Canada already has the backbone of the program they need: the Cadets. It’s a fantastic government-funded program for teens, although its funding and the scope of programs offered has been pared back in parallel with the Canadian Forces over the years. One of the skills taught is range, and it’s always popular with kids because target shooting is fun. When my Dad was a high school student in the ‘60s, just about everybody was involved in air, sea, or army cadets. Maybe expand it again as a mandatory course for high school, of course also creating some comparable service programs for people who don’t want their kids in a paramilitary organization (I’m thinking first aid, search and rescue, etc.)
Poilievre said he would expand cadets. Apparently (according to a Line reader), the program has been hugely underfunded of late. My kid went to cadets. It gave her an understanding of civics, teaching experience, and more. Great program.
Make the PAL a tax deduction for any Canadian citizen.
I think its about $250 today to get a restricted license.
Easy to make Canada hard to digest and we have a history of exceptional military performance. The Canadians win top gun and the sniper record is Canadian.
We should make it so any invader has to consider the cost of an insurgency of folks who are comfortable in the outdoors and can shoot.
Or how about allowing large PAL classes. Make it free, perhaps funded by advertiser's or even the government. More students per instructors means cheaper per student.
Also, stop supply managing the number of licensed PAL instructors.
Cadets is already growing by leaps and bounds. The problem of course is our government and the Ottawa culture cringe at it, therefore barely funding it.
Excellent article, and spot on reasoning, I’ve been a gun owner for over 50 years and hold both a non restricted and restricted licence, the way the liberal government has battered legal gun owners while at the same time practicing a catch and release system for criminals absolutely disgusts me. What Canada needs is a government that gets tough on crime increases sentencing for violent crime and builds prisons that don’t look like country clubs. Violent offenders have more rights than their victims, I feel if these people are going to terrorize our society their rights should be severely diminished. Stop listening to the bleeding hearts and take our cities back from the criminals.
Give us back our guns, we are the most vetted group in Canada but also the most persecuted for no other reason than political gain by a government that has perpetually lied and falsified statistics about legal gun owners
Complacency has lead Canada to apathy which has propelled us into mediocrity. Canada has ceased to be a serious country when it elected a drama teacher to the highest office. Now, catering to special interest groups to get their votes for the sole purpose of staying in power is more important than serving the citizens. Canada is unprepared for what’s ahead and worse, unconcerned. Canadians need to wake up, pay attention and start taking the affairs of their country seriously or risk losing it or watch it come apart at the seems. The status quo is not an option. Are Canadians ready, willing and able to answer the call? Doubtful.
A Canadian Prime Minister with a majority has more dictatorial powers than any American President. Everything President Trump is trying to do is being enjoined in the Courts by the Organized Resistance. No one in Canada will say Boo to the PM if he controls absolutely their political careers. Which he does.
Call me crazy, but “I will defend Canada… but only if my politics are the dominant ones”, seems like the opposite of patriotism.. downright transactional really.
Well, we are teaching our school children that Canada is a transphobic, genocidal, racist settler-colonial post-national state that should atone by giving all its territory to those who claim to be the descendants of those who were here when our ancestors arrived, and only let in immigrants who buy the story. Who would fight for a country that believes it should be governed and ruled by someone else other than those the people choose? Fight your own battles, I would tell that country.
Or is that stuff all virtue-signaling propaganda that no one believes now that we're being told to boo the U.S. national anthem at hockey games and be a unified "Asshole Nation" again, united in personhood?
Meanwhile the LPC is still planning to send our confiscated semi auto's to Ukraine. Instead of that, maybe we should have Colt Canada making Bren 3's on contract for the army and export while devolving our existing stock of C7's to the rangers. . I support a distributed capacity for violence, because the alternative is a highly centralized one. It never made sense to me that criminals and the government should be the only ones to be armed.
Sigh. This entire great article and it doesn’t mention once the actual problem Canadians have with guns, which is **urban violence**. It would be great to understand how Finland and Lithuania deal with that.
Very few people other than some fringe left-wing nuts would have a problem with a responsible citizenry going to the rifle range and being there to defend their country, Swiss-style. But many of us have very real concerns about what happens when there’s guns everywhere and they fall into the hands of people who shoot their rivals in the streets in Winnipeg or Scarborough.
How do they deal with this in those European countries? (I’m asking this semi-facetiously of course, I know what people will say, which is social cohesion and probably something about racial unity or something. Is that the reality in Canada? Therefore, can these policies just be templated here?)
Thank you for your well-considered comment Geoff. Crime and violence is actually my primary area of study and I have written about that elsewhere. Adding that to the article would have sadly made it rather too long, though there are a few places where I hint at the importance of the systems at play.
Social cohesion and social trust are important. Certain firearm controls - safety training, background checks and permitting, and so on (though demonstrably not bans) - can be beneficial. Smart social programming to address root causes of violence and divert individuals from crime as early as possible is also useful.
