Jamie Sarkonak: Alberta's gun-grab resistance is part of a bigger Canadian tradition

Once upon a time, there was a provincial justice minister who abhorred a new, far-more-expensive-than-originally-quoted federal gun program that infringed upon the lives of private citizens. So, he decided not to enforce any of it.

I’m not referring to Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery and his move against federal gun seizures on Wednesday, which signalled to all provincial entities that they should not participate in the buyback program. This is about a group of justice ministers in the early 2000s who refused to play ball when it came to the federal long-gun registry.

It turns out that provincial resistance against federal firearm crackdowns is somewhat of a tradition in Canada, and it provides some optimistic foreshadowing for Alberta.

The long-gun registry was created in the 1990s. Branded as a simple safety measure, it imposed new regulatory requirements on the owners of uncontroversial shotguns and rifles without improving public safety, and was fought in the courts by opposing provinces.

By 2003, it had already ballooned in cost from $2 million to $1 billion. Nevertheless, by that time, it had the backing of the Supreme Court of Canada, which had ruled that gun control was a federal matter. To that, several provinces said, “So what?”

The justice ministers of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia told their police and prosecutors not to enforce the program. There were still federal prosecutors and the RCMP who weren’t under provincial control, but it sent a strong message regardless.

The three Prairie provinces announced their non-enforcement directives in 2000 (and Alberta would go on to fight the registry in other ways). By 2003, the list of provinces pushing back against the registry had grown to include Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. B.C. and Ontario also voiced their opposition.

Complaints from premiers and their justice ministers cited the registry’s uselessness and wastefulness — and expressed annoyance that it was brought to life in the first place. “It’s their law, let them enforce it,” then-Nova Scotia justice minister Jamie Muir said in 2003, referring to the federal government.

“We don’t want to perpetuate this waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” said then-New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord. The federal government should end gun registration, he added.

These non-enforcement orders were not solid protection against all prosecutions — the feds could still advance charges if they so wished, and provincial prosecutors could ignore the direction from on high.

A 2006 judgment ordering the destruction of an unregistered gun in Saskatchewan, which its owner didn’t register due to his personal opposition to the registry, is evidence that at least some cases still made it to court.

Still, brazen provincial opposition sent a message to the federal government and sullied the public reputation of the registry. It also showed Canadians that Ottawa’s will didn’t have to stand unchallenged.

In the end, the registry was largely a failure. While many registered their guns, a good many others didn’t. And by 2006, Stephen Harper was prime minister and used his power to order non-enforcement at the federal level.

The program was finally abolished in 2012. And today, its essence seems to have been reincarnated as the Liberals’ plan to outlaw previously legal firearms and then acquire them from their owners.

The federal push in recent years to ban the invented category of “assault-style firearms” was not based on crime statistics, which shows that gun crimes are overwhelmingly committed with illegal firearms.

The program has also exploded in cost: initially pegged at $600 million or less, it’s now projected to cost somewhere around $1.8 billion. And once again, many gun owners are refusing to participate, holding out hope that the program will eventually be scrapped (good luck with that).

This time around, the provinces are being more co-operative. Alberta and Saskatchewan are once again trying to stick it to the feds, but Nova Scotia submitted and was the place where the program was piloted. New Brunswick seems open to helping out the federal Liberals as long as it doesn’t tie up policing resources.

In Alberta, the justice minister has made a motion under the provincial Sovereignty Act to instruct provincial entities — municipalities, police agencies, the prosecution service, etc. — not to participate in the buyback.

This could have been a simple ministerial direction, but instead the province has opted to use the more complicated machinery of the Sovereignty Act to get its message across. Yet the result is the same: much like in the early 2000s, the province isn’t going to participate.

But these refusals still leave Alberta gun owners vulnerable, which is why the province should also take a similar path as Saskatchewan and make any entity that seizes a gun liable for compensating its owner at market rates. For added spice, it could make individuals personally liable, too.

Guns fall under federal jurisdiction, so the only way to truly end the seizure is by electing a different federal government. But the next best response is to lay down as many impediments to enforcement as possible at the provincial level. You can’t halt the program, but you can refuse help — and better yet, you can introduce risk to dissuade anyone else from helping, too.

National Post