Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says he is ‘resolved’ to implement the gun buyback program and speaks about his ‘misguided’ leaked comments. <\/p>\n
While Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree pushes back against calls for him to resign or be fired following leaked audio in which he can be heard questioning the federal gun buyback program he oversees, Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has \u201cconfidence\u201d in his minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have confidence in the minister, he is doing important work,\u201d Carney said when asked by reporters on Tuesday in New York City, adding the federal government is fulfilling an election promise with the gun buyback program.<\/p>\n
Anandasangaree has faced scrutiny this week after the Toronto Star first reported on an audio recording of a conversation between the minister and his tenant on Sunday in which he cast doubt on the program\u2019s effectiveness, saying he would approach the issue differently. <\/p>\n
In the recording, Anandasangaree also offers to pay the acquaintance the difference between the federal government\u2019s compensation and what he paid for his now-banned firearms, and says Carney is sticking with the policy to appease voters in Quebec.<\/p>\n
The public safety minister says the conversation was recorded without his knowledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we were contemplating the launch, we knew a number of things will come our way to both obstruct as well as derail this announcement, and that\u2019s what happened last Sunday, as you\u2019re aware, but I\u2019m absolutely resolved to implement and bring forward this program to Canadians,\u201d Anandasangaree said in an interview with CTV Power Play on Tuesday when asked about calls for him to resign. <\/p>\n
Asked by host Vassy Kapelos why Canadians should accept the buyback program if he can\u2019t explain its justification, Anandasangaree said he believes in the program but said some of his comments were \u201cmisguided.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, (the comments are) just in a private conversation, not to be taken at face value,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the federal government kicked off its long-awaited gun buyback program for individuals with a pilot project in Nova Scotia, with full rollout of the program coming later this fall.<\/p>\n
The buyback program \u2014 which compensates businesses and individuals for guns on the prohibited firearms list \u2014 was already in effect for businesses, but had yet to roll out for individuals. <\/p>\n
According to senior government officials at a technical briefing ahead of the announcement, there\u2019s been $742 million in allocated funding to the program since its inception in May 2020. <\/p>\n
Since then, the federal government has banned more than 2,000 models of \u201cassault-style firearms\u201d and variants as part of its strategy to tackle gun violence.<\/p>\n
Pressed again by Kapelos on why he would make light of a program already fraught with controversy, Anandasangaree insisted \u201cI fundamentally believe in this program.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a 20-minute conversation I had with someone I\u2019ve known for many years. I\u2019m sure if you were recorded in a private conversation, there may be things that you would have said or things the way you say it that may be different than in a public setting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked if Canadians can feel confident in the effectiveness of the program in light of his leaked comments, Anandasangaree said the buyback program is part of a \u201cmulti-pronged approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not said it won\u2019t be effective. I\u2019ve said I would have done it differently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Anandasangaree also insisted the program \u201cis not a crass political move\u201d when asked about comments in the leaked conversation about the importance of the program in Quebec. <\/p>\n
\u201cQuebec is an important part of it, but it\u2019s not just Quebec,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a move to ensure that the safety of Canadians is paramount. We have an issue with gun violence right now. We see it on our streets. We see it across the country,\u201d he later added.<\/p>\n
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are calling on Carney to fire Anandasangaree from his portfolio. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe admits he doesn\u2019t know what a gun licence is. More than half of Canadians don\u2019t feel safe under his watch. Will the Prime Minister do the only thing that will secure our country and fire this incompetent Minister?,\u201d Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in Question Period on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
You can watch the full interview with Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree at the top of this article.<\/p>\n
With files from CTV News\u2019 Spencer Van Dyk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says he is ‘resolved’ to implement the gun buyback program and speaks about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[712,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-165866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}