Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party is promising to ban handguns should he be elected premier.
Steven Del Duca made the announcement in Scarborough where just this past weekend five men were shot after leaving midnight prayers.
"We'll work with our federal partners, we will work with our municipal partners and we will examine every option that we have available to us through provincial legislation, provincial regulation, frankly federal legislation that we know is still in the works, that is still being developed, to make sure that we have the tools available to get this done and to get it done as quickly as possible," said Del Duca.
Del Duca called Premier Doug Ford's claims that illegal guns are the problem and that stemming the flow of illegal weapons into the province is the way to go "misguided comfort."
He pointed to the murders of two men shot outside a Toronto Subway station. The suspect in that case was found in possession of a cache of legal guns.
"When I hear a story about two Torontonians who were gunned down with legal guns, that tells me that the problem is much bigger than simply dealing with the inflow of illegal guns," he said.
Del Duca conceded statistics show most handguns used in crimes are illegally smuggled into the country, but took issue with a reporter pointing that out during the announcement.
"With the greatest of respect, go and talk to the families of the two individuals who were murdered in Toronto a couple of weeks ago and cite statistics to them" he said. "It's not good enough. One death in this province that I'm running to lead, one death by virtue of a legal handgun, is one death too many."