The wheels are coming off of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s gun confiscation program (“buyback”).
As proposed, the confiscation of firearms and devices that were banned as “prohibited” by Trudeau’s Liberal government over four years ago was to have been underway by now. Public Safety Canada’s website on the program titled the “Firearms Buyback Program Overview” (last updated 2023-07-26), continues to state that a “staged implementation is planned, with the collection of business stock beginning before the end of the year, and to get started with individual collection in the second half of 2023.”
Several provinces have already ruled out entirely (here and here, for instance) any possibility that their law enforcement resources could be used to implement the confiscation of the banned firearms and devices. One provincial official’s position was characteristic of the spirit of this opposition, stating, “[w]e do not and will not support initiatives that only impact the law abiding, RCMP vetted, hunters, sport shooters, ranchers, farmers and others who use firearms for lawful and good reasons… we will not authorize the use of provincially funded resources of any type for the federal government’s ‘buy back’ program.”
At the start of this year there were indications that the federal government was considering hiring private entities, rather than law enforcement or similar government agents, to enforce the ban and confiscation. Government procurement/ solicitation documents envisioned a scheme in which the private contractors would take custody of the banned firearms at designated collection points across Canada, provide secure storage facilities, and transport and destroy the guns according to government specifications. The contractors, as private entities with no police powers, would necessarily rely on voluntary compliance. Another potential complication was the fact that that these contractors would not be responsible for administering the compensation payments, meaning that any gun owners who did choose to surrender their property would be relying on a separate bureaucracy for their checks. The government advised, at the time, that “Canada will be applying measures surrounding the protection” of the vendors’ identity “in order to ensure vendors do not face reprisals or retaliation,” so further disclosures on the progress of the private sector option are unlikely. Subsequent developments, though, tend to suggest that this opportunity failed to excite sufficient interest.
Canada Post, a Crown corporation, reportedly declined to participate in a mail-in collection of the prohibited firearms and devices, citing safety and security concerns. The plan was “to have owners of banned guns place the unloaded and secured weapons in government-issued boxes and then send them back to the government to be destroyed.” One Canada Post employee described the security at his small municipal post office as “zero,” adding “[t]he government is crazy if it thinks we can do this safely.” Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger framed the matter more diplomatically on May 29, telling the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates that, due to an “internal safety assessment, … we are not comfortable with the process that was being proposed,” and that this “should be best left to those that know how to handle guns, know how to dismantle them, know how to manage them so no one gets hurt.”
A bigger issue, flagged by TheGunBlog.ca, a Canadian gun rights website, is that a 1998 regulation makes it a crime for individuals to ship “prohibited” rifles and shotguns using Canada Post. The regulation, SOR/98-209, was imposed by the Liberals “in 1998 to expand the Firearms Act, their sweeping anti-gun law of 1995.” News reports state that Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s Public Safety Minister (the government official responsible for the implementation of the confiscation), has now introduced amended regulations. “These proposed regulations will make the affected firearms and devices mailable matter and will temporarily permit businesses taking part in the program to ship firearms or devices via post,” said Mr. Leblanc. However, his official statement at the end of May refers only to “the business phase,” not individual collection, whereby the new regulations “will provide businesses with additional options to participate in the program and dispose of the affected assault-style firearms and devices they hold in their inventory.”
Other options that the federal government may be exploring is creating “drop-off points” where owners would surrender their weapons, or using retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other former law enforcement officers as collection agents. TheGunBlog.ca writes that the RCMP Reserve Program in the province of New Brunswick has emailed reservists to solicit their interest regarding participating in the gun confiscations, stating that “J Division Reservists are crucial to the success of this program.”
TheGunBlog.ca notes that this raises a number of troubling concerns. “Why is the RCMP working on a compensation program that doesn’t exist?” More importantly, is the RCMP “calling on reservists to help on the ground with door-to-door confiscation raids targeting” government-licensed firearm owners and businesses, and if so, why is the RCMP partnering in “the authoritarian crackdown targeting honest citizens, instead of protecting honest citizens from it?” TheGunBlog.ca contacted both the RCMP and the Liberal government multiple times for additional information on this “RCMP public safety priority,” without success.
What could possibly be next?
Millions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent on a program that is stuck at the starting line. The Liberal government has had to twice extend the “amnesty period” that allows affected gun owners to continue to possess (but not use or sell) their banned guns without incurring criminal liability. The latest amnesty period is due to expire on October 30, 2025.
An anonymous government source told reporters that “[n]o one is rushing to participate in the program.” Teri Bryant, the chief firearms officer for the province of Alberta, says much the same and pinpoints the reason. “No one wants to be involved in this program because it is so unpopular…I don’t see any way it can be done.”
