Why NDP leadership candidates are lining up against the Liberal gun 'buyback'

OTTAWA — The five candidates to lead the federal NDP are standing in lockstep against the Liberal gun “buyback” program, reinforcing a longstanding distinction between the two progressive parties on gun-ownership rights.

All five campaigns told the National Post they oppose the Liberal government’s fledgling mandatory compensation program for “assault-style” firearms, which targets the owners of more than 2,500 makes and models of guns the government has deemed too dangerous to be kept in the hands of civilians.

Filmmaker and activist Avi Lewis, a favourite to become the party’s next permanent leader in March, said in a statement that he’d swap out the divisive Liberal gun buyback for gun laws that “respect expert recommendations, legal and responsible gun ownership, and constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous and treaty rights to hunt and fish.”

Lewis’s statement got a thumbs up from Tracey Wilson, a vice-president with the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, who called his defence of law-abiding gun owners “shockingly based.”

Lewis said federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangree gave away the Liberals’ game, and killed whatever credibility the program had, when private comments recorded without his knowledge surfaced online last fall.

“The … program is in shambles in large part because of hot mic comments from (Anandasangree) suggesting that it’s driven by cynical politics rather than effective policy,” said Lewis.

Anandasangree implied in the leaked audio that the Liberals were moving ahead with the buyback to placate voters in Quebec and expressed doubts about whether it could even be properly enforced.

Edmonton MP Heather McPherson, the only sitting MP in the NDP leadership race, said that, while she thought it was important to rein in the weapons targeted by the program, Ananasangree’s comments make the gun buyback dead on arrival.

“Getting assault-style rifles off our streets must be a priority … but even the Liberal minister has admitted the buyback program wouldn’t work or be enforceable,” said McPherson, suggesting that authorities focus on intercepting illegal firearms at the Canada-U.S. border.

McPherson added that the Liberals haven’t put in the work to secure buy-in from the provinces, pointing to Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew’s recent announcement that his government won’t be participating in the buyback.

“The Liberals are forcing this program ahead without properly working with provinces … so Manitoba is right to be frustrated,” said McPherson.

Even the leadership race’s token pacifist , organic farmer Tony McQuail, said he disapproved of the Liberal gun buyback.

“As a rural farmer, I’m also a gun owner and feel that Canadian gun owners deserve better than (a) hasty and unproven (program) with ineffective implementation,” said McQuail.

The two remaining candidates, Rob Ashton and Tanille Johnston, said authorities should focus on stopping the most “horrific” instances of gun violence that are carried out using illegal firearms entering Canada from the U.S. Johnston was asked about the gun buyback after the party’s November leadership debate in Montreal.

Leadership applicant Bianca Mugyenyi, wife of disqualified candidate Yves Engler, also said she was against the buyback, calling it a “bureaucratic failure.”

True to her anti-Israel positioning , Mugyenyi said the Liberals were hypocritical for disarming citizens at home while abetting violence abroad against Palestinians.

“It is … grotesque that this government claims to care about ‘safety’ while shipping military-grade weapons to fuel a genocide in Gaza,” said Mugyenyi.

Ex-NDP MP Charlie Angus says that, despite taking shape at the time of the Liberal-NDP supply and confidence agreement , the gun buyback has always had the Liberals’ fingerprints.

“It’s a Liberal policy. The Liberals have mishandled this policy a hundred times. We’ve been burned by it a thousand times,” said Angus.

The Liberals faced criticism from the NDP over preliminary efforts to classify certain firearms as “assault-style” weapons, with the NDP raising concerns about potential adverse effects for hunters, farmers and First Nations.

The program wasn’t mentioned in the text of the Liberal-NDP agreement and the NDP’s platform heading into last spring’s election contained no references to gun control .

Angus, who held a northern Ontario seat for two decades before retiring from politics last year, said it was critical for the party to stay engaged in issues important to rural voters like gun-ownership rights.

“As far as the party goes, it’s going to come down to (whether we can) be present in the cities and also speak to the working class,” said Angus.

Angus recently endorsed McPherson to be the party’s next leader but says he’s also talked to Lewis about needing to keep a foot in rural and remote communities.

“I’ve told Avi (Lewis) that if he wants to win, he needs to be able to speak to (places like) Thompson, Manitoba and Red Deer(, Alberta),” said Angus.

Clement Nocos, director of policy at social democratic think tank the Broadbent Institute, said that the wholesale rejection of the Liberal gun buyback among NDP leadership hopefuls is consistent with the party’s past policy positions.

“The Liberal government’s ‘Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program’ is largely a distraction that has the appearance of improving public safety, given the visibility of the gun violence issue in the United States … while failing to address the root causes of violence in Canada such as inequality and the cost-of-living crisis. It also does not address the source of illegal assault rifles in Canada: their import from the across the U.S. border,” said Nocos.

“Canada already has gun control laws that clearly lend to a difference in gun violence when compared to the United States (and) violent crimes committed with assault rifles have also made up a insignificant proportion of all gun crime in Canada,” Nocos added.

Nocos noted that former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh previously announced a commitment to add more than 1,000 new personnel to the border to stop the flow of illegal guns entering Canada.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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