Tony Bernardo is the Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.You’ve seen this public safety theatre before.Ottawa announces a grand plan. The media headlines hit. Politicians trot out their slick talking points, and the bill lands on your kitchen table like a wet sandbag.Then reality shows up.The Pilot Program That Exposed the LieLast fall in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Ottawa ran a six-week pilot for its firearms confiscation compensation scheme..MACKINNON: $20 Million allegedly stolen from seniors housing — inside Quebec’s explosive non-profit fraud scandal.Media reports say 25 firearms were confiscated from 16 participants, even though the government expected to seize 200. One of those participants reportedly was a widow who wanted her late husband’s guns out of the house, so she turned in roughly half the guns herself. Many of those firearms weren’t even on the ban list.That is not a success. That’s a sinking ship sending up a distress flare.The cost of this failure is even worse..Ottawa paid at least $149,760 to administer the pilot program, which works out to roughly $6,000 per gun collected.That is what happens when policy gets built for political optics instead of measurable public safety outcomes.The target is wrong. It has always been wrong..HAUBRICH: Time for feds to give up on gun confiscation.Law abiding, licenced owners are not the source of criminal gun violence.They are the easiest group to pressure, the safest group to blame, and the most politically convenient group to scapegoat.That is the Liberal government’s play.That’s always the Liberal government’s play..What This Firearms Confiscation Scheme Actually Produces (It’s not safety)It produces paper pushing for bureaucrats.It produces delay and uncertainty for licenced owners.It produces “compliance theatre” for the government and its media cheerleaders..WATCH: Carla Beck on pipelines, trade, gun policy and Saskatchewan healthcare.And it steadily grows contempt for this Liberal government among ordinary Canadians who already follow every rule and regulation.Meanwhile, the pipelines that feed illegal guns to drug dealers, gang members, and organized crime keep flowing.Gun smugglers, illegal firearms traffickers, and repeat violent offenders. This is where enforcement is hard, slow, and decidedly unglamorous. Because, unlike licenced firearms owners, violent criminals and gun smugglers and traffickers do not comply with government edicts.Mark Carney’s firearms confiscation scheme doesn’t even touch that fight..It ignores the glaring disconnect and insists you are the one with the comprehension problem.Quebec Steps Up with an Open HandNow the contrast gets insulting.After a pilot program that sputtered to a dismal end, after Ottawa pledged $12.4 million for Quebec to coordinate firearms confiscations from licenced owners, the Quebec government happily hopped on board..OLDCORN: Trump’s immigration crackdown is warranted — Biden and Obama created the mess.The failed pilot program screamed, “Total failure.”The government’s response?“Who cares? Fund it anyway.”You don’t need a policy degree to see what’s happening..A political cash infusion gets wrapped in public safety language.A provincial government gets to posture as “tough on crime.”The Liberal government gets to claim “progress” on a failed agenda.And you get another round of bureaucratic harassment aimed at the wrong people..WELLS: Old World or New World — whose side are we on?.This is not “CSSA taking a run” at Quebecers.This is CSSA pointing out to the country that Quebec’s government gladly takes federal money to confiscate firearms from licenced owners, while the criminal supply chain keeps moving, untouched.The Real Issue: A Decade of Misplaced FocusIf you want safer communities, you don’t start by treating licenced firearms owners as the enemy..You start where the harm starts.Border enforcement that actually stops cross border firearms traffickingSerious penalties for criminals involved in gun smuggling networks..BURTON: Why people are leaving Canada — a country testing the limits of decline.A relentless focus on violent offenders, not hunters, collectors, and sport shooters.Resources aimed at the criminals who ignore laws, not the citizens who obey them.Anything else is lighting stacks of cash on fire and calling it “reasonable and necessary.”.The Belief Flip You Need to Hold the LineThe lie says, “If we remove guns from licenced owners, we reduce violent crime in our communities.”The truth is colder, cleaner, and simpler: Crime follows criminals. (A shocking revelation to Liberal politicians.)The government refuses to name the criminal, so it keeps naming you, the man or woman who complied with every rule, every regulation, and every misguided law they could invent..OLDCORN: Liberals $200 million racist slush fund.Don’t get lulled by polite language and glossy political slogans.Demand clarity.Demand measurable public safety outcomes.Demand a strategy that targets the real criminal threats to public safety, instead of this ideologically scripted “public safety theatre” dutifully performed in front of compliant media cameras.Tony Bernardo is the Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