My father designed local high schools (Southwestern Ontario) to be built (in the 60s) with shooting ranges in their basements for all students to learn about and gain knowledge, training, and experience with firearms. (Universities also included shooting ranges and various kinds of gun clubs.) The repurposing of these facilities to other, more 'socially acceptable', purposes away from training, personal knowledge, and experience with firearms now comes face to face with reality: as this distance between civilian and first hand knowledge of firearms has widened (almost exclusively in urban areas) the result has been an incredible rise in urban gun violence. I'm not saying the former caused the latter; I'm saying urban gun violence was much lower when these facilities were in operation. To suggest, as Olynyk does, that there is supposedly a causal connection between such training and gun violence in urban areas (!) seems to me to be exactly wrong... not because I believe so but because reality grants us compelling contrary evidence to his thesis.
Not saying they do. But the public acceptance of repurposing shows a remarkable and negative change in public attitude about firearms over a fairly short period of time (these high schools also had greenhouses and a dedicated tilled field for increasing student knowledge, training, and experience about growing food... also now repurposed by those same folk who presumed to 'know better' while at the same time pushing today's functional illiteracy rates at graduation to their highest levels ever). This change shows that the pushed narrative that exposure to and knowledge of firearms magically translates into increased gun violence is not just fallacious but arguably has helped cause more of what it was attempting to reduce.
I agree, and your answer is that basically the "Expo 67" hippy generation came of age in Canada and changed the country to their image.
Heck, the modern Liberal party is a construct of that generation even. Look at who supported Pierre Trudeau and now who are the core of the Liberal Parry support today. The same people. Look at who are the most strident anti-Americans, the same who are the most stridently anti-gun.
What are the root causes of violence? Fatherlessness? in the sense that no kid in the neighbourhood has a father? Or systemic racism that we just have to do better at eradicating within ourselves and especially our neighbours?
Do you have evidence that social programming by well-intentioned white people, smart or otherwise, steers adolescent boys away from crime? What does this programming look like? Where is it working?
OK, outside the scope of your excellent article, which was about arming law-abiding citizens with weapons not popular with criminals enforcing the drug trade and making hip-hop videos. I just wouldn’t go from there into the field of urban crime. But what will Finland do when African gangs come to its cities as they have in Sweden? Will they be glad the native Finns are armed? Or will they regret having guns in houses available to be stolen?
Finland may be in a remote corner of Europe, but it has a well-educated citizenry that knows very well how the world is. They have harsh history with non-Finns and thus have never allowed themselves to be bamboozled by the multi-culti mirage.
Finland is rational, realistic and clear-eyed about the threats it faces. African and middle-eastern gangs, or any other gangs for that matter, have no chance there.
Surveys show Canadians are having fewer children, not because they don't want children, but because of the cost to house, feed, clothe and educate children is to high. This is the result of our low and declining gdp/person and rising costs caused by more than a decade of disincentives and bad policy.
Immigration policy during the period between 2020 and 2024 was ill-considered. Too much emphasis on bringing in workers to keep wages down (a big demand made by the country's business sector) and on foreign students who were made to pay exorbitant tuition fees (a big demand made by provincial higher-education authorities, universities and colleges, etc).
A whole-of-society failure that most of society recognized, in late 2023, was a mistake. We have changed tack, although more likely needs to be done.
As for social integration, show me a group whose children have not generally assimilated (quite successfully, in most cases).
We have destroyed social cohesion with mass immigration, and would have to turn to the alternative, effective law enforcement and harsh punishment of criminals. As will as remigration and closing the door to further unskilled migrants.
because its easier for a government to target good citizens in the name of safety, then roll up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty WORKING HARD on dealing with criminal gun violence. what they really want is the good PR, actually solving the problem is secondary.
90% of the guns used in crime in Toronto are smuggled from the US, according to Toronto Police. That is what drives us legal, licensed and (daily) background-checked gun owners nuts.
We have safe storage rules in Canada, but I'd be fine with stricter rules (e.g. mandatory gun safes, etc.) in return for the gov't to stop constantly changing the goalposts.
Re.: "Therefore, can these policies just be templated here?". The way I see it, not without major and very determined social and legal reconstruction. That is something the Liberals will fight tooth and nail.
What percent of the gun violence is the result of guns stolen from legal gun owners? I would guess it is extremely low (though I could find now stats since guns in crimes are not required to be traced). We know that the majority of the 7+ million firearms legally owned by Canadians are long guns, as would guns used for military training, I doubt you'd see gangs running around 3' in length. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2024001/article/00001-eng.htm
The big difference is that urban crime is mostly with handguns. Very few enemy soldiers are shot with handguns. Not very many in modern war (i.e., Great War 1914-1918 and later) are shot with rifles, either, for that matter. But almost no crimes are committed with rifles. They are too un-handy to conceal by stuffing into the waistband of a pair of pants that are already down around the wearer’s hips. They are also ill-suited for one-handed gangsta-style shooting.
But since you bring it up, social cohesion from homogeneity, or at least avoiding immigrants who gravitate to the dangerous classes, instead of encouraging them on diversity/humanitarian grounds, plays a role in making it all work.
This a thoughtful article. I see it as a litmus test of what Canadians actually believe. If they are serious about patriotism and protecting sovereignty, this idea will gain ground. If, as I suspect, all this booing the U.S. national anthem at hockey games is just jingoism ginned up to help the Liberal win a majority, then nothing will change. Canadians will go back to doing land acknowledgements and spending winters in Florida and feeling smug about health care and gun control. After all, what’s the point of feeling superior if you can’t go south and show off your moral superiority in person to the lesser breeds without the law? (Kipling)
The leap you make from "training civilians in marksmanship" in schools and other settings to "civilian gun ownership" is quite the leap.
