Bill Blair may only be a second-term Liberal MP but make no mistake – Bill Blair is a career politician.
The Minister of Misinformation’s defence of his ban on so-called “military-style assault weapons” is just the latest ideological step in Blair’s long political career.
He became Chief of the Toronto Police Service on April 26, 2005. During his tenure as Toronto’s top cop he also served as the President of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), where he staunchly advocated to keep the failed “long gun registry.”
With his sights already set on representing the Liberal Party of Canada in the upcoming federal election, Bill Blair retired from the Toronto Police Service in May, 2015.
On October 19, 2015, Bill Blair won his seat in Scarborough Southwest.
He served as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice beginning January 28, 2017 and became the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction on July 17, 2019.
Bill Blair’s political prowess blossomed in this position. His performance at the many in-person round-table discussions held during his national dog-and-pony show, labeled an “engagement process” by Public Safety Canada, accomplished its intended mission – to lull Canada’s law-abiding the firearms community into a false sense of security.
In the wake Order in Council SOR/2020-96, a lot of gun owners are angry the government is not abiding by the results of the publication Bill Blair issued after his dog-and-pony show ended: Engagement Summary Report – Reducing Violent Crime: A Dialogue on Handguns and Assault-Style Firearms.
They shouldn’t be.
Bill Blair’s report was never intended to be a recommendation to government – something he spelled out directly in the second paragraph of the Executive Summary.
The goal of this report is to accurately represent “what we heard” on this issue.
Bill Blair’s engagement process was a propaganda mission with a single goal – to give gun owners the impression both he and the Liberal government would listen to us.
The entire report – all 34 pages – was designed to sell that fraud. It succeeded.
We all fell for it.
Yes, me included. I remember my reaction to Bill Blair’s Engagement Summary Report.
“Wow, that’s not so bad. I thought it would be far worse.”
Most of the gun owners I know, including members of the boards of directors of our national advocacy groups, said the same thing.
We fell for the lie, all because we overlooked a single sentence at the start of Blair’s report.
The goal of this report is to accurately represent “what we heard” on this issue.
We’ve known for generations the only thing Liberals hate more than guns are the people who own them. We, as a community, haven’t learned our lesson about Liberal governments in over 50 years.
Seriously, how stupid are we?
- In 1969, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau gave us the firearm classification system, creating Non-Restricted, Restricted and Prohibited classes of firearms.
- In 1977, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau gave us the Firearm Acquisition Certificate system, created the position of Chief Firearms Officer in the provinces and Prohibited all automatic firearms.
- In 1995, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien gave us Bill C-68, which replaced Trudeau the Elder’s FAC system with a new Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL), reclassified as Prohibited firearms all handguns with barrels less than 105 mm in length, reclassified as Prohibited all .25 and .32-calibre handguns and implemented universal registration of all firearms.
- In 2015, Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau promised to crack down on owners of handguns and “military-style assault weapons.”
- In 2020, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prohibited, effective May 1st, 1,500 makes and models of “military-style assault weapons” and any rifle or shotgun that so much as looked like an AR-15.
On March 20, 2019, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern banned all military-style semi-automatic guns and assault rifles after a deranged racist murdered 50 people in Christchurch.
With that single act, Ardern stole the “Progressive” crown that, from October 2015 until then, belonged solely to Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Bill Blair’s Order in Council was inevitable. His misdirection on behalf of his boss was masterful.
While the only surprising thing may be why our Liberal government took so long to do it, Trudeau has Bill Blair, Minister of Misinformation, to thank for making this ban by Order in Council so easy.
There was no misdirection. I don’t think any of us thought that the results of the engagement would deter the Lieberals’ socialist re-engineering of Canada. But it is still great ammunition to use against them. Unfortunately there are still gun owners who think that this fight can be won in Parliament, or in the Courts. The system is set up to prevent us from winning by playing by their rules. Playing by the British government rules did not work for the colonists in the 1770s and it won’t work here and now either. The US Founding Fathers knew how to get the job done. When will we learn?
You need to check your facts. The FAC came about along with the gun registry brought in by Chretien’s government. Pierre Trudeau had nothing to do with that. Indeed, the gun grab is stupid and undemocratic and Blair is even worse than you wrote. That aside, your reporting is sloppy.
Fred, My reporting is solid, as are the facts.
If you check the timeline of Canada’s gun control legislation, you will see Jean Cretien gave us the PAL system in 1995, not the FAC system.
The FAC system was passed into law in 1977 and came into force in 1979.
Either you are confusing the two systems, or you’re mistakenly taking out your anger at Bill Blair on me.
Either way, have a wonderful rest of your day.
Bill Blair cannot be minister of organized crime reduction the liberal party is organized crime I say let’s reduce organized crime next election
Alan, I wish we’d reduced organized crime in the LAST election. 🙂
Replying to my own comment. Sorry for the admonition. The FAC was in for only a short time and then switched to the PAL (which is essentially the same) or the POL (possession only) certificate. This changed later under the Conservatives back to only a PAL which is essentially what the old FAC was. Time to scrap it all and start over with something reasonable. A PAL should be for life so a lapse of memory doesn’t turn an honest citizen into a criminal if for some reason they forget to renew. Secondly, all legislation must be based on facts on not emotion. Something that Liberals aren’t capable of doing.
what is the point, just more gun guys complaining to other gun guys, that will do nothing, if you are not prepared to actually defend your rights you will not have those rights
Exactly! Complaining among ourselves accomplishes nothing.
The rest of Canada needs us to educate them on how regulated and safe gun owners are.
That regulating legal ownership will not impact illegal and criminal activity.
So they see that the liberals are pulling the wool over their eyes.
There is still much confusion over the FAC/PAL today. There is a huge difference between the two.
The Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) used to be issued after applying to the nearest RCMP for a background check and allowed you to buy a gun. If you never wanted to buy another gun you could let the certificate lapse and it didn’t matter.
In the 80s at the age of 14(? maybe 16. Hmm) I applied for my FAC and bought my first shotgun. I would strap it on my back and bike through the neighborhood to the woods to go rabbit hunting. I stored it in our cellar. That gun never killed anyone in the 30 years I owned it.
By the time I wanted to buy another gun, the rules had changed and proof of safety training was required before I could be issued another FAC. At that point I could still possess those guns without government paperwork.
When bill C-68 became law in 1995 it effectively made gun possession in Canada illegal. This is the part most Canadians don’t understand.
To keep the firearms you owned you could apply for a Possession Only License (POL). The description at the time was that this would be good forever but I believe even the POL had to be renewed every 5 years if you wanted to keep your property. The Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) was similar to the POL except you had to take a safety course and it allowed you to buy and possess more guns. These two different licenses were indeed merged into a single one by a Conservative government. It’s unfortunate that government didn’t make a better effort of rewriting the gun law regime to remove the Order In Council gun ban provisions and return to the FAC so possessing your own property wasn’t illegal.
There are people still today that don’t realize they need government paperwork to hold onto grandpa’s old shotgun or rifle and risk prison because of it.
The way UNEDUCATED people look at firearms possession is:
If you are an honest, licensed firearms owner, you are a criminal and should be in jail.
If you are a criminal with an unlicensed firearm, you are INNOCENT until proven guilty and will be released on bail.