TORONTO – In an effort to help Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia, Toronto Police announced yesterday that they will be launching a special task force that will look to recover illegal weapons from areas experiencing high levels of gang violence and send them to Ukraine.
“It’s really a no brainer,” Toronto Police Superintendent William McCaul told reporters. “We have an area with a large amount of guns circulating where residents don’t want them, and we have another area halfway across the globe where residents want more guns but don’t have a sufficient number circulating. It’s a win-win.”
The Special Task Force, dubbed “Task Force AK-TO-UK” also promises to be more cost effective than previous approaches to disposing of illegal guns. According to police, this is due to the fact that while in the past illegal weapons would eventually be melted and destroyed—a costly and time-consuming process—the Toronto Police Task Force will now take all illegal guns recovered and simply put them in a Fedex Express Shipping box before 4pm on the same business day.
An official for the Canadian Department of Defence and International Affairs, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they welcomed the new task force. “The government of Canada has already sent millions of dollars worth of small arms and ammunition to help Ukraine. However, federal agencies are limited in the kinds of guns we are able to procure. By recovering illegal guns that have been smuggled across the border from the United States, we have access to a much greater variety of firepower,” said the official.
“Guns like AK-47s, flamethrowers, grenade launchers, anti-tank handguns, and humvee-mounted 50-calibre machine guns are far beyond the reach of the Canadian government to officially procure on behalf of Ukraine, but we have plenty of those kinds of guns right here in our own backyard that we can send the Ukrainian military, we just need to find them first.”
When reached for comment the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said they are open to “any and all initiatives that support Ukraine’s fight against Russia.”
“We are all very excited for the support we’re already receiving through the task force,” said one Ukrainian soldier over the phone. “Up until now it’s always been the same old boring military issue semi-automatic rifles. Now we have all kinds of exciting options to choose from. We’ve got uzis, sawed off shot-guns with handles made from hockey tape, fully automatic glocks with extended clips, we even got sent a bunch of home-made silencers made from pop bottles, I didn’t even know you could do that!”
To kick off the Task Force, Toronto Police also announced they would be re-launching carding, the controversial practice of randomly targeting and gathering information on racialized community members with little to no probable cause, saying bringing back the practice “was for the good of um….what is this for again? Oh yeah, Ukraine. It’s for the good of Ukraine. Yah that’s it.”
