Following Alberta and Saskatchewan’s lead, Manitoba is the third province to tell the Trudeau Liberals it does not want its provincial RCMP to aid Ottawa’s gun grab scheme.

Earlier this week, the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan announced they told the federal government their provincial RCMPs would not be made available to help the federal government’s gun confiscation efforts.

On Thursday, Manitoba Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen said he told Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino the so-called buyback program unnecessarily targets lawful gun owners while having little impact on criminals.

“In Manitoba’s view, any buyback program cannot further erode precious provincial police resources, already suffering from large vacancy rates, from focusing on investigation of violent crime,” Goertzen said in a statement on Facebook.

“We will be bringing these concerns, along with the shared concern of Saskatchewan and Alberta, directly to the federal government next month in meetings of Ministers of Justice and Ministers of Public Safety.”

The statement is not as strong as those issued by Alberta and Saskatchewan, who said they informed the RCMP to ignore orders from Ottawa to aid in the firearms confiscation program. 

As first reported by The Counter Signal, the Government of Alberta sent instructions to the RCMP K-Division, the arm of the federal police force with authority in Alberta, to ignore orders from the Trudeau Liberals to confiscate firearms. 

The orders came after Medicino requested the Alberta government’s help implementing the so-called buyback program.

Alberta Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro said Monday he would obstruct the gun grab by any means necessary.

“Alberta is not legally obligated and will not offer any provincial resources to the Federal Government as it seeks to confiscate lawfully acquired firearms,” Shandro responded.

On Wednesday, Saskatchewan Chief Firearms Officer Bob Freberg revealed the province wrote to the RCMP saying “no provincially funded resources of any type,” including the RCMP, will be used for Medicino’s buybacks.

In May 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was banning more than 1,500 models of firearms, including AR-15s. The Liberals said they plan on spending up to $250 million buying back the guns.

In response to Alberta’s announcement, federal Public Safety Minister Marco Medicino says the Kenney government is acting in a “reckless” way by telling the Alberta RCMP to ignore orders to participate in the Liberals’ gun grab scheme.

“The courts have repeatedly confirmed that regulating firearms falls squarely within federal jurisdiction,” he said in a statement.

“Albertans expect their federal and provincial governments to work together to protect their communities, not pull dangerous stunts.”