Illegal Importation of Firearms into Canada From the United States

"Our problem in Toronto are handguns from the United States." 

"The issues around investing in what you described is certainly not going to deal with the crime problem we're facing in Toronto, as it relates to the use of criminal handguns."

Toronto Police Deputy Chief Myron Demkiw

"We see handguns in Saskatchewan, but predominantly most of the crime is committed by long-barrelled rifles."

"In Alberta and Manitoba it's very similar, a lot of those guns are coming from break-and-enters. The work we need to do there comes down to education of people on safe storage, and not to have those guns stolen from a farmhouse and then converted and used in crimes."

"I'm not going to say there isn't a problem from time to time with legal gun owners [alluding to the practise known as 'straw purchasing' where licensed gun owners sell their legally bought firearms on the black market]."

"But generally speaking, most of the laws we create are not going to be followed by the people who are committing the crimes with the guns."

"We have a ban on murder in Canada, and yet sadly we still have homicides happening all the time."

Regina Police Chief Evan Bray

"Law enforcement officials are the actual experts when it comes to crime and street violence."

"When none of them support the idea of banning legal guns from licensed owners in an effort to reduce street crime, I think it's an obligation of the government to listen to that."

Tracey Wilson, vice-president, public affairs, Canadian Coalition for Firearms rights

A Glock handgun seized by Toronto police earlier this year. The small cube on the rear of the firearm is an illegal ‘sear switch’ that allows the semi-automatic handgun to fire full-auto. Photo by Toronto police/Twitter /@TPSGunsSeized

 

In testimony before the Commons [House of Commons] Public Safety Committee, police chiefs of Canadian cities are critical of gun legislation that appears to target legal gun owners for the avowed purpose of addressing the phenomenon of growing gun crimes in Canadian cities. Mostly weapons in the hands of criminal gangs, where shoot-outs endanger innocent civilians, including children. 

The Toronto deputy-chief responded to a question relating to the Trudeau Liberals' close to billion-dollar federal buyback program that allows legal gun owners to turn in their 'military-style assault rifles' banned by Ottawa a year ago. Deputy Chief Demkiw informed the committee that aside from addressing key causes of criminality in the community, the effort and funds involved should be spent on stemming the flow of illegal guns into Canada.

The government stands accused of gun control measures that tend to punish law-abiding Canadian firearm owners in a wide-ranging plan to diminish the number of firearms owned by the public, in the process seeming to bypass the real source of crime guns which are by and large firearms readily smuggled across the border into Canada from the United States.

 

Toronto Police Service Guns Seized #offthestreets

 

A cost estimate of the buy-back program published by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated costs at $756 million. Program spending increased by another $8.8 million according to a recent Department of Public Safety quarterly report. Local handgun bans being explored by many cities including Toronto following the federal government's stated intention of working with provincial and territorial leaders to allow such bans, may soon come into effect.

Toronto has seen a steady and steep rise in shootings, including the number of shots fired where Toronto police recovered 2,405 shell casings in 2021; a 50 percent increase from the year before. Higher capacity and  higher-power firearms are making more frequent appearances, as can be verified by the Toronto Police 'guns seized' Twitter account. Three handguns seized by investigators in February featured a Taurus G2C and two Glocks.

Nine firearm banned models intended on criminalizing variants of the popularAR-15 platform came into effect on May1, 2020. Seized guns cannot be legally purchased and owned in Canada; the Glocks seized had been given a selector switch on the rear cover plate to convert the semi-automatic pistols into full-auto, mini submachine guns.

Most of the guns Toronto police seized in 2022 were either prohibited or had overcapacity magazines; illegally modified to hold more than the legally permitted ten rounds, or purchased in the United States and smuggled into Canada. The scope of gun crime varies, all the more so when comparing the Prairie provinces to the Lower Mainland of British Columbia or the Greater Toronto Area. 

Inexorably the connection between gun crime and the criminal drug trade links organized criminality. An entirely separate issue is that of legal gun owners. As for enacting gun bans, it was pointed out,  the citizenry have to buy into it. Canada's gun lobby has long since called for measures to bypass punishing law-abiding firearms owners. Not only those who collect and shoot guns as a sporting hobby, but more to the point, the fact that most farmers own a rifle.

A restricted gun licence holder holds a AR-15 at his home in Langley, B.C.  Photo by The Canadian Press