This is the argument, in modified form, that the Americans make. No one who has been paying attention believes that their arguments about "an armed populace" hold water, given the dreadful level of gun violence there.
How do you justify this tack when there are examples around the world of countries that have no trouble defending their sovereignty yet maintain very tight controls on the civilian purchase and use of arms?
And let's not forget the ease with which American-made hand guns and other weapons flow over the border into Canada because of complicity on the part of US arms dealers.
Fair enough—I acknowledge your copious citation of examples in countries other than the United States. What I found unsettling was your decision not to weigh in on the question of private ownership by people not associated with state-mandated and managed paramilitary organizations that are integral to Canada’s defence.
You mean private ownership by the 2.3 MILLION [and counting] Canadians not associated...yadda.. I suggest that 'question' has been answered. We are not the problem and never have or will be.
I don't see private firearms ownership as a problem. Why should those associated with a government paramilitary be the only citizens with access to weapons of violence? We entrust people everyday with automobiles, pointy sharp things, heavy things, civilian drones and high fructose corn syrup. All of which kill more people every day than firearms.
I understand that firearms are designed to kill things. So what? I kill things all the time. I use firearms to defend my family and livestock regularly. I also use them to slaughter the animals that feed my family, friends and customers. If you choose to be vegan that's your deal. Sometimes killing things is what needs to be done. Automobiles on the other hand are not designed to kill, but still manage to kill many more things in Canada every year than firearms. If we are really concerned about killing and maiming people, maybe we should look at banning high fructose corn syrup?
".... the ease with which American-made hand guns and other weapons flow over the border into Canada because of complicity on the part of US arms dealers." That is a problem on Canadian side and is the result of a deeply substandard cheap Canadian border control.
American guns flowing into Canada is Canada‘s fault, then Mexican drugs flowing into the southern United States are America’s fault, not Mexico’s.
And yet they whine about Mexico not doing enough while insisting that a cultural approach to guns that leads the world in mass shootings in elementary schools is “freedom”.
Just saying…. It suggests there’s a a hard limit to how far we should listen to their “logic”.
Canadian border controls could not make up for the loose controls imposed on the sale and vetting of registrants in the United States, no matter how much money we spent to augment the security of our borders.
True, but we can't make the U.S. pass stricter gun laws just to make life easier for us. As far as they are concerned it would make life *more* difficult for American citizens, who are the ones who vote in U.S. elections. We live next door to a country where stuff is legal that we don't want coming in. Controlling the border against it is all on us.
I agree that maintaining credible border controls is important.
However, without a sea change in the United States (hopefully one that occurs before the ridiculous level of gun violence in that country become even more ridiculous), I do believe that no amount of money would enable us to keep out the sheer volume of guns that flood out of illicit gangs and disreputable gun dealers in that country.
You've just illustrated an important life lesson: If a problem has no solution then it's not a problem. It's just a fact of life. Just like I'm going to die some day is not a problem.
Just remember, though, that the American gun industry, legal or illegal, doesn't deliver. It's takeout, cash and carry. It's our loyal patriotic *Canadian* smugglers -- the good guys, the heroes in the war against Trumpism -- who go shopping in the United States for guns (which might be legal or illegal, depending on the state) and smuggling them home. It's not Yankee bastards doing the smuggling. It's not American gang-bangers with their "ridiculously" violent gun culture sneaking over the border with them. They let our guys take the risks. It's Canadians who know there is a market in Canada among Canadian criminals for guns to victimize Canadians..
Canada could pass laws requiring a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in jail with no parole for smuggling or possessing an unregistered handgun, in Canada. Hell, impose the death penalty if you like. (True, our judges would make it difficult or impossible to actually impose any kind of minimum penalty especially on "oppressed" defendants, but that's for us to deal with.) And we could search every Canadian car and truck returning to Canada. It's not on the Americans to do that for us.
Good counterpoint, and well-written. Thank you for that.
I would support the passage of a stiffer law to rein in gun smuggling. Having said that, I strongly disagree with the death penalty--we've long since made that choice and I think that Brian Mulroney's government was right to have abolished it.
WRT "searching every Canadian car and truck returning to Canada", I think that might be a difficult sell (the cost of doing so would be significant--I suspect it would greatly increase the staffing and budget required by CBSA).
For decades we've needed to up our game in terms of reducing the flow of guns from the U.S. But the best we can do is it slow it down. Short of searching every person, vehicle & shipment coming into the country by land, air or sea - which is completely impractical. And even if that could be implemented would create a host of other damaging consequences.
As long as so any U.S. states have lax controls on gun ownership IMO we're kind of screwed :-(
Excellent article. I agree with all of it. However, I must observe that Canada has a death wish, as evidenced by its political, economic and societal degeneration over the last generation or so. With the likely election of another Liberal government led by a very rich apocalypse monger, Canada's death wish will become much stronger.
Agree totally with what this author says, but this will never happen in Canada. We have an electoral system structurally guaranteed to favor ONE of our two leading political parties - you know, the Liberal one that wins most of our elections, and the one that has fatally weakened Canada in practically every way possible over the past decade. This is the party most responsible for underfunding our military so it can't procure the fighter jets, ships, submarines, tanks and other weaponry any modern military needs, as well as tarnishing our military's current reputation so it can't attract a fraction of the recruits it needs to fulfill even today's much reduced standards. All of our elections generally devolve into a fight between the interests of the highly populated Canada east and the less populated Canada west, and we all know how most of these turn out.
As far as allowing an armed citizenry - for instance, so farmers in remote areas can chase away animal predators that come after their animals or as the author says to provide a deterrent to crime or would-be invaders - well, perish the thought. The Liberals have a fetish regarding DISarming citizens while actual criminals have no trouble buying any guns they want from across the border.
The problem is the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal urbanites control the election outcomes, and they are the ones who stupidly believe legal guns ARE the problem. And they believe because that is the narrative the LPC spins.
I hope you’re not right however you are certainly providing a good description of the difficulties a rearmament of private citizens would face. The problem started with Trudeau Senior about 60 years ago and it will take time to resolve. I would submit that your use of the term “allowed” reflects the fundamental problem with the Canadian governing structure. Unlike the US where freedom is God-Given and the Constitution tells the Government what it can’t do, in Canada freedoms are granted by the Crown and whoever controls it. (“Charter” means granted permission). Whether Canada is ready to leave Mama (now Papa) and live on its own is the point. Maybe all the US born supposedly flocking to Canada’s borders will bring about a change of attitude ?
He’s a liberal, he would only twist it around to his own advantage. If you listen carefully we have an alternative to the liberals, a common sense Conservative government who actually has an elected leader and believes in the political process unlike the liberals whom of late been ruling by decree (IOC)
There are lots of gun-toting Liberals. Justin Trudeau, for example, used a 30-06 to protect youth volunteers on projects for Kitimavic in the Arctic. Carney comes from NWT. Has Poilievre ever actually fired a gun?
Not sure, but I know Michelle Rempel has. Does Poilievre need to fire a gun? I'd rather have an open-minded non-gun-firing guy as PM than someone who has used a gun up north yet thinks his fellow citizens should be disarmed.
If Trudeau was actually in the Arctic, he wouldn't have been issued a gun. Katimavik wasn't out wandering the tundra, they work in towns. Carney was a young child when his family left NWT for Edmonton. Poilievre? The Conservatives were never the party of gun confiscation and he won't change this.
My thoughts exactly. I was a typical vaguely gun-control positive liberal until about 2 months ago, but that's over. If we want to scare the US off, if we want to be even a tenth as tough as Ukraine has proven to be, we're going to need to reverse our aversion to a well-armed citizenry, pronto, and if that causes an uptick in gun crimes, so be it.
Terrific article and couldn’t have been better written. And it reflects the situation that existed pre Trudeau Senior. As of a few years ago more Canadians owned guns than played hockey.
To be blunt, the prospect of a lot of American boys dying to acquire resources will give any commander in chief pause for thought. In the case of Switzerland it certainly kept Hitler at bay in WWII. And it would stimulate the respect that Carney claims Canada needs. Perhaps as a side benefit it might even lead to mutual respect between Canada’s provinces.
Some adaptation will be necessary. As a conquered Nation for two centuries Quebec has a fear of firearms since the Redcoats kept their citizens suppressed with g firearms. This manifested itself in the conscription riots of WWI and WWII. Mark Carney’s approval of rabid gun confiscation proponent Natalie Provost as a Liberal candidate and the Ottawa gun control bureaucracy who are eager to have a cause for celebration that they haven’t had since the Nova Scotia massacre will not be too helpful.
And replacing the Canadian image of women raped and beaten or stabbed to death clutching a restraining order with a dead perpetrator will go a long way to restoring safety to the weaker members of Canadian society.
That is just so damn sensible that it couldn't possibly work in Canada.
Canada already has the backbone of the program they need: the Cadets. It’s a fantastic government-funded program for teens, although its funding and the scope of programs offered has been pared back in parallel with the Canadian Forces over the years. One of the skills taught is range, and it’s always popular with kids because target shooting is fun. When my Dad was a high school student in the ‘60s, just about everybody was involved in air, sea, or army cadets. Maybe expand it again as a mandatory course for high school, of course also creating some comparable service programs for people who don’t want their kids in a paramilitary organization (I’m thinking first aid, search and rescue, etc.)
Poilievre said he would expand cadets. Apparently (according to a Line reader), the program has been hugely underfunded of late. My kid went to cadets. It gave her an understanding of civics, teaching experience, and more. Great program.
It was underfunded as far back as the 1980s. We need to invest start from the bottom up.
She went in 2005ish
It is so underfunded, yet popular that there literally aren't enough uniforms for all the cadets.
Make the PAL a tax deduction for any Canadian citizen.
I think its about $250 today to get a restricted license.
Easy to make Canada hard to digest and we have a history of exceptional military performance. The Canadians win top gun and the sniper record is Canadian.
We should make it so any invader has to consider the cost of an insurgency of folks who are comfortable in the outdoors and can shoot.
Or maybe don’t make an already over complicated tax system even more complicated and inefficient.
