Gun owners will get a reprieve once the Conservatives are elected, Pierre Poilievre says.
Poilievre promised to reverse every law that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has implemented to attack legal gun owners.
Speaking at a news conference, Poilievre fielded a question from a concerned firearm owner about how his party planned to change the narrative around firearm ownership.
“We (will) just reverse everything that Trudeau has done,” said Poilievre.
Poilievre and the gun owner, Stacey, chatted about the vetting process that he had to get to acquire firearms legally.
“This is the least likely person to commit a crime with a gun. He’s already been vetted by the RCMP. He’s gone through vigorous training and his firearms are known to the government because he has licenses,” said Poilievre. “Trudeau wants to take away this guy’s firearms.”
He added that the expected cost of retrieving firearms from legal owners would cost billions. He ridiculed Trudeau for spending $42 million on a gun buyback program, yet failing to purchase a single firearm.
“His latest attempt is he’s trying to get the mailman, from Canada Post, to come to your house and pick up your guns and take them back to the government, which is absolutely insane,” said Poilievre.
Canada Post initially refused to collect guns under the Liberals’ buyback program.
Since then, the CEO of Canada Post has gone on record saying that the postal service will not participate.
Poilievre talked about the ridiculousness of a legal gun owner being targeted.
“If he were a criminal, would he participate in giving the gun over to the mailman? No. He would lie, and he would sell the gun on the black market. So the only people who will lose their guns on this ban Trudeau brought in are licensed, law-abiding people who are not committing crimes,” said Poilievre.
The Conservative leader added that Canada allows 99% of shipping containers to come in uninspected, which is where weapons that are actually used in gun crimes are coming from.
Less than 1% of containers being inspected has also led to stolen cars going unnoticed at the federal Port of Montreal.
Poilievre pledged that he would keep the illegal guns out and reinstate mandatory prison time for gun smugglers and gangsters who commit gun crimes.
Conservative candidate Ron Chhinzer, a former police officer, also spoke to the flaws in the Liberals’ plan.
“Not once in my entire career, not myself or any of my police officer partners, have we ever seized a lawfully-owned firearm from a criminal,” said Chhinzer.
“And when we go after people like Stacey for that, it’s such a waste of resources. It’s attacking and making villains of the wrong people, and it’s totally disregarding all of the criminals that are coming into our neighbourhoods, stealing our cars, breaking into our homes with guns, doing shootings in public spaces. And, they painted this picture that they’re not the bad people, Stacey is.”