Ottawa’s gun buy-back phase targeted at individuals will begin this spring, said Associate Minister of Public Safety Rachel Bendayan, who also announced the latest batch of firearms now declared illegal.
Bendayan said her government has now added 179 firearms to the prohibited list, as it pursues its objective to get rid of what it calls “assault-style” semi-automatic rifles.
“These are weapons of war; firearms designed specifically to kill as many people as possible in the least amount of time possible,” Bendayan said during a March 7 press conference in Ottawa.
Bendayan, who also serves as minister of official languages, said this would be the “last discreet listing of assault-style firearms for prohibition.”
Ottawa in December 2024 had added 324 makes and models to the prohibited list, continuing an exercise which began after the mass shooting in Nova Scotia in the spring of 2020. Thousands of rifles previously considered “unrestricted” and “restricted” have since been declared “prohibited,” meaning they’re illegal to possess.
An amnesty for owners of the newly designated firearms is in place until March 1, 2026, whereas the amnesty for the December listings is valid until Oct. 30, 2025.
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The classification of the banned firearms as suitable for warfare has been a matter of debate, because such weapons typically undergo extensive testing for durability and possess the capability to operate in fully automatic mode. Fully automatic firearms have been prohibited in Canada for decades.
Some of the firearms recently banned do not look like typical assault rifles and are instead shaped like normal hunting rifles, such as the Chiappa M1-9 Carbine.
Other semi-auto rifles in the SKS family have been spared from the ban because they are widely used by indigenous people for hunting.
“In our discussions with indigenous communities, it was made clear that they are used for sustenance hunting, which is a right that we must respect,” Bendayan said in explaining the decision. The minister added, however, that a classification review has been launched which will address the particular case of the SKS.
The process to remove the newly designated firearms from circulation has started with its first phase involving businesses in late 2024. Public Safety Canada says more than 80 percent of the estimated firearms with businesses, totalling 7,299, are linked to active compensation claims.
The buy-back phase for individuals will begin in the spring, said Bendayan, while denying there have been delays with the program first announced in 2020.
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Bryan Larkin said his organization is trying to find ways to limit the impact on frontline policing for the collection phase of the individual buyback.
“I do want to emphasize that simply the collection piece alone, the destruction piece, is a large, complex initiative,” Larkin said at the press conference, adding that one way individuals will be able to turn in their firearms is by setting up an appointment with a local RCMP detachment.
Reactions
Advocacy groups reacted quickly to Ottawa’s new announcement.
The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR) called the new listing “as deceitful and deceptive as every other action they’ve taken on the firearm file.”
The group said law-abiding citizens have been purchasing other models of firearms with each government ban, only to see their new purchases become prohibited as well.
“The liberals have gleefully and overtly enjoyed the gullibility of gun owners and the damage they have caused them,” CCFR spokesperson Tracey Wilson said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
Meanwhile, a number of gun control groups expressed their “strong approval” of Ottawa’s announcement of a “near-complete ban on assault-style weapons” in a joint statement. The groups, which includes PolyRemembers, said they were disappointed the SKS rifle was not banned while hoping the classification review will change the decision.
“We encourage all political parties to include in their respective platforms a promise to identify and implement a solution concerning the SKS that both protects public safety and respects Indigenous Peoples’ right to hunt,” said Nathalie Provost, a survivor from the Polytechnique mass shooting and spokesperson for PolyRemembers.
