TORONTO – The federal government needs to do more to reduce the number of handguns coming into Canada from the United States, Ontario’s minister responsible for community safety said Tuesday.
Jim Bradley made the comments while announcing $10 million in funding over two years for a program designed in part to cut down on the number of handguns on the streets of Toronto.
“We know that a lot of the guns that are coming in are coming in from the States and outside the country,” said Bradley, Ontario’s minister of community safety and correctional service.
“It’s essential to be able to target those who are actually importing the guns, getting them into places like Toronto and other communities across this province.”
Bradley said he would like to see the federal government spend more money on border and police officers so they can recognize when handguns are being imported and seize them before they end up on Canadian streets.
Officials from Public Safety Canada, the federal department responsible for border patrol, could not immediately be reached for comment.
About 70 per cent of the handguns Toronto police pull off the streets are smuggled into the country, police Chief Bill Blair said.
“Unfortunately it’s a lucrative commodity that can be acquired relatively easily and inexpensively in the U.S. and then smuggled across the border and fetches a fairly high price on the streets of Toronto,” he said.
Many of the groups that are importing guns are selling them for money that is then used to buy drugs that end up on the streets, he added.
“We’re still taking far too many guns off the streets of Toronto and far too many of those guns do come across the border,” said Blair.
The federal government should play a greater co-ordinating role, Bradley said, so police forces in Canada can exchange intelligence on gun smuggling with forces in border states like New York, Michigan and Minnesota.
That’s a role the provincial government should be playing as well, said Garfield Dunlop, the Ontario Progressive Conservative community safety critic.
It should be providing more long-term funding so provincial police and local forces can work together with the RCMP and the Canadian Border Services Agency, he said.
“Jim Bradley can point all the fingers he wants at the federal government but the provincial government has a large responsibility to play as well,” said Dunlop.
Police forces in border towns such as those in the Niagara region are currently understaffed, added Ontario NDP critic Peter Kormos.
Although he agreed there was merit to Bradley’s criticism of the federal government, he said border guards need help from nearby police forces.
“That has to be a joint effort, a joint exercise, and one can’t simply lay the blame at the feet of the feds without having made it clear that the province has a responsibility as well,” he said.
Toronto police work with provincial police, Canadian Border Services and other forces south of the border, said Blair.
Ontario’s governing Liberals have been pursuing the issue for a few years now.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said in July 2007 he would attempt to negotiate a deal with border states to stanch the flow of handguns from south of the border into Canada.
The Liberals also announced in the same month they would be spending $26 million to hire 50 police officers to target guns smuggled across the border. He also said they would be hiring six new prosecutors to track, investigate and stem the flow of handguns.
Tuesday’s $10-million commitment marks the second time the province has renewed the funding for the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy. It pledged the same amount of money over two years in 2009.
Known as TAVIS, the program was launched in 2006 to combat gangs, drugs and illegal weapons. It has led to more than 19,000 arrests and the seizure of more than 1,210 guns, Toronto police say.
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