Justice
Ottawa’s gun buyback is rightly falling apart
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Gage Haubrich
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s gun ban and buyback policy is running out of steam.
And it hasn’t even left the station.
The buyback is broken. Law-abiding firearms owners don’t want to lose their guns. It doesn’t go far enough for gun-control advocates. And taxpayers don’t want to pick up the massive bill.
“It’s a waste of Canadian’s money,” said a spokesperson for PolyRemembers, a prominent gun-control advocacy group. “We are not reducing the risk level. It’s just for appearances.”
Instead, PolyRemembers wants the government to go further and ban even more models of firearms.
But if the recommendation is to ban more guns, the solution brings a lot more problems.
And Ottawa already tried that. The federal government tried to dramatically expand the list of guns banned with committee amendments. One of the additions included the semi-automatic SKS rifle, of which there are estimated to be more than 500,000 in Canada.
After the introduction of amendments to Bill C-21 that would have seen many common hunting rifles banned, the Assembly of First Nations passed an emergency resolution opposing the ban.
“It’s a tool,” said Kitigan Zibi Chief Dylan Whiteduck about the list of rifles to be banned. “It’s not a weapon.”
“No government has a right to take that away from us and regulate that,” said said Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Vice-Chief Heather Bear. “That is our job as mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and hunters
The government backed down and removed the amendments.
Expanding the buyback to include even more firearms would mean more resistance from current firearms owners and a larger cost to buyback even more guns.
The government says the aim of the ban is to keep Canadians safe, but the evidence shows that it’s unlikely to help, even if it was expanded to include more firearms.
The federal government announced a ban on 1,500 types of what it called “assault-style” firearms in May 2020. It promised to provide “fair compensation” to gun owners whose firearms it confiscates.
New Zealand tried a gun ban and buyback program that was more far reaching than Ottawa’s, banning almost all semi-automatic firearms, not only so-called “assault style” rifles.
It didn’t work.
During the decade before the buyback, according to data from the New Zealand Police, violent firearm offences averaged 932 a year in New Zealand. In 2019, the year of the buyback, there were 1,142 offences. In 2022, the number of offences was 1,444.
New Zealand’s buyback wasn’t cheap either. Costs to administer the program were more than double the initial estimates.
Experts in Canada have seen enough to know the policy is a failure.
The National Police Federation, the union that represents the RCMP, says Ottawa’s buyback, “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”
And it’s a lot of funding and resources.
In total, estimates show that Trudeau’s scheme could cost taxpayers up to $756 million to buyback the guns, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. That doesn’t even include the administration costs – it’s just the cost of compensating firearms owners.
Instead of taking away firearms from Canadians, that’s enough money to pay for the average salaries of 1,000 police officers for more than seven years.
The government has a history of ballooning costs for these types of programs. The government initially promised the long-gun registry would cost taxpayers only $2 million. The final tab was over $2 billion. The registry was scrapped by the Harper government and stayed scrapped under the Trudeau government.
If those were the overruns just to register the guns, how much money would the federal government waste trying to confiscate them?
Ottawa’s buyback has already cost taxpayers $67 million since 2020. Not a single gun has been “bought back” yet.
It’s time for Ottawa to cancel its gun ban and buyback. Because right now, all it looks set to do is cost taxpayers a boatload of money without making Canadians safer.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated”
An arbitrator has ruled that Calgary’s Mount Royal University (MRU) acted in a “disproportionate” manner in late 2021 in its firing of Frances Widdowson, a tenured political scientist with a specialty in Indigenous issues.
Dr. Widdowson, an outspoken critic of the politically charged but theoretically simplistic notions of the academic culture wars at MRU was dismissed just before Christmas 2021 during what arbitrator D.P. Jones called a “Twitter War” between her and a few activist colleagues opposed to her views.
The hearing took 30 days, over ten months, as 25 witnesses gave evidence. Its main findings were on the appropriateness and fairness of the procedures used to dismiss her, not on the reasons given for her dismissal.
