Saskatchewan announces provincial Firearms Advisory Committee

The provincial government of Saskatchewan has announced a new Firearms Advisory Committee intended to advise officials on gun policy, with some familiar names on the list.

On April 13, Saskatchewan issued a press release with details on the new committee, including names of the members: Gilbert White chairs the committee; board members are Geoffrey Dufour, Dan D'Autremont, Garry Breitkreuz, John Lawson, Joyce Lorenz, and Darryl Yausie. These members are well-known in the shooting community for years of volunteer work, and in D'Autremont's and Breitkrteuz's cases, their work in the political sphere.

Officially, the committee's stated role is "to provide recommendations on firearms policy to the Minister of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety and the Chief Firearms Officer." Saskatchewan's Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Minister Christine Tell said the committee will help the government engage the province's shooting community directly, resulting in informed firearms policy.

Provincial officials also said the committee's role is to promote education on firearms issues with the public, both shooters and non-shooters, and reminding them of safety issues.

Unofficially? This is part of a push-back in the prairie provinces. Saskatchewan has been trying to restore provincial control over its firearms rules and regulations for some time now. Six months ago, provincially-appointed Chief Firearms Officer Robert Freberg officially took office in Saskatchewan, as a sign of provincial leaders' discontentment with federal firearms policies.

Next door in Alberta, the province also appointed a gun-savvy CFO last year, Dr. Teri Bryant. She was in the news last week urging the federal government to scrap its the Order in Council firearms bans of May, 2020, which is certainly not the sort of activity you're used to seeing from provincial firearms offices. Alberta is also enacting other provincial initiatives sympathetic to firearms owners, contrary to the top-down policies from the federal government.

What will the end result be? The Canadian legal system currently gives the feds authority over most firearms laws (provinces do have considerable capability to crack down inside the framework of their fish and game acts). But, we see a growing urban-rural split on policy, and also a growing split between some provinces wanting stiffer laws, and other provinces wanting more liberal laws. No doubt we'll see some systemic changes as a result of all the discontent, although we may be years away from any meaningful change yet. The recent news from Alberta and Saskatchewan is the start of that change, though.