-Ottawa, May 13, 2021

The CCFR will be the lone voice for Canadian gun owners at the public inquiry into the tragedy last year in Nova Scotia.

In a live press conference today, the Commissioners announced the decision on who will participate in the inquiry in an official manner. You can watch the announcement HERE.

Read the official decision HERE to see all the selected participants.

The Mass Casualty Commission is an independent public inquiry created to examine the April 18-19, 2020 mass casualty in Nova Scotia and to provide meaningful recommendations to help protect Canadians in the future.

The Commission is mandated to report its findings and make recommendations by November 2022.

The CCFR received an invitation by e-mail to submit a request to participate. While this horrific crime has no real correlation to our community or our sport, it has and will be used for political purposes to justify further restrictions on legal, licensed gun owners. In fact, this crime was the catalyst for the Liberal government's sweeping May 1 gun ban, a measure that would have had NO impact on preventing this heinous crime.

Aside from the Liberal government, there are other interested parties all too eager to use this tragedy to their benefit, therefore CCFR CEO Rod Giltaca chose to respond to the invitation and offer his expertise to the commission, while at the same time, protecting Canadian gun owners. We refuse to allow the anti gun lobbies to go unopposed, ever.

The families of the victims, the people of Nova Scotia and Canadians in general deserve a balanced, fair, productive inquiry with real findings and solutions on what happened, how it happened and how we can work together to ensure this kind of crime never happens again. That's exactly what Rod will be going there to do. 

Speaking from his office in Vancouver, Rod had this to say, "I watched in horror, the events of April 18-19 2020 unfold with Canadians from coast to coast. As we learned more about the circumstances surrounding this tragedy, it was clear there was a number of failures and strange conditions that contributed to, or have been discovered since, this mass casualty. We need to fully understand what happened if we ever hope to prevent this kind of thing in the future, we all want a safer Canada".

Also speaking to the firearms element of this tragedy is Canadian Coalition for Gun Control president Wendy Cukier.

The commissioners had this to say about their selection of Rod and Wendy for the inquiry; "The use of firearms represents an important aspect of our mandate. The CCGC and the CCFR can contribute to this work in an informative and balanced way. They are granted the right to participate on those aspects of our mandate dealing with the use of firearms. This can be done in a variety of ways, including providing expert reports and participating in expert roundtable discussions."

The CCGC has requested that its participation be funded. 

There was a wide variety of groups and organizations of all kinds that submitted, and they have been grouped into "coalitions" to work together to present their input.

The CCFR is the sole national firearms organization to support and participate in this vital public inquiry. We look forward to a productive, collaborative effort with the Mass Casualty Commission, and hope for eventual closure and peace for those most affected. #NovaScotiaStrong

Stay tuned for more.

If you support the work on the CCFR please JOIN or DONATE today.