The solution to death by a thousand cuts is not “oh but this 1001st paper cut will actually make you bleed less!”
Or how about allowing large PAL classes. Make it free, perhaps funded by advertiser's or even the government. More students per instructors means cheaper per student.
Also, stop supply managing the number of licensed PAL instructors.
Cadets is already growing by leaps and bounds. The problem of course is our government and the Ottawa culture cringe at it, therefore barely funding it.
Excellent article, and spot on reasoning, I’ve been a gun owner for over 50 years and hold both a non restricted and restricted licence, the way the liberal government has battered legal gun owners while at the same time practicing a catch and release system for criminals absolutely disgusts me. What Canada needs is a government that gets tough on crime increases sentencing for violent crime and builds prisons that don’t look like country clubs. Violent offenders have more rights than their victims, I feel if these people are going to terrorize our society their rights should be severely diminished. Stop listening to the bleeding hearts and take our cities back from the criminals.
Give us back our guns, we are the most vetted group in Canada but also the most persecuted for no other reason than political gain by a government that has perpetually lied and falsified statistics about legal gun owners
Complacency has lead Canada to apathy which has propelled us into mediocrity. Canada has ceased to be a serious country when it elected a drama teacher to the highest office. Now, catering to special interest groups to get their votes for the sole purpose of staying in power is more important than serving the citizens. Canada is unprepared for what’s ahead and worse, unconcerned. Canadians need to wake up, pay attention and start taking the affairs of their country seriously or risk losing it or watch it come apart at the seems. The status quo is not an option. Are Canadians ready, willing and able to answer the call? Doubtful.
True, we have been complacent. The dictatorship next door has been a wake up call and Mr Thurley's article makes some excellent points.
A Canadian Prime Minister with a majority has more dictatorial powers than any American President. Everything President Trump is trying to do is being enjoined in the Courts by the Organized Resistance. No one in Canada will say Boo to the PM if he controls absolutely their political careers. Which he does.
I could not agree more. If the current situation isn’t a wake up call to every Canadian, nothing ever will be.
Many many Canadians would be ready, willing and able to answer the call, but will not do so for THIS version of Canada.
Call me crazy, but “I will defend Canada… but only if my politics are the dominant ones”, seems like the opposite of patriotism.. downright transactional really.
Explain to me what is wrong with "this" version of Canada?
Well, we are teaching our school children that Canada is a transphobic, genocidal, racist settler-colonial post-national state that should atone by giving all its territory to those who claim to be the descendants of those who were here when our ancestors arrived, and only let in immigrants who buy the story. Who would fight for a country that believes it should be governed and ruled by someone else other than those the people choose? Fight your own battles, I would tell that country.
Or is that stuff all virtue-signaling propaganda that no one believes now that we're being told to boo the U.S. national anthem at hockey games and be a unified "Asshole Nation" again, united in personhood?
I agree completely, except I believe the decline started long before the former Prime Minstrel (not a typo) was elected in 2015.
Exacerbated tenfold since 2015
Meanwhile the LPC is still planning to send our confiscated semi auto's to Ukraine. Instead of that, maybe we should have Colt Canada making Bren 3's on contract for the army and export while devolving our existing stock of C7's to the rangers. . I support a distributed capacity for violence, because the alternative is a highly centralized one. It never made sense to me that criminals and the government should be the only ones to be armed.
Sigh. This entire great article and it doesn’t mention once the actual problem Canadians have with guns, which is **urban violence**. It would be great to understand how Finland and Lithuania deal with that.
Very few people other than some fringe left-wing nuts would have a problem with a responsible citizenry going to the rifle range and being there to defend their country, Swiss-style. But many of us have very real concerns about what happens when there’s guns everywhere and they fall into the hands of people who shoot their rivals in the streets in Winnipeg or Scarborough.
How do they deal with this in those European countries? (I’m asking this semi-facetiously of course, I know what people will say, which is social cohesion and probably something about racial unity or something. Is that the reality in Canada? Therefore, can these policies just be templated here?)
Thank you for your well-considered comment Geoff. Crime and violence is actually my primary area of study and I have written about that elsewhere. Adding that to the article would have sadly made it rather too long, though there are a few places where I hint at the importance of the systems at play.
Social cohesion and social trust are important. Certain firearm controls - safety training, background checks and permitting, and so on (though demonstrably not bans) - can be beneficial. Smart social programming to address root causes of violence and divert individuals from crime as early as possible is also useful.
My father designed local high schools (Southwestern Ontario) to be built (in the 60s) with shooting ranges in their basements for all students to learn about and gain knowledge, training, and experience with firearms. (Universities also included shooting ranges and various kinds of gun clubs.) The repurposing of these facilities to other, more 'socially acceptable', purposes away from training, personal knowledge, and experience with firearms now comes face to face with reality: as this distance between civilian and first hand knowledge of firearms has widened (almost exclusively in urban areas) the result has been an incredible rise in urban gun violence. I'm not saying the former caused the latter; I'm saying urban gun violence was much lower when these facilities were in operation. To suggest, as Olynyk does, that there is supposedly a causal connection between such training and gun violence in urban areas (!) seems to me to be exactly wrong... not because I believe so but because reality grants us compelling contrary evidence to his thesis.
