As the third anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting approaches, gun control advocates are urging the province to tighten rules around reference checks for those seeking gun permits.

Advocates have pressed for change since it was revealed that the mosque shooter, Alexandre Bissonnette, did not acknowledge when applying for a firearm permit that he had experienced periods of depression, and his family did not report it to authorities.

Suzanne Laplante-Edward, whose daughter was killed in another mass shooting, notes that no one verified Bissonnette’s statements and if they’d done so, the weapons used in the attack would have remained out of his reach.

Laplante-Edward and other family members of Montreal Massacre victims had a chance to discuss the issue with Premier François Legault during a recent ceremony.

“We had a very good meeting with Mr. Legault in Quebec City when our daughters’ were awarded the medals and he was very receptive to what we had to say,” said Laplante-Edward, whose daughter Anne-Marie Edward was one of the 14 women killed in an anti-feminist attack at Ecole polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989.

“What we had to say was three years after the mosque shooting — which really showed how flawed the system is — nothing had been changed regarding the screening process.”

Laplante-Edward said advocates like herself and other Polytechnique families want the province to enforce the existing procedures allowing access to firearm permits.

In a follow-up letter to Legault in mid-December, Laplante-Edward pressed for further tightening of the rules.

“Three years have passed since the mass killing of the Grande Mosquée de Québec, and nothing, Mr. Legault, absolutely nothing has been done by the Quebec government to correct the shortcomings in the federal law enforcement process, in terms of access to permits,” Laplante-Edward wrote.

She said the premier agreed it was imperative for the Quebec government to act quickly to fill in the gaps on background checks.

“Quebec must be proactive, not reactive, when it comes to knowing whether or not a person should have access to firearms,” Laplante-Edward wrote.

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