Do municipalities actually want the power to ban handguns?

iPolitics.ca
March 6, 2020
Victoria Gibson

Late in September 2019, federal Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau stepped up to a podium inside a Toronto hotel to pledge that, if re-elected, his government would introduce new measures for gun control.

Specifically, the incumbent prime minister promised, the federal Liberals would work with the provinces and territories in order to enable individual municipalities to restrict handguns within their borders -- a revelation that prompted questioning from the press on the campaign trail.

The vast majority of handguns used in crimes in Toronto came from outside the city, one reporter noted, including the weapon that had killed 18-year-old Reese Fallon and 10-year-old Julianna Kozis in the 2018 Danforth Avenue shooting. Why, then, wasn’t Trudeau willing to implement a country-wide ban?

Trudeau, appearing unfazed, insisted that his proposed approach would work.

And what if the provinces didn’t play ball? A reporter pointed out that Doug Ford’s Ontario government had opposed the idea of handgun bans. “We need to listen to municipal leaders like John Tory, Valerie Plante and others who’ve been very clear that they need to keep their citizens safe by further limiting handguns in their cities,” Trudeau said. He claimed, as well, that “many, many Canadians” were asking for such a prohibition.

But beyond the mayors of Toronto and Montreal, a particular question lingered: just how many local leaders actually want the ability that Trudeau has promised to deliver? Since the turn of the new year, iPolitics has touched base with dozens of mayors -- the leaders of major cities across the country, and a wide swath of Ontario municipalities with populations of at least 50,000 -- to discuss the federal Liberals’ flagship campaign pledge.

Their responses reveal a level of distrust in the plan’s effectiveness, as well as frustration and concerns with the gun control file being passed down to the most local level. Though some mayors who spoke to iPolitics enthusiastically backed Trudeau’s plan, some are still pushing for a national or provincial ban instead. And many say they either haven’t discussed the issue at all or firmly believe that bans aren’t the answer.

Overall, iPolitics found full-throated support for the Liberals’ marquee campaign promise was scarce.

Signs emerged before the campaign had finished that the Grits’ pledge wasn’t sitting perfectly with local politicians -- particularly in the Greater Toronto Area. In October, 11 days after Trudeau’s initial announcement, the Liberal leader met with the mayors of Mississauga, Markham, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Whitby, Newmarket and Aurora, as well as a Brampton regional councillor.

After the meeting, Trudeau again took to a podium to laud his party’s pitch about increased gun control. A reporter asked the politicians assembled behind him to raise their hands if they’d prefer a national handgun ban -- prompting every hand to raise, and Trudeau to concede he’d heard their message “clearly” behind closed doors.

Among them was Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, who recently explained some of her thinking on the issue to iPolitics. Crombie said she’d welcome stricter gun control measures, including a ban on handguns -- but believes that Ottawa is in the best position to effectively enforce those kinds of crackdowns.

“Cities have never been responsible for gun control, and while I appreciate the government’s intent is to empower cities to take action and develop unique solutions, a handgun ban at this level will be difficult to enforce and very costly,” Crombie said. “Guns and gangs don’t respect postal codes. If one municipality enacts a ban but not the neighbouring cities, this poses an enforcement problem.”

The idea that gun control should remain an issue for higher levels of government is far from Crombie’s alone. Brian Bowman, the mayor of Winnipeg, reiterated his own support for a national ban after a sit-down meeting with Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in January. Bowman told reporters outside the meeting that federal action, or even provincial action, was best in his view if the issue was to be pursued at all.

Add Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson and Newmarket’s John Taylor to that list, too. Paterson told iPolitics he believes it makes more sense for firearm legislation to be federal. Taylor said he would “strongly support” a handgun ban, but specified that he’d like the effort to take place at the provincial or, ideally, the federal level.

“Gun crimes are increasing, and while I recognize that a handgun ban will not fully solve the problem I believe it will improve a negative trend line. I do not want to wait until we have U.S.-style gun challenges -- I want us as a society to act now,” Taylor told iPolitics. But he just doesn’t see that being municipalities’ responsibility. “This is a clear example of a government downloading a politically sensitive issue. It is clear from a policy perspective that a handgun ban in one municipality will have minimal impact if neighbouring municipalities do not also ban handguns.”

