Another lose-lose situation on guns, the black hole of North American politics

With only a minority in Parliament and facing a once-in-a-century health crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is understandably cautious about confronting this third rail of Canadian politics.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair is pictured in Ottawa on Oct. 19, 2020. As a half-measure, Bill C-21 seems unlikely to please anyone. Gun control advocates see the unexpected voluntary nature of the buyback of assault-style rifles as a betrayal of Trudeau’s promises, and the move to allow municipalities to ban handguns is widely viewed as passing the buck to largely powerless cities, writes Les Whittington.The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY LES WHITTINGTON

February 24, 2021

OTTAWA—The scene was a Feb. 20 rally in Toronto in response to the apparently random fatal shooting last month of 20-year-old Hashim Omar Hashi. York South-Weston MP Ahmed Hussen, minister of families, children, and social development, took a turn at the podium at the event organized by Zero Gun V...

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