The provincial government has detailed its plan to fight Ottawa’s gun buyback program, describing the federal plan as an unconstitutional attack on the rights of Albertans.
Details of the policy, unveiled in an order paper Tuesday, assert that firearms ownership falls exclusively under provincial jurisdiction.
Simon Lafortune, a spokesperson for the federal government’s public safety ministry, said the opposite in a statement sent to CBC News Tuesday evening.
“The Supreme Court of Canada has been clear that the Parliament of Canada has the constitutional authority to legislate on firearms, including through the Firearms Act and related Criminal Code provisions,” he wrote.
The Alberta government’s new motion under the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act states that the Alberta Bill of Rights guarantees the right to acquire, keep and use firearms, as well as the right not to have property taken without “just compensation.”
The motion promises to “use all legal means necessary” to actively resist the federal initiative.
The motion is Alberta’s formal declaration against the federal government’s ban on hundreds of firearms, which includes a voluntary buyback program known as the Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program.
The motion is designed to allow Alberta to sidestep federal laws.
Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery spoke about the motion at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
“Turning previously legal firearms into prohibited ones does nothing to make our streets safer,” he said.
“It simply punishes those who have acted in good faith and who have proven that they know how to follow provincial and federal law.”
Under the proposed legislation, Alberta would take all reasonable steps to ensure that neither the provincial government, nor any “provincial entity” participates in the implementation or enforcement of the federal policy — something Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told her base at the United Conservative Party’s annual convention over the weekend.
“I’ve got a little tip for low-life criminals out there: if you don’t want to get shot, don’t break into someone’s house,” Smith said during her speech at the convention.
“It’s really that simple, isn’t it?”
It’s a sentiment Amery strongly echoed at Tuesday’s news conference, despite the wording in his motion not addressing defence of property.
“With this motion, we are unequivocally saying that our sympathies will lie with law-abiding Albertans,” he told reporters.
“One’s home is their castle. It is sacred … and in the worst-case scenario, Albertans should feel confident that they won’t be thrown in jail [for] defending themselves and their loved ones.”
The actual wording of the motion is as follows:
“The Attorney General has issued a directive to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service that prosecution for the use of reasonable force to defend oneself and others in one’s home will generally not be in the public interest.”
Shawn King with the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association told CBC News that he believes these assertions are dangerous.
He said the Criminal Code essentially states that “if you’re going to use force to repel force, the force needs to be reasonable and to a degree it also needs to be proportionate.”
Self-defence and the defence of property pretty much run the same, he said.
King said he believes the way the motion is written and what Amery and Smith are saying about it are currently two different things.
He said he is concerned that this may lead to crimes being committed with a false belief of protection from the law.
“Specifically, what I think the [motion] actually says for Alberta, is that if you need to protect yourself or protect somebody else, you have the right or the ability to use force to do so,” King said.
“It’s not, ‘You get to protect your property by shooting them.'”
The provincial government needs to be precise when it speaks about this issue, King said.
“Because politicians aren’t using the correct wording or using … the right wording, people will now think they’ve got the ability to do these things and they don’t.”
Gerard Kennedy, a University of Alberta law professor and constitutional law expert, told CBC News the Alberta government is well within its right to disagree with the constitutionality of actions taken by the federal government.
“There’s nothing untoward about that,” he said. “But the Alberta government may not overturn federal law. It can, however, decline to facilitate the enforcement of it.”
How would it work?
According to the order paper, Alberta’s proposed measures to oppose the federal firearms program include refusing to provide any resources to the federal government for enforcement or prosecution purposes.
Amery said his ministry has provided guidance to Crown lawyers on prosecuting property owners who are defending their property.
He said guidelines would make it absolutely clear that there is “no public interest” in prosecuting those individuals.
NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir echoed King’s sentiments and told reporters that he believes the guidelines could lead to confusion.
“Giving that kind of advice … to Albertans that they can somehow not comply with criminal law provisions and somehow the minister can issue guidelines and they would be not prosecuted, I think that’s very dangerous,” he said.
“[It’s] political theatre. This motion doesn’t mean anything. It’s not worth the piece of paper it’s written on.”
Kennedy said Amery is treading a fine line but hasn’t yet stepped over it.
“That’s not to say this is a wise course of action,” he said. “Generally speaking, prosecutors are independent, and that is for good reason.
“We want our prosecutors to act as officers of the court, independent of political interference. But the government can still tell the prosecutors who are, after all, its employees, what it thinks its priorities are.”
Under the proposed plan, Alberta would also direct Mike Ellis, the minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, to take any necessary steps to prevent any police force or contracted RCMP police force from assisting with or participating in the federal program.
Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree told reporters in Ottawa Tuesday that his government will continue to work with all provinces and jurisdictions to ensure the buyback program is being implemented.
“For any jurisdictions that are preventing the compensation program to move forward, they’re really hurting their own citizens,” he said.
“If they’re disallowing their citizens to attain that compensation, they’re really hurting their own people.”
The federal government has banned more than 2,500 makes and models of what it describes as assault-style firearms since May 2020. It developed a buyback program, which is voluntary, to compensate eligible businesses and individuals who own such weapons.
But there is an amnesty period on the weapons ban. If people and businesses don’t dispose or deactivate those weapons before Oct. 30, 2026, they risk being charged with illegal possession of a prohibited firearm.