The province of Ontario has not been enthusiastic about the federal promise. Premier Doug Ford has stated that handgun bans are, in his view, “not the solution” to culling criminal firearm activity. At a recent federal-provincial-territorial meeting in B.C., Ontario Solicitor-General Sylvia Jones says she urged Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to focus, instead, on the majority of seized firearms that flow in across the Canada-U.S. border. And there appears to be a hurdle in discussing the matter. After a regional meeting of GTA leaders in January, focused on gun and gang violence, Tory told reporters that the question of handgun bans had been raised, but only briefly. The conversation, he said, quickly began to veer down an unwanted road. “We didn’t give in to discussing it,” he said.

It’s not yet clear what Trudeau plans to do if provinces stand in the way of his platform pitch. In a December interview with the Canadian Press, he acknowledged that trying to act without their approval could incite disagreements -- at a time when the feds are making a concerted push for more unity, doubtlessly sparked by election losses that swept across the entirety of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

That the policy is a sticking point between levels of government has caused some mayors to become skeptical. Belleville, Ont.’s, Mitch Panciuk, for example, told iPolitics that he backs handgun bans as a “general policy,” throwing his support behind “anything we can do to take weapons off the street.” But Panciuk also admitted to having some doubts around whether the federal Liberals would actually be able to hand municipalities that choice.

“I’m not confident we’ll actually have those powers,” Panciuk said.

Discontent with the municipal ban pledge is not universal. Some mayors are pushing hard for the promised ability. Last summer, Tory relinquished his push for a national ban, telling CBC Radio’s The House in August that he would be happy if the feds simply implemented a ban within Toronto’s boundaries. His remarks came shortly after a particularly violent summer long weekend, wherein 17 people in the city were shot.

Toronto has been hammered by escalating gun violence in recent years. City police data shows 492 shootings last year; 44 people were killed by gunshot in the city and another 246 people were injured. In 2018, a record year for homicides in Toronto, 51 people died of firearm injuries. As these tallies have risen, Tory has publicly appealed to the feds for action and assistance.

The Toronto mayor isn’t alone. Vaughan, Ont., mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua also backs the federal pledge to give municipalities banning power over handguns. “These are difficult and challenging issues, which is precisely why coordination and collaboration among all community stakeholders is key,” Bevilacqua told iPolitics.

So, too, does Hamilton’s Fred Eisenberger. Michelle Shantz, a spokesperson for the mayor, said Eisenberger “does not see any reason for handguns to be on the urban streets of the City of Hamilton.” Out in Vancouver, Mayor Kennedy Stewart appears on side as well; Global News reported in September that Stewart had pledged to implement a local ban of his own “right away,” in response to Trudeau’s campaign announcement.

Some municipal leaders who haven’t explicitly voiced support for local firearm prohibitions at least appear warm to the concept of making such decisions themselves. Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward told iPolitics that her local council had yet to take a formal position on handgun bans, but said she endorsed the idea of municipalities charting their own best courses of action.

Still, the distribution of support-versus-opposition is causing some local leaders concern. Several mayors fear a scenario where patchwork bans allow those intent on purchasing handguns to simply do so in a neighbouring municipality. Even in Montreal -- a jurisdiction Trudeau pointed to during his announcement, where city council unanimously called for federal action -- the opposition party has publicly taken issue with the federal Liberals’ plan.

“How would you control what weapons are brought into or out of Montreal’s territory? What’s stopping people from buying them in neighbouring municipalities?” Ensemble Montreal Leader Lionel Perez said, per the Montreal Gazette.

Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, in an email, insisted that the only “workable” law would be either provincial or federal. “The federal government is firing blanks on this idea,” he claimed. Kevin Davis, the mayor of Brantford, also dismissed the idea of cities banning handguns in isolation. “The answer would be unequivocally no, I’m not interested,” Davis said. “I don’t think handing this decision to municipalities, to create a patchwork of handgun bans across the country, would serve any useful purpose, other than the federal government avoiding the controversial issue themselves.”