The latter concerned September 2020 comments from Widdowson that far from constituting genocide, aboriginal children gained educational benefits by attending Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, an outrageously scandalous opinion among some at MRU.
Her position on Indigenous issues would certainly have been considered heretical at MRU where extreme pro-indigenous, anti-colonial, anti-white privilege perspectives have long ruled.
Following her dismissal, Widdowson filed ten grievances, eight on procedural grounds and two on substantive ones. In his nearly 300-page decision, Jones threw out the grievances involving the improper procedures employed by the university in its dealings with Widdowson.
On discipline, Jones found that while Widdowson’s behaviour was “just cause” for discipline, her firing was “disproportionate” to that behaviour.
On one of Widdowson’s substantive grievances, Jones ruled that her two-week suspension was disproportionate, ruling that a letter of reprimand be substituted for the suspension.
When it came to Widdowson’s firing, Jones wrote that there was just cause for discipline based on Widdowson’s conduct, but that dismissal was an inappropriate penalty.
However, Jones said that Widdowson’s continued employment with the university would not be viable for several reasons, including Widdowson’s ongoing hostility toward the university and colleagues, witness testimony that stated her return to the university would be disruptive, and her “persistence” throughout the arbitration hearing that several tweets investigated did not constitute harassment.
Instead, the arbitrator suggested, “In my judgment, this is an appropriate case in which to substitute a monetary payment rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties.”
In an interview with CBC News on Friday, October 4, Widdowson said she’s pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling that she was wrongfully terminated but that she continues to be upset about how the arbitration approached the issue of harassment.
“People continue to think that I engaged in harassment, which I did not. I’ve done extensive analysis of the different findings which were put forward by the different investigators,” she said.
“There were four different investigators hired by MRU, and these investigators all had different, contradictory findings. What we need from the decision is for there to be a neutral person who makes findings of facts about this.”
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated,” she said during a phone interview with a national media outlet.
“The people who don’t want me to return to MRU, I don’t work with those people,” she replied.
She doesn’t “work with those people” because she shares nothing with them intellectually.
The irony is that Widdowson is an old-school leftist, a classical Marxist whose views on inequality focus on inter-class conflict having little to do with racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identity, the preoccupation of contemporary identity politics, also known as wokeism.
Traditional Marxists and disciples of wokeism are both on the left, often the hard left. But they support incompatible paradigms about the causes and consequences of social and economic inequality, hence their mutual loathing.
Widdowson said she is appealing the decision to regain her tenured faculty position. It seems likely, however, that she’ll end up accepting a huge payout instead.
In his ruling, Jones found that although Widdowson has “controversial views on a number of topics … there has never been a complaint about the quality or ethics of her scholarship; she has never received performance management counselling for either her teaching or scholarship; and the University has supported and recognized her scholarly activities.”
Mount Royal officials said, “While the formal process continues, we will have no further comment.”
Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
From LifeSiteNews
If the case is allowed to proceed, any business operator in Alberta from 2020 to 2022 who was negatively impacted by COVID orders would be eligible to join the lawsuit. Any payout from the lawsuit would come from the taxpayers, which ironically includes the business owners themselves.
Alberta business owners who faced massive losses or permanent closures due to COVID mandates might soon be able to proceed with a class-action lawsuit against the provincial government after lawyers representing the businesses were in court for a certification hearing.
The court heard from the business group’s lawyers regarding the lawsuit proposal, which comes from Alberta-based Rath & Company. Lead counsel Jeffrey Rath said the Alberta government has been placed on notice for its actions against businesses during the COVID lockdown era.
The Rath lawsuit proposal names Rebecca Ingram, a gym owner, and Chris Scott, a restaurant owner, as “representative plaintiffs who suffered significant financial harm due to (former Alberta Chief Medical Officer) Dr. (Deena) Hinshaw’s Public Health Orders.”
