How many major Canadian cities will go ahead and impose bans is not immediately clear.
Shortly after Trudeau spoke, Kennedy Stewart, Mayor of Vancouver, wrote on Twitter that he will propose a measure that prohibits firearms once federal legislation is approved. And Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante called for a national ban on firearms after a 15-year-old girl was killed in a city shootout earlier this month.
But after long calling for a municipal firearms ban, Toronto Mayor John Tory stepped back last year and asked the federal government to focus on preventing arms from entering the United States.
Conservative provincial governments in Alberta and Ontario said they oppose municipal limits on firearms, although it is not known whether they will block them.
The legislation introduced on Tuesday did not satisfy people on both sides of the debate. Groups calling for arms control were disappointed, for example, with the buyback program it will not be mandatory, as was the case in New Zealand.
But Bill Blair, minister of public security and former Toronto police chief, said the program, which was not specifically included in the legislation, would not allow anyone who did not sell their weapons to the government to transfer them to someone else, even after their death, or use them.
“We are not targeting law-abiding citizens who have guns to hunt or practice shooting,” said Trudeau. “The measures we propose are concrete and practical,”
Erin O’Toole, the leader of the conservative opposition, condemned any additional arms limits.
“Sir. Trudeau deceives people when he tries to suggest that buying things from hunters and other law-abiding Canadians will somehow solve the problem of shootings and criminal gang activity in big cities,” O’Toole told reporters.