Danny Breen, the mayor of St. John’s, N.L., warned that bordering municipalities enacting different sets of rules could lead to confusion. His city is policed by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, a force that falls under the provincial government’s portfolio. With the caveat that he doesn’t have “an issue” with handgun bans, Breen pointed out that municipalities often have limited financial resources, and a new ban to implement and enforce may cause strain.

“When it comes to something like handguns, I think that should be a federal regulation and a federal directive,” Breen said in a phone call with iPolitics. “I’ve always felt, on issues like that, that it’s better to have one law that applies rather than having a piecemeal approach spread across the country.”

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati was surprised by the extent to which the Liberals were willing to, in his words, decentralize authority on the issue. In an interview with iPolitics, Diodati reckoned with how Niagara Falls would enforce a local ban given the resources at the city’s disposal -- concluding that they’d come “not even close.”

“We can barely keep up with tall grass complaints! Or barking dog or noise complaints, you know, abandoned car violations, things of this nature,” Diodati said, adding that Niagara Falls didn’t have the background, expertise or staff to enforce a local handgun ban: “I can’t even imagine us getting into policing anything to do with this.”

Diodati argued that municipalities like his or Breen’s -- cities that lack a standalone police force -- are more of a rule than an exception across the country. “I don’t understand the logic of why you would ask independent municipalities -- thousands of them -- to set their own rules on gun control. We’re a little bit bigger city, we’re around 100,000, but there’s a lot of small towns that I’m sure they don’t have the resources to even know how to figure out what’s probably best for their community,” Diodati told iPolitics.

“I’m just curious to know where this came from, you know? What the genesis of this idea was.”

Between the leaders with hard opinions for or against local handgun bans is a group who are largely steering clear of the divisive debate. Among them is Jim Watson, Mayor of Ottawa, who said in February that he was awaiting an opinion from his chief of police and wasn’t sure whether his personal thoughts on the matter were helpful.

“On the surface, it seems like, you know, ‘let’s ban handguns’ would be a good idea. But it’s more complicated than that,” Watson told iPolitics. “And that’s why I think it’s important for me before I make a decision -- because we will be asked to do that when the federal government’s legislation is passed -- that we get professional advice.”

Spokespeople for the mayors of Sudbury, Waterloo and Halifax also cited a need for police consultation before offering an official take on the pledge. The mayors of Ajax, Chatham-Kent and Barrie declined to comment. A spokesperson for London mayor Ed Holder said in an email that the issue had yet to be discussed at a political level: “It’s a complex issue, to be fair, and we’d need to have a better understanding of the framework, along with local input, before determining a best course.”

Don Iveson, mayor of Edmonton, told iPolitics in February that his council hadn’t discussed the question of local handgun bans just yet, either. He spoke favourably about the federal government trusting local decision-making, calling it the “best part” of the proposal. “What I really appreciate is the opportunity for each city to make that decision on their own, in consultation with their police forces and understanding the issue,” Iveson said.

But what of his own view? “I’d have to study it further,” Iveson noted.

Hours south from Iveson’s city is that of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who told reporters in September that he was in favour of measures that kept his community safe, but that he’d still have to look at the specifics of the proposal, which are not yet publicly clear. Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster, too, said his municipality hadn’t discussed local handgun bans or whether they’d support one. He offered his own view to iPolitics in January, in the interim. “I would suggest that checkerboard approaches like this are, at best, misguided and at worst, pointless,” he wrote in an email.

While the Liberals maintain that a central takeaway from their cross-country consultations on gun control -- conducted in Trudeau’s first term as prime minister -- was a need to treat law-abiding gun owners “fairly,” concerns about that particular population also bubbled up in local mayors’ comments to iPolitics over the last two months.

“If the same amount of money is being spent on how to figure out the banning, I’d rather see that go into capturing illegal criminals, and confiscating illegal guns from them, and not coming down hard on law-abiding citizens that rightly own their guns and are not of any concern to anybody,” Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie said, pointing to the proliferation of later-seized guns smuggled across the Canada-U.S. border.

Guthrie -- who, along with holding his mayoral seat, serves as chair of the Large Urban Mayors Caucus of Ontario -- said that while municipalities typically like having autonomy to make locally focused decisions, he believes that it’s up to the federal government to handle more sweeping issues like gun control. A series of local bans would be fragmented, he argued, and difficult to control. He didn’t believe it would actually take weapons out of the hands of criminals.

