Carney government’s ‘buyback’ program not about public safety
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Re-printed without permission.
February 23, 2026 | APPEARED IN THE WINNIPEG SUN
If you’re a legal firearms owner in Canada, in January you likely received an email from the federal government telling you it’s time to hand over your “prohibited firearms”—that is, firearms the Trudeau government outlawed with the stroke of a pen in May 2020—as part of Ottawa’s “buyback” program. There’s a lot you can say about the program (many police forces and provinces aren’t cooperating, it’s a waste of money) but one thing is crystal clear—the program is not about public safety.
To recap, in 2020 the Trudeau government issued an “order-in-council”—basically a decision by the prime minister and his cabinet, without parliamentary debate—to ban all so-called “assault-style” firearms in Canada. And then last month, six years after the ban, the Carney government launched the “buyback” program to collect those firearms from Canadians.
The program has lost support from most of the provinces in the country. Only the Quebec government has publicly agreed to participate; most other provinces and territories have declined (including Ontario and Manitoba). Two provincial governments (Alberta and Saskatchewan) have passed laws to protect legal firearms owners from the program. Last month, the Toronto Police Service said it will not participate in the program, joining the Ontario Provincial Police and other police departments across the country who also refuse to participate. Even the Carney government’s own Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said he’d scrap the program, if it was his decision to make.
According to the Carney government, since the program launched in January, firearms owners across Canada have “declared” their willingness to hand over more than 22,000 firearms in exchange for money. That may sound like a lot, but it’s a drop in the bucket. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer (which cites data from the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association), back in 2020, then-prime minister Trudeau banned approximately 518,000 firearms. And the federal government has yet to reveal any detailed plan to actually collect “declared” firearms.
Again, when looking at the numbers, it’s easy to forget the basic question—why does the government want to take away legally-purchased firearms from law-abiding Canadians? And will the ban and “buyback” program increase public safety?
The ban targets “assault-style” rifles popular with hunters and sports shooters who—based on the data—are exceptionally law-abiding and less likely to commit murder than other Canadians. To own a firearm in Canada, you must obtain a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) from the RCMP after an initial vetting, then the government monitors PAL holders daily for possible criminal activity. Between 2000 and 2020, the PAL-holder firearms homicide rate was 0.63 (per 100,000 PAL holders) compared to 0.72 (per 100,000 adult Canadians)—that’s 13.7 per cent higher than the rate for PAL holders.
Moreover, according to a report from the federal Department of Justice, almost all guns used in crimes in Canada, including in big cities such as Toronto, are possessed illegally by criminals, with guns often smuggled in from the United States. Obviously, the “buyback” program will have no effect on criminals with illegal guns.
Meanwhile, from 2015 to 2024 (the latest year of available data), gang crime in Canada doubled (up 208 per cent), homicides increased by 29 per cent, and Statistics Canada’s “violent crime severity index,” which measures changes in the intensity and seriousness of police-reported violent crimes, increased by 33 per cent. Since 2021, in Vancouver alone, murders have increased by 130 per cent
The price tag for Ottawa’s “buyback” program is unknown, as the government continues to block any attempt to disclose the full financial costs. But as of 2024, Ottawa had spent $67.2 million on the program—before collecting a single gun—and the government recently said the program’s administrative costs alone (safe storage, destruction of firearms, etc.) would reach an estimated $1.8 billion. According to Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation (NPF), the union representing RCMP members, the program “diverts extremely important personnel, resources and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”
To participate in the “buyback,” Canadians must surrender their firearms by the end of March. Only legal owners qualify for compensation; again, criminals and smuggled guns are excluded. The maximum penalty for noncompliance is 14 years in prison.
Clearly, despite any claims, this program—crafted by the Trudeau government and activated by the Carney government—is not, and never has been, about public safety.
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