{"id":168038,"date":"2025-09-25T09:01:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/168038\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T09:01:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:01:24","slug":"carney-stands-by-liberal-gun-ban-embattled-public-safety-minister-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/168038\/","title":{"rendered":"Carney stands by Liberal gun ban, embattled public safety minister – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> is standing by both the Liberals\u2019 gun buyback plan and his embattled public safety minister who was caught on tape questioning the program.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Speaking in the House of Commons Wednesday, Carney resisted continued calls from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre<\/a> to fire Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree.<\/p>\n

Anandasangaree found himself in hot water this week after leaked audio of the minister<\/a> questioning the efficacy and motivation of the Liberals\u2019 gun buyback program surfaced online, leading to the Conservatives\u2019 push to have him removed from his post.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis own minister of public safety says this government is doing it wrong. He was caught on tape saying the program won\u2019t work,\u201d Poilievre said during question period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police say they won\u2019t implement it, the minister says it\u2019s a bad idea, but they\u2019re only doing it for political reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat the minister of public safety is doing, is doing it right, he\u2019s correcting an inefficient system to provide Canadians with fair compensation\u201d for their firearms, Carney shot back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this government is doing is providing fair compensation for Canadians to return illegal firearms, illegal assault rifles.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPoilievre calls for Anandasangaree to be fired over gun buyback misstep\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The program, first announced under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, banned more than 1,500 \u201cassault-style\u201d firearms and variants in 2020 after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia killed 22 people. Owners of the proposed banned firearms would be eligible for compensation.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n

In the secretly-recorded conversation, which was first reported on by the Toronto Star on Sunday, Anandasangaree suggests to a constituent that municipal police forces lack the resources to enforce gun bans, and that he would approach the issue differently had he the chance.<\/p>\n

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The public safety minister also suggested the program was motivated by political considerations in Quebec.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuebec is in a different place than other parts of Canada, right? And this is something that\u2019s very much a big, big, big deal for many of the Quebec electorate that voted for us,\u201d the minister says.<\/p>\n

In the recording, Anandasangaree said he would personally pay the difference between what the constituent gets from the buyback program and what he paid for his guns.<\/p>\n

Global News has also obtained the audio and has spoken to the man who recorded the conversation with Anandasangaree.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPublic safety minister criticized Liberals\u2019 gun buyback program, leaked audio reveals\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Carney told reporters in New York on Tuesday that he still had \u201cconfidence\u201d in Anandasangaree.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are guns that are assault rifles, AR-15s and variants,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe minister is doing important work \u2026 He\u2019s got a lot of important work this session of parliament, including legislation on borders and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It is not the first time Anandasangaree has attracted scrutiny during his short tenure as public safety minister.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after being appointed to the portfolio \u2014 which oversees the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canada Border Services Agency \u2014 Global News reported that Anandasangaree put in place an \u201cethics screen\u201d preventing him from making national security decisions related to the \u201cTamil community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anandasangaree came to Canada from Sri Lanka in 1983 and was a Tamil community activist and lawyer before being elected as a Liberal MP in Scarborough in 2015. After the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009, Anandasangaree helped hundreds of Sri Lankan migrants who paid human smugglers to ferry them to Canada on the MV Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCarney says he still has confidence in public safety minister\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Associated Press at the time reported Anandasangaree said those on board the ships would have legitimate asylum claims even if some were members of the Tamil Tigers rebel group. Both Anandasangaree and his wife have been critical in the past of how Canada\u2019s national security agencies \u2014 agencies that now report to him \u2014 handle Tamil refugee claims.<\/p>\n

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In July, Global News reported that before joining cabinet last May, Anandasangaree asked officials at the CBSA to approve the permanent residence application of a man the agency deemed a member of the Tamil Tigers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the major responsibilities of any member of Parliament, anyone elected, is provision of services to individuals seeking help from our offices,\u201d he told reporters in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is part and parcel of the work that every member of Parliament does, and in this particular case, I was executing my duties as a member of Parliament, one that I believe constituents expect me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anandasangaree previously suggested he was helping a constituent, but Global News reported in July that documents suggest the applicant\u2019s wife \u2014 a Canadian citizen \u2014 lives in Markham, not Anandasangaree\u2019s riding of Scarborough-Guildwood-Rouge Park.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing by both the Liberals\u2019 gun buyback plan and his embattled public safety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,86515,43,2659,44,18277,714,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-168038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-gary-anandasangaree","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-mark-carney","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pierre-poilievre","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168038","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=168038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}