Norfolk County Mayor Kristal Chopp agreed, claiming that restricted firearms acquisition licenses were already “harder to get than a passport.” “Unfortunately, criminals don’t follow any of these rules anyway, so adding more rules for them NOT to follow won’t help anything,” Chopp wrote in an email. Peterborough Mayor Dianne Therrien made a similar case about local bans. “People who get guns illegally will continue to try to do so,” Therrien said.

Out in Regina, Mayor Michael Fougere pointed to historic -- and in his view, prevailing -- resistance to federal gun control measures from western Canadians. “Even if we had the authority to do this, we would not be instituting this,” Fougere confirmed in a phone interview. “I’m not really certain why the strategy is to have municipalities make this decision. It diffuses a bit of the discussion on the national government making a decision. This is not really helpful, I don’t think, and I wonder about the role of the provinces in this as well.”

“I just think it’s not the most helpful way to have a policy on gun control,” he added.

So why did Team Trudeau decide to campaign on this promise?

Many mayors say they don’t know. Davis, the mayor of Brantford, presented warring perspectives, noting that a skeptic might say that Trudeau was engaging in political posturing. A more generous read, he said, was that the prime minister heard loud calls from a small group of mayors and offered a response: “to hand those mayors that want the power the power to do it,” Davis said.
The new pitches around gun control didn’t come out of nowhere. Following Trudeau and his team’s country-wide consultation process on handgun and assault weapon bans, sparked by calls for action from Toronto and Montreal, the Liberals’ 2019 platform was compiled under the watch of National Platform Committee co-chairs Mona Fortier and Ralph Goodale. Goodale lost his seat in the fall election; Fortier’s team declined interview requests for this story, providing written answers to iPolitics’ questions instead.

“After meeting with mayors and municipal councils, and many other community leaders in different fields, we heard different perspectives of the issue on a local level,” Fortier wrote, in response to a question about the genesis of the local ban proposal. Fortier listed factors like population, city size and differing rates of gun violence as variables at play, which affected the Liberals’ decision about the platform. They couldn’t see a “one size fits all” model that would work.

Fortier evaded a specific answer to a question about which cities issued the strongest calls for local banning abilities. “We heard from mayors and councillors to advocates to the families of victims of gun violence,” Fortier replied. “Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that many Canadians know someone or of someone who has suffered from gun violence at some point in their lifetime. This is not an isolated issue.”

To questions about the mayors’ concerns, from the creation of a patchwork system to the adequacy of municipal resources for implementation and enforcement, Fortier offered a simple assurance that she and Goodale had assessed “all the elements at play during platform creation,” and that they were working with local representatives. “We’re working with city councils and are in constant communication with the people on the ground to ensure that they can move forward in an orderly manner within their own individual frameworks,” the minister said.

Where Fortier did get specific was in pointing to the three decades that had elapsed since a shooting at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, wherein 14 women were murdered. “If we look at the past 30 years since then, we will see very little action taken to address the issue of gun violence. We knew this needed to change,” she said.

She offered little detail on the path ahead, aside from saying they were working with municipalities, and didn’t plan to stop anytime soon. “That’s something that we will continue to do as this process unfolds,” Fortier pledged.

For now, municipalities await further details about the federal Liberals’ pitch. It’s yet unclear when the platform promise will be brought forward for a rollout. At a cabinet retreat in Winnipeg in January, Blair told reporters inquiring about the gun control timeline that a different piece of the Liberals’ overall plan -- the prohibition of assault-style rifles -- was something the government felt they could do “in the near term.”

Communities require different measures to ensure their safety, Blair added, noting that municipalities may vary on, for example, their capacity to store handguns at a local range. “We’ve heard from many mayors that want the opportunity to bring additional restrictions,” Blair told reporters. “One of the things we want to ensure is we take all effective measures possible to keep guns out of the hands of people that would commit crimes with them.”

Breen, the mayor of St. John’s, expressed a similar motivation and identified the handgun discussion as a “major issue” in the current climate. “But I think it needs to be done right,” he cautioned, “if it’s going to be effective.”