.

Highlights of the legislation include: 

• Combat intimate partner and gender-based violence, and self-harm involving firearms by creating “red flag” and “yellow flag” laws. These laws would allow people, such as concerned friends or relatives, to apply to the courts for the immediate removal of an individual’s firearms, or to ask a Chief Firearms Officer to suspend and review an individual’s licence to own firearms;
• Fight gun smuggling and trafficking by increasing criminal penalties, and by enhancing the capacity of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency to combat the illegal importation of firearms;
• Help create safer communities by supporting municipalities that ban handguns through by-laws restricting storage and transportation in their jurisdictions. Individuals who violate these municipal by-laws would be subject to federal penalties, including licence revocation and criminal sanctions;
• Give young people the opportunities and resources they need to avoid criminal behaviour by providing funding to municipalities and Indigenous communities to support youth programs;
• Protect Canadians from gun violence by creating new offences for altering the cartridge magazine component of a firearm and depicting violence in firearms advertising, introducing tighter restrictions on imports of ammunition, and ensuring the prohibition of imports, exports, sales, and transfers of all replica firearms; and
• Complete the prohibition of assault-style firearms to ensure these weapons cannot be legally used, transported, sold, transferred, or bequeathed by individuals in Canada. We also intend to move forward with a buyback program in the coming months to support the safe removal of these firearms from our communities.

In a statement released on February 17, 2021, the CACP noted that,

“Based on a preliminary review of the new firearms legislation, the CACP believes that the proposed changes put forward by the federal government recognize that stopping gun violence requires a whole of society approach including education and prevention to address root causes, and law enforcement to help stop the criminal elements who are perpetrating violence in our communities.

This latest announcement is taking the changes achieved by Bill C-71 one step further, thereby strengthening the overall strategy to help prevent victimization by way of a firearm and to improve public safety by correcting some of the remaining weaknesses in our current firearm regulations, and to establish new firearms-related offences and strengthened penalties to help deter criminal activities.”

Read the full CACP statement here. Review the new Bill C-24 here and the Technical Briefing here.