A Prince George, B.C. woman is suing the federal government after Trudeau’s gun ban put her business in jeopardy.
The owner of a hunting supply and firearm store Cassandra Parker says that the gun ban left her with tens of thousands of dollars in unsellable firearms without any warning and with no opportunity to recoup her investment.
“It was like getting hit by a car,” Parker told the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“If we had [our firearms] stolen from us, like if I had a break in or there had been a fire, I’d have insurance to cover it. But when the government takes it and doesn’t initiate a buyback program, even immediately, I’m sitting on inventory I can’t sell.”
Parker says that a large portion of her businesses revenue came from firearms which are now banned.
On May 1 the federal government banned 1,500 different types of firearms, making their sale, import and transport illegal.
Gun owners will have two years to surrender their firearms to the government for “fair compensation.” Gun owners have yet to hear when they will receive compensation or how much compensation they can expect.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has hired a lawyer to act as an intervener in Parker’s case.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says that a buyback program would likely cost taxpayers much more than what the Trudeau government will anticipate.
In 1993, the Liberals initiated the long gun registry and originally anticipated the program to cost $2 million. Over its lifetime, the registry had cost over $2 billion.
Parker says that the government’s gun ban is an assault on Canada’s legitimate firearms industry and the people who depend on it.
“It’s not this free-for-all shoot-everything mentality. It’s about hunting, it’s about target shooting, it’s about competitions and it’s about family businesses like ours where we have invested everything we can into a place where other families can bring their children, where they can continue traditions that have been Canadian traditions for hundreds of years,” she said.
The gun ban puts significant pressure on those who make their livelihood in hunting. Hunting and angling contributes $3.8 billion to the Canadian economy annually.
Last week a demonstration against the gun ban in Ottawa attracted thousands of people.
