After more than four years and $67 million of taxpayers money, a federal program to reclaim 150,000 ‘assault-style’ weapons has yet to collect a single firearm, according to government figures released to the Senate.That includes $56.1 million spent by the Public Safety Canada commission and another $11.1 million by the RCMP for consultants to design and implement software and communications solutions.The totals were acquired by Senate opposition leader Donald Plett through an information request. In a statement, he called it a “boondoggle.”The Manitoba senator — who will be leaving the Red chamber after this year — also complained that the details of those contracts are still being kept secret..“(It) $67 million is an incredible, shocking amount of money to spend on a program that doesn't yet exist, which ultimately targets licensed, trained, law-abiding gun owners and not criminals," he said on Twitter (“X”). "And even more outrageous is the fact that $11 million of taxpayers hard-earned money has been given out to external consultants. Those contracts need to be made public."The so-called gun ‘buyback’ program was introduced in May of 2020 following Canada’s worst mass shooting in Nova Scotia that saw 22 people killed in what amounted to RCMP mishandling.Canada modelled the program after New Zealand, which implemented a similar program after a mass shooting that claimed 51 lives in March, 2019. Unlike the Liberal program, the government has managed to gather up 56,000 semi-automatic weapons.Apart from failing to ‘buy back’ a single gun, it’s also technically impossible for governments to reclaim property it doesn’t legally own. Legal gun owners have until the end of October 2025 — which coincides with the federal election — to hand over some 1,500 models of various military-style ‘assault’ weapons the Liberals claim are meant for the battlefield even though there isn’t a single one in use by a military organization anywhere in the world. Rather, the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights complained virtually all of them have been used for hunting and sport purposes for decades. In 2023 a federal court struck down a court challenge arguing the government’s ban was unconstitutional.“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the time.
After more than four years and $67 million of taxpayers money, a federal program to reclaim 150,000 ‘assault-style’ weapons has yet to collect a single firearm, according to government figures released to the Senate.That includes $56.1 million spent by the Public Safety Canada commission and another $11.1 million by the RCMP for consultants to design and implement software and communications solutions.The totals were acquired by Senate opposition leader Donald Plett through an information request. In a statement, he called it a “boondoggle.”The Manitoba senator — who will be leaving the Red chamber after this year — also complained that the details of those contracts are still being kept secret..“(It) $67 million is an incredible, shocking amount of money to spend on a program that doesn't yet exist, which ultimately targets licensed, trained, law-abiding gun owners and not criminals," he said on Twitter (“X”). "And even more outrageous is the fact that $11 million of taxpayers hard-earned money has been given out to external consultants. Those contracts need to be made public."The so-called gun ‘buyback’ program was introduced in May of 2020 following Canada’s worst mass shooting in Nova Scotia that saw 22 people killed in what amounted to RCMP mishandling.Canada modelled the program after New Zealand, which implemented a similar program after a mass shooting that claimed 51 lives in March, 2019. Unlike the Liberal program, the government has managed to gather up 56,000 semi-automatic weapons.Apart from failing to ‘buy back’ a single gun, it’s also technically impossible for governments to reclaim property it doesn’t legally own. Legal gun owners have until the end of October 2025 — which coincides with the federal election — to hand over some 1,500 models of various military-style ‘assault’ weapons the Liberals claim are meant for the battlefield even though there isn’t a single one in use by a military organization anywhere in the world. Rather, the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights complained virtually all of them have been used for hunting and sport purposes for decades. In 2023 a federal court struck down a court challenge arguing the government’s ban was unconstitutional.“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the time.
