Gun buyback program delayed

OTTAWA – Firearm owners are becoming increasingly frustrated by a proposed national gun buyback program that is part of a huge gun ban. But the program has faced such stiff opposition that it has been shelved until 2025.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet decided Oct. 11 that a buyback of prohibited firearms, initially scheduled for this year, will now be deferred until late 2025, following the next general federal election.

The buyback program was to be part of an amnesty extended to gun owners in 2020 when the federal government banned 1,900 types of guns, mostly semi-automatics with the capability of more than five rounds per magazine. The amnesty was to end on October 30 and has now been pushed back, along with a buyback program, to October 30, 2025. Meantime, the federal government has said owners of the banned guns cannot use them or sell them.

The 2020 ban includes the Mini-Ruger 14, capable of 10 rounds. A buyback program would have paid $1,407 for the Ruger, a small-calibre rifle used by farmers for small animals like groundhogs.

The buyback program would aim to repurchase 200,000 firearms that the federal government categorized as “assault-style.” While no specific reason was provided for the delay, the Federal Department of Public Safety recognized widespread opposition among licensed gun owners, regardless of whether they owned prohibited firearms. In other words, the government is trying to figure out how to implement a buyback program that gun owners would buy into.

The federal government’s own Department of Public Safety 2023 survey of 2,000 firearm owners found that less that half are willing to give up a gun and 10 per cent of gun owners “would refuse to participate at all” in the buyback program, even if required by law.

As it stands, there is no way for a farmer or anyone else to get paid for turning in a gun, said Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters manager of policy Mark Ryckman. “People are hoping this (gun ban) will go away, so they are holding on to their firearms.”