OTTAWA, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino announced Wednesday that a new federal fund of 250 million Canadian dollars (197 million U.S. dollars) was set up to help stop gun violence.
To address the conditions that contribute to a young person falling in with crime, the Building Safer Communities Fund (BSCF) will help municipalities and Indigenous communities prevent gun and gang violence by tackling its root causes.
"The fund addresses the root causes of crime by creating safe spaces and empowering young people and communities to drive solutions that set them up for success. Building community resilience through prevention is one of the key pillars of our plan to take action on gun violence, along with banning and buying back assault-style firearms and cracking down on illegal guns coming across our borders," Mendicino said.
The program will provide funds, through 2025-2026, to eligible municipalities and Indigenous communities. Municipalities will then distribute funds to local organizations that focus on children, youth and young adults who are involved in or at risk of joining gangs.
Public Safety Canada also updated assault-style firearms prohibition, which will receive an administrative extension until Oct. 30, 2023. This will allow time to ensure that officials can finalize and fully implement a robust mandatory buyback program and allow firearms owners and businesses to take all reasonable steps to come into compliance with the law.
Public Safety Canada said there are over 100,000 formerly restricted firearms that are prohibited.
According to the data released by Statistics Canada, violent offences involving guns in 2019 had increased 81 percent since 2009 and one in three homicides in Canada were firearm-related.
According to Firearms Public Awareness Research revealed in 2021, 25 percent of Canadian households contain at least one firearm and 47 percent of Canadians felt gun violence is a threat to their community. ■