—Courtesy NRA-ILA News
What Would Confiscation Really Look Like? (video below goes into Canada starting 4:51 in video, it also turns out that Canada’s ‘buy back’ would cost multi billions of Canadian $$$ and not the $400 – $600 million they said originally, nor their updated of $2 Billion, but more like $6 Billion).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AcFqlsEoYk
.40 cal Booger,
I don’t have time right now to watch the video. Based on your references to the actual cost for a federal “buy back” program and the visible caption on the video Could It Really Happen, the answer is an emphatic, “yes,” no matter how much it would cost. Our federal government has no qualms passing trillion dollar budgets and racking up trillion dollar deficits. If fedzilla really has the desire (e.g. if enough Democrats take the U.S. House of Representative and Senate plus the Oval Office), they will allocate the money and debt to do it.
Whether or not fedzilla could field adequate staffing and carry out the logistics of a giant “buy back” is a completely different question. Cash and debt would NOT be the limiting factor, though.
Every American Owes $140,000+ in total Federal Debt & Obligations
That’s per person, Family of 5 is five times that much.
Present Federal Debt in the USA is $105,000+ Per person, PLUS an additional $35,000 per person for Unfunded Pensions, Perks & Benefits for Federal Electees & Federal Pointy-Headed Bureaucrats. We Are Broke !!!! By Comparison, Federal Debt in Russia = $2,500 per person.
Canadian provinces were offered statehood in the Articles Of Confederation. Maybe that offered should be renewed to Alberta, Manitoba & Saskatchewan?
ARGGGGHHHHH! Do something about this insane moderation!
Comments with links are now automatically flagged due to the recent spam (and subsequent complaints when one makes it through the filter and isn’t moderated fast enough). With all due respect, this was primarily in response to your comment on July 23rd. Apologies for the inconvenience, but we have also been approving your link comments all day, they just are no longer immediate.
Really? My comment on July 23rd made y’all finally do something about spammers?
We’ll someone needs to tell the spammers, like for example > https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/bloomberg-column-on-ar-15s-is-so-stupid-itll-make-your-head-hurt/#comment-7141037 and … several other places in the comments in the last few days.
My comment on July 23rd made ya’ll do something about the spammers huh.
Okidokee then, finally.
But apparently the spammers did not get the memo for that because in the last few days they have been making their comments again and my first post to say this was also moderated and the link in it was to an example of such with a link to the comment(s).
So links to TTAG site comments are moderated too?
I tried to avoid enabling the setting for links since they’re usually on topic and add to the discussion like yours. We have been blacklisting the IP’s manually in addition to the wordpress spam filters, but they were changing too rapidly for it to be effective. We are currently stopping approximately 1,000 spam/bot comments for every 1 that makes it through, but people are still upset and quick to complain about having to see the few that do slip through the cracks, which I agree with.
Since the other means have not been 100% effective, as of today, the link moderation setting was enabled. Your comments will still all be approved (as will any other link-containing comments from real non-spam users), however if they have a link they’re going to get flagged at first for the time being.
Last week the moderator sent me a message that stated that I needed to reply at a slower pace and that I was sending replies too fast for whomever.
Oh! I may have erred, in that it may have been SNW and not TTAG.
One of the 2 did for TTAG and SNW are the only ones I visit.
Hush,
I have had that “too many messages too fast” (not exact words) message on this site a couple times in the past.
If the “buyback” in Canada is proving to be impossible and they don’t even have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms just think of how well it will work here in the good old US of A.
Ross,
Our Constitutional protections are only as effective as the Courts’ and Executive Branch employees’ willingness to honor them. Actions over the last 90 years demonstrates that both entities often dishonor Constitutional protections.
Actually, if you think about it, pretty much everything relies on pretty much everyone agreeing–however willingly or reluctantly–to cooperate more-or-less. If wide swaths of our population ever decide to not cooperate, society will pretty much unravel.
For the naysayers out there, you need look no further than our nation’s 1860s civil war where about half of our nation decided that they would no longer cooperate with the other half of our nation. While the North ultimately regained superiority and the South ultimately acquiesced, it took four years of long, extremely difficult, and extremely costly efforts with huge losses on both sides to get to that point. It’s almost like you could say that society pretty much unraveled in the states during that time. Now imagine how much worse a contemporary unraveling would be when there is no simple north / south dividing line and almost everyone almost everywhere refuses to cooperate.
I think the argument can be made that the first Civil War wasn’t, it was a war between states. The next one America as a 50 state Constituted Union does not survive.
“Our Constitutional protections are only as effective as the Courts’ and Executive Branch employees’ willingness to honor them.”
according to our country founders…Our Constitutional protections are only as effective as our not willing to give them up … which is the reason we have the Second Amendment do we can depose those of the courts and executive branch wanting to take those rights from us.
There is that as well.
.40 cal Booger,
If we want to get highly technical, it is exactly correct to say that Constitutional protections are only as effective as the Courts’ and Executive Branch employees’ willingness to honor them–because those protections in the Constitution are specifically aimed at restraining government.
If government violates those codified protections, then it is up to us to insist on exercising our inalienable rights. And, to be technical as I mentioned earlier, I will argue that insisting on exercising our rights is conceptually different than a written standard to limit government.
So, written protections are supposed to restrain while we are supposed to exercise.
Of course you could easily argue that insisting on exercising our rights even when governments violate written protections is sort-of protecting our rights.
