The federal government has spent $67.2 million on the firearm buyback program over the past four years, but has yet to collect a single firearm, according to a new report. The program was announced by the federal government in 2020 to compensate owners of banned firearms following the Nova Scotia shooting. However, the specific implementation plan for the program has not been clearly disclosed yet, and gun owners and businesses must surrender or dispose of banned firearms by the end of October 2025.
The government estimates that there are currently about 150,000 banned firearms in Canada. According to government data, $56.1 million of the program’s operating costs went to the Department of Public Safety and $11.1 million to the RCMP. Of that, about $11.5 million was paid to outside consultants, and the money was used for various areas such as software development, logistics, and communications support. Senator Donald Platt criticized the program as a prime example of government inefficiency.
“A whopping $67 million has been spent on a program that is not intended for criminals, but for licensed, trained, law-abiding gun owners,” said Rep. Platt. He also called on the government to disclose how much $11.5 million was paid to outside consultants.
In response, the government’s top floor leader, Senator Mark Gold, said, “The gun buyback program is a critical policy that is directly related to the safety of our citizens, and the government is committed to moving this forward quickly.” However, he refused to disclose details of the outside consultants’ fees. The gun buyback program was announced in April 2020 after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead.
Canada modelled its gun buyback program after New Zealand’s 2019 mass shooting, which seized more than 56,000 semi-automatic rifles in its first six months. According to a 2023 inquiry by Rep. Platt, Canada’s gun buyback program will have 60 people from the Ministry of Public Safety and 15 from the RCMP, and at least $117 million in additional funding to run the program. The ministry said the program will be implemented in two phases. The first phase will target businesses with stockpiles of firearms, with the plan to expand to individual owners. There are approximately 2,000 models of firearms banned, and the government has set a compensation amount of between $1,100 and $6,200 per firearm. T
he deadline for surrendering, disabling, and disposing of firearms is October 30, 2025. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated in 2021 that if the government were to buy back all banned firearms at fair market value, it would cost about $756 million.
Concerns have been raised by gun owners’ groups, including the Conservatives, and even some anti-gun control groups about the effectiveness and enormous cost of the program. “The program is well underway, and we plan to release specific information about the program for businesses in late 2024,” a spokesperson for the Public Security Department said. “The government will provide gun owners with the option to either receive compensation or surrender their firearms and will ensure that they can export firearms with a valid export license.”