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In 1999, under 5,000 handguns were legally imported into Canada, according to Statistics Canada. In 2015, gun imports had surged 1,300% to almost 70,000 legal handguns.

And the inevitable is happening. That rising pool of legal guns is leaking out into streams of illegal guns.

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It’s so predictable. The Harper Conservatives loosened gun control laws. And the Trudeau Liberals haven’t kept their promises on tightening them. Jagmeet Singh’s NDP has a job to do.

In June, Mario Harel, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, told a Commons committee “about 50 per cent of all handguns used in crime, that we have been able to trace, have been diverted from legal Canadian firearm owners.”

Some “diverted” guns have been stolen. The gun used last weekend in Toronto to kill a 10-year-old girl and 18-year-old women was one of 24 legal guns stolen from a legal owner in Saskatchewan, according to Global News.