Tony Bernardo is the Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports AssociationWhile headlines scream about the rising cost of groceries, power bills, and climate policy flops, something subtler is brewing in Ottawa: a quiet retreat from the Trudeau-era firearms ban.The 2025 Liberal Pre-Budget Consultation survey offers Canadians an opportunity to influence the Mark Carney government’s public spending priorities.For gun owners, hunters, sport shooters, and those who care about evidence-based public safety policy, Question 3 is the battlefield. It invites Canadians to choose which federal priorities deserve funding. Among the options? “Completing the firearms buyback program.” .Trudeau’s Firearms Confiscation Compensation Scheme is an expensive political stunt that has already lost credibility in the eyes of the media, economists, and even elements within the Liberal Party itself.We suggest checking one to three of the following options for Question 3:Investing in the Canadian Armed ForcesRecruiting more RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency personnel to strengthen border security and combat organized crimeMake bail policies stricter for violent and major crimesInvesting in Canada’s ArcticMaking dual-use investments which serve defence as well as civilian readiness such as airports, ports, telecommunication and emergency preparedness systemsBuilding up Canada’s defence industries.The Globe and Mail published a surprising op-ed from Robyn Urback calling Ottawa’s Firearms Confiscation Compensation Scheme indefensible, exorbitantly expensive, and politically toxic.“The proposed buyback program, by contrast [with the carbon tax],” Urback writes, “isn’t defensible by any measure: it targets the wrong weapons, legally owned by the wrong people, to try to tackle a problem it will absolutely not address. It is already overly bureaucratic, incredibly complicated, and exorbitantly expensive.” Mark Carney is no fool. He’s watching the backlash. He knows how to read political wind. When Liberal-friendly media breaks ranks, government policy shifts soon follow. And if gutting this program saves political capital for more “climate initiatives,” he’ll do it in a heartbeat. .After all, this is the same man who’d bankrupt the country on carbon credits while suddenly pretending to be frugal over a $600-million gun control budget.Sacrificing Quebec’s dairy cartel shows a bigger game. On the same day as the Pre-Budget Survey was announced, the Liberals softened their stance on long-standing dairy protections. Quebec’s dairy quotas were untouchable for decades, yet today they’re being sacrificed on the altar of trade with New Zealand. If the dairy cartel can be cracked, so can the sacred cow of “gun control saves lives.”Especially when even Liberal supporters admit it doesn’t.The Western Standard suggests those of our readers who support legal, responsible gun ownership, consider what our friends at the Canadian Sport Shooters Association are recommending and complete the Pre-Budget Consultation Survey, paying close attention as advised above, to the options in Question 3 of the survey, to be found here.Tony Bernardo is the Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
