Proposed Liberal Firearm Buyback Program Gives Criminals a ‘Free Pass,’ Say Conservatives

Conservative MP Raquel Dancho rises during question period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Oct. 2, 2020. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press).

The Liberal government’s proposed firearms buyback program will benefit criminals and punish law-abiding gun owners, the Conservative Party says.

In May, the government said it will introduce a mandatory firearms buyback program, paired with new legislation proposed in Bill C-21, that will tighten gun restrictions announced in 2020 that banned over 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms.

Raquel Dancho, Conservative shadow minister for public safety, and Pierre Paul-Hus, shadow minister for public services and procurement, said in a statement that the Liberal buyback program gives criminals “a free pass.”

“Instead of targeting gangs and illegally smuggled firearms, Justin Trudeau is introducing a firearm buyback program that punishes lawful firearms owners,” the statement says.

“The fact is, hobbyists, collectors, sport shooters, and hunters are not the ones to blame for the rise in gun crime in Canada – gangs, criminals, and the guns they illegally smuggle from the US are.”

Dancho and Paul-Hus estimate the buyback program will cost Canadian taxpayers between $400 and $600 million and that the responsibility of enforcing it will fall on local police departments.

“Conservatives remain concerned that this burden will fall on local police, whose resources are already maxed out as they fight real crime on our streets,” said the statement. “Offloading this expensive and ineffective policy on police would only further jeopardize public safety by draining limited police services in our communities.”

Liberal MP and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino elaborated on the government’s proposed buyback plan in a recent tweet and statement. Mendicino said the 2020 firearms ban wasn’t enough since many of the outlawed guns remained in Canadian circulation.

“Weapons of war like the AR-15 have no place in Canada,” he wrote. “That’s why we banned them, and will be establishing a buyback program to get them out of our communities.”

On July 28, the government released a list of proposed prices that the government would pay gun owners for handing in their now-illegal firearms. The list includes 11 different prices for various models, with $1,337 in compensation for AR-15s and $2,600 in compensation for M-14 rifles.

“Today’s proposed price list represents another step towards getting these dangerous firearms out of Canadian communities while ensuring current firearms owners are compensated fairly,” Mendicino said.

If passed, the legislation introducing the buyback program would require Canadian owners of the now-illegal firearms to sell them to the federal government, render them “inoperable at the Government’s expense,” or otherwise lawfully dispose of them, according to Mendicino’s statement.

Owners will have until October 2023 to take one of these actions; there is an amnesty order in place protecting them from being criminally charged for possession of the outlawed guns until then.

The government is seeking responses on the buyback price list, saying it “welcomes the opinions and insights of firearms owners” on the proposed price list in an online survey available until August 28. The survey is anonymous.