How many major Canadian cities will follow through and impose bans is not immediately clear.
Soon after Mr. Trudeau spoke, Kennedy Stewart, the mayor of Vancouver, wrote on Twitter that he will propose a measure banning handguns once the federal legislation is approved. And the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, called for a national handgun ban after a 15-year-old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting in the city earlier this month.
But after long calling for municipal handgun bans, John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, backed down last year and urged the federal government to focus on preventing guns from entering from the United States.
The conservative provincial governments in Alberta and Ontario have said that they oppose municipal limits on handguns, although it is not known if they will block them.
The legislation introduced on Tuesday failed to satisfy people on either side of the debate. Groups calling for gun control were disappointed, for instance, that the buyback program will not be mandatory, as was the case in New Zealand.
But Bill Blair, the public safety minister and former police chief in Toronto, said that the program, which was not specifically included in the legislation, will not allow anyone who does not sell their weapons to the government to transfer them to anyone else, even after their death, or use them.
“We are not targeting law-abiding citizens who own guns to go hunting or for sport shooting,” Mr. Trudeau said. “The measures we’re proposing are concrete and practical,”
Erin O’Toole, the leader of the Conservative opposition, condemned any further limits on guns.
“Mr. Trudeau misleads people when he tries to suggest that buying things back from hunters and other Canadians who are law-abiding is somehow going to solve the problem of shooting and criminal gang activity in the big cities,” Mr. O’Toole told reporters