OTTAWA—The head of the National Firearms Association says the Conservative government did a “deal” with him to quell gun owners’ criticism of Bill C-51 last spring and then betrayed them by not agreeing in exchange to loosen restrictions in a firearms bill.

In an online posting to Facebook on Monday and in an interview Wednesday with the Star, NFA president Sheldon Clare said Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s office asked his group not to publicly testify to criticize the national security bill, C-51. In exchange, he said, gunowners would see changes made to C-42, a bill amending firearms legislation.

A Conservative Party spokesman, Kory Teneycke, whom Clare says was involved peripherally in his contacts with the government last spring, called his accusations “baseless” and the timing politically motivated.

Clare is running as an independent candidate in the B.C. riding of Cariboo-Prince George, where a Conservative incumbent is not running for re-election. Clare said he is running on the economy, not on firearms issues because his positions are well known. But he criticized the Conservatives for betraying gunowners.

“I found that the Conservative government is not the friend of firearms owners despite what they’re claiming; they’ve had ample opportunity to make a lot of changes, they have not done so; they pay lip service to this part of their so-called base, and when people tell you ‘you have no one else to vote for so suck it up,’ that’s not what works well for me. I don’t like being manipulated.”

On Facebook, Clare wrote that the NFA’s opposition last year to C-51 was already established and that other effective critics were going to present the same case, while the Conservative government sought to downplay dissent. “We had been promised that the CPC would give us the four amendments that we sought on C42 if we didn’t go to that hearing.”

“We were asked not to be used by the NDP as a stick to beat up the CPC. We agreed and were told that we would be invited to present our amendments on C42—we were not invited. In short, we were lied to by the Conservatives about that deal.”

In the interview, Clare said the NFA’s 75,000 members wanted changes C-42 and this was a way to get them. “We looked at this as we could get a gain here. … We got played.”

He says the NFA was left to present its position to a couple of MPs at a lunch, but its main objections were never adopted by the Conservatives, who passed the firearms bill with only minor concessions to gunowners’ complaints about paperwork and the powers of chief firearms officers in the provinces.

Clare said Teneycke, who had “helped” in the lunchtime presentation of the gunowners’ position to the MPs and is now the chief spokesman for the Conservative Party national campaign, phoned him at the time and said the government thought the group was internally divided and didn’t feel it needed to honour its commitment. “So we weren’t getting these amendments,” Clare said. He said the conversation occurred on the day of the Alberta election, May 5, and he hung up on Teneycke.

He said he never revealed the discussions at the time because “there was some hope that this was salvageable.” But now, he says he has been challenged by some NFA members about why he didn’t speak out against C-51, and says there is no more “need” to remain silent.

In a statement emailed to the Star, Teneycke said Wednesday: “Mr. Clare is running against the Conservative government, so we’re not surprised he’s making baseless political attacks. The Conservative Government stands by its legislative track-record – including laws supporting law-abiding firearms owners.”

Clare, whose term as NFA president ends in 2016, said Teneycke’s comment about internal divisions probably referred to an employee’s “dismissal with cause” that is now the subject of a legal dispute. But the NFA is not divided on its main positions, he said. He said he’s not campaigning on firearms issues because “my positions are well known.”