Honourable senators, a former adviser to President Obama, David Plouffe, pulled back the curtain on how politicians sometimes play politics. He called it the “stray voltage” effect. He explained:

“People pay attention to and engage with controversy.” So . . . as a politician, you commit to a side . . . regardless of whether you’ve ever thought about it — then you support or oppose vehemently!

That is exactly what has become of gun control legislation, Bill C-21. Those who live a more rural life, love to hunt or sport shoot and those who live in urban centres where crime is high — two very different world views.

As Robert Freberg, Chief Firearms Officer of Saskatchewan, says, the bill will essentially criminalize thousands of Canadians despite the fact that it is the legal firearms owners that support training, licensing and registration, despite all of the things they have done to stay in compliance and promote education programs and despite following the “see something, say something” principle. The legal gun owners are now the ones being targeted by legislation.

The government wants to take away firearms from the people who have been advocating for licensing of firearms but are now having their property expropriated.

The way the government proceeded on this bill — and this was on several occasions — prevented an informed parliamentary debate or proper committee hearings with a full range of witnesses. Instead, they used cabinet orders to regulate “. . . the circumstances in which an individual does or does not need firearms.” All the more reason for this bill to be well studied by the Senate. We need evidence and facts, not just opinion and politics.

As if to further alienate rural voters everywhere, the Liberals are actually reducing the punishment for crimes committed using guns. With the passage of Bill C-5, the government has repealed one third of all mandatory minimum prison sentences, including for some 14 firearms and tobacco and drug-related offences.

Here is the issue in a nutshell: If you want to stop illegal gun crime, you need to crack down on gangs and gun smugglers, not on hunters and farmers.

When we are told about increasing penalties for smugglers from 10 to 14 years, it sounds great. But today, right now, no one has ever been given the maximum penalty of even 10 years, so 14 years makes no difference. Senator Plett suggested the other day that perhaps there was one such case, but we’re not sure.

Legislation and governments must turn their attention to the people who are constantly in and out of the system, who have firearms prohibitions against them but too often get cut loose in a few hours after an arrest. Chances are the bad guys have more firearms — or access to them — and they just go get more and often end up retaliating against the people involved in their arrest or conviction.

Since 2015, the “soft-on-crime” approach has seen violent crime increase 32%, with 124,000 more violent crime incidents in 2021 compared to 2015, and gang-related homicides have increased 92%.

As we all know, crime is about people who commit the crime. Confiscating guns or knives — knives are now actually responsible for an increasing number of deaths — will not prevent this. A tire iron, a kitchen knife or a fist can kill if that’s the intent.

Government also disingenuously uses the endless horrific and deadly gun-related events south of the border to trigger the gun control debate here — a Uvalde or a Buffalo — but we’re operating in two completely different environments.

Bill C-21 does not meaningfully address the root causes of gun violence: illegal smuggling, gang violence, illegal drug trade and drug addiction. We need to focus on rehabilitation, not red tape.