CCFR head says election not about gun control

“The Liberals go to the same channel-changer since the dawn of time,” Giltaca told the Western Standard.

“This election is not about gun control, this election whether or not we will even have a country left.

“O’Toole did the only thing he could do to get it off the table.”

Giltaca called the $610 million early election a “vanity project” for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to try and get a majority.

He described gun control as a “complex issue” with one side just throwing out slogans and pictures of guns.

“At the end of the day, the majority of Canadians don’t care,” he said.

O’Toole is reversing his commitment to repeal the Liberal ban on hunting and sporting rifles that Trudeau has labeled “military-style assault weapons”.

Trudeau has erroneously claimed O’Toole would legalize “military-style assault weapons” and has promised a $1 billion cash payout for provinces that ban handguns. Civilian ownership of automatic weapons of any kind has been illegal in Canada since 1977.

The Conservative platform made no promise to legalize “military-style assault weapons” or automatic weapons of any kind, but committed to repeal Bill C-71 and the May 2020 cabinet decree that banned many hunting and sporting rifles which the Liberals have labeled “military-style assault weapons.” Firearms advocates insist the Liberals have misclassified the firearms based on their appearance or name.

Under fire from Trudeau, the Conservative leader has struggled to defend his position.

On the campaign trail August 5, O’Toole appeared to reverse his position, to now support the Liberal gun ban.

“We’re going to take the politics out of the classification process for firearms and focus on public safety,” said O’Toole.

“I want people to know that we’re going to maintain the assault weapon ban and the restrictions put in place in 2020…Let’s have a public and transparent process to take the politics out and focus our resources on where it’s needed.”

This is in direct contravention of O’Toole’s Conservative platform that commits to repealing the the Liberal cabinet decree of 2020.

Under O’Toole’s new position, hunting rifles like the Ruger Mini-14 and the sporting rifle AR-15 will remain prohibited. Neither is fully automatic or considered by experts to be either “military” or “assault” weapons.

O’Toole’s new position now largely aligns the Conservatives on firearm rights with the Liberals and NDP, although stopping short of their respective attempts to ban legal handguns.

The move is not the first major policy reversal for O’Toole, who tore up his written pledge during the Conservative leadership campaign to repeal and not replace Trudeau’s carbon tax.

O’Toole now proposes a “petro-points” style rewards card allowing Canadians to use points accumulated from their carbon tax payments to be used for the purchase of government-approved green products and services.

Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard

dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com

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