City council to lobby against federal gun ban

Cold Lake is wading into a federal issue

Cold Lake city council has voted to voice its opposition to the federal government’s decision to ban a number of firearms as well as the planned buy-back program.

The decision was made after a notice of motion was tabled by Councillor Kirk Soroka at city council’s June 9 meeting.

A resolution put forward in the notice of motion was debated and passed at council’s regular meeting this week to lobby the federal government to revoke their order in-council to ban over 1,000 models and variants of firearms.

“Council debated if this was an issue that we, as a municipality, wanted to wade into,” Mayor Craig Copeland said in a press release. “Ultimately, we felt that the federal government’s gun ban will be an expensive exercise that will only serve to take law abiding people’s property, while doing nothing to reduce crime.

“Municipalities are the level of government closest to the people, and a large part of our budget and operations is focused on providing safe and healthy communities.

“We see forecasts of hundreds of millions of federal dollars to be spent to buy guns back from people. As these are people who went through the necessary education, background checks, and licencing to purchase them, it seems to be a poorly thought out plan, especially if its aim is to reduce crime.”

Council noted that the money earmarked to purchase the legally obtained firearms could be better put to use funding crime reduction strategies, for economic stimulus, or emergency aid as part of the COVID-19 response.

“We have not seen the full impact that the COVID-19 economic shutdown will cause, our economy was already reeling from the challenges being experienced in the oil patch, and crime has increasingly been an issue for our residents throughout this region,” Copeland said.

“With very limited resources, we work closely with police and peace officers, the social services community, and public stakeholders on strategies to reduce crime and to protect our residents from the crime that does occur.

“The announcement of an expensive, far-reaching program targeted at law-abiding citizens in the name of crime reduction is something our council hopes other municipalities will voice opposition to.”

The City’s resolution will be sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Public Safety, Bill Blair, as well as the Attorney General’s Office, the Official Opposition, and provincial representatives.

Council’s motion also calls on administration to share the resolution with municipalities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba for their consideration.