Liberals give Quebec $12.4M after federal gun confiscation pilot nets 25 guns

Despite the program’s past failures which include a recent pilot program that only collected only two dozen firearms, Ottawa is funding Quebec’s gun confiscation scheme with $12.4 million.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Despite the program’s past failures which include a recent pilot program that only collected only two dozen firearms, Ottawa is funding Quebec’s gun confiscation scheme with a $12.4 million taxpayer handout.

Although the federal pilot project launched in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, last year resulted in only 25 guns being collected, the Carney government and Quebec will proceed with their confiscation program.

“The Carney Liberals need to abandon this program and realize what a damaging mistake this was on every level,” Rod Giltaca, CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, told True North.

“It’s unsurprising that bureaucracies and services in Quebec are in favour of helping the federal government confiscate firearms from licensed individuals, as this has been the epicentre of radical and unreasonable gun control in Canada for decades.”

The Liberal government’s firearms confiscation program, first billed as a “buyback,” was introduced via an Order-in-Council in 2020.

The initiative, which bans more than 2,500 previously legal models, has faced repeated delays, confusion, and controversy. It is now slated to conclude by the end of 2026, following multiple amnesty extensions, at an estimated cost of nearly $2 billion.

For example, the recent firearm pilot project in Cape Breton cost taxpayers roughly $7,000 per firearm collected.

However, Quebec Public Security Minister Ian Lafrenière expressed his support for the federal program on Wednesday, saying in French that the province “welcomes any initiative contributing to this objective.”

“With the funding attached to it, Quebec will have the necessary financial resources to participate in the program’s implementation, which will allow for the compensation of legitimate owners of targeted firearms, in exchange for their surrender or neutralization,” reads Lafrenière’s statement.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has long decried the program as an abysmal waste of Canadians’ money.

“The results of this pilot project show what taxpayers have known from the start. This entire gun ban is a failure that won’t make Canadians safer. The government needs to listen to the law enforcement experts and academics who have been saying it won’t work from the start,” CTF Prairie Director Gage Haubrich told True North.

“The pilot project cost a significant amount of money, but it only confiscated a small number of firearms. Instead of doubling down on this failed policy, the government needs to own up to its failure and scrap the gun ban before another penny of taxpayers’ money is wasted.”

Several police union leaders have also come forward to voice their dismay as well, testifying before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in September that the confiscation program ultimately wouldn’t make Canadians any safer.

Additionally, the head of Toronto’s Police Association called the Liberals’ gun buyback program a “waste of resources” in August after the Carney government first reaffirmed its commitment to reinvigorate the program.

“As it applies to the rest of the country, more and more Canadians have come to the conclusion that this is exclusively a political exercise. The evidence supporting this view couldn’t be more clear,” said Giltaca. “First, neither the Minister of Public Safety, nor the Minister of Justice nor the Prime Minister has met with stakeholders on this massive program. The Public Safety Minister’s office circulated statements containing distracting dialogue about portal design and insufficient instructions while the real reason participation has been dismal is still yet to be acknowledged by them.”

Additionally, there is the issue of compensation for the gun owners themselves. While there are currently an estimated two million newly prohibited firearms in circulation, Ottawa has only confirmed plans to pay for roughly 152,000 of them.

“Gun owners won’t know whether or not they’ll be compensated until they reveal to the government what they have. This puts gun owners into an untenable position that is as outrageous as it is immoral,” said Giltaca.

“The proof that this is a cynical political undertaking by the Liberal government is this; if the government truly felt that these firearms were too dangerous to be held by licensed gun owners, they would simply guarantee that they would pay for them, full stop. They would just keep their promise.”