Gun Control Groups Urge Carney to Implement Firearms License Revocation for Protection Orders
A coalition of women’s rights organizations and gun control advocates is pressing Prime Minister Mark Carney to move swiftly on implementing a key provision of firearms legislation passed 30 months ago that would strip firearms licenses from individuals subject to protection orders.
What the Provision Does
The measure, part of a firearms law passed in December 2023, makes any person subject to a protection order — a legal order frequently issued in cases of intimate partner violence — ineligible to hold a firearms license while the order remains in effect. The goal is to quickly remove firearms from individuals at the moments when they are considered most dangerous.
Coalition Demands Broader Definition
Several organizations issued a joint media statement calling on the Liberal government to enact the measure “without further delay” and to adopt regulations that define “protection orders” broadly. The groups include the National Association of Women and the Law, PolySeSouvient, Danforth Families for Safe Communities, Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns, the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, and the Quebec Mosque.
In an analysis supported by the other organizations, the National Association of Women and the Law argued that Parliament had deliberately adopted a broad definition of “protection order” in the legislation to ensure that any binding civil or criminal order designed to protect a person’s safety would trigger automatic license revocation.
Concerns Over a Narrower Approach
However, the coalition says the government is now proposing a narrower regulatory approach that would exclude certain criminal protection orders, such as bail orders and probation orders. The analysis warns that this creates what it calls an “arbitrary and dangerous distinction.”
“A survivor who has received a peace bond despite no charges being filed will be protected by the automatic license revocation, while a survivor whose perpetrator has been charged and released on bail with similar no-contact conditions may not be protected,” the analysis states.
Suzanne Zaccour, legal director of the National Association of Women and the Law, emphasized the inconsistency in the statement. “It makes no sense that some survivors would receive protection but others would not, not because of the level of danger they face, but because of procedural issues,” she said. “Violence does not become less deadly because it is dealt with at a different level of the legal system.”
Government Timeline
Public Safety Canada completed a public consultation on the proposed regulations in early March. Public Security Minister Gary Anandasangaree said in a recent interview that the government had invested “quite a lot of work” into the regulatory process and expressed hope of having the regulations finalized by the end of September.