Well-known freedom-oriented constitutional lawyer Eva Chipiuk was with Rath in court for the certification hearing. In an X post on October 3, she shared that it was an “interesting two days in court arguing on behalf of businesses impacted by Alberta’s public health orders.”
“In the heart of democratic societies lies a fundamental principle: Justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. When justice systems operate in the open, public trust is maintained. People need to witness fairness, impartiality, and due process in action,” she wrote.
“When governments operate in the light of public scrutiny, they uphold not just the law but the trust of their citizens, ensuring that governance is not just a mechanism of power but a beacon of justice and equality.”
Chipiuk shared that a decision on whether or not the lawsuit will be allowed to proceed will be coming in a few months. She noted it will be “interesting how the judge decides in this case.”
“And will be very interesting how the government responds. They had an opportunity to get ahead of this issue but chose not to. We shall see if they took the right path or if they will be catching up and making up later,” she said.
Alberta Justice Colin Feasby noted at the end of the court certification hearing that both sides made good arguments, but the earliest a decision would be ready is December 1.
In court, representatives for the Alberta government eventually conceded that Ingram could be allowed to be a representative plaintiff but questioned whether Scott could be considering his case is more officially known.
Chipiuk and Rath told the judge that the government’s public health orders exceeded their legal authority and, as a result, all businesses affected by the COVID orders should be compensated.
The government’s legal team claimed that the COVID orders were put in place on a good faith initiative and that it was Alberta Health Services, not the government, that oversaw enforcement of the rules.
If the case is allowed to proceed, any business operator in Alberta from 2020 to 2022 who was negatively impacted by COVID orders would be eligible to join the lawsuit. Any payout from the lawsuit would come from the taxpayers, which ironically includes the business owners themselves.
The Alberta Court of King’s Bench’s Ingram v. Alberta decision put into doubt all cases involving those facing non-criminal COVID-related charges in the province, which in effect has allowed the class action to get this far.
As a result of the court ruling, Alberta Crown Prosecutions Service (ACPS) said Albertans facing COVID-related charges will not be convicted but instead have their charges stayed.
Thus far, Dr. Michal Princ, pizzeria owner Jesse Johnson, Scott, and Alberta pastors James Coates, Tim Stephens, and Artur Pawlowski, who were jailed for keeping churches open under then-Premier Jason Kenney, have had COVID charges against them dropped due to the court ruling.
Under Kenney, thousands of businesses, notably restaurants and small shops, were negatively impacted by severe COVID restrictions, mostly in 2020-21, that forced them to close for a time. Many never reopened. At the same time, as in the rest of Canada, big box stores were allowed to operate unimpeded.
Class action is about ‘accountability, transparency, and justice,’ lawyer says
Before the hearing, Chipiuk said it is crucial for the public to “understand the significant impact of the unlawful public health orders on Albertans. The financial, psychological, and tragic consequences cannot be ignored.”
“At the end of the day, Premier Smith must recognize the gravity and optics of this situation. Fighting against those harmed by the Province’s unlawful orders, while the Province heavily favored the public sector over the private sector, does not foster an environment that encourages entrepreneurs or promotes business and investment in Alberta,” she wrote on X.
“This case calls for accountability, transparency, and justice. The Province must acknowledge the devastation caused by its illegal actions and stop evading responsibility. This case also presents an opportunity for Premier Smith to demonstrate to Albertans that government overreach will not go unnoticed, and those harmed by it will be compensated — principles that align with the proposed amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights.”
Danielle Smith took over the United Conservative Party (UCP) on October 11, 2022, after winning the leadership. Kenney was ousted due to low approval ratings and for reneging on promises not to lock Alberta down as well as enacting a vaccine passport.
Smith, however, has been mum on the class action as well as other lawsuits against the government that are in the works. She has promised that changes will be coming to the Alberta Bill of Rights that she said will offer Albertans more protections against government overreach.
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