It’s good too see a large swaths of Canucks grow a spine. I imagine in a huge country with a tiny population it’s a mite difficult to enforce Castro’s kid proclamations. As an ILLannoy resident for now I completely understand. The # of ILLANNOY folk “registering” their gats & ammo is miniscule.
.40 cal (and uncommon),
T. Jefferson and B. Franklin and S. Adams, et al. already told us that. Only morons like MajorMalfunction believe that “all rights are limited” – and confuse the very OBVIOUS differences between prohibition/prior punishment/prior restraint and responsibility for outcome.
In the end, as uncommon says, unless we are willing to resort to tar and feathers, or decorate a few lampposts, Leftist (and “Republican”!?) fascists will keep infringing . . . it’s simply what they do. Americans are, by and large, a fairly tolerant people . . . MOST people (unlike Tampon Tim and Kamal-Toe) actually DO mind their own damn business, whether they approve or disapprove of your behavior (predation on/grooming of children being an obvious exception). But, because we are slow to action, we USED to be very definitive and final when we felt the time for action had come. Perhaps it is time we get back to that ethos. If Knee-Pads Harris and A-Walz squeak (or cheat) into the White House (and particularly if that is reflected down ballot – the electoral result OR the cheating), rest assured that an “assault gun” ban (probably accompanied by a mandatory buy-back) WILL happen . . . if we allow it.
Unfortunately, we get the government we permit. No one but a damn fool expects politicians to act with either legality or reason.
Ross: I believe in the U.s. it would never be physical confiscation. instead it would be a blacklist. want to renew passport? sorry. want your tax return? sorry; seized it. want homeowners insurance? sorry; not eligible. want health insurance? sorry turn in guns first. you get the idea. they don’t need to use physical force to force compliance. not saying this because it’s good i’m saying this lest we get too comfortable thinking confiscation will never work. there are other ways that will work. fight back now while we still have rule of law.
Canada started its long gun registry in 1995 under the liberal party. Maybe a third of long guns were registered. By 2012 its was declared a waste of money fraught with cost overruns and ended by the conservative party. The RCMP admitted it neither solved nor prevented crime despite costing over a Billion dollars. The estimated cost had been $2 million a year. All records of registration were ORDERED destroyed. LOL! Quebec sued to prevent destruction of the records but was unsuccessful in court.
The liberal response to resistance to their crap. “But, but, but, it’s the law!”
Gadsden Flag,
Sound like a good chunk of Canada has a case of Irish Democracy.
Who is John Galt? 😉
“The liberal response to resistance to their crap. “But, but, but, it’s the law!” “
Same way we respond, “But, but, but, it’s the Constitution/Second Amendment.” Two sides of the same coin.
“But, but, but, it’s the Constitution/Second Amendment.”
is the only correct response, plus it happens to be the law of the land and the highest authority law.
strange how they want to go “but the law says…” and completely ignore the law that trumps all others and is the actual deciding law in the matter called the Constitution.
so its not really two sides of the same coin.
.40 cal,
I will not presume to speak for Sam (he is MORE than capable of speaking for himself!), but I interpreted his remarks more along the lines of “how is it different when we (conservatives/libertarians) rely on ‘it’s the Constitution/BoR’ tnan the Leftists relying on ‘it’s the law’. At the end of the day, it’s what you are prepared to FIGHT for’. But I could be wrong. Sam??
Simply pointing out that whichever mantra is used, the other side reacts with essentially the same claim. Both sides believe their position is “right”.
We all should have, long ago, learned that “the Constitution” is whatever the SC declares it is.
This is exactly the same argument that was made back in the day. I was just following orders.…
GREAT RULING in the Gun Industry’s Most Dangerous Lawsuit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VntZ75vHHLw
Tanx for the video; informative.
left wing attacks free speech, tries to shut down X to keep Trump interview from running, EU threatens Musk over it…Reporter asks White House if they would ‘shut down’ Donald Trump’s interview with Elon Musk. Constitutional right to free speech attacked by left wing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok0_9yw2-Gk
“The wheels are coming off of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau”
Has little Castro actually done anything positive while in office??
neiowa,
“Has little Castro actually done anything positive while in office??”
I dunno; you’d have to ask his boyfriend.
The EU, WHO, and Useless Nations (UN) along with the CCP are all spawn of the same demon. All of them are in strong pursuance of the UN Agenda 2030 but what’s stopping them from implementing this globally is our USA individual gun ownership. I say we buy more guns and ammo to remind them of our position towards these tyrants.
We will be Canada if Harris gets in.
However blood will shed in the U.S. Possibly in my own driveway.
Come and get them
This is the difference between a privilege and a right, people are not willing nor do they have the moral authority to kill for privileges.
“No one wants to be involved in this program because it is so unpopular…I don’t see any way it can be done.”
And there it is. Relevant quote from a somewhat unlikely source:
“The individual act of obedience is the cornerstone not only of the strength of authoritarian society but also of its weakness.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
From an odd novel I recently re-read after a few decades. But then again,
“Once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
-Jerry Garcia
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