The government gave itself two years to develop a buyback program, which would offer owners fair compensation for their newly prohibited weapons and grant them amnesty for their possession in the interim. (The buyback was actually a 2019 campaign promise.) The government extended that deadline first in March, 2022, to “address issues that have been identified since 2020,” and then again in October, 2023, for another two years.
The status quo, then, is that these deadly weapons, for which Mr. Trudeau said there is “no use, and no place” in Canada, and which needed to be banned immediately, can remain in Canadians’ hands and homes until October, 2025. The ban is still technically in place, meaning that legal gun owners can’t actually use the prohibited weapons in any way, but that won’t affect – and hasn’t affected – rates of firearm-related violent crimes, which reached record levels in 2022. But that makes sense when most of the crimes committed with firearms are committed by those who obtain them illegally. Indeed, according to Statistics Canada, “the firearms used in homicides [in 2022] were rarely legal firearms used by their legal owners who were in good standing.” …
Now the government is facing another obstacle with its very-much-still-theoretical buyback program. According to reporting by CBC News, Canada Post said in a recent letter that it will not participate in the collection of prohibited weapons out of concern about potential conflicts between its staff and gun-owners. Federal sources told the CBC that using Canada Post would be the easiest and most cost-effective option, though there are still other methods to consider; New Zealand set up collection points all over the country, but that route obviously comes with security concerns, which invariably hike up costs.
The good news for the government is that it has given itself two more years to figure it all out, even though there wasn’t a moment to spare back in 2020. Indeed, it was too risky to allow these deadly firearms to remain on our streets (though technically, they were never allowed on the streets), but apparently not risky enough to actually find a way to confiscate them. This is another job well done for this government, if the job was making an announcement and then flailing aimlessly for the next several years.
— Robyn Urback in So, What Happened to Canada’s Gun Control Emergency?
3 Responses
But it sounded great to their emotionally-manipulated followers. Will they care that it didn’t pan out? I doubt it. They’ll promise the same thing next election.
Next Canadian National election will be before June 2025. Very, very likely Castro Jr. will be sent packing then.
Don’t bet good $$$ on that prediction. The majority of Canucks are good little indoctrinated liberal/socialists. With any luck the current wildfires up their will just burn it down.