Toronto police union boss denounces Liberal gun grab as a “waste of resources”

The head of Toronto’s Police Association called the Liberals’ gun buyback program a “waste of resources” after Ottawa reaffirmed its commitment to confiscate legal firearms.

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The head of Toronto’s Police Association called the Liberals’ gun buyback program a “waste of resources” after Ottawa reaffirmed its commitment to confiscate legal firearms.

Toronto law enforcement states that 90% of all guns seized in crimes can be traced to the U.S., with the origin of the remainder being too difficult to source. However, crimes in the GTA almost never involve legal firearms.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Alberta director, Kris Sims, discussed the program with Toronto Police Association President Clayton Campbell on Juno News to gain insight from someone familiar with both gun crime and public safety.

“If you look at the city of Toronto, our mayor is from the NDP Party, we have a federal Liberal party, we have the Conservative provincial party and we work with anybody. But we base our arguments on truth and evidence and we know that the gun buyback program is going to have, essentially zero impact on the crime in Toronto,” said Campbell on Wednesday.

“There are lots of better ways we can invest taxpayers’ money. Clearly there is a problem at the border when we’re seeing 90 per cent of the illegal firearms seized sourced to the U.S.”

Their conversation comes on the heels of Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree confirming earlier this week that the program would be a priority under the Carney government.

The federal government introduced a firearms confiscation program in 2020 through an order-in-council, making thousands of legal firearms prohibited.

Since then, the Liberals have expanded the order to ban over 2,500 firearms, with costs expected to reach nearly $2 billion.

The program was initially slated to conclude under an October 2025 amnesty but has been pushed back yet again and is now scheduled for completion “no later than” the end of 2026.

“We committed to this during the campaign, it’s something that Canadians expect us to do, and we’re very much looking forward to launching it in the near future,” “Anandasangaree told the Toronto Star on Monday.

He added that while owners would receive compensation, the ban’s enforcement is not voluntary.

Sims asked Campbell why he felt it was important to vocalize his disagreement with the program on behalf of Toronto law enforcement, which represents about 8,600 personnel.

“I can’t think of a time when a legal gun has been used in a crime in this city, not one,” Campbell told Sims on Wednesday. “It’s not legal gun owners involved in crimes in the city of Toronto. It’s a small number of thugs.”

A key concern is how the guns would be collected. Sims asked Campbell if this would involve law enforcement going door-to-door and the impact on public resources.

“It would be tough. A lot of the time these are unrestricted firearms so we don’t know where they are. It’s really just a waste of resources,” said Campbell.

However, what he does believe would alleviate rising crime would be changes to the criminal code to keep violent criminals in custody.

“We lobbied the previous Liberal government every single year and all we saw were changes that actually made it harder to keep ad guys in custody.

Campbell noted how Canada’s current bail system leads to a “revolving door” of the same individuals going “in and out of custody.”

“It’s very expensive to continue to arrest them – the legal cost behind it, the court cost behind it. It’s simple: if you shoot an illegal firearm in the streets of Toronto, just put them in jail. We don’t need that in the city of Toronto. Just leave the legal gun owners alone and put the bad guys in jail. That’s really our message.”

According to Campbell, more education is required on the matter of gun crime.

“One of the challenges is a lack of understanding from people who are not involved in firearms, not involved in law enforcement. When they hear, ‘we’re just going to ban guns,’ they think, ‘okay, so we’re just going to have no guns,’” said Campell.

“The reality of it is that it’s the criminals who are already in possession of illegal guns when they don’t have a licence. So I think it’s really important to educate everybody. Most people living in an urban environment have never shot a gun or been a hunter of a target shot. We can’t really blame them for not understanding.”

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