Liberals look to make gun-control a wedge issue as campaign enters final weeks | CBC News

Trudeau used much of his prepared remarks to take aim at Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole for his party’s stance on gun control.

“Community safety is not up for negotiation with the gun lobby, and you certainly don’t hand them the pen to write your platform,” Trudeau said, referring to the Conservative leader.

The Conservative platform says a government led by O’Toole would repeal “the May 2020 Order in Council” that outlawed some 1,500 makes and models of what the government describes as “military-grade weapons.”

Leaders accuse each other of ‘misleading’ Canadians

When asked on Saturday why he would repeal the order, O’Toole accused the Liberals of trying to use “American-style politics” on the issue of public safety.

“Our plan is transparent, it’s not based on dividing or misleading people, which has been the approach of Mr. Trudeau,” he said.

O’Toole said Trudeau’s approach has unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners such as hunters and sports shooters.

Instead, the Conservatives are promising tougher criminal sanctions on gun-toting gang members and gun smuggling while also committing to “a review of the Firearms Act with participation by law enforcement, firearms owners, manufacturers and members of the public.”

WATCH: O’Toole defends his promise to repeal Liberal ban on assault-style firearms

O’Toole defends his promise to repeal Liberal ban on assault-style firearms

Erin O’Toole explains why the Conservative Party’s crime strategy includes repealing a May 2020 cabinet decree on firearms. 0:47

O’Toole has also said he would maintain a ban on “assault weapons” referring to a 1977 legislative change that classified fully automatic weapons as “prohibited” firearms.

But Trudeau said O’Toole is misleading Canadians with that assertion, noting that their order in council covers “military-style” weapons that aren’t considered fully automatic, but some of which have been used in mass shootings such as the 2017 Quebec City Mosque massacre.

“[O’Toole] will reverse our ban on 1,500 different models military-style assault weapons,” Trudeau said. “He’s trying to pretend to Canadians that’s not what he’ll do.”

The Liberal government had already introduced legislation in February that would introduce a voluntary buy-back program, but the bill didn’t make it past the first reading in the House of Commons.

The Liberals are now promising to make the program mandatory, with the option of having guns made permanently inoperable at government expense.

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Trudeau was pressed Sunday on why he is promising to allocate $1 billion to provinces and territories that want to implement a handgun ban in their jurisdictions rather than implementing a national ban.

At a similar Liberal event with GTA mayors during the 2019 campaign, a reporter asked all the mayors — including leaders from major Toronto-area communities such as Mississauga and Markham — to raise their hands if they’d support a national ban on handguns. They all did.

On Sunday when asked why he was punting the decision to other jurisdictions, Trudeau avoided the question and instead went after O’Toole for wanting to repeal the 2020 ban.

Speaking in Ottawa Sunday morning, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said his party favours the ban on assault-style weapons.

Singh said governments need to listen to communities hit by violence, including the families of the École Polytechnique shooting victims, who have been demanding tougher laws and a buy-back program.

“That’s what Mr. Trudeau  promised to do but has not yet done,” he said in French.