Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told a Commons committee that Bill C-21, the proposed legislation to restrict access to handguns in Canada, is critical to ending gun violence.

In his testimony before the Public Safety Committee, Mendicino was specifically questioned several times about whether the firearms buyback part of the bill is the most effective way to reduce the currently increasing violence.

If passed, Bill C-21 would introduce a nationwide "freeze" on handgun sales, purchases or transfers, introduce "red flag" laws, increase maximum penalties for certain firearms-related crimes, and implement a buyback program for more than 1,500 firearms banned in the country in 2020.

Mendicino told the committee: "It’s clear wherever you sit, regardless of which side of the aisle, or the party stripe, that the status quo is not going to cut it." "And every time I meet someone who has lost a family member or been affected by violence... we owe them more."

Opponents of the bill say the buyback program is too costly and punishes law-abiding gun owners rather than effectively reducing gun violence by stopping illegal gun smuggling across the border.

Conservative MP and Public Safety critic Raquel Dancho extensively questioned Mendicino on the program’s cost, saying Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers are already overstretched in many parts of the country.