Unfortunately those basement ranges do not meet current standards for lead contamination and air circulation.
Not saying they do. But the public acceptance of repurposing shows a remarkable and negative change in public attitude about firearms over a fairly short period of time (these high schools also had greenhouses and a dedicated tilled field for increasing student knowledge, training, and experience about growing food... also now repurposed by those same folk who presumed to 'know better' while at the same time pushing today's functional illiteracy rates at graduation to their highest levels ever). This change shows that the pushed narrative that exposure to and knowledge of firearms magically translates into increased gun violence is not just fallacious but arguably has helped cause more of what it was attempting to reduce.
I agree, and your answer is that basically the "Expo 67" hippy generation came of age in Canada and changed the country to their image.
Heck, the modern Liberal party is a construct of that generation even. Look at who supported Pierre Trudeau and now who are the core of the Liberal Parry support today. The same people. Look at who are the most strident anti-Americans, the same who are the most stridently anti-gun.
What are the root causes of violence? Fatherlessness? in the sense that no kid in the neighbourhood has a father? Or systemic racism that we just have to do better at eradicating within ourselves and especially our neighbours?
Do you have evidence that social programming by well-intentioned white people, smart or otherwise, steers adolescent boys away from crime? What does this programming look like? Where is it working?
OK, outside the scope of your excellent article, which was about arming law-abiding citizens with weapons not popular with criminals enforcing the drug trade and making hip-hop videos. I just wouldn’t go from there into the field of urban crime. But what will Finland do when African gangs come to its cities as they have in Sweden? Will they be glad the native Finns are armed? Or will they regret having guns in houses available to be stolen?
Finland may be in a remote corner of Europe, but it has a well-educated citizenry that knows very well how the world is. They have harsh history with non-Finns and thus have never allowed themselves to be bamboozled by the multi-culti mirage.
Finland is rational, realistic and clear-eyed about the threats it faces. African and middle-eastern gangs, or any other gangs for that matter, have no chance there.
No immigration equals a shrinking population (unless you have come with a way to boost birth rates that many other experts have not.
Surveys show Canadians are having fewer children, not because they don't want children, but because of the cost to house, feed, clothe and educate children is to high. This is the result of our low and declining gdp/person and rising costs caused by more than a decade of disincentives and bad policy.
Surely this is a global problem, and not one that is unique to Canada or solely attributable to the past decade of governance here?
How about a reasonable and sustainable level of immigration aimed at social integration? Beyond the pale, I know.
Immigration policy during the period between 2020 and 2024 was ill-considered. Too much emphasis on bringing in workers to keep wages down (a big demand made by the country's business sector) and on foreign students who were made to pay exorbitant tuition fees (a big demand made by provincial higher-education authorities, universities and colleges, etc).
A whole-of-society failure that most of society recognized, in late 2023, was a mistake. We have changed tack, although more likely needs to be done.
As for social integration, show me a group whose children have not generally assimilated (quite successfully, in most cases).
Thank you for that. My question was rhetorical but I’m glad you thought it was worth answering. 👍
Urban gun violence revolves mostly around hand guns, whereas the theme here is a citizenry armed with long guns.
We have destroyed social cohesion with mass immigration, and would have to turn to the alternative, effective law enforcement and harsh punishment of criminals. As will as remigration and closing the door to further unskilled migrants.
But we ought to do those things anyway.
Then why do our gun laws target civilian gun owners and not criminals?
because its easier for a government to target good citizens in the name of safety, then roll up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty WORKING HARD on dealing with criminal gun violence. what they really want is the good PR, actually solving the problem is secondary.
90% of the guns used in crime in Toronto are smuggled from the US, according to Toronto Police. That is what drives us legal, licensed and (daily) background-checked gun owners nuts.
We have safe storage rules in Canada, but I'd be fine with stricter rules (e.g. mandatory gun safes, etc.) in return for the gov't to stop constantly changing the goalposts.
Re.: "Therefore, can these policies just be templated here?". The way I see it, not without major and very determined social and legal reconstruction. That is something the Liberals will fight tooth and nail.
What percent of the gun violence is the result of guns stolen from legal gun owners? I would guess it is extremely low (though I could find now stats since guns in crimes are not required to be traced). We know that the majority of the 7+ million firearms legally owned by Canadians are long guns, as would guns used for military training, I doubt you'd see gangs running around 3' in length. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2024001/article/00001-eng.htm
The big difference is that urban crime is mostly with handguns. Very few enemy soldiers are shot with handguns. Not very many in modern war (i.e., Great War 1914-1918 and later) are shot with rifles, either, for that matter. But almost no crimes are committed with rifles. They are too un-handy to conceal by stuffing into the waistband of a pair of pants that are already down around the wearer’s hips. They are also ill-suited for one-handed gangsta-style shooting.
But since you bring it up, social cohesion from homogeneity, or at least avoiding immigrants who gravitate to the dangerous classes, instead of encouraging them on diversity/humanitarian grounds, plays a role in making it all work.
