REGINA – As has been expected this session, the Sask Party government has introduced changes to The Saskatchewan Firearms Act.
The amendments were introduced Tuesday in the Legislature by Minister of Public Safety Tim McLeod. He explained to reporters the purpose behind the legislation.
McLeod said the first is to make sure, in the case that the federal government brings in their buyback plan, that the “government of Canada be responsible for appropriately compensating firearms owners, lawful firearms owners, whose property has now been devalued, effectively, because of the plan they’ve implemented.”
The second purpose is more administrative in nature, said McLeod, giving the Firearms Commissioner more powers for such things as inspecting firearms ranges and the like.
Saskatchewan Firearms commissioner Robert Freberg provided further details on why the changes are coming in. He said one of the things they discovered is the federal government “hasn’t applied, nor have they had any of their officials apply, for any type of seizure status in Saskatchewan.”
“So what that’s basically left us with a situation where law abiding firearms owners in this province don’t have a way to actually dispose of their firearms because of the fact that they’re not able to abide with the legislation that’s currently in place, which now ends up putting them in the situation where they’re not only in a public safety issue, and could possibly face criminal prosecution, but they also have an issue with trying to get compensation.”
Freberg said the federal government has “clearly articulated that they’ve got $740 million and once that money is gone, it’s first come first serve, and they’ve made it very clear that Alberta and Saskatchewan are probably going to be on the tail end of that.”
He said one of the things they were looking at is making sure as a public safety measure that they “make sure people want to be in compliance,” and he added “one of the things to be in compliance is getting paid.”
The second thing they have done is allow for the Firearms Office to be able to store firearms. Freberg also said they have developed a software portal for firearms owners in this province “to be able to go into the portal, identify what asset they had that had been effectively seized or devaluated by the federal government, and we will be able to produce a certificate to value.”
Freberg said they will be working with industry experts who “have a very clear understanding of what this property’s worth,” and make sure people get “fair compensation which we believe is going to drive compliance.”
