OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s federal government is looking at potentially hiring “third parties” to execute its much-panned gun buyback scheme after four provinces said they would not cooperate in taking away legally acquired firearms.
Per the Canadian Press, Canada’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino recently said that the federal government will take the time “necessary to get it [the gun buyback] right.”
He also said the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is looking at a “variety of options” to carry out its gun buyback program, hinting that due to provincial government opposition he might use other “options.”
“It’s going to involve a number of critical stakeholders and partners, including law enforcement,” said Mendicino.
“But we’re also working with other levels of government. We’re working with industry leaders, we’re working with potential third parties. So we are exploring all of these options.”
A total of five Canadian jurisdictions – four provinces and one territory – have announced their opposition to Trudeau’s federal buyback schemes.
The governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan have gone as far as introducing legislation that will ensure their governments alone are responsible for enforcing federal gun laws.
Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro said right before Christmas that firearms enforcement in his province is “our constitutional jurisdiction, and this is a choice that we get to make.”
“It’s not a negotiation with the federal government,” he added.
As late as October of last year, Mendicino claimed he was still looking at getting provincial government help to enforce the gun buyback scheme, noting that it was his “plan A.”
Critics have long blasted Trudeau’s gun grab efforts, with most of the recent ire being directed at his government’s much-opposed Bill C-21.
Much of this controversy arose because Bill C-21 was initially introduced by the Trudeau government under the guise of restricting handgun sales, and the Trudeau government only added certain hunting rifles to the list of banned firearms under C-21 after the debate period of the bill had concluded.
The last-minute additions were blasted by Indigenous Canadians, hunters, farmers, and opposition MPs as a crass attempt to try and ban most guns and take them away from their legal owners.
After initially denying his bill would impact hunters, Trudeau last month admitted that C-21 would indeed ban certain types of hunting rifles.
Trudeau’s gun control efforts began immediately following a deadly mass shooting in Nova Scotia in May 2020, in which his government banned over 1,500 “military-style assault firearms” with a plan to begin buying them back from owners.
If the ban is enforced, legal gun owners in possession of the federally-regulated Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) would be barred from buying, selling, transporting, and even importing a slew of guns the government has categorized as “assault-style” rifles.
While the Trudeau government is standing by the controversial bill, C-21 is not without backlash, and has even been placed on hold until well into 2023 after pushback from opposition MPs.