This a thoughtful article. I see it as a litmus test of what Canadians actually believe. If they are serious about patriotism and protecting sovereignty, this idea will gain ground. If, as I suspect, all this booing the U.S. national anthem at hockey games is just jingoism ginned up to help the Liberal win a majority, then nothing will change. Canadians will go back to doing land acknowledgements and spending winters in Florida and feeling smug about health care and gun control. After all, what’s the point of feeling superior if you can’t go south and show off your moral superiority in person to the lesser breeds without the law? (Kipling)
So much this.
QUOTE
An armed and trained citizenry
END QUOTE
The leap you make from "training civilians in marksmanship" in schools and other settings to "civilian gun ownership" is quite the leap.
This is the argument, in modified form, that the Americans make. No one who has been paying attention believes that their arguments about "an armed populace" hold water, given the dreadful level of gun violence there.
How do you justify this tack when there are examples around the world of countries that have no trouble defending their sovereignty yet maintain very tight controls on the civilian purchase and use of arms?
And let's not forget the ease with which American-made hand guns and other weapons flow over the border into Canada because of complicity on the part of US arms dealers.
The article is very clearly advocating a European model entirely compatible with Canadian licensing and controls, not the American model.
The linkage is described in multiple areas and much broader than what you are insinuating, but I am happy to elaborate on any portion.
Fair enough—I acknowledge your copious citation of examples in countries other than the United States. What I found unsettling was your decision not to weigh in on the question of private ownership by people not associated with state-mandated and managed paramilitary organizations that are integral to Canada’s defence.
You mean private ownership by the 2.3 MILLION [and counting] Canadians not associated...yadda.. I suggest that 'question' has been answered. We are not the problem and never have or will be.
I don't see private firearms ownership as a problem. Why should those associated with a government paramilitary be the only citizens with access to weapons of violence? We entrust people everyday with automobiles, pointy sharp things, heavy things, civilian drones and high fructose corn syrup. All of which kill more people every day than firearms.
Fire arms are designed to kill things, full stop.
Firearms are designed to shoot bullets , full stop.
A distinction without a difference.
Firearms wouldn't exist without the need to kill things.
I understand that firearms are designed to kill things. So what? I kill things all the time. I use firearms to defend my family and livestock regularly. I also use them to slaughter the animals that feed my family, friends and customers. If you choose to be vegan that's your deal. Sometimes killing things is what needs to be done. Automobiles on the other hand are not designed to kill, but still manage to kill many more things in Canada every year than firearms. If we are really concerned about killing and maiming people, maybe we should look at banning high fructose corn syrup?
".... the ease with which American-made hand guns and other weapons flow over the border into Canada because of complicity on the part of US arms dealers." That is a problem on Canadian side and is the result of a deeply substandard cheap Canadian border control.
Fair enough, but it goes both ways
American guns flowing into Canada is Canada‘s fault, then Mexican drugs flowing into the southern United States are America’s fault, not Mexico’s.
And yet they whine about Mexico not doing enough while insisting that a cultural approach to guns that leads the world in mass shootings in elementary schools is “freedom”.
Just saying…. It suggests there’s a a hard limit to how far we should listen to their “logic”.
Canadian border controls could not make up for the loose controls imposed on the sale and vetting of registrants in the United States, no matter how much money we spent to augment the security of our borders.
True, but we can't make the U.S. pass stricter gun laws just to make life easier for us. As far as they are concerned it would make life *more* difficult for American citizens, who are the ones who vote in U.S. elections. We live next door to a country where stuff is legal that we don't want coming in. Controlling the border against it is all on us.
I agree that maintaining credible border controls is important.
However, without a sea change in the United States (hopefully one that occurs before the ridiculous level of gun violence in that country become even more ridiculous), I do believe that no amount of money would enable us to keep out the sheer volume of guns that flood out of illicit gangs and disreputable gun dealers in that country.
You've just illustrated an important life lesson: If a problem has no solution then it's not a problem. It's just a fact of life. Just like I'm going to die some day is not a problem.
Just remember, though, that the American gun industry, legal or illegal, doesn't deliver. It's takeout, cash and carry. It's our loyal patriotic *Canadian* smugglers -- the good guys, the heroes in the war against Trumpism -- who go shopping in the United States for guns (which might be legal or illegal, depending on the state) and smuggling them home. It's not Yankee bastards doing the smuggling. It's not American gang-bangers with their "ridiculously" violent gun culture sneaking over the border with them. They let our guys take the risks. It's Canadians who know there is a market in Canada among Canadian criminals for guns to victimize Canadians..
Canada could pass laws requiring a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in jail with no parole for smuggling or possessing an unregistered handgun, in Canada. Hell, impose the death penalty if you like. (True, our judges would make it difficult or impossible to actually impose any kind of minimum penalty especially on "oppressed" defendants, but that's for us to deal with.) And we could search every Canadian car and truck returning to Canada. It's not on the Americans to do that for us.
Good counterpoint, and well-written. Thank you for that.
I would support the passage of a stiffer law to rein in gun smuggling. Having said that, I strongly disagree with the death penalty--we've long since made that choice and I think that Brian Mulroney's government was right to have abolished it.
WRT "searching every Canadian car and truck returning to Canada", I think that might be a difficult sell (the cost of doing so would be significant--I suspect it would greatly increase the staffing and budget required by CBSA).
