Raquel grew up in a community that valued hunting and harvesting. These values are a part of Canada's rich heritage of hunting and trapping. Raquel has been a strong voice for hunters and sport shooters by standing up against the Liberals attacks on law abiding firearm owners. The Liberal’s aim to ban some hunting rifles and implement a costly gun confiscation regime that would “buyback” firearms from law-abiding Canadian citizens. This legislation would cost taxpayers upwards of 10 billion dollars, without contributing to making our communities safer from gun violence. While 80% of illegal firearms used in violent crime are illegally smuggled from the United States, the Liberal Government continues to focus on attack law abiding firearm owners.

We know law abiding Canadians who own firearms are not the cause of firearm violence in Canada. Expert witnesses, including the Winnipeg Police Association, the Toronto Police Service, and the National Police Federation agree that the billions of taxpayer dollars for the “buyback” scheme would have a much greater impact on reducing firearm violence if those taxpayer resources were redirected to police to combat gang violence, to our border agents to build better security and search capacity at the US-Canada border, and to support community organizations that provide youth gang-diversion programs.

After eight years of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal’s catch and release crime policies, Canadians don’t feel safe walking down the street or taking transit. Violent crime has gone up 39% and gang-related homicides have doubled. Liberal soft-on-crime policies have unleashed a wave of crime across our country. Bill C-75 allows dangerous violent repeat offenders to commit a crime in the morning and be out by noon to reoffend. Bill C-5 allows dangerous criminals such as sexual offenders to service their sentences at home on bail, rather than in jail. Bill C-83 allows dangerous serial killers such as Paul Bernardo to be transferred to medium security facilities.

Raquel is a strong advocate in Parliament for a common-sense approach to ending firearm violence in our communities and reforming our bail system to keep Canadians safe. Raquel supports measures such as repealing the Liberal’s catch-and-release parole policy, targeting anti-gun smuggling operations at the US-Canada border, increasing support for law enforcement, and investing in youth and young adult prevention and diversion programs. These are the policies that will help keep Kildonan—St. Paul families safe.

To read more about reducing gun and gang violence in Canada you can read the report from the Public Safety Committee Report here: