The saga boondoggle that is the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee, or CFAC continues.

According to this recent article penned by Andrew Lawton, when asked to address this ongoing petition asking all members of the firearms committee to hold valid firearms licenses in order to ensure a fundamental understanding of the existing gun control regime, Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale’s office commented that:

“It would be insensitive and inappropriate to require a survivor of the Polytechnique shootings to work with firearms in order to serve on CFAC.” Scott Bardsley, Goodale’s press secretary, continued: “While we agree that members of the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee (CFAC) should be well-informed about firearms safety training and licensing, we respectfully believe there are more appropriate means to achieve it.”

So according to the Ministry of Public Safety, the basic Canadian Firearms Safety Course is not the most appropriate way for some Canadians to learn enough about firearms before they’re allowed to support or push for sweeping reforms that may impact over two million Canadian gun owners… two million Canadian gun owners who, it should be said, paid good money to earn a PAL or RPAL of their own because the alternative is jail time.

So for those keeping score: In order for a normal person to possess a firearm, taking the most basic fundamental safety course is required by law; if you don’t take the course and you possess a firearm you’re facing jail time.

But if you want to be a member of a firearms committee charged with advising the government on sweeping gun reform that may change the way millions of Canadians live their lives, but are yourself uncomfortable with firearms, standing in a classroom with deactivated firearms to learn fundamental safety procedures and how the existing gun laws work is considered insensitive and inappropriate.

And of course, never mind that firearms committee member in question, Nathalie Provost, is described as a “Spokesperson for PolySeSouvient, a group involved for gun control, since 2010” on her CFAC biography page… a status that many would say shows a glaring conflict of interest with the firearms committee’s purpose of providing clear-headed and unbiased input on the subject of firearms… especially given the firearms committee continues to be devoid of representation from any of Canada’s pro-gun organizations.

It’s safe to say that for Canada’s gun owners, there should only be one thing insensitive and inappropriate about this declaration: That the Ministry of Public Safety considers it acceptable that the CFAC has even one member who finds the mere idea of attending a firearms safety course so disruptive, so repugnant, and so uncomfortable that they literally can’t handle taking it. In fact, one might even say that if the government needs advice on gun laws, we respectfully believe there are more appropriate means to achieve it.

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