Cariboo-Prince George MP says Liberal government finally received the message on its gun ban amendments

Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty says it’s a win for democracy and a win for law-abiding citizens with hunting rifles.

That’s his initial reaction to today’s (Friday) news that the amendment to the Liberal government’s controversial gun bill has been dropped.

“Hunters and fishers and First Nations alike were all standing up and basically saying this is egregious and no one was listening to them. They weren’t consulted and as we see very often Ottawa knows best policy being written. The Prime Minister said in December very clearly that yes he was going to start to take away the guns from people that were using them to hunt.  Amendments to Bill C-21, specifically G-4 and G-46 amendments, would have banned millions of hunting rifles and with the stroke of a pen made law-abiding farmers and hunters criminals.”

For some though, Doherty says it’s too late.

“Considerable damage has been done. We’ve lost small businesses, small mom and pop family-run businesses that focus on catering to hunters and fishers. They just couldn’t fight the good fight anymore, they lost financially, everything.”

We asked Doherty if that was it, or if the government would take another run at this ?

“That’s the worry right ? That’s obviously the concern that we have is that they take it off the table for now, they kind of lull people to sleep, and then try to sneak it back in.  But we’ll be sitting there waiting for them to try to do it again, and keep fighting and keep delivering the message of our constituents in Ottawa.”

Doherty says gun violence has gone up substantially over the past 8 years under the Liberal government’s watch, but he says this amendment would have done absolutely nothing to address that.

“Just because you write it into law, criminals aren’t going to follow it.  They’re criminals for a reason, and over 93 percent of the guns that are being used in these violent crimes are being smuggled across the borders.  Despite that, they’ve done nothing to strengthen our borders or give our front line officers the tools and resources to be able to stop those guns from being smuggled into our country.”

With files from George Henderson mycariboonow