For decades we've needed to up our game in terms of reducing the flow of guns from the U.S. But the best we can do is it slow it down. Short of searching every person, vehicle & shipment coming into the country by land, air or sea - which is completely impractical. And even if that could be implemented would create a host of other damaging consequences.
As long as so any U.S. states have lax controls on gun ownership IMO we're kind of screwed :-(
This s might be a really strong campaign issue for conservatives if carney is planning to move ahead foolishly with confiscation.
Excellent article. I agree with all of it. However, I must observe that Canada has a death wish, as evidenced by its political, economic and societal degeneration over the last generation or so. With the likely election of another Liberal government led by a very rich apocalypse monger, Canada's death wish will become much stronger.
Agree totally with what this author says, but this will never happen in Canada. We have an electoral system structurally guaranteed to favor ONE of our two leading political parties - you know, the Liberal one that wins most of our elections, and the one that has fatally weakened Canada in practically every way possible over the past decade. This is the party most responsible for underfunding our military so it can't procure the fighter jets, ships, submarines, tanks and other weaponry any modern military needs, as well as tarnishing our military's current reputation so it can't attract a fraction of the recruits it needs to fulfill even today's much reduced standards. All of our elections generally devolve into a fight between the interests of the highly populated Canada east and the less populated Canada west, and we all know how most of these turn out.
As far as allowing an armed citizenry - for instance, so farmers in remote areas can chase away animal predators that come after their animals or as the author says to provide a deterrent to crime or would-be invaders - well, perish the thought. The Liberals have a fetish regarding DISarming citizens while actual criminals have no trouble buying any guns they want from across the border.
The problem is the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal urbanites control the election outcomes, and they are the ones who stupidly believe legal guns ARE the problem. And they believe because that is the narrative the LPC spins.
I hope you’re not right however you are certainly providing a good description of the difficulties a rearmament of private citizens would face. The problem started with Trudeau Senior about 60 years ago and it will take time to resolve. I would submit that your use of the term “allowed” reflects the fundamental problem with the Canadian governing structure. Unlike the US where freedom is God-Given and the Constitution tells the Government what it can’t do, in Canada freedoms are granted by the Crown and whoever controls it. (“Charter” means granted permission). Whether Canada is ready to leave Mama (now Papa) and live on its own is the point. Maybe all the US born supposedly flocking to Canada’s borders will bring about a change of attitude ?
Sign me up. Makes perfect sense.
Can this be sent to Carney?
He’s a liberal, he would only twist it around to his own advantage. If you listen carefully we have an alternative to the liberals, a common sense Conservative government who actually has an elected leader and believes in the political process unlike the liberals whom of late been ruling by decree (IOC)
There are lots of gun-toting Liberals. Justin Trudeau, for example, used a 30-06 to protect youth volunteers on projects for Kitimavic in the Arctic. Carney comes from NWT. Has Poilievre ever actually fired a gun?
Not sure, but I know Michelle Rempel has. Does Poilievre need to fire a gun? I'd rather have an open-minded non-gun-firing guy as PM than someone who has used a gun up north yet thinks his fellow citizens should be disarmed.
If Trudeau was actually in the Arctic, he wouldn't have been issued a gun. Katimavik wasn't out wandering the tundra, they work in towns. Carney was a young child when his family left NWT for Edmonton. Poilievre? The Conservatives were never the party of gun confiscation and he won't change this.
Why does that matter, he realizes that legal and vetted gun owners are not the problem
My thoughts exactly. I was a typical vaguely gun-control positive liberal until about 2 months ago, but that's over. If we want to scare the US off, if we want to be even a tenth as tough as Ukraine has proven to be, we're going to need to reverse our aversion to a well-armed citizenry, pronto, and if that causes an uptick in gun crimes, so be it.
Oh you should still be gun control positive. The models being talked any are VERY much tied in with gun control.
You want RESPONSIBLE people owning rifles, not irresponsible people. What you don’t need is gun bans based on appearances.
One obvious thing… mental health or domestic violence calls to the authorities must mean surrendering your gun.
It won't ! 'Gun' crimes are committed by criminal assholes abetted by a criminally flawed 'justice' system.
Terrific article and couldn’t have been better written. And it reflects the situation that existed pre Trudeau Senior. As of a few years ago more Canadians owned guns than played hockey.
To be blunt, the prospect of a lot of American boys dying to acquire resources will give any commander in chief pause for thought. In the case of Switzerland it certainly kept Hitler at bay in WWII. And it would stimulate the respect that Carney claims Canada needs. Perhaps as a side benefit it might even lead to mutual respect between Canada’s provinces.
Some adaptation will be necessary. As a conquered Nation for two centuries Quebec has a fear of firearms since the Redcoats kept their citizens suppressed with g firearms. This manifested itself in the conscription riots of WWI and WWII. Mark Carney’s approval of rabid gun confiscation proponent Natalie Provost as a Liberal candidate and the Ottawa gun control bureaucracy who are eager to have a cause for celebration that they haven’t had since the Nova Scotia massacre will not be too helpful.
And replacing the Canadian image of women raped and beaten or stabbed to death clutching a restraining order with a dead perpetrator will go a long way to restoring safety to the weaker members of Canadian society.
Cue the hair pulling and gnashing of teeth from the left.